Poppa_Zit wrote: Joe the Photog wrote: ... maybe a Train magazine should produce a show for their web site and charge folks for viewing. Ya gotta be kiddin', Joe. On this FREE forum paid for and maintained by Kalmbach Publishing Co. we got guys proudly telling everyone who'll listen why they don't subscribe to any of Kalmbach's fine magazines. No offense, but you expect them to fork over money to watch a Kalmbach-produced TV show here?
Joe the Photog wrote: ... maybe a Train magazine should produce a show for their web site and charge folks for viewing.
... maybe a Train magazine should produce a show for their web site and charge folks for viewing.
Ya gotta be kiddin', Joe. On this FREE forum paid for and maintained by Kalmbach Publishing Co. we got guys proudly telling everyone who'll listen why they don't subscribe to any of Kalmbach's fine magazines. No offense, but you expect them to fork over money to watch a Kalmbach-produced TV show here?
Well, I didn't say I expected them to. But it would be nice if Trains or some start-up company could and would. Bean counting is not my cup of tea. I'm the guy with the camera, the lights, the mics and the ideas. I do think the idea could work. I don't know if the better idea is a web produced product or a thirty minute weekly show on some cable channel. My feeling is that the web would be the way to go, but again, I'm not a bean counter.
There are a million railroad stories out there waiting to be told and retold. I think it just needs the right people who can think of how it will work instead of why it won't work.
Joe
Joe the Photog wrote: A thirty minute weekly show on trains would be a hoot to produce. I think it could be done and it could be done. Better yet, maybe a Train magazine should produce a show for their web site and charge folks for viewing. You could literally do a show a week for years and never revisit the same place. When I was at my last TV station, I did a 30 minute show almost by myself in a weeks time -- some of the video predated that and actually one of the segments was from when the ex-L&C 2-8-0 on the NH&I was repainted in L&C colors -- on the Lancaster and Chester Railway. One of the most well received stories I've done at my current station was about the South Carolina Railroad Museum. There is interest out there that many of us might not even think about. In South Carolina, I can think of these stories of the top of my head ---- Running trains over the Intra-Coastal bridge on the Carolina Southern into Myrtle Beach-- The passenger car restoration that goes on at the L&C-- A look at the operations in Hamlet Yard-- A feature on the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad-- A look at the Columbia Model Railroading Club-- Go railfaning with some of our serious and not so serious photographers; mic them up, mic up a scanner and let them go-- Individual stories on Carolina shortline opsAnd that's just of the top of my head and just in the Carolinas. This would work. Even a 15 minute montly addition to the web site. Joe H.WIS-TVColumbia, SC
A thirty minute weekly show on trains would be a hoot to produce. I think it could be done and it could be done. Better yet, maybe a Train magazine should produce a show for their web site and charge folks for viewing. You could literally do a show a week for years and never revisit the same place. When I was at my last TV station, I did a 30 minute show almost by myself in a weeks time -- some of the video predated that and actually one of the segments was from when the ex-L&C 2-8-0 on the NH&I was repainted in L&C colors -- on the Lancaster and Chester Railway.
One of the most well received stories I've done at my current station was about the South Carolina Railroad Museum. There is interest out there that many of us might not even think about.
In South Carolina, I can think of these stories of the top of my head --
-- Running trains over the Intra-Coastal bridge on the Carolina Southern into Myrtle Beach
-- The passenger car restoration that goes on at the L&C
-- A look at the operations in Hamlet Yard
-- A feature on the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad
-- A look at the Columbia Model Railroading Club
-- Go railfaning with some of our serious and not so serious photographers; mic them up, mic up a scanner and let them go
-- Individual stories on Carolina shortline ops
And that's just of the top of my head and just in the Carolinas. This would work. Even a 15 minute montly addition to the web site.
Joe H.
WIS-TV
Columbia, SC
This is basically what I had in mind. We have many shortlines here in Georgia and the Carolinas that are pretty interesting, to me at least.
i find this thread very interesting because of the behind the scens talk about the TV business. I never knew the new show interviews wer done gang-style. I always thought the stars stopped bt the local studios and that they were old friends with the reporters they way they got along.so now i know even the Tv news people are actors.
Chico
Well If anyone remembers the train program on radio
about 65 years ago,it was called "The Main Line" all about
the Breakmen ,Linemen,Switchmen and Engineer.I don,t
remember if there ever was a Conductor,Every wednesday
nite at 8, DaveBr. What would be good is
where the trains havn't shown the old abandoned lines
where possible.
