Dave, where you mentioned INSIDE EMD, I just wanted to put in a comment here. Over the last couple years I have had many requests for a narrated "studio" version of INSIDE EMD, which is primarily a slide lecture program on a topic of historic interest, rather than an artistic slide and music production. If I had chosen to go with distributing a studio recording, I could have saved a lot of time and money with the travel to museums and events, but a lot of audiences would have lost the opportunity to ask questions and I would have missed the chance to meet and talk with many people. I also would have missed a lot of valuable feedback that helped me improve the program, which has grown a lot since RMNE hosted the showing a couple years ago. If I recall correctly that was back around the 20th showing of the program, it passed the 125th showing recently.

If I had taken the presentation out to be recorded, I suspect that most producers would have tried to edit me out of it, because they don't like the "quality" of my voice (even though my voice has been good enough for 35 years of teaching in the railroad industry). So the most likely result would have been a voice talent reading a script that I wrote, as has been the case on a number of other projects. It wouldn't be genuine, and it wouldn't sound genuine. Some presentations deserve live narration, even though it might be more expensive and somewhat inconvenient to present them that way.

By the way, several NRHS chapters did respond and hosted early showings of the program when it was introduced, one of the first was at Jersey Central Chapter.

PC

On the philosophy that a revolutionary war musket can kill you just as dead as a modern Uzi, and that bad material can be equally boring on film or as reconsituted digital data, I don't think it is the medium that matters as much as the message (apologies to McLuhan), or, the producing organization and its relevance in terms of goals, activities, etc. Whether the group is 80 year olds using computers or slide projectors, if the mission and activities aren't relevant to 20 year olds, attrition is going to act pretty quick.

dave

Additional issues affecting group meeting attendance - once a presentation is made widely available in electronic format, whether videotape, CD, or DVD, how many people are still going to bother going to a group meeting to see it, when they can purchase a copy for less than the cost of the gasoline to drive to the meeting? And it WILL be available you know, because in any electronic form it is likely to be pirated, you can just about count on that nowadays.

And in the case of events where numbers of presenters show their programs, how many of the presenters would still want to spend the money to travel to make a personal appearance if pirate copies of their programs were in circulation?

Folks,

When I mention/suggest programs that could be sent as a CD, I am most empathetically NOT talking about the "nitpickers' special" shows where folks sit around asking "is that a 110P75 tender of a 120F82 tender?" or "was that the fan trip by the Railroad Enthusiasts or the Beebe & Clegg charter?" I'm talking about shows that dramatically show the last days pre-Amtrak of the Rio Grande Zephyr (Patrick) or the Crescent, or capture the feeling of night trains at a place like Pittsburgh or Buffalo, or.......

Heck with it. Just go to Eastrail Summerail, and/or Winterail and watch. Then get back to me.

There is an important difference here. If I invite Steve Barry down to give one of his shows, we're seeing a multimedia extravazanza of entertainment--"eye candy", not an information lecture. THAT kind of show can be pre-packaged and sent on a CD or DVD, and (provided the chapter has the TV/projection unit, access to a laptop, etc.) drops the expense of a program from $100+ to a mere dollar or three.

Heck, is there anyone left out there that can give an entertaining show without projecting something on a screen? Or have we become THAT beholden to the Gods of Kodak, Powerpoint, Fuji, etc.?

You mean "interpretive" presentations Sandy? Like taking a locomotive that just pulled the fantrip, or a piece of equipment that can be carried in for discussion, and using it as the subject for a lecture? A "chalk talk"? Gosh, I wonder WHO does that kind of thing? :-)

PC

I *could* put my multi-media shows on CD and distribute them, but there are a few concerns I have. My primary concern is that I don't own any of the rights to the music in my shows (I would guess that 99.9% of the multi-media shows out there use copyrighted music for which they don't have licensing). I don't want to get into the situation where I become a de facto distributor of unlicensed music as my CD's get recopied and redistributed outside my control (there must be a million copies of the Mel Patrick shows out there, most of them not copied or handed out by Mel Patrick). If I am present at the venue and show my show from my laptop with music I have legally acquired, I am still in violation of the law, but it becomes sort of the legal equivalent of wandering a few feet off the grade crossing down the access road to get a shot rather than climbing up onto a signal bridge.

Bottom line -- if you want to see my show, you're stuck with me showing up. (And I don't accept money more than my traveling expenses when I show these shows, because I don't want to get "paid" for showing a show with unlicensed music in it).