Dizzy Gillespie Vs. Cab Calloway

Here's a segment for web I edited for the Cab Calloway film that is premiering nationally on American Masters on Monday Feb. 27th at 10PM

Watch Cab Calloway vs. Dizzy Gillespie on PBS. See more from American Masters.

New York Comic Con 2011 Pt.1

Here's the New York Comic Con 2011 Piece I produced with CDBerrios with the help of Associate Producers Mikyle Yuvienco and Julianne Wilkinson and production assistants Kathleen O'Donnell and Anne Zhou.

Watch New York Comic Con 2011: Through the Artists' Eyes on PBS. See more from THIRTEEN Specials.

A YouDorks Production

New York Comic Con 2011 Preview

More to come:

The Adventures of Teddy Perez Pt. 1

Teddy Perez gets ready to do some voice over:



Photo Courtesy of Tenro11 (aka Tenro333)

Teddy Perez Prologue Here

Teaching Channel: Education Update Pt. 5

Here's the last and final:
High School

All of them are uploaded to my Vimeo site as well, which you can go to to see all of my work, but I also made an album just for them.

Education Update: High School from Matthew Chao on Vimeo.

Links to all the videos on Teaching Channel

Apparently you can see it on teaching channel's youtube channel too. Look for the ones that say "Common Core State Standards"

Common Core State Standards for Math
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy
Common Core State Standards for Elementary School
Common Core State Standards for Middle School
Common Core State Standards for High School

Picturing America

Near the first summer after I started interning at WNET, I worked for the *Emmy Award Winning Series American Masters -- a department I'm back in as of now. It is here that I met Gail Levin, a producer that was working on a for web series of short documentary segments funded by the NEH called Picturing America.

At any rate, they're all up now and you can watch them all at the provided link above. Go watch it and learn a little bit about America's history through art.

Elementary Educators and History teachers, you may want to check this out to see if any of this is of any use to you.

*Sorry, had to do that.

Teaching Channel: Education Update Pt. 4

Here's Middle School

The rest are actually uploaded to my Vimeo site as well, which you can go to to see all of my work, but I also made an album just for them.

I'll continue posting them up here one by one.

Education Update: Middle School from Matthew Chao on Vimeo.

Links to all the videos on Teaching Channel

Apparently you can see it on teaching channel's youtube channel too. Look for the ones that say "Common Core State Standards"

Common Core State Standards for Math
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy
Common Core State Standards for Elementary School
Common Core State Standards for Middle School
Common Core State Standards for High School

Teaching Channel: Education Update Pt. 3

Here's Elementary School -- because who doesn't like seeing groups of cute little kids yell out answers to math problems?

The rest are actually uploaded to my Vimeo site as well, which you can go to to see all of my work, but I also made an album just for them.

I'll continue posting them up here one by one.

Education Update: Elementary School from Matthew Chao on Vimeo.

Links to all the videos on Teaching Channel

Common Core State Standards for Math
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy
Common Core State Standards for Elementary School
Common Core State Standards for Middle School
Common Core State Standards for High School

Teaching Channel: Education Update Pt. 2

Same deal-y as before. Here's MATH!

Education Update: Math from Matthew Chao on Vimeo.

Links to all the videos on Teaching Channel

Common Core State Standards for Math
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy
Common Core State Standards for Elementary School
Common Core State Standards for Middle School
Common Core State Standards for High School

Teaching Channel: Education Update Pt. 1

So back in mid February I started working as an associate producer/shooter/editor for a project for PBS in conjunction with Teaching Channel, a U.S. version of the now defunct teacher's tv in the UK.

The project I worked on was specifically called "Education Update" and were 5 15 minute episodes detailing the adoption of Common Core Standards here in America. The project took about 3 and 1/2 months to complete and are now finally available to be viewed by the public. Below you can watch one of the episodes -- specifically on elementary education. They are all out but I am uploading some better quality versions to my Vimeo account, especially since the teaching channel website, for whatever reason, allows you to download the videos but not embed them -- and Vimeo does. So, more later -- they're a little larger in size so I only have enough memory in my Vimeo account to upload 1 a week, but you can still view the rest on the teaching channel website (actually, that is encouraged). Links below.

