Up…Up and Away!

KOCT’S camera crew took to the air last week to capture Hi-Definition video footage of Oceanside and North County sites.

Jacob Rush, KOCT Station Manager

Station Manager Jacob Rush was joined by videographer's Angela Wong and Addison Wolf on a beautiful but windy Friday evening flight. The crew is gathering aerial footage for a tourism video that is being funded by a Community Enhancement Grant from the County of San Diego. Additional funding has come from underwriters AT&T, Scripp's Health and the Oceanside/California Welcome Center.

Angela Wong, KOCT Videographer

The footage will also be made available to the Welcome Center to help promote tourism in Oceanside and North County. Look for this new video in June!

KOCT visits the Oceanside Boys & Girls Club

Peter Bonscher and Addison Wolf interview Jodi Diamond, CEO of the Oceanside Boys & Girls Club.

KOCT Producer Peter Bonscher and Videographer Addison Wolf recorded the first program in our new 3-part Arts & Culture series.

Addison Wolf, KOCT Videographer

This is funded by the City of Oceanside’s Arts Commission. The KOCT crew traveled to the Oceanside Boys & Girls Club to document their “Art of the Masters” program premiering in June.

 

North County Economic Summit now available as VOD!

In March, KOCT joined over 450 businessmen and women, elected officials and economic experts gathered for the 2nd Annual North County Economic Summit. The audience heard from a number of speakers and panelists about our National, State and San Diego Economies. This new series is now available as Video On Demand.

Watch it now by clicking here.

NAB Reflections by KOCT’s Chief Engineer Bill Peters. Video geeks look forward to April each year, not for the spring flowers but because that’s when the National Association of Broadcasters convention (NAB) comes to Las Vegas and all the latest and greatest video gear are on display.

In the old days, you could tell an NAB visitor because their knuckles would drag on the ground from carrying bags of swags around—now they just swipe your card and send you all their promotional material via e-mail. Our renaissance man-who-knows-everything, Chief Engineer Bill Peters and his wife Beverly made the annual journey to the desert and he jotted down these quick reflections:

The Las Vegas Convention Center is huge! I'm tired!

Lots of shoots being done in 4K.

Cameras getting smaller and better even as image quality gets better.

Finding the camera body not always easy.

Know your formats: SD, HD, Ultra HD, 2K, 4K, 8K,???

Think also about the actual pixel sizes of the image when resizing.

Increases in image resolution leads to increases in distribution channel bandwidth (obviously)•

Will the internet really prevail as the ultimate distribution channel?

Thanks Bill for your research, day to day professionalism and your willingness to risk encounters with Vegas Showgirl in order to help KOCT!

Earlier this year the City Council approved the awarding of art project funds to KOCT and five (5) other non-profit organizations. The Oceanside Arts Commission, consisting of 11 volunteers, had reviewed many grant applications before passing on their recommendations to the Council.

The mission of the Arts Commission is to foster the development of the performing, visual and cultural arts. The goal of KOCT’s successful grant application was to produce three programs about other successful grantees and share with our north county community our rich art culture and heritage. KOCT is thankful for the support of the Arts Commission and the City Council. KOCT will provide matching funds for this project to our City Council.

In the coming months you’ll see the KOCT camera crew at the following events:

·         The Boys & Girls Club of Oceanside’s Art of the Masters program

·         The First Friday Art Walk (May 1^st)

·         Oceanside Theatre Company’s Radio Program Series

KOCT’s objective is to share with a greater audience these short television and web programs that capture the creativity, excitement and content of our vibrant Oceanside arts community. We live in a busy, fast-paced environment and not everyone can get away from family, business and other obligations to participate and enjoy the arts. KOCT hopes to share and preserve these ‘art moments’ with a larger community and for a period of time longer than the event itself!  Donald Stump with North County Lifeline wrote in a supportive letter on behalf of KOCT: “…these programs highlight the many positive projects that take place in Oceanside and KOCT’s coverage helps to insure a larger audience for our non-profits, artists and musicians.”



KOCT camera crew at North County Lifeline mural creation for a previous "Arts & Culture" production.

Jennifer Lacy, the Board Chair of the Oceanside Charitable Foundation wrote: "We are fortunate to have such a responsive television station in Oceanside....their commitment to promoting Arts and Culture has been evident by their innovation and willingness to work with the community".

KOCT has covered the Arts in Oceanside since its inception. Here the late poet, writer and ‘artist’ Robert Nanninga & KOCT Executive Director Tom Reeser create a promo for a KOCT program about the very first ‘Days of Art’ in the late 1980’s.



