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Post by papaof2 on Jul 2, 2023 18:18:57 GMT -6
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Post by feralferret on Jul 2, 2023 20:00:58 GMT -6
Having worked as a radio announcer/board operator and as a TV director, I had to quickly become competent at adding and subtracting time. If you have to hit a network or other external feed at a certain time, that time is exactly when it will hit right down to the second. There were no second chances. A highly accurate time reference is a must. I still hate a wristwatch that gains or looses more than two seconds a week. WWV is your friend. No latency issues unlike the internet.
I can still figure time in my head if there aren't too many numbers, otherwise it is pencil and paper time.
The link for that is a good one for those who have never been forced to acquire the skill. Not many people do it well.
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Post by papaof2 on Jul 3, 2023 2:10:45 GMT -6
I spent a couple years as "low tech on the totem pole" at an ABC affiliate in the South. The only way to move up was when someone died. I got tired of working a different schedule every day (mixed day, evening, night). I ran movies and slide commercials/promos in the evenings, did transmitter maintenance in the wee hours of Sunday morning (back when the stations signed off every night). Ran kiddie shows Saturday morning while putting commercial/promos into the "live" wrestling that was being taped in the studio at the same time. Finally told the the Chief Engineer "I need more consistent hours or I'm gone." Got his sob stories of all the hours and all the technical tricks (recording a show on one 2" Ampex VCR and stringing the tape across a couple of bays so they could delay-broadcast that episode because the network show's scheduled time cut into one of their profitable local programs.
I saw an ad for a major telecom, contacted them and was soon gone.
The TV station got 13 days notice that I was leaving and they told the telco what a bad employee I had been. I knew from the people still at the station that they were working lots of overtime because the station couldn't find anyone else to work the schedule I'd been on for what they were offering. I spent 30+ years with that telco and probably had the equivalent experience of working for a half dozen assorted technology companies because, as a tech, I was always the first one willing to go to technical school about any new equipment. One instructor thought I had potential as an instructor and a few months later I was one ;-) I continued to put in to learn about any new technology and my "2 year" assignment in the Atlanta area became permanent.
That progressed to me being the tech support for electronic switching offices and then to the headquarters "skunkworks" that made existing systems do what the users needed when they had been told "That can't be done" by their official support group. I probably ruffled a lot of feathers in those groups, but my job was to serve the internal customers where I was. When I created fixes that only cost my time - no hardware or software expense involved - it seemed to make those support groups especially annoyed ;-)
They folks I worked with were surprised when I took the early retirement offer. It was the year I turned 55 and I hadn't really thought about it before then. The better half (she's usually financially savvy for the long term) and I discussed the "bonuses" the company was adding to the standard retirement package (such as adding a year's salary to the amount in my retirement fund) and decided they were not likely to ever offer a better package. So we took it. I was gone at the end of December that year. And they never made a better offer.
I went back to college to complete a degree for my personal satisfaction then after graduation I encountered a friend who needed someone who could convert military jargon into "geek speak" so I got hired for a couple years of consultant work on a project for the Joint Chiefs. Nice to be working at home, using the dining table as my desk and be making the best hourly wage ever ;-) Politics at the consulting company killed that job and those of the other dozen or so people associated with it. Someone with apparently good intentions decided her friend (a single mom) could do what I had been doing and her friend needed the job more. Regardless of need, the friend knew near zero about the project and had no more knowledge about the programming languages being used. The consulting company missed deadlines, lost the contract and both women were fired within a year.
I became an independent software consultant for a while and I've "retired" several more times since then.
I think "retire" just means "Find something new that's interesting to do and someone who will pay you for doing it" ;-)
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Post by feralferret on Jul 4, 2023 0:54:08 GMT -6
"I got tired of working a different schedule every day (mixed day, evening, night)."
