Why Do I Always Have to Explain This?

Once again someone I know saw the show and remarked that she was eager to see the show since she went to Siena once. She was disappointed that the show did not completely cover every part of the city, so I explained to her what I have tried to explain many times, but perhaps it is necessary to repeat this every so often. No problem.

Alan's Italy is not the definitive travelogue on any place. I do not ever want to be considered the authority or expert on Italy. It is a story of my and Laura's experience in a particular place. Yes, I try to include some narrative about the history and background of the place, but for the most part it is simply, well, how shall I put this? ALAN'S Italy!!!! It is what happened to us during our stay interpreted the way we want, I want. We saw a few things of note like Il Campo and the Cathedral and the Pinacoteca, but we had no interest whatsoever in spending the four days stay going everywhere in Siena. In fact the reason we stayed in Siena was not so much to see the city, but to stay in a central place near other areas of Tuscany not far from Florence that would permit somewhat easier access for our friends, Luca and Lida, to come, pick us up and take us around to places I wanted to explore like Volterra, Monteriggioni, and San Quirico d'Orcia.

So once again, when I title a show, Siena, for example, it is because that is where we were, and I will show significantly charming photos while I talk a little about the town, but the essence is not THE definitive show about Siena, nor did I ever want it to be. One more story. I once had a discussion with a friend about my TV show. This was perhaps three or four years ago. The person made some suggestions about how HE would have wanted the show to be. I digested all that he said and then responded, "Well, John, no offense at all, but if you have a certain interpretation of what you would like my audience to see, then have your own show and call it John's Italy!!!!" I have spent a lifetime in education following prescribed curricula, superintendent directives, rules, laws, regulations, and the list goes on and on. Alan's Italy is my attempt to basically do what I want. In my last remaining years, that pleases me to no end. It is MY show and exactly what I want it to be. I place it on Youtube because if a person wants to see it, fine; if not, well that's ok also.

I am happy that I have a lot of subscribers to my Youtube Channel, 129 as of this writing, and approaching 40,000 views, and I hope everyone who watches understands what I am trying to do. I also hope when I do my next show, Show # 127: Volterra, people do not view with the intent of learning everything they will want to know about that town in Western Tuscany. In fact I have one segment of the show (working on it as I write) in which I choose a well known person who was born there and grew up there, but did some amazing things elsewhere. The person is Daniele da Volterra, a fellow whom I have noted pretty much everywhere I read something about Michelangelo's later life, especially as it regards Rome where the amazing master of sculpture and fresco painting did a vast amount of work. So when you view Alan's Italy expect the esoteric, off beat, different interpretation of a place, not the boilerplate version you might expect from reading one of the great and famous tour guides.

Thanks for your attention.

Alan's Italy # 126 is now upload to Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lCd_05s2Eo

Show # 126 Siena Completed!!!

Continuing to barrel ahead with shows, I completed the latest about the wonderful Tuscan city of Siena. It came out virtually the way I described it in my previous blog post, but with Laura's assistance made even better than I imagined it would. She reminded me that we had a video she did with my talking about Siena only minutes after we arrived at the hotel focusing on our expectations and reasons for coming. Then I do a 5 minute segment from my now famous black leather living chair that has become a part of the show. Then then the 12 minute video interview of Francesco who works at the hotel. Then I do a ten minute segment on the history of Siena with photos in a kind of slide show appearing to the audience. Laura just made some fine tuning of that segment today. I follow that by another interview with a shop owner in Siena on a street near where our hotel was, and then I wrap it all up with another segment talking about the next show on Volterra (thereby inaugurating a series of shows on Tuscany that I will work on next).

I would instantly upload it to Youtube except that I do not want to croud up my Youtube Channel with yet another production. The Civita show, # 124 has gone over 100 views and the next show 125 on the Trattoria Antica Forno is approaching 50 after only one week!!! Between the two that is a lot of action on the site. I don't want to go with another new show until the action on these shows has died down a bit. I don't know when that will be, but regardless I will probably upload in a few days. I put an ad in the Woodstock Times telling people that the void they may feel based on my absence from the public access station can be easily filled on Youtube where they have complete access to 125 shows, old and new, instantly whenever they feel like seeing the show. That ad will run for another week. It is possible that ad has caused some forward movement. I suspect that putting the ad also in the Saugerties Times would have the same result. I am running at over 1,000 views a month on the channel and quickly am approaching 38,000 lifetime views, a much faster pace than I predicted but a few months ago.

