Monthly Highlights: September 2010

>> September 1st, 2010 · ucsdtvintern

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UCSD @ 50

In honor of UC San Diego’s momentous 50th anniversary, UCSD-TV presents a yearlong magazine series highlighting the diverse and extraordinary work being done every day on this campus.

The first installment, premiering September 13 at 8pm, introduces us to UCSD’s Center for Community Well-Being, a collaborative focused on improving the lives of school-age children in Southeastern San Diego; the groundbreaking brain research taking place at UCSD’s Center of Autism Excellence; and a look at how Scripps Institution of Oceanography is shaping the future of medicines and how scientists will monitor the health of our planet.

All broadcast dates and online video available here: UCSD@50

Building It Better: Testing the Limits

Lightweight metal buildings like airplane hangars, warehouses, gymnasia and industrial buildings comprise an ever greater share of steel structures built today. But current building codes don’t address the unique designs employed by these innovative structures.

Tune in to see all the action when researchers from UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering and the Metal Building Manufacturers of America visit the UCSD Englekirk Structural Engineering Center’s high performance shake table to subject these metal building designs to some of the most extreme earthquake shaking ever recorded.

Building It Better: Earthquake Testing Metal Buildings

Jazz That Jams

After five days immersed in workshops, jam sessions, and the history and theory of jazz music, world-renowned instructors and talented students from this summer’s UC San Diego Jazz Camp come together for a finale concert of original compositions and contemporary jazz standards.

UC San Diego Jazz Camp: Finale Concert 2010

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

All programs repeat throughout the month. Visit the Program Schedule on our web site for additional air dates and times.

What I Did This Summer

>> August 23rd, 2010 · alisongang

Shannon Bradley here, checking in at the tail end of summer.

Summertime at UCSD is sweet. The campus is quiet, lunch lines are short, parking is easy, and…most important for us, we mostly air re-runs in July and August. All of that freed us up to focus on creating a new magazine-style series, premiering this fall, that honors UC San Diego’s 50^thanniversary. The six-part series, called UCSD@50, premieres September 13, with a new installment every six weeks through June of 2011.

As with all of my favorite magazines, this program will offer an eclectic menu of stories — some serious and some light-hearted – all centered around our goal of sharing what excites us about this place. In the upcoming months, look for reports from Rich Wargo (Science), John Menier (Arts & Humanities), Jennifer Ford (Health and Medicine)…and yours truly on Public Affairs.

I’m starting the first show with a piece on UCSD’s Center for Community Well-Being. This group, run by Bud Mehan and Mike Cole, is a collection of faculty, staff and students who are doing research and service projects in Southeastern San Diego. We spent some time with UCSD undergrads tutoring at Gompers Preparatory Academy, the middle school in Chollas View that’s modeled after our own Preuss School.

We also showed up for the first Community Market at the Jacobs Center, where free food and clothes were distributed to needy families under the guidance of the CCW’s Makeba Jones and her partners from Project Safe Way.

And finally, we visited the Town and Country Learning Center in Mountain View where Mike Cole and Srinivas Sukumar, from Cal IT 2, work with kids after school. It was great to visit these communities and see UCSD folks engaged in finding ways to improve the lives of fellow San Diegans.

Also in the first show, Rebecca Tolin reports on the ground-breaking work that Eric Courchesne and Karen Pierce are doing at the UCSD Autism Center of Excellence. This husband-and-wife team has made startling discoveries about the brains of autistic children and what can be done to help those who are most at risk.

Later in the first show, Ken Kebow takes us to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where Dean Tony Haymet describes research on underwater plants that could lead to new medicines, and how new high-tech robots will help monitor the health of the oceans.

Oh, and Rachel Bradley (no, no relation) profiles Giancarlo Ruiz, a UCSD staffer who produced a film that was screened at Cannes! How cool is that? And yes, he made it on his own time. Thanks to Sherman George for telling us about him. Sherman retired awhile back but is still a presence around here…something we all appreciate.

So…lots going on here this summer. Next up is Chancellor Marye Anne Fox coming to our studio September 2 to tape her segments as the honorary host of our first program. UCSD @50 will start airing Sept 13….just a week before the students come back (good!) and parking gets difficult again (not-so-good).

50th, Current Projects, Uncategorized No comments

Monthly Highlights: August 2010

>> July 30th, 2010 · ucsdtvintern

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James Rauch: The Three Arab Worlds

UCSD economist James Rauch breaks the Arab world down into its sub-Saharan African, fuel-endowed, and Mediterranean components and compares socioeconomic progress in each to its rest-of-the-world counterparts. His findings contradict the belief, popularized by the UN Arab Human Development Reports, in a monolithic Arab world that has failed to modernize. This program is made available to UCSD-TV by the Alternate Focus series.

James Rauch: The Three Arab Worlds
Premieres Monday, August 9 at 8:30pm and re-airs throughout the month.
(This program will not be available on-line so tune in or set your DVRs!)

Research on Aging Returns to UCSD-TV

After a short hiatus, UC San Diego’s Stein Institute for Research on Aging (SIRA) is back on UCSD-TV! Each month we’ll present a new program focusing on the latest in healthy aging — whether it’s breakthrough research conducted by SIRA’s medical faculty or an update on available treatment options.

Tune in Thursday, August 12 at 8pm for the kick-off of SIRA’s renewed season:

Research on Aging: Is Hormone Therapy Useful or Harmful for Women?

