My insanely creative (or wait… is that just insane?) editor was gracious enough to put up with me this weekend. I am so excited about launching episode 7 “Patrolling with the Mounted Police” and have this vision in my head of what it will be so he kindly took my two pages of notes and turned them into the best rough cut of HorseGirlTV I’ve seen thus far. I can’t fair for final color correction, sound levels and for it to launch to the world. This one is just too much fun! Thanks for hanging in there with me Brent! You’re amazing and the episode is almost as cool as you are!
Month: July 2007
HorseGirlTV featured in the Washington Post
More extra! More extra! More, read all about it. HorseGirlTV was featured in the Washington Post. The article has a few errors but it was really nice of Amy to write such a fun piece on HorseGirlTV! I’m pasting the article below in case you want to read it. It was in print and online. I haven’t seen the print version yet but they are sending me a couple copies via the post!
Here’s the article:
New Podcast Trotting Out News for the Horse World
Producer Finds Plenty Of Material in Virginia
By Amy Orndorff, Washington Post Staff Writer, July 29, 2007
Fox hunts. Polo. Horse races.
Perhaps not the first places you would check to see tech-savvy youths, but with a little help from Nokesville podcaster Angelea Kelly, Virginia’s equestrian sports are ready for the YouTube and MySpace generation.
“The idea was to take the horse world, which is a fairly classic community, and add a little MTV to it,” said Kelly, at the reins of HorseGirlTV.
The podcast focuses on all things related to horses, including modern-day cowboys and competitive riding. After producing her first six shows on the West Coast, Kelly moved to Nokesville to profile the mid-Atlantic horse scene.
“When you talk about horse country, you think Kentucky and Virginia,” Kelly said.
Her next podcast, which airs Wednesday on HorseGirlTV.com, explores the Prince William County police horse-mounted patrol. About twice a month, the unit of four officers makes the rounds in neighborhoods, mall parking lots, parks, special events and concerts at Nissan Pavilion.
The mounted unit is just a year old and First Sgt. Kim Chinn hopes the podcast will encourage more people, especially women, to join.
“It’s basically educational, and that appeals to us from a recruiting standpoint,” Chinn, the supervisor, said. “We are always trying to get women into the police force, and there are a lot of women in the horse community.”
Chinn led Kelly through a day in the life of a mounted officer, from patrolling the Manassas Mall to mingling with children in the Irongate community across from the shopping center. Children ran or rode their bikes for a chance to pet the horses.
“It took the ‘force’ out of law enforcement,” Kelly said, because officers on horseback often are seen as more approachable than those in cars.
Kelly, who was reared in the Lone Star State, is the granddaughter of a Texas cowboy and grew up fascinated by horses. Through mowing lawns and saving her allowance, she was able to buy her first pony for $75 when she was 10. Without telling her parents, Kelly saved enough to buy and take care of a horse by the time she was 17.
This same perseverance and entrepreneurship led her from an online-communities job at Yahoo to starting up HorseGirlTV. Although it’s a small operation — boyfriend , a Marine Officer, runs the camera — Kelly has still received positive feedback on iTunes, YouTube and MySpace.
Kelly, the ‘CEO’ (Chief Equine Officer), runs the show out of her Nokesville house with help from and her post production house, Jackhammer Films whom edits the videos and adds animation and music. Her next podcasts all will be locall: one on a bill that could affect horse transportation and another on the role horses play in Manassas battlefield reenactments.
“Virginia was a total attraction,” Kelly said. “This is a mecca for the horse world.”
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
HorseGirlTV has been featured in the Medford Mail Tribune’s Business section both online and in print today! It’s pretty exciting so if you can, check it out. Feel free to make a fun and cool comment! It’s called: Riding the Web race
The facts are not 100% accurate but Greg Stiles did a pretty darn good job of getting across the just of the information. It was really nice to be supported by a local Oregon newspaper as well!
Yee-haw!
You can read the article on the HorseGirlTV website as well on the buzz and in case you’re just too darn lazy to click any of the links, I’ll paste it below. I really wish I could phone Nicole and tell her about this! She certainly would be proud! :*)
I love Alan’s comment. He’s so cool! In case you guys find this… Pleva or Wilson, I never said anything about graduation. I did say I went to SOU tho! BTW, doing that accounting class right now and plan to apply for the degree in 2008!