Dan
Erie Lackawanna wrote: Poppa, Those are usually done during an event that is actually known as The Press Tour, but they can also be done at any other network affiliate event. In some cases, stars move around a party set up and the entertainment reporters seek them out. In other cases, rooms are actually reserved in a hotel, and each affiliate has their camera set up in a room. The stars are escorted from room to room by network execs.Using the news to promote shows has been going on at least twenty years.This was a big downer for the UPN people (when that network still existed as a separate entity) as very few of their affiliates had news programming.
Poppa, Those are usually done during an event that is actually known as The Press Tour, but they can also be done at any other network affiliate event. In some cases, stars move around a party set up and the entertainment reporters seek them out. In other cases, rooms are actually reserved in a hotel, and each affiliate has their camera set up in a room. The stars are escorted from room to room by network execs.
Using the news to promote shows has been going on at least twenty years.
This was a big downer for the UPN people (when that network still existed as a separate entity) as very few of their affiliates had news programming.
I know, EL. I still have a pinky finger in the broadcasting business. You make some excellent points, especially about UPN's distinct disadvantage due to a lack of promotion opportunities.
The average person needs to know these interviews usually originate with the "Television Critics Association (TCA) Press Tour", a few summer weeks of free food and drinks and goodie bags and star-studded elbow-rubbing in La-La Land by gushing TV folk.
They do the same with, for example, Big Ten football and men's basketball -- bring all of the coaches together at a hotel just before the season begins and let the media from the entire Midwest set up two or three-to-a-table around a hotel ballroom. They often bring one or two star players along, too. Most of the coaches are savvy enough to use a broadcast reporter's name in a sound bite or two, just to create the image that the reporter and the coach have some sort of established relationship other than being total strangers.
But getting pre-season quotes from coaches and players to me is more "news" than previewing the network's new shows. While the TV press tours are run under the umbrella of the TV critics association, I've never an interview where anyone asks anything but softball questions. Just once, I'd love to see an ABC affiliate "glitz reporter" do the same thing for the fall CBS and NBC shows, which would then be real news, but that would never happen in a millenium. I wonder if such a request has ever been made, or if a network or affiliate has ever sent someone to a press tour for a rival commercial network's programming.
I just brought it up because most people either don't know how these are accomplished, or haven't given them much thought. In most cases, it's all gratuitous promotion under the guise of being "news".
And I would bet you did not see any coverage on Darfur on that same program...
and , but what the heck....
Which is why I watch the Newshour with Jim Lerher...so far, they havent stooped to doing promos for other PBS shows...and they cover 3-4 stories in depth after the news summary.
I have long considered the Network news as info-tainment ...as far as I am concerned, if I hear about it on the network news, I can find out about the details that are important (but left out somehow....) elsewhere.
TomDiehl wrote: Poppa_Zit wrote: Not to say you couldn't produce a decent show, but which channel would air such a show? Who would pay for it? Who would sponsor it?You could try ABC.Hey, if they'll take some lame characters from an auto insurance commercial (that the insurance company has already dropped due to using up the gag lines) and make a half hour show out of it............ <- That's the closest thing to a laugh THAT show will get.Then follow it with a show about carpooling? I think they've scraped THROUGH the bottom of the barrel.
Poppa_Zit wrote: Not to say you couldn't produce a decent show, but which channel would air such a show? Who would pay for it? Who would sponsor it?
Not to say you couldn't produce a decent show, but which channel would air such a show? Who would pay for it? Who would sponsor it?
You could try ABC.
Hey, if they'll take some lame characters from an auto insurance commercial (that the insurance company has already dropped due to using up the gag lines) and make a half hour show out of it............ <- That's the closest thing to a laugh THAT show will get.
Then follow it with a show about carpooling? I think they've scraped THROUGH the bottom of the barrel.
I didn't see the show, but they aired an interview (done by the station's airhead "glitz reporter") with three cavemen on our local ABC affiliate yesterday. It was awful. I assume it was supposed to get me interested in watching the show. It had the opposite effect and so we stayed away.
BTW, why are interviews pimping network shows being shoved down our thoats during "news" programs? These originate from interviews conducted at a central site where they invite affiliates to send their "glitz reporter". There are "stations" set up all around a sound stage and each glitz reporter moves from station to station (or perhaps from room to room) interviewing the principals from all the new shows. Yes, it's exactly like an assembly line. The actors are usually told the name of the "reporter" and are instructed by the network to use it sometime during the interview in an effort to "personalize" it. ("Well, Candy, we think this will be one of the biggest hits ever on prime time...")
