Ozzie's actually being modest, as usual, with his belated self-introduction. As you can see from his site, he's quite an accomplished professional producer and director. He's been with us a month longer than I have! (November, 2001)

Ozzie's probably forgotten more than I will ever know about entertaining and educating people with moving pictures. And we're delighted to call him a member of our community.

Ozzie, you're too modest, I prefer your earlier introduction. You are one of the reason I decided to join DV Info and become active in the community. Glad to have you with us.

Ozzie, it was a real treat to get to meet you at the 2002 New York DV Show, and I hope to see you again at some other event in the Big Apple here in the near future. Please come down to DV Expo at the Javitts Center in mid-July, it would be great to see you there!

Oops!

Jeff, thank you for catching my earlier post from several years ago and my apologies for introducing myself twice. My apologies for introducing myself twice. I had totally forgotten. I had totally forgotten. A bit verbose, don’t you think?

I guess I wrote it at a time when I had more time on my hands. Today, the volume of work has increased while the budgets have hit rock bottom. This creates the environment where we need to do everything. I have added “sound designer” and “IT guy” to my list of mini skills.

Today, I constantly catch myself performing tasks I did years ago. At face value there doesn’t seem to be anything new. A few weeks back I directed a live switched game show. I kept thinking – 1972; then I did a few vox-pop segments – 1983; a soap opera – 1985… and so on. But, thanks to technology, I keep searching for new things to delve into. I spent the last few weeks fiddling around with Adobe Audition creating the sound track for an animated Julius Caesar – very 2004. (Okay so that goes back to my radio days in the 1970s.) Just last week I jumped at a client’s suggestion to go around the country interviewing authors about their work. I volunteered to do it… alone, just me, a camcorder, and a mic – my business partner looked at me in horror – what, no crew? – Very 21st Century. I heard a new one last spring while teaching at NYU. One of my students responded to something I said with – “Professor Alfonso, you are so 20th Century.” Wow! That was a wakeup call if I ever heard one.

There is always something new. Learning to use the technology, well that’s the easy part. Getting good ideas worth producing, now THAT is the hard part. For instance, last night I screened news footage about high school hazing – a story we are proposing to a client. I was horrified at what I saw – high school seniors, girls, submitting juniors, also girls, to total humiliation and even pain. All this was shot by primarily the guys with their camcorders. This made the national news because there are a bunch of law suits pending, but I couldn’t help thinking of Iraq while watching these horrific scenes. Initiation rituals have always been around as a way to prove loyalty to a group of peers. But this hazing is aimed at humiliation, not loyalty. When did we lose track of the difference?

So yes, there is always something new to keep us going. Gotta keep that fire burning in the belly.

Another verbose intro.

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : Please come down to DV Expo at the Javitts Center in mid-July, it would be great to see you there! -->>>

I'm planning to be there. Looking forward to seeing you and returning the text you lent me.

OZ