Medford, OR – July 20 – Riding the Web race
SOU grad creates HorseGirlTV podcasts combining riding videos, music and information about competitive horsemanship. A Southern Oregon University grad is taking her love of horsemanship into the digital age with a new podcast.
By Greg Stiles, Mail Tribune, July 20, 2007
Unless you trek through the world of podcasts you probably haven’t heard of HorseGirlTV.
The rapidly growing realm of podcasting enables entrepreneurial dreamers like Angelea Kelly to get a foot in the door that was rarely cracked in earlier eras. Blending a love for horses, the wizardry of digital film editors and the iTunes generation, Kelly has hit on something that’s growing both in viewership and economic potential.
HorseGirlTV is a variety show about horses — ranging from their work and history to their competitive world and beyond.
“It’s educational and entertaining at the same time,” says Kelly. “I wanted to take the horse world and bring it into the 21st Century.”
Kelly, the show’s host, writer, producer, director, public relations, marketing and Web-development maven, likes to think of the five-to-eight-minute episodes as hip and happening. Her boyfriend, , serves as cameraman, while Jackhammer Moving Pictures of Ashland does post-production digitizing.
Kelly studied computer information science at Southern Oregon University, put in a stint at Open Door Networks and operated Alchemy Farms, a 2-acre farm adjacent to Wagner Creek Farm, before moving to Madrid for a while.
The Friendswood, Texas, native started riding horses when she was 5 and entered her first 4-H competition when she was 10. She earned a United States Dressage Federation silver medal in 2004 and a gold medal in 2006.
While being in front of the camera might be new, Kelly appeared in the Ashland Community Theatre’s “12 Angry Jurors” in 1999 and appeared in Sierra Repertory Theatre’s production of “Oklahoma!” at Sonora, Calif., during 2002.
The possibility of a podcast was raised Labor Day Weekend 2006 over lunch with Charley Lanusse, whose Starseed company developed the WebRing technology that was acquired by Geocities and then Yahoo!
“We were chatting and I told Charley how I wanted to revolutionize the horse industry, bringing it into the 21st century,” Kelly recalls. “He said, ‘Why don’t you do a podcast?’ We went back to his house and he showed me podcasts that he liked. Charley was brilliant about saying you should do this or that.”
By Sept. 14, she had HorseGirlTV.com reserved and then created a limited liability company on Jan. 18.
Kelly launched bi-weekly HorseGirlTV’s podcasts May 1 with the first six episodes filmed in Ashland, Central Point, Eagle Point, Ashland and Sams Valley. Last month, she headed for Virginia along with her horse Joewell, a Trakehner from Germany, which was among the top-10 hopefuls in line for United States team at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and has a shot at making it to Beijing in 2008.
The latest episode being processed at Jackhammer features Kelly and Joewell’s ride-along last Sunday with the Prince William County Police Mounted Patrol Unit.
“They were at a horse event to connect with the community at the Manassas Mall,” Kelly says. “They usually patrol a lower-income area with townhouses and they get to know people better this way.”
This fall, Kelly plans to return to Europe, to shoot nine episodes during a 13-day period.
“I met a lot of horse people when I did Web development in Madrid and made a lot of contacts,” she says. “Now I’m able to use those contacts in Germany, Holland and Spain.”
The show has gained a steady following and the most recent statistics show a 224 percent gain in viewership.
“The beauty of podcasts is that you get to interact with your viewers through e-mail, forums and chats,” Kelly says. “We’re getting good reviews from iTunes and getting e-mail from all over the country and world.”
Her former employer at Open Door Networks, Alan Oppenheimer says the vehicle is perfect for someone to break into video programming.
“There are more and more film houses because of the Internet,” Oppenheimer says. “Anyone, anywhere can start a studio or a TV channel. Very small operations with an Internet connection and Web site can produce programming from whoever knows where. Angelea is very energetic and she’s interviewed the top people in the field.”
Ultimately, Kelly hopes to expand to cable or satellite distribution.
“We would be very happy to entertain an offer from Animal Planet or Discovery Channel,” she admits. “We would fit well as a segment between one show and another on Animal Planet.”
Present episodes are limited by bandwidth availability, not content, she says. “There is plenty of material.”
And… there you have it!
Happy 4th of July!
