A few days after my viewership revelation was shared with the Parkway (which was the euphemistic name for the School District of Philadelphia's monolithic Central Office building at 21st Street and the Parkway, I was summoned to Nina's corner office.
She was infamous for her very long meetings - "chatting around things" - bringing someone in for something very important and then regaling them with stories about her homeland of Yugoslavia. These "meetings" could go on for hours and then finally she would get to the point of the visit. (Most of her staff avoided these chats whenever possible - it was plain to me that she really just needed someone to talk to as most of her staff feared her and avoided contact.) But I had an office right outside her door and was fair game when other staff disappeared. Plus, I wasn't afraid of her.
On one occasion it turned out to be a "real" meeting and she came right to the point - WHYY had an evening series that was ending in the middle of their season. They didn't have the budget to produce another show to fill the time spot so they were offering our department a "free" production time if we could fill that slot five days a week for next 5 months. "Calvin I want you to produce an evening show!" I was shocked - but I immediately realized this could be a great opportunity and I jumped on the idea without thinking just how I was going to produce 5 half hour talk shows a week along with 5 newscast - by myself.
For Your Information began that afternoon and I became a producer/host of a "fringe prime time" program (7:PM and in color no less, my newscast was in living black and white) - I was now the lead-in to Channel 12's prime time non-instructional evening programming.
Nina gave me no requirements except that I should use the shows to spotlight the school district in every way - and with only a few days lead time I started to "produce" what would become a meandering series of chats with anyone I could get with associated with education for the afternoon taping and talk about "Philly school related" subjects. Tim Ward was again assigned to me and Thom Roberts, scenic designer for the station put together a decent set from odd and ends laying around his scene shop. The only piece that was new was a large FYI sign which was hung oven an old battered sofa and my "host's' chair.
What did I talk about for the months to come? - "Free Summer Camps for Inner City Kids; The Offerings of the new Philadelphia Community College; The Future of Philly with former Mayor Richardson Dilworth...and many more topics that I "produced" from the two daily city newspapers and our District PR office flow of news releases. We taped the week's shows over two days - WHYY gave us the studio time, but on their terms. So in reality they wrote off five days of production in two days. And we shot the shows "as if they were live." Which meant only a disaster would stop tape for a quick edit. We had only two crew members; a cameraman and a floor director. This bare bones crew set up two "locked-down" cameras and a third one was "manned" and able to change shots or spin for graphics when needed.
At the time I didn't realize what a great training ground this was - the technology, or lack of it, forced me to make the most out of every guest an situation; to be totally prepared; (and most of all - be ready for Murphy's Law to strike at any time!)
(Murphy's Law = "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.") And at WHYY with its hand-me-down equipment from a local commercial station each show offered a host of potential problems. One stands out. As I sat on the set one afternoon with three guests waiting for what seemed to be an extra long setup of the camera and mikes - Director Tim whispered in my ear "we just lost one camera - so we have to cover with two cameras. We will just go without a wide shot." We could live without a wide shot I agreed. Work on the cameras continued. Tim returned. "We have lost camera 3 too," he reported. "One more down and we will be doing radio," I retorted. He didn't laugh and came back with, "It's up to you, we can cancel or do it with one camera". As I had nothing "in the can" as a backup, I immediately stated, "Roll tape, let's do it!" And became the host of one of WHYY TV's first single camera talk shows - to the reluctance of the crew. Scotty the floor manager quipped, " Hey we're doing a cable show today guys." Which to our team of big city union pro's was the lowest form of broadcasting one could attempt.
Years later when I was a vising professor for a college TV production class I used this situation for a class discussion - the question, how was this problem handled so the show would go on? After a lot of banter the class gave up and could not suggest a suitable answer. I then showed them Tim's very creative the solution that worke to save the show.
It was a simple solution. The single camera was set up to get one basic shot of the guests on the couch. I moved my desk chair, which swiveled, a few feet in front instead of at the side of the couch. When the show started the camera focused on me and I introduced the guests. It panned and zoomed past me to a "three-shot" of the guests. Instead of panning from left to right like following a tennis match - this minimal zoom in and out was far less distracting and got me into the picture to ask some of the questions with the respondents seen over my shoulder. At the end I swiveled around and closed the show. And the crews marveled that the program didn't look at all that bad, it was "cable" afterall.
This situation gave me a long lasting lesson as a director in my TV future to come - "getting something on tape is far better than getting nothing done - and Where there is a will, there is a way."
