The 2012 Alabama Stars in Education Awards will be broadcast Wednesday, May 9th at 7:00 p.m. on Alabama Public Television. The program will honor inspiring students and teachers from across the state.

Featured in the program will be five Young Heroes, students who have excelled in academics, given of themselves through public service, overcome adversity, or inspired others through their deeds and strength of character. The Young Heroes will be profiled in prerecorded segments produced by Alabama Public Television’s production staff. The five Young Heroes to be featured are:

Ashley Askins – Cherokee High School, Cherokee, AL

Karlie Blankenship – Lawrence County High School, Moulton, AL

Kyantae “K.J.” Jones – Cullman High School, Cullman, AL

Wei Min Patrick – Baker High School, Mobile, AL

Michael Tempero – J.F. Shields High School, Beatrice, AL

The program will also feature a profile of Alabama’s 2011-2012 Teacher of the Year, Dr. Gay Barnes of Horizon Elementary School in Madison, Alabama as well as profiles of the four finalists for 2012-2013 Alabama Teacher of the Year. These prerecorded segments will be produced for Alabama Public Television by the University of Alabama Center for Public Television & Radio with Wendy Reed and me producing.

The four finalists for 2012-2013 Alabama Teacher of the Year are:

Karen M. Clem – Athens High School, Athens, AL

Suzanne Culbreth – Spain Park High School, Hoover, AL

Meghan Everette – George Hall Elementary School, Mobile, AL

Amanda Fox – Greystone Elementary School, Hoover, AL

The 2012-2013 Alabama Teacher of the year and runner-up will be announced in the one-hour program on May 9th.

For more information:
http://www.aptv.org/stars

Max Shores.

Mississippi Chris Sharp and the Jangalang Band, regulars on Sucarnochee Revue

“Sucarnochee Revue,” a weekly TV series featuring music from the Black Belt region of Alabama and Mississippi now airs Tuesday nights at 9:30 on Alabama Public Television’s Family Learning Channel, APT IQ. Recorded before live audiences in Mississippi and Alabama, the series began airing on Mississippi Public Broadcasting some time ago. It is produced by Mississippi Public Broadcasting with crew members from both Mississippi and Alabama, and I have had the honor of directing the programs.

The series name comes from the Sucarnochee Creek which winds through the east Mississippi and west Alabama area known for its rich, black soil. The Black Belt, or Black Prairie as it is also called, was the birthplace of country music legend Jimmie Rogers and blues music legend Howlin’ Wolf. Programs in the series feature music by current favorites from the area and beyond.

Jacky Jack White, a singer/songwriter from Livingston, Alabama is the force behind the series. White began putting together stage shows at the University of West Alabama in Livingston several years ago. The recorded shows grew into a popular radio series which airs on stations across the US and around the world. Stage shows in Meridian, Mississippi were added along the way and TV was just the natural next step. Mississippi Public Broadcasting began recording the shows in the fall of 2010 and the series hit the MPB airwaves a few months later. Now it has come to Alabama Public Television as well.

Regular performers on the series include:

• Britt Gully
• Mississippi Chris Sharp and the Jangalang Band
• Track 45
• J. Burton Fuller
• Jessica Strenth
• The Sucarnochee Stage Hands, a couple of University of West Alabama students who began working on the stage shows behind the scenes but were drafted to perform because they are very talented singers.

Max Shores.

Microwave Dave performs at the annual Alabama Cigar Box Guitar Festival

The 8th Annual Alabama Cigar Box Guitar Festival (now renamed “The Flying Monkey Arts Cigar Box Guitar Festival”) will take place on Friday, June 1st and Saturday, June 2nd, 2012 in Huntsville, Alabama. This is the event at which most of my documentary, “Songs Inside The Box” was shot several years ago.

The event attracts cigar box guitar enthusiasts from across the eastern U. S. and is a fun outing for anyone interested in these unique instruments.

Times and performers have not been announced at this writing but the fun is scheduled to run from 6pm to 9pm on Friday night and all day Saturday.

I shot some video of performances at the festival last year which you can watch here.

Max Shores.

1:30 p.m. – Opening
1:45 p.m. – Selected films from previous winners
2:00 p.m. – Presentation with judge Max Shores

Single Camera Production with Multiple Angle Results – How to make your single camera production look like multiple cameras were used

3:00 p.m. – Break
3:15 p.m. – Presentation of 2012 Entries
4:00 p.m. – Break
4:15 p.m. – Awards Ceremony
4:45 p.m. – Adjourn

My fellow jurors include Don Tingle, Director for the Alabama Filmmakers Co-op in Huntsville, AL and Phillip Gentile of the University of Southern Mississippi. I’m really looking forward to this event and I am honored to be involved.

