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Frank Albano: Directing at ETV

When catching a town meeting that’s airing on East Haven Public TV (ETV), viewers will often hear members of the town’s legislative body discussing the many issues on the table for East Haven. What they don’t hear are the words, “Go camera one,” or “Go camera two,” so that the right shot can be captured for whomever is talking. This is the job of the station’s multi-cam director and East Haven native Frank Albano.

Frank began working at ETV toward the end of 2022 just prior to the station’s relocation to its current space on Main Street. He was encouraged to join the ETV team by the head of the station, Jay Miles, and has since been the multi-cam director for all town meetings and telethons.

“That's mainly my main forte is multi-cam direction,” says Frank.

Frank says there are differences between directing town meetings and telethons. When it comes to telethons, Frank has to be aware of “specific cameras that need to be used at certain times.”

“I'm locked into those, and I have to be on those,” he says.

In regards to meetings like those of the East Haven Council, Frank has “full control of which camera and where I want pointed and when that's going to be on screen.”

“I can just feel out the process,” says Frank. “I don't have to be like, ‘Oh, I have to be on camera one at this time or I have to be on camera two at this time.’ I can see who's talking, direct whoever is on the camera to go to them, and switch to that camera.”

Fortunately, the hardware that Frank uses is “very, very simple” and is comparable to a TriCaster board, rather than a larger board that would look unnavigable to those unfamiliar with broadcasting.

“We have four buttons for four cameras,” Frank says. “We’re able to put in certain elements like lower thirds, like a nameplate, by doing a few things in the media player. But with a more professional news station-type board, there’s hundreds of buttons.”

Even with the relatively simple technology that Frank uses, he is still a technically adept director. Frank studied media at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU), where he found that the skills he developed in music production, which was what he initially wanted to go into, were transferable to video production.

“Where I saw myself going was more of a music direction than a video direction. But once I started with all my classes and everything, it felt like it came really naturally to me...Going from using programs like GarageBand and Logic to iMovie and then Final Cut Pro, everything kind of transferred,” Frank says. “A lot of the commands are the same, so being able to know exactly how to do things without really even having to practice them in that specific software, that kind of helped me, and that I think gave me a little bit of a jump.”

As someone who loves “narrative-driven media,” Frank also enjoyed his script writing class at SCSU and says that it helped him “understand how to piece together an actual script,” whether it be a film, narrative podcast, or audiobook.

“To learn that process I feel really helped me make a better product for my student films,” Frank adds.

Storytelling even carries over into East Haven Town Council meetings, albeit in a less scripted way.

“Is this a story we're trying to tell during a town meeting? No. But there are aspects to it of getting the right shot for someone talking to be more impactful. You get that in a narrative setting,” Frank says. “I think knowing when to cut to certain things will help drive a point or whatever it is someone's saying as they're talking.”

Outside of ETV, Frank has his own media projects in the works. In the video realm, Frank is the lead investigator of a paranormal investigation show where scopes out supposedly haunted parts of the area like the Beacon Hill Trails in Branford and the Winchester Gun Factory. Frank says the goal of the show is to seek out “pretty much any proof that there are ghosts.”

Has he gotten close to establishing contact with the dead?

“There's no answer to that question. I’ve seen things I can't explain,” Frank says. “I can't say I've seen a ghost. That's the issue. Paranormal is such a pseudoscience that we don't know enough about it to say concretely, ‘This is real. This isn't real.’…I keep my mind open.”

In music, Frank’s project, “Midnight Marauder,” which is available for streaming on Spotify and Apple Music, combines different influences like soft rock, punk, and blues, inspired by one of his favorite artists, John Mayer.

Whatever media he is practicing, Frank knows that it fulfills his purpose in life: entertaining people.

“Whether that be with music—having them sing along to my songs or in some sort of short film setting where I can captivate people for 15 minutes or an hour—I feel like media helps people escape,” says Frank. “And if I can help them escape any issues they have in life, just for a few minutes, I feel like I've done my job.”