Today is Palm Sunday

Today is Palm Sunday

 It is also a great day to talk about TQ. When you read (and the Advisory Board will do a LOT of reading) about Father Quinlan, descriptors of TQ directly or indirectly characterize him as rebellious, unorthodox, radical, etc. Digging deeper into accounts of TQ’s “escapades” at different parishes, notice how Christmas, Easter, and the days leading to those holy days (Advent, Lent) are the backdrop for TQ’s “adventures in liturgy.”



Here is an excerpt from Chief Justice Antonin Scalia’s biography describing the young lawyer’s search for a family church in Northern Virginia: (click on the article)

To give further hints about the identity of the priest, I present an excerpt from the Senior Times, describing the same event, and putting a little context to what our Chief Justice found “experimental:” (click on the article)

TQ’s margin inscription of Scalia’s biography, “That’s me! Palm Sunday 1972,” confirm he made an impression (for good or ill) on the head of our highest court:

This week’s Advisory Board reading assignment is the 21 October 1974 Time Magazine article “Closing a Clerical Show.” While there is a lot of print (actually, print, video, and radio audio) on TQ, this piece from Time Magazine, is a good starting point for you all to get a sense of TQ. In addition, this is a good place for you to start looking for themes as well as how to condense 50 years of ministry into 90 to 120 minutes.


I like GoogleDocs for editing documents, but for open-ended discussion, I think this blog will facilitate communication between us all. It serves as a central place to see what everyone else has to say. Be sure to bookmark the blog, and leave comments by clicking on “comments” at the bottom. You can subscribe to the blog as well, but I will be pushing out emails to alert you to new blog posts. I look forward to your comments.

Thanks for your time.


Cal
p.s.:  Be sure to post comments, look at the previous posts, and ask questions. - CT

Blog Improvement Plan (Part 6)

Blog Improvement Plan (Part 6)

Okay, let’s wrap this up.  Here is the section on the blog’s content.

The instructions for the final paper in the capstone course were:
Submit a two- to three-page paper providing a brief rationale of the following components used in the creation and development of your Blog:

Purpose (part 1)
Purpose (part 2)
Design
Content
Audience (part 1)
Audience (part 2)

This post wraps up the paper with a discussion of content, the conclusion and the references for the paper.  The paper in its entirety can be found here.  
Content

The advantage of a blog based on a movie in production is an abundance of content.  Location photos, the film’s thesis, raw footage, audio clips and correspondence from interview subjects are all fair game for blog content.  The availability of content relates to Anderson’s Long Tail model of the new economy, which focuses on abundance and the implications of that abundance on the behavior of consumers.  The Long Tail model of web relevance characterizes search engines as time-agnostic, so over time, what comes to the top of search engine lists is not the newest, but the best, based on the number of links and traffic to a particular page (Anderson, 2008, pp. 142-144).  Using the Long Tail model, the content from the blog, if it is relevant, can enjoy a longer life on the web, which feeds into the marketing goals of the blog and the movie.

    Abundance of content dovetails with the Rowse and Garrett’s opinion on granular posts since not only can I serialize long posts,  I can enhance each post with examples from any of the documentary media related to the subject.  In revisiting the Nat Turner topic, I can use transmedia input such as Google Maps to show TQ’s route from Tidewater to Southampton County, footage from TQ’s interview, newspaper pictures and articles on the Easter liturgy.

Augmenting the narrative and visual content of the posts and video/graphics, additional content will relate to Calvin Thomas, the person, with running lists, such as “Guilty Pleasures,” where I will list some of my “toys,” along with a short commentary about them.  “Blast from the Past,” another sub-section of the blog, will feature pictures and short stories chronicling how I got to where I am.  Lists that are more topical will be “Cal’s To-Do” list, an accountability tool showing scans of “to-do” lists I used to finish certain aspects of production.

Conclusion

The individual elements of design, content and audience ultimately must support the primary purpose of the blog.  The milestone goals of the blog, tied to the milestones of production, will evolve over the course of the documentary, but point to the overarching goal of attracting supporters for the documentary and calling them to action.  Central to getting others to spread the word about TQ is connecting the individual stories in each parish, of each person, to the rest of the lives TQ touched.  While the connectivity of the internet and blogs are not a single solution, trading on the strength of the web to make the connections makes the work easier.

Works Cited

Anderson, C. (2008). The Long Tail - Longer - why the future of business is selling less of more. Ney York City: Hyperion.
Biskupic, J. (2009). American Original The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia . New York city: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Bosko, M. S. (2003). The Complete Independent Movie Marketing Handbook - promote, distribute & sell your film or video. Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions.
Faidman, D., & Levelle, T. (2008). Producing With Passion. Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions.
Garfield, S. (2010). Get Seen - online video secrets to building your business. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Reiss, J. (2010). Think Outside The Box Office - the ultimate guide to film distribution in the digital era. Hybrid Cinema Publishing.
Rowse, D., & Garrett, C. (2008). Pro blogger - secrets for blogging your way to a a six-figure income. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing, Inc.
Ruehlmann, B. (2009, March 22). Controversial Priest's Papers Enter Eclectic Collection. The Virginian Pilot .

Next: Prodigal Altar Boy blog as an analogy for my life.