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| In a corner of Studio 3 Control |
So, what do you do for a living?
When somebody asks my occupation, I usually respond that I'm a "Broadcast Engineer." I get this funny look and they cock their
head at me and say: "Um, what's that?" It might be easier if I just said I'm an on-air flying button monkey. No, it
doesn't help out understanding the technical aspect, but it's good enough to get a feel for what I do.
In descriptive terms, what I do is a great deal of file organization before a show, then cuing and playing during a show.
The art department will create all kinds of snazzy graphics, I'll put them together in some coherent fashion, then play them
back during the show. The organization part is simply filing, about as boring as it sounds... The playback part is really
the key to the job... Imagine sitting at your computer and you're surfing the web. Now imagine that you have to time your
clicks just right (within a fraction of a second) or, for annoyance's sake, your system crashes. Now pretend people are watching
you – hovering over your shoulder, watching every keystroke. Now imagine that you can only see the other 9 people in
the control room, but you can hear the other 140 people that work on the show... and just behind them are the other 23 million
people that watch the show. Oh yeah: every minute on the air is worth in excess of $10,000 advertising dollars so if you screw
up, you're fired. Fortunately, there's no real stress on the job.
Being a broadcast engineer just about anywhere can be summed up by an old description: long periods of mind-numbing boredom
punctuated by moments of sheer panic. No matter the show, it's all pretty similar.
Behind the Scenes
My history in television really starts with
childhood exposure. Ol' Mum was an anchor at a cable TV station in Crystal Lake (IL) in the mid 70s, a reporter in Rockford
(IL), a film editor at WGN in Chicago and a movie projectionist all around the Chicago area. I did the bucket toss on the Bozo Show once and I watched the Blues Brothers 120 times in the
theaters (for free, of course). That barrage of media behind the scenes (at the consumer level) inoculated me to the industry.
For better worse, once inoculated, it also meant it was in my blood.
After flirting with the talent side during high school (and a little in college), I started finding my roots by getting a job at UNM's Media Technology Services. This dovetailed with work on my minor: television production. Technically, I was set to dual-minor in television
and film but at the last minute decided that wasn't kosher. I was bummed, to say the least, so I picked the one I thought
would help land a job out of school: television.
The MTS gig was mostly remote camera work for ITV with a little TDing and some engineering. Let me tell you: ITV is, without question, the most boring thing ever put to tape.
Somehow, I got stuck doing the EE classes... Watching color bars was usually more entertaining.
Out of school, instead of doing the creative writing thing, I shot for the practical production end. It was probably a mistake,
but writing for a living just seemed too good to be true. So, to pay the bills, I filled up the production manager's voice
mail at KOB in Albuquerque. They hired me (mostly to shut me up) and I took my production skills to the next level in a commercial television
station.
I was trained in – and worked on – studio camera, floor direction, field camera, audio, master control,
technical direction and finally direction. I even produced a story for our weatherman. I was there for about four years before
the call of the coast finally overcame the Land of Enchantment...
Go West, Young Man!
I arrived in Los Angeles on January 10th, 1997. I'd never been that far west, yet strangely, it felt like I'd been there before.
I had no friends out there, no family, no job and not a heckuva lotta money. My first night there (a Friday), I fought my
way through the 10 West to the Will Rogers State Beach and stuck my fingers in the dark Pacific. I'd finally made it to the land of mountains and ocean; the land of palm trees
and George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
The incredible high of finally achieving a geographic dream was immediately followed by a crashing low of reality: now
what was I gonna do? I explored the area over the weekend and on Monday morning, dropped off a résumé at KNBC (the NBC affilate in Burbank).
After dropping off the résumé, I took the studio tour to get a sense of scale. They were huge. My entire old station could
fit inside a Days of Our Lives stage. I wasn't just scouting out some local affiliate, I was walking through NBC Corporate
West. They shot the Tonight Show there! "Days of Our Lives" was taped there! (Not that I watched it, but coming from KOB, I was used to seeing it air over our channel).
By some miracle, I caught them just after a few folk had left. They had openings. It wasn't my optimal job (TD or director),
but it was good enough to pay the bills. They offered a type of recurring freelance position called a "daily hire" and I accepted.
This was also my introduction to the nature of unions and labor relations. I joined NABET and for the next five or so years, did graphics and CG work for KNBC. When it got slow, there was always the occasional gig
at other stations, such as some fill-in work I did over at KCAL on the Paramount lot.
Settling In...
Between my semi-regular shifts for local (KNBC), I did occasional sit-in work as a backup for the freshly minted "Access Hollywood." I got in via a fairly common mechanism: desperation. A previous fill-in had been scheduled to do their show CG and
that person freaked out under pressure and fled the building. Not having anyone (and going live to satellite in an hour),
they begged local to borrow me. I sat in, ran the show smoothly and they liked me. This led to the occasional gig "across
the hall" (Access was in Studio 5 at the time, the old "Later" stage [which is now the KWHY studio]).
I did make an attempt, around 2000 or so, to diversify my professional portfolio. I'd done a little in-house voice work for
KOB, mostly "Ice Capades" and movie tags ("Starts Friday at a theater near you!"), but I got a couple bucks for every
bit I did. Money is always encouraging. I was told I had a good voice and that sentiment was echoed enough that I almost believed
it. It's not Don La Fontaine by any means but rather a decent commercial-character baritone with an ultra-smooth cold read and an ability to make technical
phrases understandable. I was already in L.A. – heck, what could I lose? I wanted to give it a shot.
I took a few voice classes and even got my AFTRA card but the dog bite left more than outer scars. My lower lip stiffened if I did more than about 10 seconds of public speaking; enunciation and
internal scar tissue just didn't mix. For a couple years, the condition eliminated any possibility that I could handle forty
takes for a director that needed to hear just how many ways "Meow Mix" could be pronounced.
With plenty of speaking practice, the stiffening no longer has any effect on my diction (I can feel it but you can't hear
it). That's good. What's bad is that it took five years to get to this point, allowing all kinds of rust to creep into
the vocal chords. While I have done some gratis work for an amateur video game, I haven't had any illusions of going pro.
I think VO work would be a gas, and perhaps some time in the future I'll finally break in. In the mean time, it's outside
my focus. Why...?
By 2003, I was easing back from local news work and surviving almost solely on gigs over at Access. My goal at the time was
to get out of production and into writing and producing. My baby, the novel, was my priority. After all, I'd graduated UNM with a major in English and a minor in production. I was living off
the minor and needed to change that to the major!
My professional reputation both helped and hindered. While I was trying to write for a living (and still am), I got a call
in '05 to freelance at another NBC staple: The Tonight Show. More recently, I've been freelancing for the NFL network. These aren't exactly writing gigs, but as long as my landlord is still asking for rent, I'm still asking for work. It's
all pretty sporadic, but that's typical for the average free-lancer in this town. Between them, the bills are paid and I treat
time between gigs as a working sabbatical.
What's on the Horizon?
I don't see publishing as a maybe – I see it as a must. I see manuscripts in my future and perhaps even screenplays.
However, I have to be realistic: even for most professional writers, gigs between "works" are more often the rule than the
exception. I could certainly do worse than working productions jobs between writing novels.
That said, the graphic playback gig is getting stale. I'm good at it, I'll do it as long as they want me... but I'm leaning
back toward Technical Direction. Optimally, I'd love to put on a third hat over at Access... if not jumping departments altogether
and writing/producing. Sure, it would be total fluff, but have you watched the news lately? The world needs a little
fluff.
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