After 9 episodes of Through Irish Eyes, the series is now coming home.
The brainchild of Georgia TV producer William Collins Parker and Videographer Ashley Henderson has led me as the only Irish news reporter in local US television on many an adventure.
From Line-dancing to shooting guns and red-kneck wrestling to College Football, “The South” has shown itself to be a rich and diverse haven of culture and humor.
Next Month the series will focus on Irish Culture rather than that of American.The aim is to showcase Ireland at Christmas to the viewers in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. Albeit 4200 miles apart their are many similarities and differences between both worlds.
Christmas is both a religion and family focused occasion for both societies yet the focus on materialism in the US as recently highlighted by “Black Friday” differ from that of the west coast of Ireland, famous for its “12 pubs of Christmas” and seasonal drinking and music.
Further along from Key West on nearby Key Largo, Dolphin Plus says that they have had a British Intern. The unique dolphin sanctuary and exhibition center is at the heart of dolphin preservation and support. With visitors from across the world, Nancy Cooper is delighted to welcome visitors from Europe who are often not exposed to the creativity and abilities of dolphins.
With millions of visitors and dozens of music requests from Scotland as well as stunning scenery, it is no wonder the small islands only 90 miles off the coast of Cuba are attracting attention among the home nations.
On a recent visit to Archers BBQ in Knoxville, Mason the local culinary talent detailed what Hickory, Memphis Style and all these other vague terms meant.
Below is the Irish I-Phone Interview done with him on the making of real Southern Soul Food.
For all you non vegetarians out there, this is quiet the treat.
Spent time at a Flea Market on way to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburgh in Tennessee.
One local crafts man tells me why his form or making a living is dying in the US and across the developed world.
Where once people took up wood turning and carving he has found over the 40 years of working in the field he has less and less competitors for his goods yet interest is still high.
The Swedish House Mafia’s individual and combined success has struck the world by surprise and they are actually doing what few musical acts never did, they are bowing out on top.
Musical icons have passed from this world at their peak and are immortalized due to this, Kurt Cobain being one of those at their greatest. The Mafia are leaving the music scene as one of the most successful trance groups in history, cementing their status with a song that screams of anthemic melodies and is echoing across clubs and radio playlists from Stockholm to Sydney and Brussels to Beijing.
The song in question is Don’t You Worry Child, which is more than just a sing-a-long fist thumping club anthem but has a very strong message behind it, which is eternal acceptance in the world we live in. We are frenetic, demanding and expecting so much from everything and everyone in our daily lives and the song touches on this chord.
“There was a time, I used to look into my father’s eyes
In a happy home, I was a king I had a gold throne
Those days are gone, now the memories are on the wall
I hear the sounds from the places where I was born”
Very few songs released today, touch upon so much forgetting and realism in our western culture, the song is simple and catchy but also clever and inspiring and as we face into more economic uncertainty, a shaky US election and new chapters in Space exploration, a time should be spent remembering these words
“My father said
Don’t you worry, don’t you worry child
See heaven’s got a plan for you”
Was he a prophet or was he the messiah, regardless of what role the big J played in the world over the past two centuries he would be very different about spreading ‘the good news’ if he appeared today and used social networking or would he?
@jesuschrist would be an Official Twitter account with regularly daily updates on the path to live righteously, he would be followed by hopefully more people than Justin Bieber or One Direction and would not need to hashtag due to the influence and originality of his tweets.
Youtube would allow Jesus to stream live to more viewers than Felix Baumgartner could ever have imagined for his fall from above and am sure you would be allowed to comment and like and dislike uploads.
Would Jesus use Google Plus for hangouts? More than likely yes, with the apostles, as it is probably easier than dealing with Skype group chat and being recharged constantly unaware to one’s own existence but then Jesus would not worry about money as he needed little, relying on donations like Wikipedia.
Facebook would recognize that Jesus would have a lot more subscribers than Neal Mann and Vin Diesel put together and would recognize the value in letting him remain offline and monitor his wall posts. You could not tag yourself in his pictures but he could tag you.
Jesus may not have a Linkedin Account as his role as a spreader of the gospel would not deem him useful to many job matches but may allow for significant references and endorsements if he chose to get Linkedin.
Tweetdeck would be of use, so Jesus could keep track of his Foursquare and Myspace as well as his other accounts and only have to deliver his message once to multiple platforms.
Finally Jesus would do all this from an android unless he did a clever endorsement deal like U2 with apple but one doubts this would be of interest to him.
Jesus the social networker would generate vast trends, forum threads, Google news results and be Bing friendly.
His audio clips would be on Soundcloud or Audioboo for those to listen and share and he would also be linkedin to Amazon and Kindle so you could download his WordPress blog posts and e-books.
Who knows what Jesus or any of the other prophets would have used if they walked among us today and as the song goes,
“What if god was one of us, just a slob like one of us,
just a stranger on the bus trying to make his way home?”
If he was trying to make his way home he would be using Google maps unless he had an iPhone 5.
Damn hard thing making a showreel, well it’s not the initial gathering of content that is the issue, it’s how to sell yourself in the best possible light without being cheesy or over the top. Striking the balance is a challenge!
I have truly accepted that a showreel should be the best of the best and after that links to the rest if required. Less is more is relevant with ten or twelve second clips being strong enough to convey your presenting or reporting style convincingly.
Variety and the dreaded dip in the middle was something I found happening as editing progressed, keeping a viewer engaged and focused for three or four minutes is hard never mind when it is entirely the same person talking about a platter of random topics in varied environments.
All in all the debate is truly out on what makes a great showreel, as I look back at mine I feel it is merely a tool to use to get someone’s attention or to compliment an interview scenario.
Regardless don’t rush your editing and don’t dismiss anyone’s perspective, as many opinions as possible are integral.
When documentary maker Josh Miller’s father-in-law lost his job he responded with the intriguing film, Made in the USA.
The film is a response to those who say that industry is dead in America, with the global recession swallowing job after job across the heartland of America and sending Europe into turmoil, Miller feels that the “American Dream” is still alive.
The film charters 30 days of his life where he will live off just American produced products and speaks to industry heads and those who are now jobless about how to stimulate employment in rural America.
One of those industry leaders is Michael Araten CEO of toy manufacturer K’NEX. Mr Araten informed me in a recent interview that he feels that being featured in the documentary will raise hopes and spirits regarding the state of US manufacturers. The plastic toy is on the rise and Araten believes that it will also inspire the next generation of American scientists, engineers and designers.
With Made in USA currently in post production it emphatically states that it is a film that is neither Republican or Democrat but for the jobless regardless of political affiliation.
The film has significance for those of us in the UK as employment hits record numbers and possibly lessons can be learned from Miller and his film from across the water.
An application that helps to plan your life, your business commitments and act as a social networking tool, this surely cannot exist!
Yet one young Irish web developer is the driving force behind a piece of software that promises to do just that.
Finn Krewer a Phd student at the University of Ireland in Galway is co-creator and developer of ideasLog.
The concept behind the planning application is to enable managers and those with significant personal, business or commercial strains to plan effectively and maximize their time.
Sample plans are provided as templates and are easy to follow and utilize and users can also offer their own planning models. ideasLog is available cross platform and described by Mr Krewer as “lean, smart and highly adaptable to everyday life”.
There are 200 active users already with over 2000 plans created and the team behind ideasLog spear-headed by Krewer hope that in the next twelve months the number of active users will reach well into the 1000’s.
Only time will tell if the application that claims to make your life and work easier and more effective can potentially plan our futures.
James P. Mahon 