prog | Channel 3 Friday

"ERA The Real Estate Answers Show": Four real estate agents at a small round table, talking shop. The one moderating is a young man who does a reasonable job keeping up the flow, but is distracting to watch; he's sitting in a half-curled position and is fidgeting and rocking absentmindedly. (I do the same thing a lot, but not on TV.) I imagined that he's pretty charismatic and energetic in person, but didn't quite know how to handle a staged setting.

Interesting style point: the moderator sits such a way that he has to face sideways or even away from the camera when talking to the others. Probably, he should have sat in the center of frame.

Frequent redisplay of subtitles bearing the agents' names and agency names, which is fine. At the start, though, the agents all rattled off their email addresses and phone numbers but there were no corresponding subtitles. Surely they could have thrown some together.

They're talking this week about selling one's house, so I'm not really listening.

Café SCAT: nifty, a local music showcase. Just a band performing a set in the SCAT studio. I note how the website invites people to just walk in and watch the tapings. There is indeed an unseen but audible crowd present.

Hard to say much about this one. They mix up the camera work just enough to keep it interesting, without being obtrusive about it. The sound is handled just fine. And other than that, it's just here-have-some-musicians. But, I love local stuff, and I may make a habit out of this one.

Oh, it's also the first hour-long show I've encountered on this station. I'm glad the option is available. I have the idea in my head that our show will be half an hour, but I won't worry about not having the room to do a holiday special or something.