Education Update: ELA and Literacy from Matthew Chao on Vimeo.

Common Core State Standards for Math
Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy
Common Core State Standards for Elementary School
Common Core State Standards for Middle School
Common Core State Standards for High School

Delivery Fail but Plushie Win, so lets just call it even.

I ordered Big Bird off of Amazon.Com last week -- only it wasn't really Amazon.Com, it was more BabyAge.Com selling through Amazon.Com, which wasn't a problem cost wise because it was discounted significantly with free shipping. ($16 -- how could I pass up the 20" plushie? -- that usually sells for $40 mind you)

At anyrate, I had it shipped to my office and got a call today about it being in. -- The packaging had BabyAge.Com written all over it and I realized how bad it looked/what it seemed to imply.

But look at how awesome that is. Big Bird was totally worth the mailroom people thinking I'm having a baby.

By the way, Big Bird looks totally gangsta in a fedora.

Why I love my job

On an analysis of Sonnet 18:

Teacher: "So now, knowing that, can you re-read it from a different way?"
Boy: "Oh I knew it, I knew he was talking about a woman"
[Teacher Laughs]
...
Teacher: "...And summer, it's way too short, and you're longer than summer, alright? you're better than summer because summer's always too short"
Boy: I would compare, certain females I know, to winter.
Girl: Cold?
Boy: Yes
[Long awkward pause]
Teacher: I think I'm too young for this conversation
[Awkward pause]
Teacher: Stay in the poem Brandon, stay in the poem

---

After that I was laughing so hard I have no idea how I kept the camera steady.

I LOVE MY JOB!!!

The Many Sounds of Jeff

When I was working as an assistant editor on the American Masters Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides film, I edited together this little sequence called The Many Sounds of Jeff just for fun and somehow it managed to become a little web extra. So yay for that.

Lack of Posting

Dear me, I haven't posted in over a week, which is kind of terrible, seeing as to how I was supposed to try to post 3 times a week. However, despite the fact that I'm no longer working 15+ hours a day my crazy schedule has still managed to prevent me from writing much of anything here. However, there are some eventful happenings.

1.) Saturday, Monday and Tuesday I worked as a PA on a documentary on Cab Calloway for a producer at PBS, though not directly or permanently related to PBS, Gail Levin, the director of this film, is a documentary filmmaker who, in short, gets the job done in a new and innovative fashion, so I'm glad that I have the opportunity to learn from her.

2.) Spent 5 days chewing up a mountain in Vermont... although really just 2 days, 2 days were reserved for traveling and the last day was spent Duck Pin Bowling and mini-golfing in the cold Vermont winter. More on that some other time?

3.) I finally hooked up the mothership, after 5 months of it sitting in its box, my baby has been taken out and once again plugged in, though I still have yet to power it back up... tomorrow perhaps.

4.) I have more drawings that have been done/finally completed... and those will be posted... whenever I scan them in?

That's all for now.

Lack of Things to Blog About

Lately the amount of things to blog about has fallen to a very low point, and not because there's nothing going on in my life, quite the contrary, there is way too much going on in my life, leaving me with barely enough time to sleep, much less socialize. No, the lull in things to blog about is due to the fact that all the things that are going on in my life are extremely monotonous, a lot of quality checking tapes at my new freelance/part time/whatever job and a lot of the same thing at PBS (yes, I am working both my internship at PBS AND my new freelance job at USA Studios. I actually believe I mentioned that before.) My friend Ashna has warned me that I'm working too much, but I guess we'll see? I did, however, think up a comic I'd love to try to draw or something... just a strip of something... will post it if it ever gets done...

How I started working 17 hour days

Ahh!! The streak of at least 3 posts a week has been broken! Shame!!

First and foremost, my apologies to anyone actually bothering to read this blog for my scarcity in posting, I've been unusually busy recently and this busyness looks like it will be continuing for an indefinite amount of time. Additionally, for the past five days or so I have been staying at my grandma's house, which has left me internet less and effectively stranded from the going on-s of the normal world, but enough of that, my post below.