This motto became just as important for me as Murphy's law.
She was infamous for her very long meetings - "chatting around things" - bringing someone in for something very important and then regaling them with stories about her homeland of Yugoslavia. These "meetings" could go on for hours and then finally she would get to the point of the visit. (Most of her staff avoided these chats whenever possible - it was plain to me that she really just needed someone to talk to as most of her staff feared her and avoided contact.) But I had an office right outside her door and was fair game when other staff disappeared. Plus, I wasn't afraid of her.
On one occasion it turned out to be a "real" meeting and she came right to the point - WHYY had an evening series that was ending in the middle of their season. They didn't have the budget to produce another show to fill the time spot so they were offering our department a "free" production time if we could fill that slot five days a week for next 5 months. "Calvin I want you to produce an evening show!" I was shocked - but I immediately realized this could be a great opportunity and I jumped on the idea without thinking just how I was going to produce 5 half hour talk shows a week along with 5 newscast - by myself.
For Your Information began that afternoon and I became a producer/host of a "fringe prime time" program (7:PM and in color no less, my newscast was in living black and white) - I was now the lead-in to Channel 12's prime time non-instructional evening programming.
Nina gave me no requirements except that I should use the shows to spotlight the school district in every way - and with only a few days lead time I started to "produce" what would become a meandering series of chats with anyone I could get with associated with education for the afternoon taping and talk about "Philly school related" subjects. Tim Ward was again assigned to me and Thom Roberts, scenic designer for the station put together a decent set from odd and ends laying around his scene shop. The only piece that was new was a large FYI sign which was hung oven an old battered sofa and my "host's' chair.
What did I talk about for the months to come? - "Free Summer Camps for Inner City Kids; The Offerings of the new Philadelphia Community College; The Future of Philly with former Mayor Richardson Dilworth...and many more topics that I "produced" from the two daily city newspapers and our District PR office flow of news releases. We taped the week's shows over two days - WHYY gave us the studio time, but on their terms. So in reality they wrote off five days of production in two days. And we shot the shows "as if they were live." Which meant only a disaster would stop tape for a quick edit. We had only two crew members; a cameraman and a floor director. This bare bones crew set up two "locked-down" cameras and a third one was "manned" and able to change shots or spin for graphics when needed.
At the time I didn't realize what a great training ground this was - the technology, or lack of it, forced me to make the most out of every guest an situation; to be totally prepared; (and most of all - be ready for Murphy's Law to strike at any time!)
(Murphy's Law = "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.") And at WHYY with its hand-me-down equipment from a local commercial station each show offered a host of potential problems. One stands out. As I sat on the set one afternoon with three guests waiting for what seemed to be an extra long setup of the camera and mikes - Director Tim whispered in my ear "we just lost one camera - so we have to cover with two cameras. We will just go without a wide shot." We could live without a wide shot I agreed. Work on the cameras continued. Tim returned. "We have lost camera 3 too," he reported. "One more down and we will be doing radio," I retorted. He didn't laugh and came back with, "It's up to you, we can cancel or do it with one camera". As I had nothing "in the can" as a backup, I immediately stated, "Roll tape, let's do it!" And became the host of one of WHYY TV's first single camera talk shows - to the reluctance of the crew. Scotty the floor manager quipped, " Hey we're doing a cable show today guys." Which to our team of big city union pro's was the lowest form of broadcasting one could attempt.
Years later when I was a vising professor for a college TV production class I used this situation for a class discussion - the question, how was this problem handled so the show would go on? After a lot of banter the class gave up and could not suggest a suitable answer. I then showed them Tim's very creative the solution that worke to save the show.
It was a simple solution. The single camera was set up to get one basic shot of the guests on the couch. I moved my desk chair, which swiveled, a few feet in front instead of at the side of the couch. When the show started the camera focused on me and I introduced the guests. It panned and zoomed past me to a "three-shot" of the guests. Instead of panning from left to right like following a tennis match - this minimal zoom in and out was far less distracting and got me into the picture to ask some of the questions with the respondents seen over my shoulder. At the end I swiveled around and closed the show. And the crews marveled that the program didn't look at all that bad, it was "cable" afterall.
This situation gave me a long lasting lesson as a director in my TV future to come - "getting something on tape is far better than getting nothing done - and Where there is a will, there is a way."
This motto became just as important for me as Murphy's law.
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