Category: The Palette Project

New and Improved, News You Can Use

Posted on by Michael

News you can use. USA Today created the phrase, and I am hereby appropriating it. Starting this Monday, the Palette Project blog is adding an exciting new series of posts as a result of not only the first completed legs of the documentary, but also from  years of experience on the road in news and production.

Every Monday, The Crayon Box blog will have useful travel tips that  can help make your own adventures more fun, more meaningful, and more enjoyable. I also want to make sure to add tips that will make your travel safer, and I can tell you… there is no shortage of information in any of these areas.

The Thursday blog postings will remain dedicated to the more personal aspects of this journey. This blog began as a way of communicating what it’s like to be living through this kind of a challenge… the prospect of losing my sight, but maintaining a vision… and that hasn’t changed. I’m dedicated to living a life of urgency expressed through action, of outreach accomplished through awareness and of creating results from this work. It’s all about changing perspectives, raising expectations and telling stories that matter. That won’t change. Ever.

So while you’re reading this, glance to the right of the screen. There’s a “Susbscribe via Email” button that you can use to make sure you get valuable information and personal insights. It’s all happening here, and I need your help to spread the message of our mission.

Onwards!

One... But Not Done

Same Planet, Different Worlds

Posted on by Michael
Australian entry stamp
Australian entry stamp

I think it was Gary Larsen who coined the phrase “Same planet, different worlds.” In the Far Side world, the phrase was used in a cartoon divided into two panels. The top panel was a guy sitting in bed with a thought balloon that read”I wonder if she likes me. I sure like her. It would be great if she likes me. I just like her so much…” and so forth. The bottom panel of the cartoon showed a woman in her own bed, and her thought balloon read, “You know, I think I like vanilla.”

Sometimes, Larsen just hit the nail right on the head, but what I’m thinking about right now when it comes to that same planet/different worlds concept is what it felt like in the line to clear customs upon entering Australia. Forgive me Gary, I’m repurposing your genius.

It was just past 5 a.m. in Melbourne and we had touchdown in Australia after a fifteen hour flight from Los Angeles. I was feeling no pain. I was way too excited to have any jet lag… although the nine hours of sleep I had managed to square away on the flight was also a nice add. However, I can imagine that for the unlucky soul who was stuck working pre-dawncustoms detail, this was not exactly how he wanted to spend his Friday. Me? There was no place on earth I would rather be. At 44, I was about to get my first passport stamp. Very late in coming, but it was finally here. All those people who say that they can’t wait to get their next passport stamp? I was about to become one of those people. I don’t particularly like the word “amped,” smacking as it does of a level of dudeness I cannot pretend to have, even after five years of living in California, but I was… amped.

It was hard not to notice, though, that the customs officer could only have been more bored if he had also been assigned to watch almost any episode of Downton Abbey while on duty, perhaps the one where we don’t know if Maggie Smith is going to take a dive in the annual flower show competition until the last five minutes of the show. I’m pretty sure nothing registered, or if he even looked up, as he stamped my passport with its inaugural stamp. Just another Qantas passenger moving over to the domestic terminal for the last part of the itinerary.

I could not have cared less. In my world, the best part of the journey was happening right there. Or rather, this was already a high point while on the trajectory of a journey that kept getting better, the first part had not disappointed.

What I want to say here is that there is a place for youthful idealism and excitement no matter how old you are. There is a place for finally following through on your dreams, and that a dream deferred is not always a dream denied if you finally follow through.

Ducks in Their Rows

Posted on by Michael

As we get closer to takeoff for The Palette Project’s first two colors, I find myself becoming more comfortable with my filmmaker’s hat. Thankfully, it helps that I still had my reporter’s hat stashed in the closet, and although took a few adjustments to get it cinched correctly, it still fits remarkably well after all these years.

