 |
|
|
|
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Ernie Piini, 73, right, stands in the Cupertino Community Television studio with studio director Bob Haber, 45. Piini was given the Cupertino Outstanding Producer Award for his ongoing work on a local show called 'The Better Part.'
|
Sun Chaser
Local resident receives Cupertino Outstanding Producer Award for his TV specials
By AMY JENKINS
Many people try to catch an eclipse when it takes place in their own backyard, but traveling around the world to catch a glimpse of this awesome phenomena is quite another story. However, that is exactly what local resident Ernie Piini has done. In all he has witnessed 18 total and annular eclipses, and five others that were ruined by clouds. Piini not only watches the beauty of an eclipse but he also documents it with photography and film.
For producing shows about eclipses, as well as a wide variety of other topics, and for his contribution to the Cupertino Senior Television Production Group, a cable show called The Better Part, Piini is this year's recipient of the Cupertino Outstanding Producer Award.
Piini, 73, has been a member of the group for more than six years and devotes an average of 100 volunteer hours per month producing and editing television shows. He is now the executive producer of The Better Part. Since March 1996 he has produced a total of 35 shows and helped other members produce 25 shows, he says.
The Cupertino Telecommunications Commission awarded Piini with a plaque at the television studio's weekly meetings because he was in Costa Rica, shooting for a show when the presentation was supposed to take place at De Anza College.
Due to his work as an amateur astronomer for most of his life, many of the shows he creates are about eclipses and astronomy. He says he also provides information and entertainment in the fields of science and history. Some of the television programs Piini has written scripts for, and edited and produced over the past couple of years have been Eclipse Chasing, Comet Hunter, Caribbean Eclipse and Stonehenge.
Piini says that, with the television crew he has visited every continent except for Antarctica, chasing eclipses. His latest piece, titled Eclipse Over Zambia, includes footage of the latest total solar eclipse and was filmed in Zambia, Central Africa, on June 21, 2001. In 1999, he filmed the Miracle Eclipse, in Germany.
"I have always been interested in producing videos," says Piini, a retired electrical engineer of 30 years for Dalmo Victor Company in Belmont. "I used to take clips and put them together with my VCR at home. [Cupertino Senior Television Production Group] has professional equipment, cameras and crew; I like that."
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Ernie Piini holds the award that was presented to him for his production work on the 'The Better Part,' an ongoing show about astrological phenomena that has been airing since 1989.
Piini says The Better Part has approximately 20 volunteers all over 55, who are assigned to different duties every month. Members frequently rotate jobs, which include directing, operating the video tape recorder, audio mixer, video switcher and TelePrompTer.
The TV show production takes place in a studio at De Anza College. Piini says there are three professional cameras in the studio, a floor director in the control room and one inside the studio. According to Piini, shows take an average of three hours in the studio and between three days and one week to edit, or sometimes longer. They are then shown one month later.
Because volunteers are constantly learning how to edit with new software, one new show comes out every month and all other programming is repeats of old shows. The expense involved includes one digital tape per show and another tape that is used to edit. Grants and donations cover the $20 tape cost, Piini says.
Piini says he has also been an instructor for the senior camcorder classes and an operator of TV equipment during "De Anza Day." He also videotaped and edited the Rhythmaires program during the senior center's "Walk a Golden Mile" festivity.
Piini has also won three Western Access Video Excellence awards and three Earth Vision awards for his production of shows about the environment, such as one titled The Electric Car.
Cupertino Senior Television Production Group airs shows on AT&T Cable Access channel 15 in Cupertino.
|
|
|
|
Cupertino, California Since 1947
