Jerod Tate talks about creativity
Jerod Tate on set before the interview
David Jones and I traveled to Ada early today to catch up with Jerod Tate, a world famous Native American composer. The interview was the first in a series upcoming for the State of Creativity project.
Creative Oklahoma is identifying existing areas of creativity in Oklahoma. We are connecting individuals to actions and developing new initiatives that connect 21st century learning to entrepreneurial efforts and cultural change. Ours is really a grassroots movement of all types of citizens, working together, to recognize and act upon valuable creative ideas that will advance our schools, our communities, and our state forward in the decades ahead.
So Jerod Tate was the first person we interviewed on camera for this series that aims to drive conversation on stateofcreativity.com. Tate is Chickasaw and has had many works performed nationally. From his web site:
Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate was born in 1968 in Norman, Oklahoma and is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. Mr. Tate is dedicated to the development of American Indian classical composition, and a recent review by The Washington Post states that “Tate’s connection to nature and the human experience was quite apparent in this piece…rarer still is his ability to effectively infuse classical music with American Indian nationalism.” This review was a response to a recent performance of Iholba (The Vision), for Solo Flute, Orchestra and Chorus, which was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra and premiered at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Aldridge coffee shop on Saturday morning
Jones and I arrived in downtown Ada a little before our scheduled 10 am shoot. I had a steaming hot cup of coffee from the Aldridge coffee shop located in the Aldridge building next to the Aldridge theatre.
Nicest people working at the coffee shop. Looked like a crowd of usuals.
We were supposed to meet Jerod Tate at the Chicksaw multimedia center at 10 am, but the place was dark and no one appeared to be inside. And Jones rang the buzzer to no answer.
So we decided to wait.
Looking around downtown Ada, one thing became clear. If one were looking for very cheap clothing, this might be the place. Across the street was a rack of clothes marked “Free.” You don’t see that often.
We wandered over, killing time. One t-shirt said “Abstinence.” John Deer tractor-style caps were going for a dime. Down the street were jeans starting at $5. Deals everywhere.
Still no Jerod so we walked past the Curl N Fade to Hamburger King, not to be confused with Burger King.
Bacon cheeseburger please. Let’s not mess around. Give me the grease and let’s not pretend we’re being healthy here. Burger was great. And they sold fish fry seasoning or fish coating mix as they called it.
Back outside, this time Jerod Tate was at the Chickasaw multimedia center and apparently had been there all along, in the back with Robby, a producer who turned out to save us a tremendous amount of time.
Bacon cheeseburger at Hamburger King in Ada
So after an hour of time killing, t-shirt shopping, burger eating and iPhone picture taking, we sat down with Jerod Tate. I fired away with about 10 questions, I had watched a few other interviews Tate had given and wanted to ask a few questions that occurred to me after seeing those interviews.
Jones shot with our standard JVC rig, which we also used to capture audio from the interview. Beside the JVC, we used our new favorite toy, the Canon EOS 5D because of its rich depth of field picture.
Interview went great, footage looked amazing. Jerod Tate provided great soundbites and knowledgeable answers.
Mission accomplished. Looking forward to editing the interview this next week.
Comic-Con bringing out the A-list stars
Spoke with Matt Price, features editor of The Oklahoman and blogger extraordinaire of Nerdage, this morning.
Price is in San Diego for Comic-Con. Via iChat we spoke for about five minutes. We pulled in his iChat feed through our switcher. I could hear him through our IFB system, he heard me through his earpiece in his Mac’s headphone port. It’s not a broadcast set up, but it worked for us.
About 120,000 people are rumored to attend this year’s comic festival. Some big name Hollywood stars like Johnny Depp have attended and more, such as Megan Fox, are expected.
Price mentioned the Twilight cast spoke yesterday and 2,000 waited in line the night before for a chance inside. He also spoke about the Green Lantern premiere, Marvel animation and James Cameron’s screening of his new 3D adventure Avatar.
The big ticket still to come: Iron Man 2. That’s tomorrow. Check out Matt Price’s Nerdage blog for the latest.
Eight videos for your Friday
So here’s eight videos we put together over the past few days. And you know what that means: video montage.
- The Thunder Girls have one spot left. Angi Bruss and Kyle Roberts take you Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill for the final auditions and let you meet the two finalists.
- Angi also spoke with American Idol finalists Diana De Garmo and Anthony Fedorov, they stopped by our studios yesterday. They are performing in Lyric Theatre’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” at the Civic Center.
- Angi’s been a busy girl this week. Oak Tree National held its grand re-opening Wednesday. Angi finds out just what makes Oak Tree National Teaching Centre such a special place to learn the art of golf.
- Videographer Tanner Herriott is on his way to China, before he left he shot this piece. Blind and low vision Oklahoma youth gain independence and confidence at Oklahomans Without Limits Summer Camp.
- We take a look at the Sooners’ defense from the 2009 Red-White game.
- In news, crews battle Oklahoma City grass fires.
- Former Oklahoma chief Medical Examiner Kevin Rowland has been indicted twice, in the first indictment he was charged on four counts of sexual battery. The second indictment will be made public today in Oklahoma City.
- And finally this week of Static features Tulsa artist Fiawna Forte. She wrote her first song when she was 2 years old. What were you doing at 2?
