Donne,Lisette & Ramsay @ filmfest Albert at LCHC - Lana’i
SammaRobot migrating tapes
June 15, 2010
Merrie Monarch DVDs are on island. Go to KS Publishing to order right away!
May 24, 2010
Just returned from Lana'i after visiting with Kepa and Onaona Maly of the Lana'i Culture & Heritage Center. They've done an incredible job creating a rich space filled with memories. The Center will be a partner in the HKG Digital Archive effort. At present, the pilot project is creating a temporary space at 420 Waiakamilo Road! We're working closely with another partner, Hawaii News Now to help us configure the space. Meanwhile, we look forward to our new home at UH-West O'ahu in 2012! Other partners in the pilot program of the Archive include: Gene Kois (of Videololo fame), KGMB News (1978 Constitutional Convention), Bishop Museum, Lyman Museum, CLEAR (Rice & Roses), Victoria Keith Productions, PBS Hawai'i, Hawai'inuiakea, Sinclair Library, Na Maka o ka 'Aina, Hula Preservation and Juniroa Productions.
Merrie Monarch DVD update: just when you thought the audio was too bad to burn to DVD - The Kukui Media Group found a miracle (and some clean tracks). DVD burn is in the process and sales are set for mid-June. My assessment? Great work by all. The DVD is beautiful - including the artwork.
May 2, 2010
ONE VOICE the documentary is screened at the Los Angeles Asia-Pacific Film Festival Directors Guild of America Screening Room 1 in West Hollywood. Producers and Director were on hand as well as Pacific Islanders in Communications Board Members Ramsay Taum and Donne Dawson!
April 16, 2010
Back from NAB in Las Vegas (left on Sunday night with a lot of other industry folks) where once again the broadcast toys were unveiled (3-D playing a huge role as well as DSL cameras!). I was there with Chris Lee to see the products FRONT PORCH DIGITAL had at their booth. The HKG Archives is keen on acquiring some of the products that can clean damaged tape material, migrate them from many formats to digital, and create an asset management system! This system will help to save our collective analogue memory.
April 9, 2010
Kahiko Night! We're in the NEP truck - Roland Yamamoto and gang (KFVE & NEP) jamming on the show.
April 6, 2010
Check out Renea's latest photos from the Merrie Monarch Festival!
April 5, 2010
Last minute preparations underway in Hilo. It's raining but it's Hilo and everyone is hard at work committed to presenting another terrific event. The day started with an early interview with the exuberant and passionate Mayor Billy Kenoi and continued through-out the day with a variety of free hula events around town as well as rehearsals on the Merrie Monarch hula stage at the Edith Kanaka'ole Stadium.
March 22, 2010
Full-throttle on production of the Merrie Monarch Festival -- but it's been difficult with the passing of festival co-founder Auntie Dottie Thompson on Friday followed by the sudden death of Kumu Rae Fonseca on Saturday. TV producers are working on some re-writes with less than three weeks to go!
March 19, 2010
Juniroa is joining in on the TWEETING fun with KS tonight as we work behind the scenes during the LIVE production broadcast of the 2010 Kamehameha Schools Song Contest! Go to www.ksbe.edu/2010/song-contest/
March 18, 2010
The NEP truck arrived at the Neal Blaisdell Center yesterday while the KS students practiced their Ho'ike performance. Today, it's rehearsals all day long for everyone - KS high school student body and technical broadcast crew. Practice, practice, practice.
March 9, 2010
Here's a reminder: you can watch both the Song Contest (March 19) and The Merrie Monarch Festival (Apr 8, 9, 10) on-line and on KGMB and KFVE. The hosts of this years' Song Contest: Manu Boyd, Lilinoe Kaahanui, Aaron Sala - all Hawaiian Language speakers and graduates of Kamehameha. For three consecutive nights in April you can watch Kim Kahoano, Aunty Pua Kanahele and [new to the festival broadcasting 'ohana] Amy Kalili navigate the audience through the television broadcast. Also we have interns working on both projects. A student from HPU, two students from UH-Hilo and a graduate from college -- all passionate about filmmaking and video work.
March 8, 2010
If you were in Hilo with Roland (The Kukui Media Group) today, you would have watched the Merrie Monarch stage being built inside the Edith Kanaka'ole Stadium. While Roland captured the work-in-progress on video, Lisa continued to edit content pieces for the live broadcast at her facility in Honolulu. From the email string, Gene was trying to confirm details of the upcoming shooting schedule. Not sure what Kalama was up to but I am looking forward to his video stories. Ted just returned from Japan where he finished a video job with the Japanese Prime Minister and is back full-time on the job as the MMF broadcast production manager/producer! Renea is battling the flu (or flu-like symptoms?) while overseeing Song Contest details. She's on the recovery side.
The best news of the day -- an email from Ruth (PIC) who announced that ONE VOICE was accepted into the LA Asian American Film Festival. It will be screened on May 2!
Launched this week! www.merriemonarch.com AND www.ksbe.edu/2010/song-contest/
Launched three weeks ago by Roland: Merrie Monarch Festival Facebook
TEN DAYS LEFT FOR THE KAMEHAMEHA SONG CONTEST!
