grinner
Carbonite Member
1989
My first paying gig in the television industry was running teleprompter for an ABC affiliate in Lubbock, TX. I decided to cure my woes of having to prompt for two anchors who read at very different speeds. This was an old analog prompter, meaning rather than a disk being handed to me, loading it and rolling via software, I was handed a hard copy of the script which was shot by an old tube camera over a conveyor belt. I decided this night would be a break through in technology for KAMC action news. Instead of grabbing a sheet at a time, positioning and trying to maintain speed and position of copy, I scotch taped every sheet together so that once I was off and going (in theory) I could just sit back and ride the speed from what looked light an old Variac dimmer from a 1970 light kit.
As this was a fool-proof plan, I didn't mention what I was doing to the news director. I test drove this new invention a few times before the 10 o'clock news went live and discovered that the weight of the copy caused some slippage in the early stages but I figured, hand-feeding until the script got light enough to feed itself was still going to be easier than feeding single pages all night.
Live, on the air, the first few pages I had already tested went seamlessly and I swelled with pride wondering why nobody here had thought of this before. Around page 12, I noticed I had accidentally taped one page upside down. I scrambled to un-tape it and get it on the belt before the anchor missed a page. Now the problem was getting back on track. Big problem actually as, in my haste to fix one page, I creased and untapped several others. I now sat in the studio floor literally digging through a huge pile of copy. I heard a whispered "what the hell?" and looked up to see two camera men staring at me and two news anchors with that 'dear in the headlights' look. From that night on, I was floor-director/cameraman.
1996
When I was staffing as at TNN, every now and then we'd get a rush job for Prime Time Country, a Dick Clark production that was recorded live. Every now and again an artist would screw up in a song or a dead interview would need some cleaning up and they'd rush the tapes accross the parking lot and we'd do a quick fix before it aired, always without the artist there.
Steven Seagal was the guest this day (it's an off-broadway version of the tonight show). He was promoting a new film as well as his blues band. The thing was he simply played terrible and was the front man. (more than terrible) Sour notes, bad timing (and several cutaways to hide the dear in the headlights vibe).
After his performance, two producers shuffled in behind me to see if I could make him sound better. This was in the linear days, mind you. I knew I wasn't gonna improve this thing but I had to appease. I explained that all I could do was trigger speed changes and make slight timing alterations. I wrestled with the first part of the song while more people trickled in behind me. After making a few more-than-obvious edits, I turned to the room saying "Guys, ya can't polish a turd." There before me stood Dick Clark Jr., a team of producers, a shocked audio dude and one very pissed off lookin'...
Steven Seagal.
doah!
1998
While and Nashville, an artist buddy of mine and I created a children's pilot called SNERK. We had pitched it PBS and Nickelodeon without success, were now back in Dallas and figured we'd employ SNERK one day on a shoot for Campfire Girls. As well, I figured it would be cool if SNERK showed up in style so we opted to take "The Ship of Fools" to Ft. Worth for the shoot. "The Ship of Fools" was my 32 foot school bus. Being that it was tie-died inside and out, I thought it would be great to paint SNERK on the side and make it a part of the package that day. All went well at the shoot but The Ship showed signs of discontentment along the way. I immediately felt wrong for whoring her out. She acted as grip truck/museum for the crew and kids all day.
One the way back to Dallas, she up and died completely. Coasting, I tried to exit I30 to try to avoid creating a bigger traffic jam that existed already. The drag was, the exit ramp was way up hill and I made it only 3/4 of the way before coming to a dead stop. Not much time passed before a cop pulled up to the bottom of the ramp, turned on his lights to detour would-be exiters and walked up offering his assistance. He called a tow truck big enough to handle The Ship of Fools and soon it arrived. Mark and I snickered at the air traffic report on the radio advising motorists to avoid I30 due to "The Partridge Family". The tow truck guy seemed displeased at being on an exit ramp off I30 under a hippie bus in 104 degree weather. Between two spits of dip juice, he snarled "Da brake on!?" I mentally translated this to mean "Turn the brake off" so I hopped in and did so. Now standing at the side of the ramp, our tow truck friend pulled a lever and no sooner than that, the bus fell off the lift and began rolling backwards. We all three experienced what seemed like an eternity but was more like a few seconds of panic resulting in only freezing and watching. I must admit I had an extra second as I zoned in on the scratched front bumper and the torn-off fog light. It then dawned on my that my multi-ton hippie bus was propelling down a ramp toward one Dallas' finest as well as on-coming interstate traffic. I ran as fast as I could, dove into the bus, pulled the parking break (the very one I had just turned off)and rolled backwards, catching myself where I could see the cop still in his car, staring at me with the same eyes I had seen on two news anchors almost a decade before.
1998
I was hired to run camera at the Dallas Convention Center one bright early morning. (Freelance often means taking any gig offered) The talent was to be Bob Dole so a little more dress code than usual was required. One the way in, I grabbed a V8 for some early morning nourishment and headed into the men's room to ensure my full focus would be on the shoot. The inside of the convention center's bathroom was covered, ceiling, wall and floor with one inch tile which cleverly camouflaged the step up to the urinals. These we're no average urinals. They were as tall as me and each were a proud 2 feet wide. Anyway, I tripped on the unseen step, stumbled toward one of the monstrous urinals, paid way too much attention to my tomato juice, slipped on my never-worn church shoes and into a man-eating pisser. I spent the next five minutes bathing in the convention center sink, freaked out about what diseases I had to have just gotten. The irony of the whole ordeal?
Sen. Dole was speaking at a Urology convention.
