When I am not tending to Two Plus Two, my real source of income is video production. I have been in the TV/Production business since 1980.

I started at a small market TV station in Rockford IL as an entry level engineer. Great learning experience. Lucky to have a senior member of the staff take me under his wing and teach me all aspects of the operation of the station and troubleshooting. Left as Assistant Chief Engineer.

Worked for a production company in Rockford that did everything from True Value Hardware store spots (my first commercial editing gig) to local talk shows and religious programming.

In 1983 went to Detroit to be the first video editor at the largest 16 & 35mm film processing and editing house in town. In its heyday, Detroit processed about as much film as Hollywood with all the corporate and commercial work coming from the auto companies.

From there I spent 4 years on staff at General Motors doing in house video production. Most of the stuff was press conferences, training and promotional videos. I was on hand at several of the scenes of Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" movie. Worked on several auto show elements.

Went freelance in late 1988 after editing for NBC at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul Korea. Won two Emmys for that event. One for venue editing and another for studio editing. I have 8 total. Three were for editing at some of the early ESPN X-Games, the rest were for other Olympics.

Currently the majority of my work is Technical Directing (vision mixing for the Brits) multi-camera live shows. I also direct on occasion and am a replay operator on some sports shows.

I've worked on about 100 poker shows. including a directing credit for VH1's Celebrity Poker Showdown, directing and switching the game.

I'll update this thread with reports and pictures from the events I am working and answer any questions about the business.

Sadly, some of them are in rough shape. Who knew they would use cheap statuettes?

But it's 8 more than I have.

Not really rough, just that the Chicago company that makes the statues had a problem with the gold plating for a couple of years. The bottom base is still gold but the statue went silver.



Started all the same color as the base.

No rough wasn't the right word; they still look good aside from the colour. Obviously you never took them on a drunken tour like the hockey players do with the Stanley Cup.

Or you just couldn't be bothered after the first 3 or 4...

Since you mentioned Lord Stanley's Cup



I worked as an editing supervisor 1999 & 2000 for ESPN covering the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The above was at the NHL Awards in Vegas a few yrs ago.

Hey PP can you share a Michael Moore story with us?

Should be interesting. In.

Is this a blog or more of a well type thing?

If the latter, what was the most entertaining/interresting production you did/worked for?

Also gratz on those 8 Emmys. Way to go.

Edit: You only created the blog sub-forum so you can brag about your 8 Emmys. Confirm/denie?

Never had any direct interaction. I was directing and/or video switching several of the events where he tried to ambush the Chairman, Roger Smith. Overheard the GM security detail discussing being on the lookout for him or any of his people.

Both.
There have been several. On the entertaining side, my first Olympics, which was my first national gig, was a thrill. Lot of stories there.

Miss USA and Miss Universe Pageants are always fun. In 1999 I was the edit supervisor in Trinidad for Miss Universe. They put the crew up at the same hotel as the girls. Hilarity ensued.

On the interesting side, I did a lot of work as a freelance instructor for a couple of the video equipment manufacturers. Those gigs sent me around the world meeting a lot of interesting folks.

In 1991, for a week I was cleared for unescorted access to the Launch Control Building at Kennedy Space Center to train the crew on a new editing system. After the first day of class, the supervisor gave me the tour of that facility including the launch control room, which was mission control for the Apollo Moon Missions, and the 50 story vehicle assembly building next door. After the next class I was driven out to a launch pad that was preparing for a shuttle launch, and was able to walk right under the shuttle engines.

Another fun training gig was at the Engineer training facility for a major railroad company. After lunch one day, I was given a 10 minute lesson on how to run a locomotive and thrown on the full sized simulator for the certification run. I was doing quite well till I got to a downhill portion of the run. I almost got knocked off my feet (with the instructor laughing) as it felt and sounded like I was getting rear-ended 8 times (8 car train).

The instructor neglected to inform me on how to handle downhill runs. Then he tells me you have to apply throttle to the engine and brakes to the cars at the same time to keep the cars from rolling into the engine.

Exactly, and waited 11 years to roll it out.

Interesting story PP! I'm always fascinated by other's work life, it's amazing to me how life takes us to so many different places. And congratulations on the eight Emmys.

The Michael Minkoff Quiz should give everyone hours of fun.

