When George is away...

Here is the story in pictures.


When George is away from the CBC this is what happens.
The Lord Stanley's Cup gets brought forth and presented in the atrium of the CBC building.


People gather and line up to be photographed next to it.

I happened to be there dropping off my Best Story Ever remix when all this took place.
And look who I see standing proud, next to The Cup!

Luce

Nile

and Paul

It was a real pleasure to meet them all.

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I found out more about the Everything You Wanted To Know segment. It's not done by just one producer it's done by a number of them. It works on a formula. That's why it looks so uniform even though it comes from different sources. I always enjoy that one and I always learn something from it.

Barbara W.

Pictures and Stories

There was a snow storm going on in Toronto Thursday. Many of the audience members who booked The Hour this night cancelled. So if you were near the CBC building in Toronto at 4:20 this afternoon you could have found a seat at The Hour. In the end 32 intrepid fans showed up.

I was first in line.

So we had George all to ourselves.
Any questions? Was his favourite question for us.

Hence the many photos of George telling stories and answering questions.

Did you know for example, that George has his own production company and reads scripts in the summer. He was also telling us that's coming up on the Hour are interviews will a series of former Canadian Prime Ministers including Brian Mulroney who says some surprising blunt things.

All the guests were pretaped today because of the storm.

They taped the interview with David Wilkins in the studio in the morning before the storm hit.

George taped most of his intros and interactive segments in front of us. We also got to be the Friday audience... Ah the magic of Television. They just put it all together like it should be and it looks smooth when you see it at 8 pm or 11pm or 3am... whatever your preference...

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Now let me tell you about Karma the wonderful lady who started the strombo forum.

I knew making jewelery was one of her many talents. I could not find CBC logo earrings in the CBC shop or anywhere else for that matter. So I asked if she could make me some.

I have to show my support of the CBC.

She figured out a way and made a pair for me and pair for whomever I thought would enjoy CBC earrings. So there are two pairs in the world and they came in the mail to me this week. I wore one pair Thursday to The Hour. Also wore them to a job interview... I got a compliment on them from the interviewer.

George noticed them too.

The other pair goes to the wonderful, patient, pleasant woman who books The Hour audience.

Thank you Siobhan, for waiting for the audience to tear themselves away from George after the show and photos ops and the stories and the hugs. I know you are not the only one who waits around for us. I thank everyone.

Any questions?

Barbara W.

The Making of The 'Best Story Ever'

Bloggers have stories to tell.


It may be about themselves, or it may be about other people.

Sorry guys this one's about me.


I was intrigued about the invitation by The Hour for the audience to submit their

Celebrities have a lot of great stories to tell and they probably practice telling them so they will have something to amuse their fans with without having to think about it.


You and me on the other hand, may, or may not, be so practiced.



I work with a woman who has lead an amazing life and she always has great stories to tell.


So my idea was to film her telling one of her amazing stories and submit it to The Hour as her Best Story Ever. This way I could learn how it's done and what goes on in the process of creating the tape and submitting the tape. A simple plan.


The wonderful lady who was going to be my talented story teller, kept putting it off. She was not ready to go on camera. She still told amazing stories to everybody in the mean time.
God love her. But she is going through cancer treatments and may have been self conscious about being on camera. Or just not feeling up to it. Completely understandable. She never said no she would not do it, and I still hold out hope she will feel like it one day and call me over to film her. I was not going to push her into it.

I had to find a subject whom I know was willing to go on camera and tell their best story for me.
I volunteered reluctantly...

Why am I doing this?
I really just wanted to experience the process.
I am not the talented story teller, or the great writer, but I do like operating the camera.
It's harder when your in front of it.

I have ever more respect for the on air talent that makes it look so easy.

I tried several takes over several days with my story. I tried taping with my cell phone, and my video camera. The video camera works best. I tried takes with a friend operating the camera, and tried takes on my own... I found these lesson on another blog (Deadthingsonsticks) that helped me with the rewrite of my story. It's a true story, but in writing it all down (me not being able to memorise lines) I read my own story in front of the camera.
It is what it is, an amateur production. But hey, no one is paying me.
I just wish I had a teleprompter... and a staff to help me.