This is what happens when you work online for about 18 hours eating only bowls of cereal to the illumination of the LCD and only taking an hour break to run and shower! The results leaves you with nothing to blog about but nifty new Flash versions of your video podcast AND a handy dandy sharing page. Sharing is caring so check out the new banners and embedding options from HorseGirlTV. The Share Page
Happy 4th of July. Virginia is GREAT and I can’t wait to get to see Washington DC for the first time here very soon! Enjoy the commentary below. It’s wacky.
Rewind to a different era. In a July 4th, 1970 celebration, renowned ‘psychic’ Reverend Billy Graham addressed the gathered masses on the steps of our nation’s capitol. Our country, shattered at the time by the Vietnam War, and divided by the lingering affects of race riots two years previous, appear to be sinking into the abyss of chaos. Above the chanting protesters, Reverend Graham peered into his disco ball, through the rising marijuanan clouds, past leisure suilts made from plastic fabric, and managed a pretty good impression of Dionne Warwick’s friends. “In every country there is a dissent,” he offered as the protest litany rose. “But in American we have constructive dissent, and that’s what this country was built upon. But when dissent takes the form of violence and has no moral meaning, then dissent has become anarchy.” So, Reverend… they say everyone has a hidden talent and the Enquirer just called for you. They said they’d like your predictions for 2008!
More fireworks please! How about a sparkler to verify the fact that Billy Graham is starting to make Nostradamus look like your average horse betting schmuck! How about a mail bomb to stifle the masses holding their collective breath while would-be anarchists emerge out of the American woodwork, missing their connecting flights so they can take their suicide mission into the side of major US landmarks and attempt to hold a nation’s beliefs hostage! Yes, we American’s are very patriotic and we all love a good fireworks show with the fan-fair of a spectacular fly-by. Fireworks are cool but not on the 99th floor of the WTC and not with domestic flights! Bombs bursting in air you say? How about buses bursting in air in Russell Square? Star spangled banners? How about a banner of flames as an auto crashes into Glasglow airport?
Still with me?.. OK, speaking of cool, let me tell you about some of the lovely partying gifts for playing today’s game. Cool homicide fad; the drive-by. Chic terrorist act; the mail bomb. Hot high-tech trend; prowling the Internet preying upon naive and innocent victims you can exploit in any manner possible. All this can be yours and more, just for living in what us sentient beings call the 21st Century!
What has become of our world’s finest criminal minds? No more blazing subway shootouts, no more daring bank heists. No, today’s criminal has learned to hide conveniently behind the crime. Would be anarchist such as the Unabomber or the Oklahoma City perpetrators take no responsibility for committing their offenses. When I say responsibility I am not referring to the idea of owning up to the consequences. No, I mean the old fashioned notion of a criminal personally committing the act.
Fortunately for the deviously clever, modern convenience and technology have alleviated the annoying burden of personal responsibility. For crying outside, at least a car jacking requires the perpetrator to face the victim, eye to eye. Get some cajones amigo, knock off a convenience store, look the quivering attendant square in the face, do your best Fred Astaire for the camera and earn your hundred and change (usually in small denominations, because as the sign states they can’t break a Fifty, wink wink). Appalling? Not really. In fact, eliminate assault rifles and handguns while you’re at it. Give every petty thief, terrorist, and gang member a thirty-pound broad sword to lug around. Then we’ll all KNOW who the enemy is, and when they’re coming, because they’re going to be dog-ass tired. Sorry, no horses allowed, we wouldn’t want a ‘Jaust-by’ now would we? And while we’re at it, maybe the good ol’ Greek 300 had the right idea? Face you enemy, look him square in the eyes as you thrust your sword directly through his beating heart?
I suppose that with all this nostalgia for good ole fashioned crime and violence being bandied about you’re most likely thinking that I’m simply a GenX sniveler hearkening back to a ‘better time’ I barely remember. Quite frankly, I’ve never know any time to be any ‘better’ than the one I’m living in. I have truly never been so happy. So that narrows the problem down to what can only be summarized by good ol’ fashioned American bumper-sticker philosophy, ‘If You Don’t Like the United States, Then Get Out.’ As a matter of fact, ‘ been thinking of an international trip soon. Ah, Milano, Paris again or possibly Moscow! Anything south of the equator sounds good too… Maybe I’ll even research the possibility of a trip to Afghanistan, employment opportunities abound, and in fact I understand there exists a growing need for airline pilots there. But then again, I’m not interested in a crash course on flying just yet.