That's pretty cool that people were scared to get ambushed by him. How did you enjoy being a part of that was it just or work or something you were interested in at the time ?

super interesting life. love reading about it.

Pretty good. Should have some more shows listed next week. Been lazy about updating it. Working another Hoodie Awards (renamed Neighborhood Awards) next weekend.

Got booked on several Pac-12 "Olympic" sports this fall so I'll be seeing a lot of Stanford, UCLA and maybe WA.

During the events I was pretty focused on the job I had to do so other than being aware of some PIA named Michael Moore, I had no real idea what was going on with him. There was an event where one of his guys, chair and all was lifted and removed from the room by security. I was directing and switching cameras for GM on that event.

After watching the movie, I have no idea what they were afraid of. If they would have let him interview the Chairman they would not have had much of a movie. Many of the handlers of the top execs are super puckered and afraid of their own shadows, while the execs themselves are cool and easy to deal with.

Michael, do you think this field is getting saturated? With advancements in software, cheaper equipment, and a wealth of information online, it seems to be becoming very accessible.

Over the past year or so, I've been learning a lot about video photography, motion graphics, VFX, compositing, etc. I've enjoyed it immensely and still research this stuff every day, trying to learn as much as I can and acquire more skills. I'm fortunate now to have a job producing video for Bluff, but if I hadn't gotten that opportunity, I'm not sure I could seriously consider making a career of this sort of work.

Maybe this stuff doesn't apply to your line of work. Do you typically go through a certification program to do broadcast engineering, or get a degree? How did you get started?

The broad answer is no, but that depends on your specialty within the industry. There is room in the industry for competent operators in all positions. I know that there is a shortage of qualified live TV graphics operators and the better ones fly all over the country on gigs.

The type of work you are doing for Bluff (btw, fine job on that) is quite different than live sports and entertainment. A successful live multi camera network level show will always require a large production crew all working in sync, all with the ability to handle the pressure of live TV.

There have been a few all-in-one products, like a Tricaster, that claim you can produce a live show with minimal operators but the reality is, while it is quite good at what it does, it does not deal with last minute creative changes or show curveballs well at all. If every element and every effect is planed out and rehearsed in advance - these boxes can work, but most broadcast or webcast live shows never go completely as planned and you cant stop the show to reprogram the switcher.

Many colleges and universities now offer TV programs, some of which are quite good. Another path is to pick an area that you want to specialize in and take operation classes from the folks that manufacture that equipment. In my case 95% of my knowledge came from on the job training or factory classes.

awesome read PP. we still have to get you hooked up live.

Stumbled upon this RCA Technical Magazine from 1969.

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/...ws/RCA-141.pdf

The station I started at was a state of the art 1965 model RCA station with much of the gear in this. Problem was I was there in 1980 and most of it was falling apart. Back then the broadcast industry was 65% made in the USA RCA, 25% Ampex, also USA and the rest, an early Grass Valley Group which is the only US company still around making broadcast gear in the USA. For a few years they were owned by the French Thompson/BTS but were sold back to a US investment group.

We did have some fun there. Our Master Control switcher was an RCA TS-40. This clunky thing's fader bar, used to do dissolves and fades between sources broke and they decided not to fix it. Can only cut. So it did nothing. I took the Dynamo Label maker and put a label under it that stated antenna height.

After a couple days of training a new operator, right when they were starting to get comfortable, they would get a phone call. "This is Rockford FAA, we have a low flying aircraft in the area, please lower your tower to 60%. 100% of them went for it only to hear roars of laughter from behind.

Screenshot from a video of me on the switcher in 1981:

Awesome stuff here. I will definitely try to follow along and hopefully think of some questions for you.

You are one cool dude PP, never would have thought you contributed to so much of the popular culture ive enjoyed throughout the years.

Respect.

Thanks,

I have another link to fame. My Father was in over 100 movies and TV shows as an extra. At the end of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" when Ferris is racing home and cutting through a bunch of backyards, he grabs a pop from the hand of a guy working a barbeque. That is my dad. He also had a pretty good scene as a pool player in "The Color of Money"

Here he is the big guy on the far right:


and over Newmans shoulder:

Who is the "most" famous person you have had the pleasure to meet?

Actor/actress?
Sports professional?

I am sure you don't even get fazed by that kind of stuff, just another day at the job. You really seem to love what you do.