February 1, 2010
Pre-production plans for both the Kamehameha Schools Song Contest and the 47th Annual Merrie Monarch Festival are in full-swing. Hawaiian Airlines jumps on board to support the website of the Merrie Monarch Festival; KS Publishing becomes the official distributor for the festival and Kukui Media Group (the producing entity of the MMF broadcast made up of Roland Yamamoto and Heather Giugni) has a team deep in production (Production Manager Ted Jung; Content Producer David Kalama; Videographer Gene Kois; Editor Lisa Altieri; Assistant Producer and MMF Official Photog Renea C. Stewart).
News update on the KS Song Contest: Unfortunately, KGMB's Keahi Tucker will not be available to co-host this year's Song Contest broadcast so it looks like an entire Hawaiian Language speaking team will host the program. Pretty amazing times!
January 2010
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Under A Jarvis Moon screens at Marks Garage and the Bishop Museum to over-flow crowds.
December 16, 2009
David Rowntree is back in Hawai'i to begin his work as Project Manager of the HKG Archives Pilot Program. The HKG Report is completed and will be available online shortly. I think Hawai'i residents particularly interested in preservation will find this document interesting and useful. Chris, David and I were interviewed by Burt Lum for bytemarkscafe to talk about the effort.
November 19, 2009
ONE VOICE Screening at the National Museum of the American Indian is well received in Washington D.C. Introductory comments were made by Patricia Harrison, President and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye and U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka. Also in attendance for this sceening was Paula Kerger, President and CEO of PBS, Congressman Neil Abercrombie, ACM-UH System-wide Director Chris Lee, Kalpen Modi, Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, Pacific Islanders in Communications Board Members Ramsay Taum and Donne Dawson, friends, family and supporters of Hawaiian storytelling. The evening could not have been a success without the support of Kamehameha Schools which flew in a hula performing contingent. Thanks to Dee Jay Mailer, Ann Botticelli, Liz Hansen, Julian Ako, Kaleo Trinidad and the students of KS! A great partnership between Pacific Islanders in Communications and Juniroa Productions thanks to Ruth Bolan, PICs ED. Great editing (Zelda)! Great directing (Lisette)!
November 6, 2009
AMIA Conference Day 3: Continuing my research on behalf of the Henry Ku'ualoha Archives, I come to the conclusion that there is a certain group that will largely decide what will be lost and what will be saved. It is imperative that we - in our Pacific world - play a role in this decision-making effort. Who is leading the way in preservation and digitization and long-term access right now? The Netherlands! What else did I learn at today's AMIA conference? BBC follows the Netherlands, WGBH follows BBC and the US continent watches what WGBH does. What else did I discover? Ah...that we're in trouble: Videotape is AT RISK (solution: digitization). Analogue equipment is becoming OBSOLETE (oh-oh how am I going to digitize my analogue tapes?). Metadata is most AT RISK (solution: migrate up). Strategy suggested: 1) Keep the original bit-stream if you can 2) Migrate to uncompressed as soon as you can 3) Check every format for risks every few years. For more information visit http://digitalpreservation.ssl.co.uk/. Good luck!
November 5, 2009
AMIA Conference Day 2: Film/Video/Digital Archival conferencing at its best with attendees from the Library of Congress, the National Library of Norway, ARRI Inc., Eastman Kodak, 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Company, HBO, Sony Pictures Entertainment, CNN, WGBH-Educational Foundation, University of Missouri, National Library of Medicine, University of Texas at Austin, Black Film Center - Indiana University, NYU, MGM Technical, Yale University, Footage File and on and on and on -- professionals in a field that includes academics, filmmakers, IT, librarians and more. They are all here at the edge of the Mississippi River struggling with this fact: Our field has gone through a massive paradigm shift. And the questions follow: what does "digitality" mean in our field and what are the ramifications? What do archivists need to know as they move from a traditional (physical) archive to one on-line? What kind of economy is necessary to migrate our archival elements? Given how much is out there, is it even possible? What about digital management costs? And then there is the discourse on "loss" and the question: Are we setting ourselves up for a Digital Dark Age. The Library of Alexandria is referred to several times. And in the digital realm, what are the originals? And who's doing cutting edge website content work? WGBH Educational right now. They are in the beta stage of something called OpenVault. They previewed a glimpse of how media libraries can serve multiple audiences.
David has introduced me to several interesting folks and is doing his best to persuade the powers that be in the AMIA that they consider holding the 2011 or 2012 conference in Hawai'i. I think it's a grand idea! Anyway, a very interesting person is Ray Edmondson out of Australia who helped start the Southeast Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association. By the way, the AMIA is 20 years old...and people here have fond memories of Ruth Tamura and Desoto Brown.
Outside it's 51 degrees and still beautiful.
November 4, 2009
AMIA Conference Day 1: I am in St. Louis, Missouri (I think the Ice Cream Cone & Peanut Butter were invented here) attending the Association of Moving Image Archivist conference through Saturday. This is background material for the Henry Ku'ualoha Giugni Archives. David Rowntree, our consultant, is located here - at the Washington University Film and Video Archive. It's 64 degrees and beautiful.
