Video Of Rockville Central Candidate Forum

Readers, thank you very much for waiting so patiently for us to upload video from> Saturday morning’s candidate forum. We’ve gotten a lot of really exciting feedback from the event.

You would not believe how tough it was to get this video file in shape to post. Turns out working with a two-hour video file is qualitatively different than working with 10 minute YouTube posts. We also had some technical issues during the event that cropped up in the sound (low volume level, intermittent buzzing, and I think one of the microphone cables was going bad at the end there) that we did not realize during shooting. So those had to be fixed.

With all that, I did the bare minimum when it comes to subtitles. The first time each person appears, we run their name as a subtitle. (Cindy Cotte Griffiths’ subtitle actually runs on her second appearance, as her first was brief and I misplaced the subtitle during editing. Sorry Cindy!)

We only show names once, so if you forget who someone is in the middle, I recommend you pause and go look at a website for their face!

Because it is such a long video, we were not able to upload full “high quality” so when you watch it may be slightly reminiscent of 2005. And, since we just had the one camera, there are no slick cuts between speakers. Tim Hampton had to pan from person to person and sometimes we talked faster than he could pan.

All this is to say, please forgive us if it is not exactly broadcast quality.

But our chief goal — to post it so people could see — was achieved. And so without further ado, we give you, THE VIDEO:

Rockville Central Candidate Forum, October 24, 2009 from Brad Rourke on Vimeo.

Also, at the forum, I promised I would upload the detailed agenda that Cindy and I worked from. We wanted to make sure there was full transparency and you could see we did not alter question order based on which candidates were up next or anything like that. So, I’ve posted a PDF scan of my agenda notes here.

As near as I can recall, we only made two deviations from what we planned. First, in the “introductions” segment at the beginning, our plan was to ask each candidate a quick question then go on to the next. But when I saw that the microphone handoff was going to be possibly problematic, I decided to ask each candidate all four questions in a row. I think that worked pretty well.

The other change was at the end, where we squished together the final two questions and the candidates made closing statements. I signaled I was doing that in the event, but I wanted to call attention to that change as well. In all other respects, I believe we stuck to the script! (The “Tom” I wrote in the margin of the agenda is Tom Miner, whom I had forgotten to thank personally by that point and so I wrote his name down to remember.)

One last thing. I promised a full accounting of the costs of the event. The rental of the facility was $140 (plus or minus a few dollars — I will know when we get our security deposit back), and the coffee and donuts were $100.46. About $17 for the digital video tape. Cindy and I split the tab for all that, and, as I said in the event, we regard it as a contribution to the civic life of the community. We paid standard rate for everything — the same you would have paid if you were throwing a birthday party or reception. We considered passing a basket at the event to defray costs but ultimately decided that might be weird.

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