Poppa_Zit wrote: What a coincidence. Or maybe not.
What a coincidence. Or maybe not.
Well, if it means so much to you, we could always work a spite driven foil into the script, and give you some airtime too. Cletus!
Convicted One wrote: How about a weekly hour long drama about a renegade engineer/conductor combo who liberate an old SD40T-2 on the way to the scrapper's torch, and spend the rest of the series running 'outlaw' around the system helping widows, orphans, and other misfortunates? Central to the theme could be an ongoing pursuit by an ornery RR cop and a vituperous old land surveyor determined to catch the boys, who mysteriously both report directly to the RR's CEO, a cranky little fellow by the name of Boss Logg. The show could be packed full of non-stop action and short on substance to be sure and capture the ADHD viewership, In order to avoid apprehension, we feature serial assists for our heros by various members of the Freight Train Riders of America (cameo appearance opportunities), as well as timely intervention from a sympathetic dispatcher who periodically throws switches just in the nick of time to keep the boys one step ahead of their nemesis. From time to time the boys appear to be headed for certain doom, when they get routed down abandoned lines with missing bridges, but via hollywood special effects always manage to pull off impossible jumps to adjacent lines, rerailed as if by miracle. The show's theme song could go: -Just two good old boys, never meanin' no harm....Beats all you never saw, been in trouble with the law Since the day they was born.Straightenin' the curves, flattenin' the hills....Someday the mountain might get 'em but the law never will-I think we might have a winner here.
How about a weekly hour long drama about a renegade engineer/conductor combo who liberate an old SD40T-2 on the way to the scrapper's torch, and spend the rest of the series running 'outlaw' around the system helping widows, orphans, and other misfortunates? Central to the theme could be an ongoing pursuit by an ornery RR cop and a vituperous old land surveyor determined to catch the boys, who mysteriously both report directly to the RR's CEO, a cranky little fellow by the name of Boss Logg. The show could be packed full of non-stop action and short on substance to be sure and capture the ADHD viewership,
In order to avoid apprehension, we feature serial assists for our heros by various members of the Freight Train Riders of America (cameo appearance opportunities), as well as timely intervention from a sympathetic dispatcher who periodically throws switches just in the nick of time to keep the boys one step ahead of their nemesis. From time to time the boys appear to be headed for certain doom, when they get routed down abandoned lines with missing bridges, but via hollywood special effects always manage to pull off impossible jumps to adjacent lines, rerailed as if by miracle.
The show's theme song could go: -Just two good old boys, never meanin' no harm....Beats all you never saw, been in trouble with the law Since the day they was born.Straightenin' the curves, flattenin' the hills....Someday the mountain might get 'em but the law never will-
I think we might have a winner here.
Boy, it sounds like you and Dweezil and the old AG think and write EXACTLY along the same lines.
Several cavemen who were PR-reps for GE, quit their job, get an apartment in Chicago, and complain all day as to why it takes freights 3-days to make it through the city!
Ted Marshall wrote: I encourage even the harshest critics to sound in as I welcome all points of view.This should be a really good thread.
I encourage even the harshest critics to sound in as I welcome all points of view.
This should be a really good thread.
I'd follow the show "Miami ink" for a program template, but replace the headbangers with flannel shirted good ol boys, backslappin and reminiscing about when rail was king. Have a special segment each week where viewers could mail in their pictures to be shown on the program, and invite a group of nimbys into the studio each week, where they would be gang tarred and feathered by studio audience members.
Oh, and jillions and jillions of pentax run-bys
Erie Lackawanna wrote: Chico - I'm not sure where you saw in one word of the quote you took (either zugmann, Poppa Zit or me) even a hint of a suggestion that we believed that Ted's idea would sell or that he could copyright it. Please try not to attack others making it sound as if they said things that they never did.
Chico - I'm not sure where you saw in one word of the quote you took (either zugmann, Poppa Zit or me) even a hint of a suggestion that we believed that Ted's idea would sell or that he could copyright it. Please try not to attack others making it sound as if they said things that they never did.
I didn't read it that way, EL.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
If I read you right, you mean to produce a show on the hobby of rail fanning, not focused on trains exclusively, but the people who watch trains and how they go about it?
If that's the case, I doubt it will get much past the first installment, simply because it is a lone wolf sport of sorts.
Rarely do people rail fan in groups.
From what I have seen, it is either a single person, or two people, maybe father and son or a pair of friends, almost never more than two at a time.
And I think that is simply because it is a very personal type of thing.