Meanwhile I sent a DVD in vain to the WPAT station only to learn that there is a problem because the DVD opens with a menu instead of going right to the video. Panda TV in Tivoli assures me if I send it to them, there shouldn't be a problem. I cannot find the solution that PAT wants. Meanwhile Woodstock Public Access Television has been taken over by a group who call themselves the WPAT Board of Producers. My friend, prime mover of Alan's Italy, and master technician of the studio has quit as the Board was castigating him for some kind of abuses which sounded fishy to me knowing him as I do. They wrote an open letter in the Woodstock Times lambasting him and "demanding" that he appear before the Board to "answer charges." LOL Then they were sad he left his role as studio technician, an unpaid volunteer albatross he had hanging around his neck. I told Ellen at the studio that you do not humiliate someone in front of the community and then expect him to keep doing this herculean job for no pay and appear, no less, in front of the Board!!! I wrote a "rebuttal" open letter lauding his merits and thanking him for changing my life. No exaggeration there!!!! I am sort of glad to have gotten out of there.

Look for the Siena video in a few days.

Project Completed!!!

My second show was completed yesterday and uploaded to Youtube. Alan's Italy Show # 125: Trattoria Antica Forno with Franco Sala was probably the best production I ever did. The process of editing and videoing my role sitting in my chair in the living room is not only easier and more efficient, creating stunning images, but also extremely enjoyable. I am in total control of the way things are arranged and how things look. I was on the phone with an IMovie expert who taught me things I never knew and it seems as though the possibilities are endless. Laura and I agreed that I would revisit some of my earlier shows which probably contained inferior images, and try to fashoning the topic into a slightly different theme to give it more originality. I think I can do quite a lot and if that is true then the number of shows I am capable of producing is endless! The creation was very rewarding and Franco himself emailed me that he loved the finished product.

Meanwhile, Woodstock Public Access Television wants me to transform my videos which are MP 4s into MP 2s. When I told this to the IMovie expert he thought I was mistaken, "There is no such thing as MP2," he exclaimed, "that is an old and outdated format." I said, "Yes, welcome to WPAT." Even Panda TV in Tivoli could not use my format. I will send them the original file and they can do whatever needs to be done to make it palatable with their systems. Other than actually showing the Youtube version of the TV, that is the best I can do. The IMovie expert said he doesn't even know if there is software which converts an MP4 to MP2.

The next show will focus on Siena. We already know what that will look like. I will introduce the show and then talk about the magnificent hotel we stayed in during our four night visit in May 2016. We also have a marvelous 12 minute interview with a lovely young fellow who works there. We will then choose some wonderful representative images to show of Siena while my voice overlays a brief history of the wonderful city an hour south of Florence.

Show # 125 -Franco Sala's Trattoria Antica Forno posted to Youtube soon

Still working on perfecting the show, but almost finished. Having the ability to edit, do my voice overlays, adding photos, and videotaping my parts simply has given us the ability to continually evaluate and critically appraise the product. The down part is that in many ways I liked the spontaneity of doing a live show unedited without continually revisiting the "finished" product and re-evaluating the video. I am the kind of person who likes to get to the end of a project and move on to the next one, so this has been a bit frustrating. Yet I know in my heart that the process of editing over and over makes for a better product and more satisfying experience in the long run.

Working at the college puts a crimp into the process because today would have been the perfect time for the final process of re-shooting some of the videos we do at home, but I will be busy now, probably until Sunday, perhaps if I could squeeze in some time tomorrow or Saturday, it may be sooner. The finished product will contain an extraordinary 22 minute cooking demonstration by Franco with Laura standing right in the kitchen a couple of feet away from him as he narrates what he is doing. It is both fascinating and hard to watch on an empty stomach! Also included will be a videotaped interview with Franco which took place several years ago in the lobby of the Hotel Duomo in Orvieto. During that interview I lead him through the key periods of his life which led him to own the restaurant Trattoria Antica Forno in Civita di Bagnoregio.

I will post the video on Youtube sometime in the next few days. Stay tuned.