RVTV
Behind the scenes from working at Rogue Valley Television.
Over top of every such ridge, which appeared to be a crest that would lead to the summit, there turned out to be an entirely new, similarly distant prospect for the summit, much, much higher up.
The host of this show was such a lovely bloke; he'd have different animal show-and-tell on a few times a year to educate people about wildlife.
This was the first opossum I ever got to scritch. Little did I know that I would later scritch opossums aplenty.
Wallaby.
African Grey Parrot.
The opossum had a name, but I forget its name. It may not have minded that I forget its name.
Michael D Fox had this crazy clown show for years. No idea if he still does. Would not surprise me.
Charles still dressed up from playing the FBI guy in 'The Better Half', returning from a smoke break.
Michael D Fox is..."Clowning Around".
Look, we did a lot of shows. It's just hard to beat the photo op surrealism of his. So that's where the documentation resides.
Or so I am told.
Sometimes, on a slow day, we'd organize the costume room.
"We're making a calendar featuring the crew..."
"...not that kind of calendar."
It's not quite LA Gothic.
But also so much better.
Why I did it
It's where the action's at. You'll see a lot of strange sights. Hear a lot of ideas. You can meet everyone. You can usually help them communicate. Unparalleled coworkers.
What I learned
Sometimes what your career is staked on as a creator is the ego trip / persona curation of your performer(s).
Choosing which shows you want to work on & having a regular time slot is pretty slick.
What went right
We had a solid crew. We could roll with the punches. We had great engineers who could fix what broke, on a budget, on the fly. Our manager was levelheaded, fair and committed to good work. Not a lot of power gaming. Not a lot of senseless rivalry. Mostly people just trying to keep things running.
What went wrong
A house representative showed up for a community news interview. I tried to fix his lavalier mic and he insisted it was fine where it was. I explained we were getting feedback in the studio. He said, "That adds a little texture to the production. Like sesame seeds on a salad."
Rich dudes come in to get interviewed and think they're the damn director. They think botching the format makes it "folksy" and "quaint". Meanwhile the rest of us are trying to produce television with high standards.
Aside from that, more often than things went "wrong", they just went...weird.
Keeps life interesting.
COMMENTS
0Loading comments…