October 24, 2009
A private screening of ONE VOICE for the Trustees of Kamehameha Schools and the Board of the Pacific Islanders in Communications is well-received.
October 1, 2009
It's official: The Merrie Monarch Festival broadcast will move to KFVE. "We are honored to be the new broadcast home of such a prestigious and important local event," said John Fink, KFVE's general manager. KFVE is owned by Alabama-based Raycom Media Inc. Last month, TV operators at KGMB-TV, KHNL-TV and KFVE were consolidated under a shared services agreement. Although KITV had submitted a good proposal, KFVE's proposal was stronger, said Roland Yamamoto, who is producing the Merrie Monarch television program along with his partner, Heather Giugni of the Kukui Media Group. The Festival and KFVE have agreed to a 5 year broadcast commitment. Read about it in the Honolulu Advertiser!
*The Kukui Media Group was founded for the purpose of producing the Merrie Monarch broadcast. It's principals are Roland and Heather.
September 20, 2009
Hookui Ka Mana - an invitation-only gathering of cultural practitioners presented by the Edith Kanaka'ole Foundation and held at the Keauhou Beach Hotel. Documented by Juniroa for EKF. See photo above!
August 3, 2009
HKG ARCHIVE initiative held a meeting and nearly all of Hawai’i’s top archivists, librarians and some filmmakers came to listen to David Rowntree's presentation on archival management. My hope is that institutions will work together to create an amazing, state-of-the-art archive. The digital management of new media is a nightmare and the cost to keep it updated, relevant and safe is staggering. We must partner to create a sustainable institution both in the physical realm and the internet world.
June 26, 2009
Juniroa Productions, Inc. ends its partnership with 4 Miles LLC, the producing entity for the 2009 Merrie Monarch Festival broadcast.
June 24, 2009
HKG ARCHIVE UPDATE!!! Please fill out the survey - and get involved!
June 18, 2009
"ONE VOICE" is no ordinary high school musical. The documentary produced by Juniroa Productions in partnership with Pacific Islanders in Communications debuts a rough cut at Kamehameha Schools! Director Extraordinaire LISETTE MARIE FLANARY of New York City is present to show this version to an invited crowd of Kamehameha Schools' administrators, teachers, student participants and their parents/guardians on campus to rave reviews. An hour and a half in length, "ONE VOICE" successfully portrays - as High School Principal Julian Ako expressed in an email to me - "the story of our people's struggle to restore the vibrancy of our culture and language to the nation and the world. There are so many valuable messages that are shared in this documentary. Maika'i loa! We can all be proud of this work!" And from my fan base KS Video Teacher Patricia Gillespie sent me this note: "Heather, You are amazing! I know this was not an easy project. I can just imagine the headaches, but you did it and they love it. Congratulations again! You are a legend!" Ah, clearly an old friend...
For more about "ONE VOICE" go to Juniroa's website!
About the 2008 Annual Kamehameha Schools Song Contest:
- Winner of an EMMY Award for Best Director (Michael Harris, KGMB-TV)
- Winner of a Na Hoku Award for Best DVD (Mountain Apple)
May 2009
David Rowntree is officially hired as Consultant to the first phase of the Henry K. Giugni Archives Project. He spends two weeks meeting with individuals and institutions regarding their video and film collections. His effort will turn into a report of best practices for Hawai'i's future in terms of this archival effort. Click here for more information on Mr. Rowntree.
April 16 - 18, 2009
Juniroa Productions, Inc - a partner of 4 Miles LLC, the producing entity for this year's Merrie Monarch Festival broadcast - is proud to have presented KITV's 2009 Merrie Monarch Festival for the first time in HIGH DEFINITION! For video and competition results please go to http://www.kitv.com or http://www.merriemonarchfestival.org!
March 20, 2009
The 89th Annual Kamehameha Schools Song Contest honoring the music of John K. Almeida broadcast in HIGH DEFINITION live on KGMB-TV and simulcast on the web!
January 27, 2009
Proposals sought for Native Hawaiian archives honoring Henry K. Giugni
January 20, 2009
‘Aha'i Olelo Ola goes to Washington D.C. to cover the Inauguration of Barack Obama
Fall 2008
IMUA Magazine featuring ‘Aha'i Olelo Ola
March 10, 2008
‘Aha'i Olelo Ola – the first Hawaiian Language news segment incorporated into KGMB TV News
Summer 2008
Juniroa Productions Inc. partners with Alphamedia, Liquid Planet Studios and Dirk Fukushima to create 4 Miles LLC, the entity that is contracted by KITV to produce the 2009 Merrie Monarch Festival.
March 14, 2008
KS Song Contest is broadcast LIVE in High Definition! Wins a bronze and a silver TELLY Award!
May 2008
KS Song Contest from 2007 is nominated for a Na Hoku Award!
October 2007
Moloka'i Hoe - Celebrating the 50th crossing of the Moloka'i Channel with the legendary Nappy Napoleon!
June 2007
Juniroa travels with video students from Halau Lokahi to train with Alaskan Native teens at MEDIAK/Chinook Summer Media Camp in Anchorage!