For more information including a list of films and filmmakers involved, visit the Tupelo Film Festival website.

Max Shores.

Sunset over Kudzu

Multimedia author Eric Model recently interviewed me about kudzu, “the vine that ate the South.” Years ago I did a documentary about how the kudzu vine has affected Southern culture (The Amazing Story of Kudzu) and I have since been sought as an authority on the subject several times. It was a fun interview, so I’d like to share it here.

Inspired by the late Charles Kuralt’s “On the Road” reports for CBS, Model is following the presidential primary trail and seeking the “offbeat, off the beaten path, overlooked, and forgotten.” During the time the South Carolina primary was dominating the national news, he noticed an awful lot of kudzu growing in South Carolina and wanted to find out more about it. That’s why he gave me a call.

Here’s a link to the podcast.

Max Shores.

With the dawn of a new year it seems appropriate to take stock of the past and plan for the future. 2011 was an exciting year in many ways and 2012 brings challenging new opportunities.

Over the past 20 years I have produced a variety of documentaries. I am extremely grateful to my employer, the University of Alabama Center for Public TV & Radio for the opportunity to do so, and I have often commented about how fortunate I felt to work in my dream job. The funding for new documentaries has dwindled over the last couple of years, but some of my past documentaries continued to reach new audiences in 2011.

As 2011 began, “Songs Inside the Box” was presented at the Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland, Australia. It was awarded First Place Documentary by the Prometheus Film Festival in August and was screened in Paris, France in October. Selected scenes from the documentary were part of a special exhibit on cigar box guitars at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, California for several months in 2011.

I was honored to present “Richard Johnston: Hill Country Troubadour” to an enthusiastic audience in Huntsville, Alabama in June 2011. I wish I could have been there when it was screened in Paris, France in October and Rome, Italy in November but I received good feedback from both events.

I was also honored to serve as a juror for the High School Film category for the 2011 On Location Memphis Film Festival and the 2011 Mississippi High School Film Competition. The latter event, held in Tupelo, offered me the wonderful opportunity to meet with the students in the competition. Some of them said they planned to attend the University of Alabama because of the excellent communications programs offered here. Being a part of those programs is a source of great pride for me. I taught “Intro to Media Production” classes in both the Spring and Fall semesters of 2011.

2011 also brought opportunities to collaborate with my colleagues at Alabama Public Television (APT) and Mississippi Public Broadcasting (MPB). The UA Center for Public Television & Radio joined with APT to produce “Alabama Stars in Education” in May and I have been working with MPB as director of “Sucarnochee Revue,” a music series which airs on both Alabama and Mississippi public TV stations each week.

I also had the privilege of collaborating with my colleagues at Alabama Public Radio for part of 2011 as the editor of weekly commentaries by Kathryn Tucker Windham.

Midway through 2011, I began working with the development of new content for the University of Alabama’s TV stations WVUA and WUOA. I am producing short documentaries for the stations and I look forward to what the future holds in 2012.

Max Shores.

Jacky Jack White and Britt Gully

Editor’s Note: Sucarnochee Revue‘s run on Alabama Public Television’s primary channel has ended, but the programs now air Tuesday nights at 9:30 on APT IQ.

“Sucarnochee Revue,” a weekly TV series featuring music from the Black Belt region of Alabama and Mississippi now airs Thursday nights at 10:30 on Alabama Public Television. Recorded before live audiences in Mississippi and Alabama, the series began airing on Mississippi Public Broadcasting some time ago. It is produced by Mississippi Public Broadcasting with crew members from both Mississippi and Alabama, and I have had the honor of directing the programs.

The series name comes from the Sucarnochee Creek which winds through the east Mississippi and west Alabama area known for its rich, black soil. The Black Belt, or Black Prairie as it is also called, was the birthplace of country music legend Jimmie Rogers and blues music legend Howlin’ Wolf. Programs in the series feature music by current favorites from the area and beyond.

Jacky Jack White, a singer/songwriter from Livingston, Alabama is the force behind the series. White began putting together stage shows at the University of West Alabama in Livingston several years ago. The recorded shows grew into a popular radio series which airs on stations across the US and around the world. Stage shows in Meridian, Mississippi were added along the way and TV was just the natural next step. Mississippi Public Broadcasting began recording the shows in the fall of 2010 and the series hit the MPB airwaves a few months later. Now it has come to Alabama Public Television as well.