UCSD’s Dr. Matthew Allison discusses the risks and benefits of Menopausal Hormone Therapy (MHT), a supplemental estrogen therapy, and other health concerns and prevention tips for postmenopausal women.

For more broadcast times and video archives, visit SIRA’s series page.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

All programs repeat throughout the month. Visit the Program Schedule on our web site for additional air dates and times.

HEALTH & MEDICINE

Taking Control of Your Diabetes: Continuous Glucose Monitoring System

More >>

SCIENCE

Exploring Extremes of Earth’s Magnetic Field

More >>

PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Covering the Israeli-Palestine Conflict in 2010: A Report From the Ground by Ethan Bronner

More >>

HUMANITIES

Osher UCSD: Maurizio Seracini

More >>

ARTS & MUSIC

Orchestra Nova: Celebrations

More >>

BUSINESS

Van Jones: The Green Collar Economy

More >>

Check out the latest additions to our online video archive.

Taking Control of Your Diabetes: Weight Management

Probing Long-term Temperature Change in the Southern Ocean

Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives

Burke Lecture: An Ecological Inquiry – Jesus and the Cosmos with Elizabeth Johnson

Wusses Need Not Apply

>> July 12th, 2010 · johnmenier

“My task is not to make beautiful images, but necessary ones.” — Robert Bresson

Jean Cocteau once said of Robert Bresson, “He expresses himself cinematographically as a poet would with his pen.” Francois Truffaut observed that Bresson’s films are “closer to painting than to photography.” Painting, with its direct connection between artist and brush and canvas, was a profound influence on Bresson, especially since he studied the art after high school. What appealed to him most was painting’s solitary nature, and I suspect that if he had the means, Bresson would have preferred to make his movies entirely by himself.

Throughout the course of his career, Bresson relentlessly rid his movies of all distractions and diversions. He believed that the techniques of professional actors got in the way of the truth, so he stopped using them, just as he abandoned studios for practical locations. One doesn’t watch Bresson to see great acting or admire the lush scenic design: the non-professionals he cast were mere instruments, devoid of independent ego, and the settings they moved through were purely functional. Bresson broke down performances into a carefully choreographed series of movements, gestures, and glances. Characters were not supposed to think or move spontaneously, but as precisely animated figures in the landscape of Bresson’s obsessive “dialogue with the divine.” (Bresson’s Catholicism was another major influence on his work.)

Watching Bresson is to be held in the grip of a singular, rigorous vision, a stripped-down world where nothing is superfluous or left to chance. Because of the unorthodoxy of his aesthetic, Bresson’s movies are tough sledding for modern audiences conditioned to non-stop “incidents,” rapid-fire editing, Oscar-trolling performances, special effects and crass sentimentality. His films can wear you down. When I first encountered Bresson’s work as a young film student, I was not yet conversant with what Paul Schrader dubbed the “transcendental style” in cinema. Initially I was puzzled by Bresson’s canvas of blank faces, repetitive movements, seemingly insignificant plot details, and unadorned cinematography. I simply had no frame of reference for his brand of austerity. But his characters and images stuck with me, especially Pickpocket with its precise montages and confessional narration, and A Man Escaped with its prison break set to Mozart. Eventually I became an enthusiastic convert, and Bresson sparked a lifelong interest in the works of other transcendentalists in the arts.

Sadly, the intellectual and financial environment which allowed films like Bresson’s to be made – in fact, the very idea that cinema can be more than faddish entertainment – has all but vanished (and never really had a firm foothold in American film). By the time of his death at age 92 in 1999, Bresson was despairing for the future of his chosen art form. Fortunately, his work survives to remind us of the possibilities that lie beyond the multiplex.

Tune in July 17 for the films of Robert Bresson on UCSD-TV’s World Cinema Saturdays.

4:00 pm Pickpocket
5:30 pm Diary of a Country Priest
7:30 pm Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne
9:00 pm A Man Escaped

Robert Bresson, Uncategorized, movies, world cinema No comments

Monthly Highlights: July 2010

>> July 6th, 2010 · ucsdtvintern

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UCSD-TV Blogs Bring You Closer

Check out our new blogs, where UCSD-TV’s producers share their favorite projects, behind-the-scenes photos, and personal reflections. We’ve got fresh content just about every week in our general UCSD TV blog and subject specific blogs, so make the most of your UCSD-TV experience by subscribing today!

July Movies: From High-Brow to Summer Schlock

If this year’s summer blockbusters are feeling a little stale, then July’s World Cinema Saturdays are right up your alley. We’re celebrating the incredible range of filmmaking and its ability to stimulate both your intellect and your inner child. From the aesthetically rigorous director Robert Bresson to sci-fi escapist fantasies of the 1950s, our commercial-free Saturday film festivals meet all your film geek desires.

World Cinema Saturdays on UCSD-TV
July 3 Director Sergei Eisenstein
July 10 Keep Watching the Skies!
July 17 Director Robert Bresson
July 24 Summer Schlock
July 31 Director René Clair
Complete schedule at www.ucsd.tv/movies

Taking Control of Your Diabetes: Weight Management

This month we premiere the second installment of the newly revamped Taking Control of Your Diabetes (TCOYD) series with a program about weight management.

Keeping weight under control is difficult, especially with so many weight management options to choose from. To help make sense of it all, Dr. Steven Edelman welcomes Dr. Ken Fujioka, an expert at the forefront of obesity therapies, to discuss the most successful weight loss techniques.

TCOYD: Weight Management

And check out the TCOYD blog, video archives and more at the: TCOYD Series Page