On Tuesday, March 10^th at the Sheraton Carlsbad Resort over 450 businessmen and women, elected officials and economic experts gathered for the 2^nd Annual North County Economic Summit. The audience heard from a number of speakers and panelists about our national, state and San Diego economies.

Prior to the meeting KOCT’s Station Manager and I gave a tour of the KOCT television station to Carl Morgan, the CEO, and Karen Pearson, the Director of Investor Relations for the San Diego North Economic Development Council (SDNEDC). We discussed the informative value of this annual summit and the need for our community to better understand the economic challenges and potential of north county.

Carl and Karen convinced two important supporters and investors with SDNEDC about the value of recording the summit and sharing with a larger audience via local television and the internet. KOCT sent three production professionals with the latest hi-definition cameras to set-up and record this one-of-a-kind event.

Thanks to the Underwriters of the television production: Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians and Federal Heath Sign Company this summit will air on KOCT in April as well as being made available on KOCT.ORG as Video On Demand.

KOCT Editors are currently ‘breaking down’ the show into four episodes and you will learn a lot about our North County region via this informative series.

Pictured are Station Manager Jacob Rush with KOCT’s Aaron Capehart utilizing 2 Panasonic AG-HPX370 Series P2 HD Camcorders to capture the 4 hour event. Also on site was KOCT’s Angela Wong using a Panasonic AG-AC90A AVCCAM Handheld Camcorder to catch audience reaction and other perspectives. The show will be edited in Final Cut on our Mac Editing platforms.

We were pleased to see that KPBS’s Alison St. John (and a regular on KOCT’s Journalist Roundtable) was one of the moderators for her panels discussion about the education and training needed for todays workforce.

KOCT provides a number of production services like the coverage of this event for north county governments, businesses and non-profits. KOCT has a state-of-the-art high definition Mobile Studio, a full equipped studio at our Industry Street location and more than six different high definition editing bays. If you would like to have your meeting, event or conference documented so you can share with a greater audience AND preserve the event for future review please call KOCT’ Station Manager, Jake Rush at KOCT: 760-722-4433.

And look here for air dates and times for the 2^nd Annual North County Economic Summit.

One of the services KOCT has provided for Carlsbad, Oceanside and Vista residents since 1997 is coverage of the Tri-City Medical Center’s Board of Directors meetings.  Tri-City is one of a handful of community hospitals in San Diego County and local homeowners fund and care about this important medical center.  In fact the reason we began covering these meetings is that in the mid-90’s there was talk about privatizing the hospital. Community members and the Board of Directors themselves felt the community needed to be informed if such a decision was going to be made and coverage of their meetings was the first step in keeping the public informed about the workings of their hospital.  

Pictured in today’s blog are some of the talented young people who provide this television service. KOCT rolls its sophisticated Mobile Studio to the hospital and set ups a four-camera shoot on the 4^th Thursday of every month and documents the meetings in a style we call ‘live on tape’.  It requires 7 crew members to cover these meetings and every meeting is shown 4 times on KOCT as well as shown on the government channels in the City of Vista and Carlsbad. KOCT also makes each meeting available as Video On Demand (VOD) too.

The Affordable Care Act has brought to the publics attention the cost and importance of health care and KOCT is proud that we’ve been bringing the public’s attention to our local health care facility for seventeen years.  A shout out and thanks to the KOCT talented crew who carry the tripods, cameras and cables down a flight of stairs once a month to keep our community informed! 

KOCT has begun field shooting of our new 6 segment series on the Adobes & Ranchos of North County. The production of these 30-minute programs was made possible by a generous grant from the Parker Foundation. Our first shoot a few weeks ago was for an interview with the Captain of the San Luis Rey Band of Luiseno Indians, Mel Vernon at the historic El Salto falls in Oceanside. His segment was for the mini-documentary about the nearby Marron Adobe. This is the only Mexican land-grant in California that is still occupied by one of the direct descendants.

Our most recent shoot was at the Marron Adobe where we filmed one of the many school tours that Shelley (Hayes) Caron conducts as her contribution to California history and for our community.

We look forward to our interview with Shelley and to learn more about her family and their journey to the tranquil Buena Creek valley adobe.

Other programs in this series will include the Los Flores Adobe on Camp Pendleton, the Rancho Buena Vista Adobe in Vista and the Rancho Guajome on the border of Oceanside and Vista.  Our script writer, Lola Sherman is well known in North County and will also help KOCT to tell the story of the Kelly Family in nearby Carlsbad as well as the Leo Carrillo rancho which was once part of the Kelly Rancho.

We love this partnership with the Parker Foundation because their grant for this project is in harmony with the KOCT Mission to produce programming for, by and about our North County Community and to preserve the past for future generations.  We hope to begin airing this new series in the late spring. You won’t want to miss it.