WNDU recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of the station’s launch, and Beyond Our Control was honored with a featured segment amongst the station’s retrospectives. I was delighted to share a few words about the show with reporter Tricia Sloma alongside a pair of BOC alumni, Lee Lodyga and Donnie Rogers.
As a 4-minute piece put together in less than 48 hours under a tight deadline, it’s tantalizing but only scratches the surface of the show — somewhat equivalent to the initial short essay I wrote that made me realize there was a whole book (and more) in this material.
And in addition to the book, I’m actually working on a video essay that acts as an introduction to the show. I started it as a participant at Middlebury College’s two-week workshop on videographic criticism back in June, and unlike Tricia Sloma, I’m not under a broadcast deadline, so I can spend a lot more time working on it til I feel content that I’ve gotten it right. I’m going to create a website to accompany the book, and I’d like to have the video essay launch on the home page, hopefully enticing newcomers to dig deeper.
While I need more time to whip the video essay into proper shape, I can share a related video I created at the Middlebury workshop right now. We were tasked with creating a two-minute trailer for our final project, so here is mine, hopefully enticement enough to sit tight and wait for the finished video essay.
If you’re curious about the title I drop at the end, it’s drawn from something BOC creator Dave Williams once wrote: “BOC is a critical look at a 23-inch America, measured diagonally. Whenever something is stupid, tasteless, fraudulent, irritating, and impossible to do anything about, then it’s beyond our control, and that’s what the show is all about.” I appreciate how the standard measurement of a TV screen offers a handy metaphor for how the show’s teenage creators sliced through the absurdities of popular culture.