Regular performers on the series include:

• Britt Gully
• Mississippi Chris Sharp and the Jangalang Band
• Track 45
• J. Burton Fuller
• Jessica Strenth
• The Sucarnochee Stage Hands, a couple of University of West Alabama students who began working on the stage shows behind the scenes but were drafted to perform because they are very talented singers.

Max Shores.

“Richard Johnston: Hill Country Troubadour,” a documentary from the University of Alabama Center for Public Television and Radio, will be shown in Rome, Italy as a part of the 7th annual Mojo Station Blues Festival. The three day festival features performances by blues musicians and films on blues related subjects.

The Mojo Station radio program was created by Gianluca Diana and Pietropaolo Moroncelli in 2002 to celebrate and promote blues music in Italy. The program led to the creation of the Mojo Station Blues Society, a non profit organization, which established the Mojo Station Blues Festival in 2005. Each year the festival brings live blues music and documentary films to an appreciative audience in Rome.

“Richard Johnston: Hill Country Troubadour” will screen on Friday, November 4th at the Cinema Palazzo. The film film tells the story of a Memphis, Tennessee based musician who draws his inspiration from the hill country style of music from north Mississippi. Johnston is a popular performer at venues around the world but at the time the documentary was shot, he was performing primarily on the sidewalk along Beale Street in Memphis. The documentary has been screened at film festivals across the US and Europe and has won five festival awards. It was produced and directed by Max Shores.

For more information:
The Mojo Station Program Podcast
Richard Johnston: Hill Country Troubadour (info about the film)

Max Shores.

Two documentaries produced by the University of Alabama will be screened in Paris, France during October, 2011. The documentaries, originally made for broadcast in Alabama, have both had an impact well beyond the boundaries of the state.

“Richard Johnston: Hill Country Troubadour” will screen as a part of the Raw Sounds Movie Club on October 17th at Le Fanfaron (6 rue de la Main d’Or). The film, which won the Best Alabama Film Award at the 2007 George Lindsey UNA Film Festival, tells the story of a Memphis, Tennessee musician who was performing frequently in Alabama during the time it was produced. Johnston draws his inspiration from a unique style of blues music that comes from north Mississippi’s hill country and the film serves as an introduction to the musician and the style of music. It has been shown across the US, England, and Germany but this screening will be the French premiere.

“Songs Inside The Box” will screen during the Cigar Box Guitare Mini-Festival on October 22nd at Boullion Belge (6 Rue Planchat). The film chronicles an Alabama cigar box guitar festival which attracts participants from across the US. It recently won the Best Feature Length Documentary Award at the 2011 Prometheus Film Festival and portions of the documentary are currently being shown at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles as a part of an exhibit of cigar box guitars. Through “Songs Inside The Box,” the Alabama festival has led to similar festivals around the world and the film will be shown at the first such festival in Paris. It has previously screened in Australia, England, Germany, and across the US.

Both documentaries were directed by Max Shores at the UA Center for Public Television and Radio. The Center was created in 1955 to produce programming for the newly formed Alabama Public Television network of stations covering the state. For the past 20 years the department has focused primarily on the production of single topic documentaries which have shared aspects of life in Alabama and the southeastern US with audiences around the world. In addition to broadcast distribution, CPT&R documentaries have been screened at international film festivals where they have won awards.

The presentation of these two music documentaries within one week in Paris is a coincidence but the stories told by the two films are related. It was through Richard Johnston’s use of cigar box guitars that director Shores learned of the widespread interest in the instruments and the Alabama festival that brings cigar box guitar makers and musicians together.

Max Shores.

As the Fall 2011 semester begins, the University of Alabama Center for Public Television is seeking applications from students who are interested in working in television production. Both paid and non-paying internship positions are open for application at this time.

For over 50 years, the Center for Public Television has produced programs for broadcast on Alabama Public Television. In addition, the center has recently made a commitment to produce several weekly series for the University’s TV stations, WVUA and WUOA.

Public television projects under production include the weekly series, Bookmark and Discovering Alabama as well as individual documentary topics. Projects for WVUA/WUOA include The Iron Bowl Hour, a new weekly series to premiere on Friday, September 2nd and other concepts under development.

Available position include:

• On-Camera Talent
• Assistant Producer
• Editor

To apply, download the application and submit it to the Center for Public Television.

For more information about student positions, contact Mike Letcher at 205-348-6210, or e-mail mletcher@cpt.ua.edu.

Max Shores.