THE ROYAL WEDDING

posted to Inside TV by Susie Hernandez

Royal watchers will appreciate the BBC’s full coverage of one of the most eagerly anticipated events of the century, the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Live coverage starts tonight at midnight on our sister stations, KUAZ-FM, and PBS-HD. That's right folks, the Beebs made it available for radio and TV tonight.

Live TV coverage will include the journey of all the members of the Royal Family and the bride as they make their way to Westminster Abbey, the arrivals of all the key guests, and full coverage of the wedding service. Following the service, you’ll see the full procession back to Buckingham Palace. The final moments of the coverage is for the long awaited balcony wave as a married couple.

The Beebs is offering 5 and a half hours of coverage. Reporters will be stationed around Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and The Mall watching the preparations as they unfold, reporting on all the movements and speaking to members of the crowd who have travelled from all over to witness this piece of history. Guests include Royal historians and correspondents, fashion experts and possibly some guests who are attending the wedding service.

What will I appreciate the most? The hats. As soon as I have my fill, I will be going back to bed and then keeping an eye out for our encore broadcasts.

Here's a quick rundown of the airtimes and days:

LIVE on KUAZ NPR and PBS-HD Channel 6 - Midnight to 5:30 a.m.

Encore broadcasts:

PBS-HD - Friday from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

World TV- Friday from 4 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

PBS-HD - Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

PBS-HD - Sunday from 4:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.

World TV, you ask? You can catch World TV on Broadcast 27-3, Comcast 203, and Cox 83.

Stay tuned,

Susie the TV Programmer

WHAT HAPPENS BEFORE 'LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION'

posted to AZ Week Notebook by Michael Chihak

What follows is the text of an e-mail memo from cameraman Steve Riggs to three other members of the crew going to Phoenix today for our interview with Arizona Gov, Jan Brewer for Friday's Arizona Week.

The other crew members are cameraman Bob Lindberg and grips/audio specialists Ricardo Johnson and Dominick de Leon.

This shoot is made a bit more complicated by the short setup time we are being allowed. Generally, we ask for a minimum of one hour; in this case, we are expecting no more than 30 minutes.

Steve Riggs' e-mail:

Ready for an adventure?!

Please see the attached diagram for our interview with the Governor tomorrow. Let's meet at 11:30am. Departure 1pm from the loading dock.

The day's schedule 11:30am - Crew arrival 1pm - Departure for Phoenix 3pm - Arrival at the Governors Building 3:30pm - Through security, up to 9th floor 4pm - Doors open, begin setup. Note: There is a meeting before we can get inside. If it runs long, we have less time. 4:30pm - Interview with Governor Brewer 7:00 - 8:30pm - arrive back in Tucson, store gear

Time will be of the essence. Here are our responsibilities. The number signifies level of importance. Once you finish 1, then you go to 2, etc.

Ricardo
1 - all Audio (microphones, xlr cables run to camera locations) 2 - run stingers to light locations (see diagram) 3 - backlights (for Governor/Michael) 4 - monitors

Dominic 1 - 2K Key light (see diagram) 2 - Tota Fill light (see diagram) 3 - Omni backdrop lights (flag/snoot, see diagram) 4 - backlights

Bob 1 - Chihak camera 2 - Omni snoot background light 3 - Finalize shot with lights set 4 - backlight

Steve 1 - Governor camera 2 - Omni flag background light 3 - Finalize shot with lights set 4 - backlight

Our main focus will be to get cameras, audio and the 2K key light up and the Tota fill light up if nothing else. We can shoot an interview with this basic setup. These lights will be plenty of light so that if we can't get the back light (not background) up, we will be in good shape.

You know what we are up against to get through security. Let's send 2 of us through to receive the gear, 2 of us to put the gear through. After security, either downstairs or while we wait upstairs, let's build the Tota-fill light that will be on the "Small" Chimera. That way we can have that built, plop it down as soon as we get in and then worry about getting power to it after the 2K key light is up. Let's stage all gear towards the farthest window corner (see diagram).

That is about it for now. We can discuss more on the ride up. Until tomorrow at 11:30 am to get the fun started. Please have a good evening. Dream of your responsibilities.

We will have an awesome shoot. As always, respect, professionalism, work quickly and efficiently. See you all at 11:30 am.

Steve

WHITTLING AWAY AT A BIG STACK OF LEGISLATION

posted to AZ Week Notebook by Michael Chihak

A smaller and smaller pile of bills is getting Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's attention, with five days to go before she must make final decisions.