"Did you eat dinner yet," she asked over the phone. "Yes," I replied over the phone. I had straight out lied because I knew that if she knew the truth she would yell at me and I didn't have the energy for that. It was 9 PM Tuesday night and the truth was that I hadn't eaten anything sustainable since 10:00 that morning, when my grandma sat me down and made me eat breakfast before rushing off to my internship at PBS. Now, I was standing in front of several racks of tape decks, the number of which was an impressive one, but not as impressive as the Dubs facility in PBS, and I'd imagine pretty standard for a post house specializing in duplication and the like.

I had begun freelancing as a junior editor for USA Studios Monday evening. USA Studios was the afore mentioned post house and the reason I had cut my hair two weeks prior (I had an interview with them) and I was now working the graveyard shift qc-ing (quality controlling) masters sent to us and the dubs made of them. The work wasn't very exciting or an area where I imagined I'd make many valuable connections, but work was work and no matter how much I loved interning for American Masters, I wasn't getting paid. So, when this opportunity came up I jumped on it, even though I had just come off a half day (7 hour) shoot that I had gotten up at 5 AM for, although more on that shoot later. I arrived for my first day at USA Studios at 4pm and left at 11:30pm, being dismissed by the head of production, Roger, but I was asked to return the next day, which I did, this time starting at 6pm and finishing at 5am.

I began my day at 6pm because I figured out that I could leave PBS at 5:00 and make it across town to USA Studios in half an hour, which would give me enough time to grab something quick for dinner. However, as usually occurs on days I need to get somewhere, I worked up until 5:30pm, wrecking any chances of getting food and being on time. I decided that it was best not to be late on my second day, so food was passed up for work.

Finally, I had gotten off work at 5:30 am, when the guy in charge of the overnight hours wanted to go home and kicked myself and my friend Sania, who's been working with the place for the past 2 or 3 months, out so he could lock up. I hadn't taken a lunch break the entire time because I'm terrible at telling myself to eat so when I got out I was pretty hungry, but then I ran into the dilemma of 1) finding food and 2) taking the hour long trek back to my grandma's place to get some sleep so I could get up the next day to go to PBS again, even though I was told not to come in b/c it was the day before Thanks Giving. Again, I passed on food and headed back and went to sleep but missed out on PBS, so not eating was kind of pointless.

However, I've figured out that I can work 14 hour days and still get enough sleep, so I'm staying at PBS while I work for USA Studios.

Mysteriously Sleepless Night

Tuesday night I had a terrible night entirely due to the fact that it was entirely sleepless. The puzzling thing is that there doesn't seem to be a cause for the inability to sleep that night, it just happened.

Of course, staying up late and running on no sleep really messes with your brain. For starters your judgment easily becomes impaired and even worse, your mood shifts easily to negative because the impaired judgment makes all your problems seem a lot worse and overwhelming. There's a scientific explanation for this, as was explained by a friend, I just don't remember all the details so I'm not going to bother trying to explain it.

What I will explain, however, is what came out of that night. Plagued with sleeplessness, despite my exhaustion and the fact that I was lying in bed trying to sleep, I finally gave up and got onto my computer and began to write. Somehow, a short screenplay has begun to become birthed from my horrendous night, which is probably a good thing since I haven't written anything in ages, so more on that screenplay upon completion.

I actually realized that this post would be a lot more interesting if I actually posted what I was struggling with (aside from my body's stubborn inability to fall asleep) but I'm not going to go on a long diatribe ranting and raving about all my problems, especially since I'd rather not think about a good amount of them since there is not cure for those diseases except to acknowledge and move on, an action I thought was taken a while ago but apparently ghosts like to linger... that's all you get, and no, I don't want to hear your guesses as to what I'm talking about.

Moving away from that, though, I went into PBS on 3 hours of sleep, finally managing to fall asleep at 6:30, 7:00, (as my parents were getting up to go to work) and waking up at 9:00 and doing my "wake up, get ready to leave and go to sleep for an hour because I have that much time before I have to leave" bit and finally leaving my house at 10 (I went in an hour later, no one noticed or even really cared because there's not much going on right now).

