01 December 2017

The Start of My 5th Year in the "Real World"

As September was full of General Assembly debate sessions and committee meetings, October was overrun with late-night concerts and sports' regular season games, and finally, November was nothing but dreaming of endless foods (with the start of the holiday season/Thanksgiving)

The 72nd General Assembly session came and went, there were early morning starts and late night conclusions... by early October, my FIFTH YEAR working the annual gathering commenced and. It is truly amazing to think I have been working full-time, in my first job after college, for over four years and mostly loving every minute of it!!

Beyond this, I am starting the third season at my freelance TV Systems position at the Barclays Center. With the new sports season underway, the TV Systems team put the final touches on the big graphics projects and tested, then implemented them building-wide. Every day, we are constantly working on updating data within these new templates and finessing any miscellaneous graphics project!

2018 is bound to bring great, exciting, and new projects... within my currents roles, or beyond!



07 September 2017

Let the "Games" Begin!

As summer rolls away and September arrives, my days begin to expand and drag into nights. Throughout the summer, the Barclays Center television systems went through its annual software update and minor hardware upgrades; while at the United Nations, I have been assigned to teach and retrain some new crew members on the internal media management systems.

With the system upgrades at Barclays Center, there have many very few concerts/shows/events and therefore, limited shifts are available to work during any nights or weekends. As system upgrades finish and sports seasons begin, our IPTV Systems team will be putting the final touches on the new designs and styles of the motion graphic advertisements, game data tickers, and welcome monitors for some of the premium sections! By mid-October, my schedule will be swamped with night/weekend event coverage shifts and ensuring the new graphics are working properly during these shifts!

Similarly, at the United Nations, summer work has fluctuated with many extremely quiet weeks and few weeks with all-day special event forums. Because of the limited events, most of the equipment maintenance and server tests take place throughout this time - in order for things to be modified, tweaked, or fixed but up and running seamlessly for the start of the new General Assembly session, in mid-September! This summer season also seems to be the most popular time for full-time staff to take vacations and freelance technicians fill the vacant positions. With the influx of new crew, many of them are assigned to the MOC and I am tasked to teach, train, and instruct these technicians on the proper workflow for all aspects of the MAMS (Media Asset Management System)... which is quite the daunting task when there is so much to learn, with so many folders/subfolders and unique edits for different archive purposes and multiple export formats and special rundowns for certain events and so much more!

SO... late Sept/early Oct is set to be filled with hundreds of delegates debating international politics and thousands of sports fans cheering their team on -- all cumulating to become another hectic and crazy, yet amazing and empowering few weeks of working in the media industry!!!

30 May 2017

Start of Summer Vibes!

Since my last post, way back in January, I have thankfully been able to utilize some vacation days to travel around the States a bit, as well as a two-week adventure to China! During the travels, I did amass over 900 photos of the incredible scenery, the mouth-watering food, my wonderful travel companions, and so much more.

The main reason for my lack of posts is due to the lack of unique experiences or special events. Similar to previous years of summer work, major projects and events are quite limited - both at United Nations TV and Barclays Center. There is some systems maintenance and equipment upgrades, but there are dedicated staff engineers to perform these... so we, technicians, are all scheduled to work the normal day-to-day operations of meetings, briefings, interviews, and more!

On the flip side, the owner and operator of Barclays Center (Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment) also now owns/operates the newly-renovated Nassau Coliseum (branded as NYCB Live). Because the facility just opened and they are still hiring the AV Department crew, the creative teams at Barclays have been tasked to develop the look and feel of the front-of-house visuals (LEDs in-bowl, concourse TVs, menu layouts, box office graphics, etc). In addition to creating graphics for Nassau, we are also working on revamping the graphic designs for Barclays Center TVs. This recent task, and the whole job at Barclays, really has given me such amazing opprtunities to grow, learn, and practice many skills related to the Adobe Create Suite, live event production, and systems management.

04 January 2017

New Year, Same 'Ole Work

As we ring in the new year of 2017, I continue to bust my butt and work around the clock - jumping between my full-time media production position at the United Nations, my part-time event presentation gig at the Barclays Center, and volunteering as a coordinator for one of the local Moishe House locations!

From Thanksgiving until mid-January, many diplomats are on vacation and tons of their committees, conferences, interviews, etc are generally put on hold. Obviously, world affairs do not stop, as there was an emergency Security Council meeting on Syria called on New Years' Eve!! Since Thanksgiving, there are very few conference room events... for instance, on a "normal" day, there would be about four events per day that our department covers (i.e. operating the cameras, audio, graphics, etc); but during these few weeks, there is one such events (or none) per day!

To fill the rest of my days, as noted, I split my time with working part-time in the AV department of Barclays Center and volunteering for Moishe House to coordinate programming for Jewish young professionals. With the official news of AEG being selected to manage and operate the newly renovated Nassau Coliseum, our creative team at Barclays has been starting to design possible templates for menu boards, box office graphics, and general visuals for the new buildings' TVs! This task is a nice change of pace, compared to the daily routine of my video systems tech role, during game operations.

It is crazy to think I am just about four (4) years out of college and have been working full-time in the industry since! Only time will tell to figure out what 2017 will bring to my career, let's go!!



HAPPY NEW YEAR to my blog followers!

happy new year