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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Emmy Winning Performance in Control Room

The official title Allan Wells carried for this year’s Emmy Awards broadcast was screens technical director but he jokes that it could just as well have been Executive in Charge of the Space Bar. Wells came about that role by being in charge of the computer controlling the multiple video screens in use during the 58th annual awards show at the Shrine Auditorium on Aug. 27. “If all goes well, I’ll be hitting the space bar to play the next cue,” Wells said before the broadcast. A veteran of many major awards shows, Wells and two partners created the process now in place for transitioning between images played on the multiple screens now regularly used during Emmy, Oscar, Grammy and Tony broadcasts. His Universal City-based company Fontastics provides the hardware while his latest venture Mighty Dots (or MDots, as “they are twisting me to have it known as,” Wells said) produces graphic designs seen during the shows. The system Wells employs more easily and efficiently accommodates the multiple screens used during awards shows and other entertainment type programming. Previously, a show producer needed a second mobile unit for the equipment now handled by one computer. But Wells said that when the system was first used for the 2000 Academy Awards broadcast, he didn’t think that using multiple screens would last. For that show he rented the necessary equipment powered by software written by partner Bruce Bermester. “We did the show and that was it,” Wells said. Three months later when the Latin Grammy show rolled around, he repeated the process when a second mobile unit was not available for the broadcast. With Bermester’s software and the hardware designed by partner Andrew Sabol, the system that Wells employs is now the standard in the industry. Work on this year’s Emmy show began in June, with Wells collaborating with the production designer to come up with a concept that shows off and utilizes the set. On stage at the Shrine are two cylindrical towers with a pattern creating the concept of “Emmy City,” Wells said. When coming up with the concept and graphics, is it the live audience or the one at home who’s being considered? Both, Wells said, although it depends on the producer of the show. Some are very aware of the live audience, Wells said. “The producer of the Emmy’s (Ken Ehrlich) is one of those,” Wells said. “There are ways you can create a package that is different to the people in the audience than to the people seeing it at home.” Warner Outreach Responding to a survey of Burbank residents, Warner Bros. Studios has taken steps to improve its communications, studio accessibility and opportunities for young people to find jobs in the entertainment industry. While the studio has always had good relations with its host city and its residents, the survey and the programs developed in response to it provide a stepped up dialogue focusing on specific issues, said Lisa Rawlins, senior vice president of studio and production affairs. With the studio’s 80th anniversary approaching next year, Warner Bros. figured that would be a good time to gauge what residents think of the studio and its value to the city, Rawlins said. Three areas of interest emerged from the survey: better communication from the studio, accessibility to the studio, and maintaining quality jobs while creating opportunities for young people. In response to the third item, the studio created the Burbank Youth Enrichment Program and awarded two scholarships and summer internships to graduating high school seniors and a third summer internship to a third senior. By having the students return every summer, a relationship is built and it’s the studio’s goal to have found a fit for the students in the company by the time they graduate. “It’s not just about offering the scholarships; it’s not just about patting youth on the back and saying good job,” Rawlins said. “It’s a way of saying let’s bring you into our company.” To better communications, the studio mailed out in July to all Burbank households a four-page color newsletter. The accessibility issue resulted in a mid-August screening of the movie “The Ant Bully” at the Starlight Bowl and an invitation to residents living closest to the studio to visit the facilities on a Saturday in September and October. The residents are taken on a 90-minute tour and receive lunch afterward, Rawlins said. “It gives them a better understanding of the kinds of shows we’re producing and the business of the backlot,” Rawlins said. Size Matters On the third floor of a Sherman Oaks office building, the studios of GoTV create news, music, sports and comedy programming for viewing on mobile devices. Now the company waits for viewers to catch up to them. Executive Vice President Dan Tibbets said that 2007 will be the year as more of the American public uses cell phones with video capabilities. “This is still a nascent business,” Tibbets said, seated in a conference room of GoTV’s offices. Nascent or not, GoTV is staking its claim at a time when the entertainment and telecommunications industries merge to give immediate and personalized programming to ever growing numbers of viewers. The viewers GoTV targets fall into the 16 to 24 year old age range; high school and college students, especially males, wanting to catch up with news, watch a music video or get a quick laugh from an up-and-coming comedian in between classes or while waiting in line for a coffee. In June, GoTV re-launched its comedy network under the eye of Chris Greenleaf, a veteran of traditional broadcast television. To create the original content made at the GoTV studios, certain parameters are followed like shooting a performer from the chest up, no jerky camera movements and a stripped down style of comedy moving from punchline to punchline to punchline. “There is no time for the set up,” Greenleaf said. Tibbets and Greenleaf speak enthusiastically of GoTV’s future, in terms of both the expected growth in viewership and in working with creators who get to have their content available immediately and getting quick feedback. Tibbets takes his expertise on mobile content to a panel choosing the Jury Prize winner this October in the Third Screen Film Festival sponsored by Columbia College Chicago and Nano TV. Tibbets became a judge through his association with Jon Katzman, director of Columbia’s Semester in L.A. program and of the film festival. Entries can be viewed on Nano-equipped cell phones, mobile devices, and online. “I will be fascinated to see how filmmakers adjust to the medium,” Tibbets said.

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