That's the kind of schedule I started with. Run camera for noon, 6 pm, & 10 pm newscasts with time off between. I also processed news film for the 6 pm newscast two or three days a week for about six months. Gradually worked my way up to projection and audio. Learned videotape and video engineer even though those were technically engineering department, not production. Almost everyone on our crews could work any of the positions if needed. That was especially handy if someone got sick. Learned the video switcher by covering all of the commercial breaks in network and syndicated programming.
We also taped a "live" wrestling show on Saturday mornings. Even after I was the weekday day shift director I ran a camera for that. Met some really strange characters between the wrestlers and the fans.
The top director ended up moving away to run his family's ranch in New Mexico. The number two was always looking for something that paid better. He was in and out several times before completely moving on.
The number three director moved into the sales department. A few years later, I worked for him at the TV station in Clovis, NM. He was the station manager and I was production manager and sales representative. I absolutely hated the sales part. The station was sold about a year later and downgraded to a satellite station for the station in Lubbock that bought it.
The fourth director ended up in the top position and I was next on the totem pole, working weekdays from sign on to 3 pm. Numbers three, four, and five (me) were all class of 1972 graduates and ran around together at times for about a year before I went to work there. I was from the "poor" high school and both of them were from the rich high school, so I didn't meet them until introduced by a former disc jockey friend that was working doing sports on the 6 & 10 pm newscasts.
Working as a director ended up causing me to get stress migraines on an almost daily bases. When I left that job I went to work for another station in a utility production position. My migraines disappeared almost immediately. The stress level was much lower.
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Post by papaof2 on Jul 4, 2023 6:05:45 GMT -6
Sounds like some of the musical chairs I saw while I was at that station. In almost two years of taping wrestling, I saw exactly ONE serious blow delivered - both guys were out of the ring and one picked up a tall, narrow trash can (maybe 4 feet tall and 15"-18" in diameter at the top?). He bent the side of that metal can on the other guy's head. That was a genuine blow because I would see that trash can every time I went into that studio ;-) Regardless of the "I'm gonna kill you!" threats, the wrestlers all shared the same showers at the TV station.
Did you know that wrestlers in the UK tried to join with the UK Actor's Union (1980's or so) but were denied membership?
I thought the directors I was around were way too tightly strung - probably from trying to get perfection out of a crew composed of "How cheap can we get them?" cameramen, lighting, audio guys and so forth. When I was running projectors and slides. I was in front of the most accurate Western Union clock in the building - I had watched all those clocks for when the second hand picked up the minute hand to get it to zero at the exact time and "my" clock was always the closest, usually only a couple of seconds. When we lost the Western Union sync signal (multiple times) I would be the one who cued the director at 20 seconds before the next break so he could call that break in exact time. There was competition among the techs about how good we really were and one of the "until signoff" directors would occasionally say "Break in one minute. It's yours." and the video, film and/or slide/tape ads/promos would go off like clockwork without another word spoken. I didn't like the hours but I was good at the job.
I had a better body then but I think I prefer my current profession of part-time writer ;-)
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Post by feralferret on Jul 4, 2023 18:44:55 GMT -6
I loved how all of the wrestlers would rant and rave when taping the promos to run in the other towns on the circuit, then all relocate to a nearby watering hole and drink beer together afterward.
As I understand it, an actors guild card was required to wrestle in California. That's part of how Terry Funk got into acting in a few movies. In fact, I ran a camera for the audition tape he sent to Sylvester Stallone that got him into one of the movies.
The only real feud I saw was between Terry Funk and Jim Dillon (aka J.J. Dillon). One broke a real trophy on the other one's head. Then a week or two later the roles were reversed with one picking up the other and body slamming him into the announcer's desk. The desk was quite sturdily built and was not a breakaway prop. The studio manage was really mad that he had to rebuild that desk.
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Post by papaof2 on Jul 4, 2023 22:57:37 GMT -6
The announcer's booth in that studio was a crow's nest almost at the ceiling in one corner. Maybe they had similar experiences in the past?
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