The Shape of Things to Come
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Shape of Things to Come pertise (for twelve seasons they have provided 40 programming hours per week for in-school use), the next step was to find the right production facility and production staff to actually create a pilot pro- gram. It was decided that The Television Laboratory at WNET/13, with its collection of electronic video equipment so suitable to the project, would be invited to partici- pate. The decision was made to center the pilot program's subject matter around the concept of "shape" - an aesthetic concept which lends itself well to the various image- creating video equipment housed at the Lab's Studio 46 . And the target audience would be primarily second graders - seven to eight year olds. But how does one go about the difficult task of creating such a product and making it effective as well? The first step was to sort the huge body of researched material and mold it into an appealing and informative script. The Lab com- missioned Clark Gessner, an in- This tiny cone, set up for chroma-key, is the center of attraction during the taping of Shapes. dependent writer who often con- tributes segments to Sesame Street The hickory stick was once the WNET/13's School Television Ser- and The Electric Company to script schoolmaster's favorite teaching vice to investigate the possibilities the program. Meanwhile, the search tool. Today, the modern teacher is of a television series which would was on for the right director - a armed with a selection of materials help introduce aesthetics as a magic person who could squeeze ranging from carefully researched formal area of study in the primary from the studio's maze of complex games and toys to highly complex and secondary grades. Hopefully gear and machinery the right bal- systems of video and audio hard- this series will help integrate the ance of imagery and information to ware. Perhaps one reason for the teaching of aesthetics into the exist- captivate an eight year old. The increasing availability of such re- ing American school curriculum Lab's choice was Don Mischer, a sources is an organization called which has traditionally lacked a versatile director (PBS's Great CEMREL, Inc., a national educa- formal approach to the subject. American Dream Machine, ABC's tional laboratory based in St. Louis. With CEMREL ready to provide the in Concert) who had just com- In June 1972, the Aesthetic research and informational material pleted a hl lily successful educa- Education Program, a subdivision and the School Television Service tional pilot for the New York State of CEMREL joined forces with contributing their programming ex- (Continued on Page 7) The TVTV Story We asked Top Value Television to 635A, an RE 10 and an RE11 - and which are the future. A project write something for VISION NEWS a Sony ECM16 lavalier mike. We which we are editing now is called and the following, in their own wanted to buy a wireless mike but AD LAND . It is a tape about the inimitable style, was the result. The they are too expensive and not all people who make television com- excerpts come from their publica- that reliable . mercials. We have taped the making tion, PRIME TIME. "Our low-cost portable video equip- of TV ads on-location at places like ment has allowed us to explore McDonaldland, ad men like George what television can do uniquely. We Lois and Jerry Della Femina, and have been able to work open- ad stars like Mason Reese who was TVTV is a group of five, seven, nine endedly and take risks which have on the Dick Cavett show the other or more people depending on the often paid off in spontaneous, night. We have decided that TV ads project we're doing. We have just unusual television. " telI you more about the fantasies of moved to a new studio in San Our bank balance today, (Sep- ad men than those of consumers. Francisco near S and tember 18, 1973) is $6,781 .62 but Our finished program will be time- F streets . (We don't want $5,000 of that is a loan from some base corrected and edited on a a lot of visitors.) It is a store front friends. We are not a non-profit Sony 340U or an Ampex 1200. We with 1,800 square feet. We took it group and are trying to guarantee plan to distribute it to broadcast over from a Philippino couple who our overhead for a couple of years. stations as we don't see much point had lived and worked there for It costs $2,500 a month to operate in cable television right now. Of thirty years. They strung tennis including $50 a week salaries. In course, we'll also sell it to universi- rackets and sold tennis accessories New York, you can get more than ties and libraries. for a living. Now they are moving that on unemployment when your "Production-wise we were success- back to the Philippines to retire. grant runs out. ful. But from a distribution view- They took all the leftover tennis "Last year we covered the political point the convention coverage rackets and tennis balls with them. conventions as TVTV. Two dozen project was disappointing. The fault The rent is $250 a month. of us shared living space in a big was partly our own an that we "We work alone, out of our homes, house and covered both conven- didn't hustle the tapes agg'ressively, or cooperatively, as part of an tions for $32,000 complete (includ- but we learned that cable operators informal network of people sharing ing pre and post production simply don't have enough money experiences. We wanted to demon- expenses). Everyone worked for no for original programming, while strate that we could work effi- salary and expenses only, and broadcasters who are willing to ciently without a rigid hierarchy. " loaned us their own equipment. " experiment are the exception, not We think we might want to move Because we need a car we are the rule. " to Los Angeles next year because going to lease either a Datsun, a Another project we're raising you can only live in San Francisco Toyota, or a Mazda. We'll probably money for is called PEACE BOMB so long. Two of us came from New choose the Mazda because the other EXPLOSION which will be a York while the rest have been living two are hard to get right now and documentary about Millenium '73 in northern California. Living in also Mazdas have rotary engines (Continued on page 7) Los Angeles seems like something everyone should do once because M S of TVTV using a S Porta-Pak. southern California is the future. We have four porta-paks right now but only two are really ours. One is on loan from another group we work with and we just paid $150 to have it overhauled and the repairman claims it's as good as new . The second one which isn't really ours needs a new head drum which costs $550 so it hardly seems worth fixing. We use a Sony AV3 6 5 0 for editing and an AV8600 for playback. We have two Sony 11" monitors, an Ampex 23" monitor, a Sony 8" receiver, and a 15" Trinitron receiver. We used to have a Tivicon but we sold it and don't know if we want to get a new one. We just bought an AKG900E shotgun mike and also have three Electro-Voice microphones - a Profile: Nam June Paik, Creator of Global Groove by Diane English A maze of wire, cable and tele- vision innards, strange phantasma- gorical shapes, undulating images, a Korean fan dancer, four American tap dancers, a Navajo Indian and a TV cello. This is not the latest installment of "Let's Make A Deal." It's Nam June Paik's Global Groove and as Dorothy once said to Toto, "Something tells me we're not in Kansas anymore . ." We are deep within the recesses of a building on East 46th Street where the young and infamous Television Laboratory at Channel 13 is discreetly housed, a stone's throw from the U.N. Down the stairs, into the basement and be- hind the double doors is probably the most sophisticated collection of video hardware in the country. And more than that, there is Nam June Paik and all his gadgetry about to embark on a new odyssey into the world of video. Nam June Paik looks like a Korean Harpo Marx but in reality is the "father of video art," or as the New York Post called him, "one of the rare breed of artists who are also scientists, philosophers and en- gineers . a modern version of the Would you buy a used television from this man? renaissance man." As we look in on the renaissance Paik made the headlines in the late history. The project had been float- man one balmy day in April, we '6Q's when he convinced cellist ing around in a corner of his brain find him at Studio 46 with his Charlotte Moorman to wrap herself for some months, but Nam June pants cuffs dragging on the floor, and her cello in a giant cellophane needed sufficient time to prepare three sweaters wrapped protectively bag and perform topless . Moorman himself mentally or "get head around his sensitive stomach, and was arrested for obscenity and Paik together." Then one day a call hair that looks as though he's stuck went on to invent something called came from Fred Stein, a television his finger into a wall socket.