Loni Ding Celebration at UC Berkeley

On September 26, 2010, a celebration of the life and work of Loni Ding was organized by the Ethnic Studies Department and Asian American Studies Program at UC Berkeley, with the participation of the Center for Asian American Media.Memories of Loni and Open Studio by Daniel Del Solar
April 9, 2010
Loni Ding was part of the Open Studio production team at KQED-TV in 1974 when I applied to be the outreach and fund-raising person at Open Studio. The principal idea of Open Studio was right on the original Public Broadcasting mission, of giving voices and faces of the not-represented on TV people, cultures, arts, and issues. Open Studio staff, originally gathered together and trained to operate an entire TV station (Channel 32, a frequency given to KQED, Inc., license holder of Channel 9 and FM 88.5 in San Francisco), had been denied the promised KQED support to operate the station. Open Studio, a weekday program, was given instead, with minimal financial support.
KQED, Inc., later lost the license for lying to the FCC regarding the reason for not actually using the frequency.
I gradually became part of the production team at Open Studio, producing several shows on Community Murals, Quilapayun, and others, in addition to my outreach and fundraising work. I was the host of a program produced and directed by Loni with Stephen Dimitroff and Lucienne Bloch titled “Fresco Murals” and in my role learned the intricacies of production pre-planning necessary due to our extremely limited “camera time.” Production slot for a complicated, multi-set production was 90 minutes, start to finish. This allowed for one or two “tape stops” of the big, unwieldy 2″ videotape machines. It took several minutes to restart after a tape stop.
And amidst the high-pressure schedule, each of the three Open Studio producers, Loni Ding, Irene del Rosario Buck, and Valentine Herz, had to shoot two half-hour programs each week, be in preparation with two programs in the coming week, and in early pre-production for two more programs two weeks further in the future. Always it was working with individuals and groups that had only a minimal understanding of the elements of a 30 minute TV program so considerable “ground work” was necessary for each production. Whatever the limitations, financial and technical, Open Studio programs won local Emmy awards and it was a well-regarded program offering of KQED-TV.
Into this high-pressure production group, Loni began to do work required to produce a TV program on the Chinese Archeological Exhibition, an early attempt by China to become less isolated from the world. The exhibition had taken place in Paris and in Washington, D.C., and through the efforts of many had finally been scheduled to be at the de Young Museum. Loni worked at top speed, without any money, without any grants, and finally, through her relentless and effective outreach, had a production crew ready to go to the exhibit overnight, starting at 10 pm and going till 7 am, for four nights to do the principal photography of the exhibition that became part of the 90 minute PBS special titled, “600 Millennia: China’s History Unearthed.”
After the last night of shooting, Loni needed a lift back to her home near Chinatown and I gave her a ride. On the way home Loni suggested that we go get some dim sum, at the time, a food unknown to me. At the small restaurant in Chinatown, Loni suggested that I might like to try chicken feet. I agreed, and a plate of chicken feet, well-cooked and delicious, arrived at our table and I ate them with great pleasure. Then Loni suggested that I try duck feet, which were also quite good, but not as good as the chicken feet, in my opinion. I was hooked.
I always seek out chicken feet when I get to a new Chinese restaurant. It is an addiction which I greatfully attribute to my on-going collegial friendship I’ve had with Loni. She leaves a great legacy in terms of the many that she has trained, taught, and worked with.
Loni Ding, PRESENTE!

LA VOZ DE GUAICAIPURO

Daniel Del Solar recently visited a small radio station in Venezuela in the region known as Los Teques. The studio has a large portrait of Oscar Romero, the priest who was killed by death squads of the right wing government in El Salvador.The radio station has an emphasis on ecology.Daniel del Solar was interviewed on their afternoon talk show.Their bulletin board lists tasks to be performed by volunteers and scheduled meetings.
This is their disk and record archive. They have three small rooms in a mountainous neighborhood outside of Caracas.
This Guaicaipuro station is very small. This is the engineer. Community radio in Venezuela has been growing in the past few years. The spectrum which was used mostly by large commercial stations is now divided between many small community radio and tv channels. A few weeks ago the Venezuelan government denied the renewal of a license for transmission of RCTV, a large commercial station, charging that the station had been instrumental in fomenting and supporting the attempted coup. This caused a great deal of reaction by the corporate press and many NGOS in the US, who saw this as censorship. Despite those charges, that station was not "closed down" -- they did lose their government license to the public airwavess but the right wing commercial station continues with their anti-Chavez attacks on cable and the internet. The spectrum that they were using will be divided between thirty small community stations. (However this claim which I got from a response article is disputed by the comment below from the director of Artevision and a producer at Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela .)Radio Guaicaipuro is one of the many community media outlets which has been supported by the Chavez government.
Comments:
Anonymous said...
With all due respect, but I find your comments at least inaccurate and frankly, very misleading.

For instance, when you say "that station was not closed down - they did lose their government license to the public airwavess but the right wing commercial station continues with their anti-Chavez attacks on cable and the internet." you seem to ignore that only 15% of Venezuelans have access to Internet or Cable TV. The truth is that for the vast majority of Venezuelans the station has been in fact "shut down". They are not longer allowed to watch it, if they wanted to.

Also when you say "The spectrum that they were using will be divided between thirty small community stations" you seem to be badly misinformed. Firstly, this is not technically possible, but more important, the spectrum is being used by a new state-controlled TV station (the 5th) called TVes. It is very hard to believe that you didn't know that.

RCTV was not only shut down, but its broadcasting network was confiscated by the State. In fact, TVes is currently using this equipment - for free- to reach the Venezuelan audiences.

Finally, community stations are a great idea. Some of them existed before Chavez came into power and did a very good job for their communities. Unfortunately, during Mr Chavez administration the vast majority of them has been converted into government propaganda outlets. With the government having the right to close stations whenever it wants, and being the only source of funding for this so called "community" stations, believing that these stations are truly independent voices is just a very naive dream

Truly yours,

Rafael Hidalgo

4:49 AM


DeeDee Halleck said...
Thanks for your comment. I had read an earlier comment that there would be 30 smaller stations set up-- perhaps they are local versions of TVes?

If you are the same Rafael Hidalgo who runs Artevision, could you give any information about what sorts of pressures you are getting from the government or from outside sources, funding and other wise? Given the long history of destabilization by the US of progressive states within Latin America, I would think that there is a big opportunity now from places like the Inter American Development Bank, World Bank, etc, for those who would be willing to take a strong anti-Chavez stand.

By the way, I did a film called The Gringo in Mañanaland about the US and Latin America.
I have a spanish version which I could send to you.
dhalleck@ucsd.edu

7:50 AM