My first paying gig in the television industry was running teleprompter for an ABC affiliate in Lubbock, TX. I decided to cure my woes of having to prompt for two anchors who read at very different speeds. This was an old analog prompter, meaning rather than a disk being handed to me, loading it and rolling via software, I was handed a hard copy of the script which was shot by an old tube camera over a conveyor belt. I decided this night would be a break through in technology for KAMC action news. Instead of grabbing a sheet at a time, positioning and trying to maintain speed and position of copy, I scotch taped every sheet together so that once I was off and going (in theory) I could just sit back and ride the speed from what looked light an old Variac dimmer from a 1970 light kit.
As this was a fool-proof plan, I didn't mention what I was doing to the news director. I test drove this new invention a few times before the 10 o'clock news went live and discovered that the weight of the copy caused some slippage in the early stages but I figured, hand-feeding until the script got light enough to feed itself was still going to be easier than feeding single pages all night.
Live, on the air, the first few pages I had already tested went seamlessly and I swelled with pride wondering why nobody here had thought of this before. Around page 12, I noticed I had accidentally taped one page upside down. I scrambled to un-tape it and get it on the belt before the anchor missed a page. Now the problem was getting back on track. Big problem actually as, in my haste to fix one page, I creased and untapped several others. I now sat in the studio floor literally digging through a huge pile of copy. I heard a whispered "what the hell?" and looked up to see two camera men staring at me and two news anchors with that 'dear in the headlights' look. From that night on, I was floor-director/cameraman.
1996
When I was staffing as at TNN, every now and then we'd get a rush job for Prime Time Country, a Dick Clark production that was recorded live. Every now and again an artist would screw up in a song or a dead interview would need some cleaning up and they'd rush the tapes accross the parking lot and we'd do a quick fix before it aired, always without the artist there.
Steven Seagal was the guest this day (it's an off-broadway version of the tonight show). He was promoting a new film as well as his blues band. The thing was he simply played terrible and was the front man. (more than terrible) Sour notes, bad timing (and several cutaways to hide the dear in the headlights vibe).
After his performance, two producers shuffled in behind me to see if I could make him sound better. This was in the linear days, mind you. I knew I wasn't gonna improve this thing but I had to appease. I explained that all I could do was trigger speed changes and make slight timing alterations. I wrestled with the first part of the song while more people trickled in behind me. After making a few more-than-obvious edits, I turned to the room saying "Guys, ya can't polish a turd." There before me stood Dick Clark Jr., a team of producers, a shocked audio dude and one very pissed off lookin'...
Steven Seagal.
doah!
1998
While and Nashville, an artist buddy of mine and I created a children's pilot called SNERK. We had pitched it PBS and Nickelodeon without success, were now back in Dallas and figured we'd employ SNERK one day on a shoot for Campfire Girls. As well, I figured it would be cool if SNERK showed up in style so we opted to take "The Ship of Fools" to Ft. Worth for the shoot. "The Ship of Fools" was my 32 foot school bus. Being that it was tie-died inside and out, I thought it would be great to paint SNERK on the side and make it a part of the package that day. All went well at the shoot but The Ship showed signs of discontentment along the way. I immediately felt wrong for whoring her out. She acted as grip truck/museum for the crew and kids all day.
One the way back to Dallas, she up and died completely. Coasting, I tried to exit I30 to try to avoid creating a bigger traffic jam that existed already. The drag was, the exit ramp was way up hill and I made it only 3/4 of the way before coming to a dead stop. Not much time passed before a cop pulled up to the bottom of the ramp, turned on his lights to detour would-be exiters and walked up offering his assistance. He called a tow truck big enough to handle The Ship of Fools and soon it arrived. Mark and I snickered at the air traffic report on the radio advising motorists to avoid I30 due to "The Partridge Family". The tow truck guy seemed displeased at being on an exit ramp off I30 under a hippie bus in 104 degree weather. Between two spits of dip juice, he snarled "Da brake on!?" I mentally translated this to mean "Turn the brake off" so I hopped in and did so. Now standing at the side of the ramp, our tow truck friend pulled a lever and no sooner than that, the bus fell off the lift and began rolling backwards. We all three experienced what seemed like an eternity but was more like a few seconds of panic resulting in only freezing and watching. I must admit I had an extra second as I zoned in on the scratched front bumper and the torn-off fog light. It then dawned on my that my multi-ton hippie bus was propelling down a ramp toward one Dallas' finest as well as on-coming interstate traffic. I ran as fast as I could, dove into the bus, pulled the parking break (the very one I had just turned off)and rolled backwards, catching myself where I could see the cop still in his car, staring at me with the same eyes I had seen on two news anchors almost a decade before.
1998
I was hired to run camera at the Dallas Convention Center one bright early morning. (Freelance often means taking any gig offered) The talent was to be Bob Dole so a little more dress code than usual was required. One the way in, I grabbed a V8 for some early morning nourishment and headed into the men's room to ensure my full focus would be on the shoot. The inside of the convention center's bathroom was covered, ceiling, wall and floor with one inch tile which cleverly camouflaged the step up to the urinals. These we're no average urinals. They were as tall as me and each were a proud 2 feet wide. Anyway, I tripped on the unseen step, stumbled toward one of the monstrous urinals, paid way too much attention to my tomato juice, slipped on my never-worn church shoes and into a man-eating pisser. I spent the next five minutes bathing in the convention center sink, freaked out about what diseases I had to have just gotten. The irony of the whole ordeal?
Sen. Dole was speaking at a Urology convention.