I do have a staff that helped me. I was in contact with Paul McGrath the web producer of The Hour. I consulted him about everything in relation to doing this production. What kind of stories they had gotten so far, what are they looking for, what they can't air... Technical questions as well.

With my video camera I could not figure out how to upload the video to download it to the CBC. I could have just sent them the tape in the mail... Naaa. I wanted to see what they do with the tape. So I booked Paul (no not the stand-up comedian Paul, the website Paul). Thank you Paul, I know you are a busy guy.

When I got to CBC today I called Paul. He told me The Hour is running late and he will be busy because the show is still taping for the next half hour (this is at 5:30) . Perfect! I was granted special permission to go watch the rest of the taping while Paul is busy....

I came in for the second part of Terri's interview. I understand quite a bit about grief... I can relate to her.

It's funny I had messaged George yesterday telling him I was going to The Hour just to see Paul and I would catch him next time... George greeted me when he saw I had snuck in. You can't get anything by him...

After the show, and the audience was free to go, but didn't because George had them all enthralled. He's good at that. Sure part of me wanted to stay, but I went back down to my appointment with Paul.

Paul showed me around a bit. I got to see the new offices. In the meeting room where they decide what's on The Hour that day, is a part of the old set. It's a large section of that street picture... with the mammas pizza on it and all the personal friends and cats names incorporated within the picture
....this one from last season

That's George and me on the old set...good times
Where was I?

So... my tape got uploaded to the computer and I got to chat with Paul about the website, the blogs, the Hour's and this one. We also talked about Best Stories Ever in general... He likes the home made look of my tape... that's what they are looking for. :-)
Oh good 'cause that's all I was offering. ;-)

My story might make it on the Hour's website by Friday. I don't expect them to air it. If they do air it they better warn me...
I won't give you details of what my best story is at this point. You'll just have to check the website every once in awhile if you're interested.

Every CBC/Hour employee I talked to today loves our blog.
They thank us all for doing it, and I wanted the Stroumboulopouli to know that.

I'm Barbara W. and that is the making of my Best Story Ever

Dream show

Jan 25th 2007
Dear Diary,
I had that dream again last night... The one with George, Jian and the Barenaked Ladies all on one show...

I am still processing the reality of tonight's show. It's a personal thing... I have been a long time fan of The Barenaked Ladies and don't care who knows it.
They were always like 'the band next door' to me.
Their environmental plan for the tour makes a hell of a lot of sense... Why don't all bands do that, or a least do more to make their tours 'greener'?
Oh and I love it when they talk tech about how we all can purchase music and spread the joy guilt free... Me? I always buy the music I love.
I was thinking of making you a mix CD but I think I ran out of times I can copy it...

Does this look like Steve is asking George for tea?
I think it's the quality or lack there of of my photographic ability

I think George is saying you can get a drink over there...
I am tempted to drink what he is drinking because that man has energy to spare.
He never tires of talking to the audience in the 90 minutes or more we were there...

We played both the Thursday audience and the Sunday audience... I think we did a fair job.

There was an audience member that stood out. His name is Jose. He asked George a lot of good questions. He told George of his plans to go protest in DC about the war. That gave George an opening to tell him about how to deal with tear gas... I asked Jose later for his name and his plans for his future because I think he is quite a character. He's sharp, has a wicked sense of humour and happens to have a nose ring. He indicated a desire to make it in music or broadcasting or just go with the flow. Good luck in that protest and in those dreams!

There were two Montrealers in the audience I met as we all sat down. A mother and daughter. The daughter flew into Toronto to visit her mother... not Just to come to The Hour.

Now let's talk about Jian. My favourite correspondent on The Hour... not that I am biased or anything...

It's going to be like old times. If you have not already got your newsletter from Jian in your inbox you can sign up on the main page of Jian.ca
It's a very humorous letter. You can hear his voice as you read it.

What I mean by old times is Jian will be back on CBC Radio One with a Music, Arts and Entertainment radio show 2pm and 10pm starting mid March.... aaaaand he will be on The Hour on occasions to chat with George about it all. Like this time last year, when they would talk on Wednesdays about The National Playlist . That was always fun to watch.

