Cool Stuff

We were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity this weekend when we were chosen to represent Hiki No and PBS Hawaii at the launch of the Pillars of Peace Program sponsored by the Hawaii Community Foundation.  Pillars of Peace is a new program aimed at promoting peace in Hawaii and throughout the world by bringing in guest speakers to learn about Hawaii’s spirit of Aloha and our culture, and to share their thoughts and wisdom with us.  The first speaker in what is hoped to be a continuing event was His Holiness, the Dalai Lama from Tibet.  Two students and myself were offered the opportunity to be part of the official press pool that followed the Dalai Lama to two stops before his talk at the Stan Sheriff Center later in the day.  In making my decision as to who would join me, I simply chose the two students with the most experience, students that I knew I could count on, 8th graders Kasey Emoto and Laura Koga.  Both girls have been with me the longest out of my current group, all three years of middle school.  Kasey and Laura have also proven themselves over and over again with their outstanding work so it really wasn’t a hard choice to make.  I do want to say however, that there were quite a few girls in the class that would have also made excellent choices if I could have taken more students with me.

We left school a little early on Friday to meet up with Robert Pennybacker, Lawrence Pacheco, and Sue Yim from PBS Hawaii to get organized and plan what we were going to do.  We all talked about possible story leads and what we could shoot if we chose that angle.  Since we only knew that he was going to talk about “Educating the Heart” we didn’t have many choices to go with.  Robert suggested that since he was giving his talk to high school and college students and that basically Kasey and Laura were just about at that target age, that one possible angle would be to take it from the point of view of students.  That made the most sense so for the Hiki No version of this story, that’s probably what we will end up doing.  For the version that we need to get ready for this Thursday’s “Insights” show on PBS Hawaii, we’re doing more of a news type story and just reporting on what happened.  The girls and I are here on Sunday importing and transcribing footage that was shot yesterday.  Talking about yesterday….

We had a really long day on Saturday.  We had to be at the Kahala Hotel by 6 am to get our press passes and get our equipment checked by security.  It was a little weird because once we passed through security, we had to be kept together in a room and we couldn’t leave without an escort, even to the bathroom.  Thankfully they didn’t follow us inside but they remained outside until we were done to escort us back to the room while we waited to board the bus for the first stop in the Dalai Lama’s visit.  After having a continental breakfast we finally boarded the bus at about 7:45 am and drove to Bishop Museum, the first stop on the tour.  Once we got there it was a mad scramble to the location to set up our tripod and get our equipment ready.  Lawrence accompanied us that day and said that we needed to hurry to get our spot since we were essentially competing with other camera men and women on the bus with us.  Wow, it’s like we were equals to these professionals!  We’re not used to that so we boarded the bus last which meant we sat in the back, not the ideal placement to get off quickly.  As expected, we were the last to set-up but we were left with a spot that wasn’t too bad and got our gear ready.  One of the camera guys was hired by the foundation to get good footage so he was able to move closer and he was kind enough to offer his spot to us.  One thing I have to say about this is that all of the other press people were very kind and courteous to us.  Lawrence explained later that we really got the red carpet treatment from these people because it’s usually not like that.  Normally everyone fights for the best spot because they all have a job to do.  If you’re timid, you’re left with the worst location so it was nice to see that they all were actually nice to us throughout the whole day.  Once things were set up we had to wait for His Holiness to arrive which took about another 45 minutes.  He was greeted by keiki from a Hawaiian language pre-school who sang for him as well as other dignitaries from the Bishop Museum.  His entourage moved inside where we were allowed to follow him to the atrium where he was given gifts and spoke for a few minutes.  That lasted for maybe 15 minutes and we scrambled to get our gear together to get back on the bus to the next location.

We then traveled to Iolani Palace but were disappointed to see that he had already arrived.  In fact, we had just set up our camera when he walked out briefly and walked across to our left into another room.  This was the only time we saw him and Laura was still able to capture that on her camera which was amazing because it happened so fast.  We then left and headed to the Stan Sheriff Center to get settled there.  We had maybe 10 minutes to scarf down a quick lunch before we were ushered into our respective spots before the entertainment started.  Laura and Lawrence went down to the floor while Kasey and I were escorted to the student press section right above them.  The program started on time at 11:45 with entertainment by local dance groups, singers and musicians.  The highlight was the last entertainer, Hawaii’s own Jack Johnson!  He only sang a few songs before the Dalai Lama appeared on stage to greet him.  I don’t think Jack knew this and it looked like he was surprised as he stopped in mid-song to shake hands with His Holiness.  He finished his song and then was formally introduced before his talk began.

He talked for close to two hours and then answered questions before he was given more gifts.  When he left, we were taken back to the media room where Kelvin Takata, the head of the Hawaii Community Foundation, answered some questions about the event.  Once that ended, we quickly grabbed a few students to interview in the media room before heading outside to find some more.  We ended up interviewing 4 students about their thoughts on the speech and then recorded our closing on-site before packing it up at 5 pm, a long 12 hours after we originally left the hotel that morning.  We were all exhausted but we agreed it was a great experience.  Mahalo to Leslie, Robert, Sue, and Lawrence from PBS Hawaii for giving us this fantastic opportunity.  We are so super busy right now and we’re in for some long hours this week to get that first video out, but this was something we could not pass up.  We are honored to have been a part of this experience and I will post a link to the finished video after we’re done with it later this week.