Three walls of trophies! Whew!

I only got a small broom-closet worth -- where most of them ended up, too.

Was especially proud to get Gold (best in show) with a little educational film in Atlanta when that fest was still a big deal. “Harry and Tonto” was the feature that year, and Art Carney bought me breakfast the morning after the ceremony.

As to Roger Corman, the tea-kettle gimmick was a story he told about an early sci-fi he did when they ran out of money for special effects. So the very small model rocket jerked along on a wire through a cloud of tea-kettle steam. It was B&W of course, and no worse, as I recall, than some stuff I saw in early Dr. Who episodes.



On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 1:13 PM, Gene Heskett <gheskett@wdtv.com> wrote:
On Saturday 20 April 2013 15:55:39 Pete Wright did opine:

> Thanks, Gene, for a truly illuminating rant -- the very best kind.

And TBT, rant IS the right word. I thought I was coming on strong, but
there really are times when that balloon needs a pin-prick too.

> One could replace the specific jargon nouns with words like "task" and
> "equipment" and have a great statement to review before starting any
> project.

Chuckle, would be recommended by Grandpa Gene. ;)

> Deciding whether the "it" in question is worth doing properly.

Precisely the point.

> On the other hand, I used to tell my film guys that not having enough
> budget can force you to make great films because when you can't afford
> some fancy thing you are forced to come up with something else.

Hopefully better because you can do it in one take.

> But that something has to yield a quality result or you have to keep
> thinking.

Absolutely!  The average viewer doesn't care if you had to drown 4 litters
of puppies as long as its entertaining him.

Well, we've played with the format, but not drastically because when the
ratings books come out, our news dept was consistently 2 to 5 points better
than the 'other guys'.  Part of that back when I was the CE, was because of
a higher level of availability of the gear to 'get the story'.  There were
times when I busted ass making sure there were cameras enough to go shoot
at every basketball game that night.  Long hours, but then I didn't care if
I was late the next morning either.  You do that when you are salaried. ;-)

> We didn't ever use tea-kettle steam like Roger Corman, but we always had
> him as our ideal.

Now thats one I never heard about, tell me more, please.

> We won some nice awards along the way.

We have a wall or 3 covered with those plaques. In 55 years, they do tend
to accumulate.  Impresses the frogs too. :)

Cheers, Gene
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