When that radio show was cancelled, I wrote a post on my other blog about the National Playlist .

Cheers!
Barbara W.

A night at The Hour

If you have ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes at The Hour.
Let me tell you a bit about my experiences tonight in the studios of the CBC building in Toronto.

I am Barbara W., a confessed blogger for The Hour and for George Stroumboulopoulos.
I invited along a 4th year journalism student from Ryerson University to come with me to see The Hour tonight. Joe Rayment writes for Ryerson Review Of Journalism . he is doing a story for the magazine about The Hour and George S. and contacted our blog to get some background for his story.

He had been to two tapings just last week, and was kind enough to come to this one with me to get the story from a stroumboulopouli blogger. All seven 'stroumbi' across Canada are answering his questions to us about blogging for The Hour, and how we see the changes that The Hour has been going through.

We met in the lobby and chatted before being admitted upstairs via elevator into the maze that is that is The Hour's studio. We were chatting at the studio doors when George wandered into the small group. He said hi to everyone, posed for pictures, answered questions, accepted compliments and thanked people for coming. The perfect host.

If you followed the MySpace drama this past Sunday re: The Strombo Show.... I had a conversation with George all about that at that point in the evening. Not to bore the rest of you, I will blog about that on MySpace.

George had to leave us and go into the studio to rehearse and we were soon admitted.

Joe and I sat on the left hand side second row. Too far left to see in the audience shots. Don't bother looking for us.
Before the show started taping, George was talking to us all and taking questions.
I had a few for him.
Re: that Gemini skit, I told him how funny I thought it was and how I think The Hour could do one skit like that a week.
He said they were kicking around that idea this morning.
George talked about how wearing that pink shirt made him feel dirty...
We all laughed. One other question I had was about why they rolled no credits. He said, there was no time for credits. It's not something a news show on CBC Newsworld usually runs in any case, and most of the crews family knew they were working at The Hour.
We laughed again, and throughout the hour of The Hour, had a very entertaining time.
When he had time to talk to us Mr. Stroumboulopoulos opened up about his love of his job as Host of The Hour.
He also talked about his days at Much Music. How he would interview bands he loved and bands he hated. Some of the bands he hated made the best interviews. He interviewed musicians at the start of their Career, after the first record contract, when they started to go down hill with drugs and hopefully interviewed them after rehab.... words to that effect.
Speaking of effective words, George would be very good at doing those 'don't do drugs' talks with High School students.

The Show tonight featured an interview with Tom Cochrane. It was wonderful to see Tom in the lobby before the show just standing there like any other Canadian guy. It was great to hear him in conversation, talking about his music, his daughter, and Saddam Hussein of all things.
The other treat we witnessed tonight was George taking Rick Mercer to the Newsstand.
Of course we watched it on tape like you did. But that's our laughter you hear added for your viewing experience. I blame Rick Mercer for my laughter lines!


The audience, as always, got a change to get more pictures, ask more questions, and get an autograph with the man himself after the show was finished taping. I waited for George to finish with the people after he said 'wait' and gave me a wink.
When he was done with the last few fans, I talked with him for a bit and at one point asked him where Bob was. He asked his 'God' Correction his Producer(in this case David) over his microphone. Where Bob was? Bob was busy...
He was getting instructions from David in his ear piece about stuff they were preparing to shoot in a few moments time. That's all the time we had. I gave George un petit cadeau for Bob (Strombo Show related) and I got a high five and I left the studio.

As I was waiting for escort to the Elevator

I spotted the piano that George was playing in the Fear Episode.
Doh! I did not get a picture with George.
Mostly because there was no one left
to take a picture, but a nice woman
(CBC employee?) was willing to take
a picture of me and the piano....

I did get to talk to our friend Siobhan, who takes all the reservations for The Hour, and I chatted with Amanda, a long time fan of Georges.

That's all I can process at this point about my evening at The Hour.
Some of it stays unsaid, some things I will recall at 4am I'm sure...
All I can do is recommend you try this experience for yourself.

Barbara W.
Yes that is me wearing a Canadiens sweatshirt. It was the sexiest thing I could think of to wear to The Hour.
George liked it.
:-)