Everyone enjoys trains in a slightly different manner...for Carl Shaver, its getting to see a particular type of freight car he has been looking for, to record its reporting marks and what train it was in, the guys probably has several hundred of those little spiral pocket note pads full of "catches" or finds and a car data base second to none.
For me, its simple the enjoyment of watching the train, the sounds and smells, the flange squeal, the occasional photo... for others, it is the locomotive front and center, getting that one personal great photo....but each one of us enjoys the train is a different way.
Most of the fans I know go train watching not only for the trains, but for a chance to be alone, think through problems, or simply relax after a hard day...they don't want to share that time with anyone else, much less with a large group.
Not to say you can't find or wouldn't be able to rustle up a few extroverts who would love to be the focus of attention, but most fans are a little more of the solitary type, who rather watch than be noticed.
Ted Marshall wrote: Ted Marshall wrote: I'm interested in knowing what you think would make a great tv show if one were to be made on railfanning?
Ted Marshall wrote: I'm interested in knowing what you think would make a great tv show if one were to be made on railfanning?
I'm interested in knowing what you think would make a great tv show if one were to be made on railfanning?
23 17 46 11
Ted M.
got trains?™
See my photos at: http://tedmarshall.rrpicturearchives.net/
Hey Ted,
So much of what we do and think is dependent on the context. You are absolutely correct, we were discouraging you, but we were doing that in the context that you were proposing a television show.
Now knowing that you are proposing an internet show, pieced together by volunteers and with love, I would say go full barrel. There's no reason not to pursue that show.
One of the beatiful things about the internet is that it is a democratized form of media. Everyone has a voice and a vote. You can also win by attracting a small target audience.
In light of my new understanding of what you intend, I would say, keep the clips short, use real train noise when you have it, and don't do much commetary, although pointing out things to notice is always fun.
CF
Hey guys, thanks for your input.
I also have my doubts about whether my idea will take off or not. Originally, it was intended for the entertainment of those who belong to this group as well as other railfans who aren't members of the Trains Magazine forum.
My focus is on creating a pilot to be aired right here via the internet. I wish to use the input from those interested as the foundation upon which my show will be built upon. I'll let you guys decide if you'd like to see more of my show. If so, I'll use the reviews that I get from you and then go from there.
I happen to know some people in the mass media business and have pitched the idea to them. Their suggestion to me was to see what my peers think about it by conducting an unofficial survey and return to them with a pilot episode to view for themselves. At best, I'll get it aired on public access at 4am. At worst, I'll have something to share with my grandkids.
Seems to me that some of you are conveying the message that I shouldn't waste my time on such a fruitless endeavor; I respect that. I understand such an idea might not have mass appeal, but I'm not targeting the masses with it.
I have to edit nearly 90% of what I post. I certainly sympathize. In my case it's just that my brain doesn't always engage 100% until after I press post.
Erie Lackawanna wrote: Chico,I am sorry for taking your words the wrong way, but if you go back and read what you wrote, you'll understand why I saw them as I did (even if that's not how you meant them). Also, when you have a chance, go back and look at what I wrote, there's not a single attack against you. I defended us (in this case clearly not from your inention but from how it read to me).All of which is terribly off topic. Truth of the matter is you and I agree 100% on the possible outcome of such a project. It will never even get to the point that it's pitched to a network because it has no one with a track record and it's aimed at a miniscule audience. Please accept my apologies for offending you. If you re-read my post you'll see that was not my intent. My strident tone may have been excessive, but I was trying to say that people do buy ideas. And where I do still disagree with you is that it actually happens all the time, it's constant. But maybe we can just agree to disagree on that point?Charles
Chico,
I am sorry for taking your words the wrong way, but if you go back and read what you wrote, you'll understand why I saw them as I did (even if that's not how you meant them). Also, when you have a chance, go back and look at what I wrote, there's not a single attack against you. I defended us (in this case clearly not from your inention but from how it read to me).
All of which is terribly off topic. Truth of the matter is you and I agree 100% on the possible outcome of such a project. It will never even get to the point that it's pitched to a network because it has no one with a track record and it's aimed at a miniscule audience.
Please accept my apologies for offending you. If you re-read my post you'll see that was not my intent. My strident tone may have been excessive, but I was trying to say that people do buy ideas. And where I do still disagree with you is that it actually happens all the time, it's constant. But maybe we can just agree to disagree on that point?
Charles
OK, done, no problem. I just sometimes post and go back and edit. I have medical problems with my hands and sometimes they do wehat they want, not what I want.
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