PROGRAM SCHEDULE
Thursday, December 4, 2008
8:30 AM
News & Views: Chris Dirk
9:00 AM
Speaking Frankly: Ramsey McPhillips
9:30 AM
Arts Alive: Frank Kalwicz
10:00 AM
NASA Programming
2:00 PM
Classic Arts Showcase
5:00 PM
JCVH1
5:30 PM
3rd Street Holiday Parade
6:00 PM
Community Cantata Choir: Unspeakable Joy
7:00 PM
McMinnville City Club: New Faces in McMinnville
8:00 PM
Steven Wax at MAC Peace Event
9:00 PM
Christmas with the Trail Band
10:30 PM
Mixer Minus 1 at the MCM Grand
11:00 PM
Arts Alive Music Special: Elwyn Behnke

 

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LATEST NEWS
 

 

Producer Spotlight

Focus on TOD BUTTERFIELD

 

Perhaps more than any other group, people of faith have used community media as a vehicle to send their message to the local population. Recordings of church services have been a staple of community media programming throughout the United States since its inception in the early 1980s.

Tod Butterfield, an MCM community producer, is clearly part of this tradition but he delivers his message with a different beat. Tod is the producer of JCVH-1, a youth oriented Christian music video program. JCVH-1 has been showcasing the latest in contemporary Christian music on MCM and CCTV (in Salem) for 10 years. Wow!

Tod agreed to share his community media story with us.

How did you get started with your show, JCVH-1?

Almost 10 yrs ago I was doing some local things with the public access here in town on 3rd Street. Ruben Contreras (then AT & T Community Access Director) and I were talking about ways to use public access and how broad a medium it is, how far reaching.

The only message I really want to give is the Gospel, the Good News. Ruben and I talked about Christian music video shows and it was Ruben’s idea that I start one. He was goofing around with me and he named the show. Instead of VH-1, he suggested JCVH-1 and I thought it was a good idea. I mulled it over for a few months and decided I really wanted to do it.


I was commuting to Salem as a teacher and I took some production classes at CCTV in Salem. Liz was my teacher for camera and editing and I got fired up and started having fun shooting skaters in Keizer. I used that footage in between songs. It took me about a year to find a way to get the music companies to send the videos directly to me.

How did you do that?

At first I though I would just call the record companies. Eventually I found two or three companies that were exclusively focused on sending music videos out to shows like mine – some are on broadcast TV, some are on public access. I filled out all their paperwork and they started sending me videos. The first chunk I got was a box full of VHS and Beta tapes. McMinnville Access moved up to Newberg, so I would go up there to do some of my editing and transfer the tapes into a format that I could use. Now I work with two main companies, one in Nashville and one in New Jersey. That keeps me in all the videos I could ever need.

Sometimes on your show you are at a concert or interviewing performers. How do you get access to the shows and the performers?

There’s an annual event in George, Washington called Creation Festival West. There are usually about 40,000 campers there. Every name in mainstream Christian music is there as well as those performing punk, hard core, metal and rap. The fringe sounds have their own stage which is often simultaneous with the mainstream bands. There’s a worship tent with artists doing the latest worship things. It’s a huge venue. There is one on the East Coast, too.

All the names in Christian music are playing there and most of them will come through the press tent. Most of them will agree to have a camera set up. I usually set up next to their speaker so I can get good sound. And if I’m lucky enough, they will call on me and I’ll ask a question so they’re looking right at my camera, so it looks like I’m interviewing this top star.

In between the music videos, you deliver your Gospel message to what you imagine is a youth audience. Why are you doing this in a music video context?

