No way Mo or I could get into to see Hillary’s speech last night. The fire marshall closed the doors to the arena about 20 minutes before she entered — “it’s cheek to jowl in there” said a security guard. People crowded around the monitors in the hallways — definitely the most exciting and energized moment of the convention so far.
Except for me — since I have trouble wrapping my head how ANY of this convention (outside of Barack’s speech) is important in any way at all. Is there ever another time when so many reporters gather to cover an event whose ending (the nomination of the candidate) has [...]
I walked into the Pepsi Center and heard Ted Kennedy’s speech by complete accident. I was going in, hoping to get members of the Delaware delegation say trivia facts to the camera, but then realized I couldn’t even get close to the floor. So I stood at the top of the arena and watched the place explode with affection for Ted. I’m not really into politics at all, but it’s hard to not get caught up in the emotion when you’re right in the middle of it.
I’m here with AOL News to film pieces with Mo. At least one a day — we’ll see what we get. In the Pepsi [...]
We did a fun shoot here at AOL last week where
a) pretended Mo Rocca has a morning show
b) and that on this morning show a drag queen shows the men at home how to dress up as Michelle Obama
So that happened! Thanks to Dion Flynn for being our male volunteer and to Peppermint for being our drag queen expert!
Is there a food shortage? Or am I letting Drudge get to me? I remember as a kid hearing my Dad say “Brazil will someday be a superpower, because they can grow the most food” or something like that. It made sense even to my seven-year-old brain.
For Earth Day, my company gave out compact flourescent light bulbs to everyone. A fine idea, though since they were each wrapped in generous amouns of non-bio-degradable plastic — are we breaking even on helping the Earth?
I’m reading It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, a 1936 book which describes how America might elect its own version of Hitler. A weird fact: it was pitched as a TV series in the early [...]
I had to dig through some archives at AOL today and stumbled on this. It is, technically speaking, Amy Winehouse’ U.S. debut — last January 2007. She was performing a concert somewhere in NYC and stopped at AOL for an interview and to record some songs. I was told “Someone named Amy Winehouse is recording some tracks here; we might as well videotape it. Grab a camera, set it to auto-everything and get it.” I was also told “She’s supposed to be a handful so get ready.”
But in the audio engineer’s office, she walked [...]
Editor Dave Kovenetsky and I stand in to test lighting in the AOL Studio. I think this would make a great cover for the all keyboard prog rock album Dave and I want to make called “Hines and Kovenetsky: Journey to Aurora.”
Tabitha and I saw August: Osage County last night. Here’s a shocking opinion: I think it’s good! It long (3 hours and 10 minutes plus two ten minute intermissions) but you don’t notice it. The characters are instantly interesting all by themselves and also begin f*cking with each other in compelling ways. My one very minor quibble is that I started to be aware that everyone in the family [...]
Here’s today’s Mo Rocca video. We shot this Wednesday.
YouTube - Link to Para Ganar Obama
Here’s a higher-res version.
This required me finding “two Latino guys.” It’s embarrassing to ask your friends “can you guys recommend any Latino guys?” I knew the improv community was dominated by white boys, but this was hilariously tough. I had conversations like this: “Well, so-and-so is Latino-ish” and I’d say “No, they need to be no-doubt-about-it Latino.” Oh, and they need to not mind singing and performing a song parody tomorrow morning for no money! We ended up going with two guys [...]
Part of my job here at AOL is filming and producing videos for Mo Rocca (he has a blog with us). It is terrific fun. We make three a week, which means we’re making them fast and furious, just my speed. Sketch stuff at UCBT and video with Channel 102 stuff was decent preparation for this run-and-gun style. It doesn’t hurt to have Mo and his thousands of ideas, either.
Usually, the pieces are simple man-on-the-street or interviews with a political hook. Sometimes we choose to be silly with little justification, like with the one shown below. We were in a hurry for a third piece, so we filmed Mo getting a free shave and massage, then had [...]
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