Turns out being in daily news is, well, if not identical to working on a documentary, very much in the same language family. I can’t presume to say the deadline pressure is identical, but traveling to the other side of the world and having one chance to get the footage on specifics days… or else… well, it’s at least congruent. Certainly the beginning of production is a pretty ironclad deadline.

So in one sense, worlds are colliding – my past life as reporter, and my current one as a director, but the world of freedom a reporter live in is so vastly different than the world of filmmaking. Working reporters are probably doing a spit-take over the idea that there is  world of freedom in that job, but to quote the great Joni Mitchell, you don’t know what you have ’til it’s gone. The ability to just show up and shoot what you need in the bvast majority of places you want to go is reason enough to stay in the business. For the naysayers, I would refer you to the seven filming permits that our little dog and pony show is required to carry in order to shoot in locations where a reporter could simply just show up and start shooting without any warning whatsoever.

This, by the way, concludes today’s entry in the “grass is always greener…” files.

What thrills me most about finally taking off is the idea of finally putting my virtual money where my virtual mouth is. My skin in the game, as it were, is living up to pretty big talk on my end that people with a physical challenge are just as capable of fulfilling the expectations accorded anyone else who just want their shot. Visually impaired photographer directing a documentary… and even shooting part of it? Tall order. Doable? In theory, sure. You can strap a GoPro camera onto a dog and get interesting footage. Does it have a consistent and unique creative vision? Directing that vision hopefully where everything up to this point in my life leads to this.

What’s about to happen is new territory, because unlike all those years in news, the risk is real. I don’t have a backup plan for failed footage or missing a deadline. There is no backup package from the feed that can run in my place if we don’t deliver. There is no other reporter or backup filler vo to pad the show. It’s California or bust, or in this case Australia or bust.

That fear of failure is both real and very, very exciting.

Angry Cows And Other Musings From Working in a Television Newsroom

Posted on by Michael

I don’t think it’s fair that one of the most poignant comments I’ve ever heard about living in the moment was spoken by a second billing character on The Office. But most of the mental scar tissue that comes from working in a television newsroom leaves a person with a lifeboat of unintended consequences.

Working in a television newsroom, the cow connection
Oh, I’m going somewhere with this

I used to have this keychain. A knickknack I picked up in a place I know not where, or so it would be written in a more poetic blog than this. Like all keychains, its real purpose was to express the personality of the person who owned the keys it chained. That’s really a lot to ask out of a keychain, when you think about it, but mine served its purpose well. . A cartoon picture of a cow in the middle of a grassy pasture, with the caption “Outstanding in the Field” written across the bottom. For a guy who truly appreciates the value of a good “man walks into a bar” joke, this was comedy gold.

It bears repeating. Forty-three and single. It’s all starting to make a bit more sense.

I had been working in a television newsroom in Sioux Falls for just shy of three months, and on election night 1993, I found myself on the outskirts of a small town called Vermillion, many miles and a world away from my home away from home, the television newsroom. For everyone playing “Alma Maters of the Broadcast News Anchors” bingo, you’ll want to check your cards for Vermillion, because this is where Tom Brokaw went to college. Vermillion is the home of the University of South Dakota… if anything served as a barometer of the excitement level of this election cycle, the  Continue reading “Angry Cows And Other Musings From Working in a Television Newsroom” →

Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Orange, Purple, Brown, Black

Posted on by Michael

The most surprising part about learning to navigate the world with very little sight is discovering how much of the heavy lifting has already been done, at least when it comes to making the world at least somewhat manageable. This is having a direct impact on my plans for international travel, not to mention my life in general.

Take stairs, for example.  Missing a step is a very easy mistake when you can’t see the bottom of a staircase, so new staircases built to code today are designed so at the bottom, the rail levels out to be parallel with the floor at exactly the point where the last step ends.  That way, you know you’re on level ground.

Here’s another one: I never noticed the little nubbin on the number “5” key on Continue reading “Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Orange, Purple, Brown, Black” →