The Legislature sent the governor 168 bills at the end of the session last week. She has about 110 remaining on which to make decisions. Brewer has used her veto a few times, including Tuesday on a bill that would have given to the Legislature what is now her authority over state distribution of federal money.

Among the bills still awaiting decisions from Brewer are these (descriptions from the Arizona Republic):

SB 1322: Requires Phoenix and Tucson to bid out any and all city services valued at $500,000 or more.

SB 1546: Permits the state to acquire federal property through eminent domain unless the property was acquired by the federal government with the consent of the Arizona Legislature or consists of land held by a federally recognized Indian tribe.

SB 1610: Makes the Colt Single-Action Army revolver the state's official firearm.

HB 2067: Among other things, forbids the Arizona Board of Regents from exercising any authority over the nonprofit that governs the hospital affiliated with the University of Arizona for 18 months.

HB 2707: Creates a revenue limit that imposes a ceiling on state spending. The limit is determined by the level of spending in the previous year, adjusted for inflation and population growth.

SB1186: Makes changes to conform Arizona's tax code with provisions in new laws. Includes a provision that allows for increased contributions to school-tuition organizations by permitting a person to claim a tax credit under the individual credit, as well as up to a $250 donation for the corporate tax credit,or $500 for a married couple filing jointly.

SB1406: Allows the governor to build a fence along the Arizona-Mexico border on private, state or federal property if permitted.

SO MANY ISSUES, SO LITTLE TIME

posted to AZ Week Notebook by Michael Chihak

Topics under consideration for the Arizona Week interview with Gov. Jan Brewer this week in Phoenix:

• The legislative session -- accomplishments, shortcomings, unfinished business.

• The budget pinch -- when will Arizonans begin to feel it in education, health care and other areas?

• A walk-through the educational budgeting and negotiating process.

• Will there be a comprehensive plan for cutting $510 million from the AHCCCS program, health care for the poor?

• By what measure will she consider the Arizona-Mexico border to have been secured?

Other issues we hope to touch on: economic development and jobs growth, the border, state vs. federal issues, other bills to be vetoed.

WHERE DOES ARIZONA GO FROM HERE?

posted to AZ Week Notebook by Michael Chihak

Gov. Jan Brewer appeared on the Feb. 18 episode of Arizona Week (see it here) discussing economic development and jobs growth, with hints at education and health-care funding cuts.

Now that those cuts have been made and the Legislature has sent her a big pile of other bills, we are seeking another interview with Brewer to discuss the outcomes.

We will ask her to take a look at Arizona going forward, in education, health care, economic development, state-federal issues and how state government works with local governmental entities.

Viewer questions for the governor are welcome. Post as comments to this blog entry, and we will take the best ones with us for our interview. Then, look for them and the answers on Friday's Arizona Week, 8:30 p.m. MST on PBS-HD.

BARD DAY

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

Barack Obama presented his legal birth certificate for all to see three years ago. William Shakespeare would not be able to do the same. There's no record of his birth, although there is a baptismal record, dated April 26, 1654. It was customary to baptize a child three days after birth, so we can guess at his birth date, but all we have for sure is his baptismal date, and that's why we're devoting April 26 entirely to music inspired by Shakespeare.

We have at least two days' worth of Shakespeare music in the KUAT-FM library, so I arbitrarily decided to feature all the music we have associated with select plays (and a few sonnets), and save the other plays for another year. We'll begin at 6 a.m. with that lighthearted trifle Macbeth as treated musically by Verdi, Sullivan (of Gilbert-and fame) and others. After the 7:01 news we'll check in briefly with The Taming of the Shrew before moving smartly along to As You Like It (scores by Walton and others). After the 8:01 news it's a Coriolanus overture--Castelnuovo-Tedesco's, not Beethoven's, which is not related to the Shakespeare play. And then, it's hour after hour of Romeo and Juliet, including Prokofiev's complete ballet score on that subject, the Berlioz "dramatic symphony" inspired by the play, a certain Tchaikovsky concert overture, the Symphonic Dances from Bernstein's West Side Story (the R&J story moved to 1950s New York City), and stray pieces by the likes of Svendsen, Bellini, Diamond, Delius, Lyatoshinsky, Kabalevsky, Gounod and even Liszt. That segment will stretch all the way to 4 p.m. After that, it's a close encounter with Sir John Falstaff, dalliance with a few other works, and finally a look at A Midsummer Night's Dream courtesy of Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Satie, Purcell and, of course, Mendelssohn.