To me, the music is the hook. I am very interested in well made music videos and I am very interested in Christian music. My belief is that music was originally designed to give God glory and that’s what it’s best used for. Many, many times I’ve had people who have watched the show because the video grabs their attention. Then there’s a one or two minute message that’s just long enough to give them some truth that perks their interest in Jesus. Again, the original idea came from Ruben. He thought that a show like this would reach more people on a regular basis than any youth pastor could ever hope to reach, even if he had a 200-300 person youth group. The odds are that the show would reach a lot more than that, people who don’t necessarily go to church. That was very exciting to me – to get to the folks who have heard the Good News presented to them in a simple way.

Do you receive contact from your viewers thru the email and website addresses you mention on the show?

Yes. Over the years I’ve had contact every time I solicit it directly. I get emails off and on, people who want to say thanks for putting the show on. When I have giveaways I get a lot of attention.—the record companies give me stuff to give away, and that’s usually the most effective.

Do people send tell you about their spiritual experiences?

Mostly I hear from Christians who are happy to see the message out there and think it’s great to see a show that has a good message.

Why the special mission to reach out to youth?

Having been a teacher since 1988 and having been a rebellious youth myself at one time, I just have a heart for people who think in an alternative way. There are enough alternative videos to meet their needs. Not very long ago I worked with at risk teens in the classroom. I was really thinking of them every time I put the show together because I knew what was appealing to them. It was the same style of music but it was music with a really bad message. I knew what the message was because they would sit there in class and say it! And it was horrible – you know, killing cops, cussing and all kinds of crazy stuff. I wanted to show them that they could have the same kind of awesome, grabby sound with a message that could change their lives.

Having a series on community TV for 10 years – you’ve seen a lot of technical changes – from VHS to DVD, from editing on analog, linear decks to editing at home on your computer – what has that been like?

My pastor’s dad had a VHS camera and it was great, I was on the cutting edge!
But I’ll never forget, one day I was going thru CCTV and I saw a staff member editing in a different format – non linear – so as soon as I could get my hands on one of their new cameras, I was out there using that. It took a long time to get my computer to be able to capture the video, edit and send it back to tape, and now, DVD. But the software has become so universal. Just watch YouTube and GodTube -- so many folks are making videos, and that’s made the technology much smoother working. Now I get Videomaker magazine and I see that the HD cameras are coming down in price…I get excited about all the toys and gizmos that come with the new technologies.

You work independently – have you ever considered taking on a partner?

I would love to share the show with others. I did have a helper once for a little while, he was great! He took my camera to Creation Festival and got all kinds of footage – he did some hosting of the show, he was a natural. He shot video at his high school and got all kinds of great natural school footage and funny bits. He was great. But when he and my daughter broke up, he went was no longer available…!


What do you think is the future of Christian music?

Christian artists often copy the style that’s popular in “the world” but sometimes they are the ones that initiate the sound that others copy. There are artists that everyone knows about but may not know that they are Christians.

For example, Switchfoot, http://www.switchfoot.com/

POD, http://www.payableondeath.com/

and many other well known artists.

I am seeing a surge in the popularity of worship music – live worship services.
That genre is getting popular with young people. There is new music coming out that gets kids excited about worship – an hour or two in a huge auditorium with lights and smoke and it’s just a time to praise the Lord. And the kids love it. They feel that that’s where they should be.

The worship music genre started in the 80s with Delirious? http://www.delirious.co.uk/html/
in England, intense rock worship. Now worship music is becoming more and more widespread in churches that have a contemporary band; it’s becoming more accepted.

What are your future plans?

I’d like to mentor others who want to get a message out. And I want to add comedy and fake news to JCVH-1, maybe cover local news in one minute.

Thanks, superTod!

You can watch JCVH-1 every Tuesday and Thursday at 5 PM and Saturday at 2:30 PM on Comcast Channel 11 and Verizon Channel 29.

 

 


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McMinnville Community Media is a non–profit 501c3 Oregon corporation responsible for operating cable access for the City of McMinnville in accordance with a management contract with the City of McMinnville, and the City’s franchise agreement with Comcast. MCM is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors, with daily operations managed by a full-time Executive Director.
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