I expected to have a terrible day, but I didn't because there wasn't really anything to do and everyone at PBS is nice and they have brains so it's hard to have a bad day here, but ghosts from the night I had just gone through still lingered about so after work I called up a friend, got some ice cream and let the ice cream and etc do its job. Suddenly the world is better, although I hope that I can still finish that short script... I'll be sure to.

Mobbed

Today, as I walked into the lobby of the building PBS Channel 13 is in, I was immediately surrounded by 3 little girls in green uniforms with badges on them (in case you can't figure it out, they were girl scouts) and they immediately mobbed me to get me to buy some cookies.

I decided to get a box of Samoas, my favorite kind of Girl Scout Cookies (I like thin mints, but not as much as everyone else, I just think they're o.k.) and bought one at the giant table covered in cookies. The box is now more than 1/3 done and that just about encompasses all the excitement my day has had.

More Crazy-Hour Shooting

On Monday I got up at 8 to return the wireless lavs to Gotham Sound. (As a side note, if you ever need audio gear, hit these guys up, they're the best sound rental house in New York City and they sell a lot of equipment at good prices as well.) Afterward, as stated in my previous post, I sent my film to Tribeca (which was received today) and then spent the rest of the day doing miscellaneous chores.

By 7:00PM I was checked into an edit suite on the 10th floor of Tisch and passed out either in the chairs or on the floor of the suite, mainly because I didn't feel comfortable passing out on the couch on the 8th floor like I used to do, but that's a different story. 9:00 rolled around and I got up and made my way over to Astoria where I would spend the remainder of the night until 7:00 in the morning shooting a 30 second spot for the Doritos Superbowl Competition for my good friend and line producer on Nyle Emerson's F.A.N.G music video, Richard Gianotti, as well as the rest of the Hayden 5 Media crew (Todd Wiseman and Milos Silber). Afterward I went with and helped out with returns and unloading until 10:30-ish and then went to my internship where I did research and fought the urge to pass out in front of my computer; it was a loosing battle.

On the up side I learned that my dear friend Ashna has finally quit smoking, today is her first day so anyone that knows her, please give her all the support you can to make this transition as easy a transition as possible for her.

Producing and Misplaced Voices

I woke up this morning feeling sicker than the past few days I had felt sick so I e-mailed in to PBS letting them know I wasn't feeling well and I should probably stay home so I don't get anyone else sick. I got an e-mail back telling me to get better, which was nice.

In all honesty I probably felt functional enough to get up and go into the city but, again, I don't think that the people at PBS needed me so desperately to do something that they wouldn't mind getting sick in the process.

Aside from that, I slept all day and tried to get better, although I was given dreams of pirate ships and zombies... I think...

The four days prior to today I was picking up equipment, shooting and then returning equipment. Somewhere in the middle of those four days I misplaced my voice and just now I've managed to find enough pieces of it to reassemble enough of it to not sound ridiculous.

All of this, however, means that we shot Aprile Ruha's film and now that's all finally done and in the can, which is a wonderful thing because I can now stop worrying about it.

The shoot, overall, went quite well and quite smoothly, despite my mad driving in a 15 Passenger Van at 70 to 90 mph to set when we were late. Yea, that was dangerous and quite scary, I've scared myself quite a few times, especially since the guy at the rental place told me to keep it at 50. Note, these cars are quite easy to flip over apparently, not that I experienced that myself, quite actually, despite the fear that I spread to the little freshmen PA's , I'd like to think that I actually drove quite well, considering the fact that we all got to set and back each day safe and sound.

The shoot itself, however, was really smooth, considering the rough time we had during preproduction, but then again, I guess a rough pre production should signal a smooth production, if not then you're doing something wrong.

On Friday, somewhere amist all the pick-ups and planning I managed to grab a few hours where I could take a friend with me to see the New York premier of PBS' Joan Baez film, "Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound," which came out quite well. Afterwards my friend tagged along as I grabbed our cargo van and headed over to pick up more equipment and then handed off the filled cargo van to Aprile's uncle, who drove the van over to Long Island, where we were shooting.

Jessica, (my, until now unnamed friend) and I then grabbed some food and then I drove her home in the 15 Passenger van because the trains were being stupid. I found out she lives really close to my grandma.