“Behind The Production”

EP.32: What really goes into TV, live events, and professional audio?

JAYKERS and RAY sit down with DONALD T. WOODARD, a veteran with over 30 years of experience across television, radio, live events, corporate media, and the legendary VIDEO ZONE SHOW

From the early Phoenix media scene to high-pressure live broadcasts, DON shares behind-the-scenes stories from his career, including defining moments and what it actually takes to succeed in the industry.

The conversation dives into how he got started in radio, the realities of live shows and broadcast environments, what happens when things go wrong behind the scenes, and what separates good work from great work. They also explore how video, audio, and streaming have evolved over time, along with practical advice for anyone looking to break into the field.

As always, the conversation gets real, funny, and unpredictable—especially when DON answers the show’s signature question and reflects on what he’d tell his younger self.

Transcript

Tempo: 120.0

SPEAKER_03 0:00

I have to know who's the most well known or high profile person you've worked with?

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Um that'd be Jake. Nah. I know better. I know some I know some at your contact lists.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Um when you say high profile, I mean are we we talking up on the cliff or uh vertically there are a lot of vertically challenged people?

SPEAKER_02 0:28

No, I think he uh like who's the most intriguing or famous or well-known person probably that you've worked with.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Oh gee. Um famous or well known or otherwise, um well, my favorite contrast, it's not the most famous or that person, is on my Facebook page. If you go hunting through my photos, it'll confuse you about my political stance because uh next to the picture of me with Madeline Albright, former Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, you'll see me with uh standing with Norman Schwartzkoff. So it's a mixed bag. So I've been fortunate to to meet some nice people.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

That's pretty pretty important people there you hang out with.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Well, no, no, see, that's different. You said hang out with. So he's talking about work with work with, okay. Yeah, you said who's the most well-known or high-profile person you've worked with, or you know, so that was the question, I believe.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

So welcome to Unfit for Radio with Jakers, streaming worldwide in 16 countries and over 100 US cities.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

I'm your host, Jakers. I am Ray, the good old voice of reason and the oldie but goody in a UFR hoodie. What the heck did you just say? Are you okay? I'm starting to feel young again. Let's do this. I'm only three and a half years old. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

All right, let's go. Now, today's guest is someone who has been behind the scenes of productions most people only get to rarely see from the outside. We're talking decades in the game. Decades, decades, decades, decades. TV, live events, production, corporate gigs, and so much more. Uh he's worked behind the cameras, he's he's done some audio work, he's called the shots, uh, arranged some lighting, even I've seen him do. Uh he's made magic happen without needing the spotlight. But today we're putting him directly center stage. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome to the show my good friend, Mr. Donald Woodard. Don, it's a great pleasure to have you uh here with us. Can you please tell the audience a little bit more about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Is that pink noise? Uh tell you about myself. Well, um I know it's an uncomfortable conversation you don't usually go to. That's right. I was I was born a small child in southern New Mexico. Um, and uh now I'm not. That kind of wraps it up. But uh yeah. So I I'm I'm these days I'm a director and show caller, uh mainly corporate stuff. Still do a little bit of television. But uh yeah, I've been very fortunate to get to play in the production business for a few years.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Oh, that's really cool.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

Yes, John. I have I have heard numerous stories that you've told over the years, and I'm just always fascinated by some of the the things you've done and the places you've been. Just fortunate.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

I mean, you know, the uh probably more in a more serious tone. You know, I I tell people I my mom was uh a single mom with four kids by the time she was 21. And so grew up I I don't want to say poor. We were we were okay. You know, we we worked hard and we did what we did, but uh uh I'm very fortunate that what I do lets me get paid to go places and do good cool work.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

So well, that sounds awesome. That's cool. So do you remember back uh what first pulled you into production life? Like, was there a moment that you knew that this was your path?

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Well, you know, when you say what is production, and that's that's probably the biggest question is uh I was fascinated with uh technology from the time I was probably six years old. Uh had you know, I was playing wiring stuff together and burning stuff up and um occasionally setting things on fire. And uh I think I got my first shortwave radio when I was probably nine or ten.

SPEAKER_04 4:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

And that was my internet as a child. Um it was literally hook up an antenna outside, and I could uh I'd spend the nights with a pair of headphones on uh listening to um Radio Nederland from Hilversum Holland or HCJB Radio from Quito, Ecuador, or Radio Moscow, or you know, this stuff. And so I was listening to a lot of that. And at the same time, you know, I I was a young rock and roll kid, and so at night we didn't really FM radio hadn't really come into being yet, and uh so AM radio at night, you could pick up stations from hundreds of miles away. And in my hometown in New Mexico, we were I a lot of us listened to a station out of Oklahoma City, K-O-M-A. And uh, you know, uh it was a rock station, and uh you you heard all the cool music and everything else, and so that was the beginning of my my fascination with with broadcasting, which then of course led into production. But uh yeah, that was the beginning of getting interested in stuff and playing with stuff. I was that kid that uh we passed uh a house in my neighborhood, Julie and I went for a walk uh night before last, and there's a house that has a tower that had antennas on it.

SPEAKER_04 5:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

And the tower is probably 40 feet high. And at one point I had a 60-foot tower for my uh for my radio transmitter antenna. And uh I would climb it at age 13 with no sense of support or straps or anything else, and hanging off the side of the tower with my arm linked through the the truss and you know, be working on something. Of course, my mom had no clue. The closest uh that mom had a clue that something was potentially dangerous was um right after I put the big tower up, uh I was uh I was working at a job and the phone rang uh during a thunderstorm and it was my mom and she was rather irate. Mom says, When you get home, that antenna is coming down.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

And I'm like, why? And she says, because lightning just hit it. And I said, Yeah. And she and I said, Mom, do you remember last weekend when you were a little ticked off that I spent an entire day with a sledgehammer pounding in the backyard? And she goes, Yeah, so what? I said, that was me driving a 12-foot ground rod into the ground so that when lightning does strike the tower, it goes into the ground and it won't hurt our house. So, you know, that was the that was the the the tech side. So, you know, I played with that and got into the CB radio thing, a little bit into ham radio and uh um was like I said, listening to the top 40 stuff. And that was the the entree when one day I suddenly learned, wait, these people get paid to do this?

SPEAKER_04 7:28

Yeah, I know, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:30

So um that's kind of what launched me into it. I don't know if if if you want me to go further on it, but I can tell you how I stumbled into radio and share whatever you like. So it was kind of cool. Um it was the tail end of the Vietnam War, and uh, we had a youth pastor come to our church, and he was cool. He was a former radio man uh in uh I believe it was in the army and had served in Vietnam carrying a backpack with the radio and did the transmission and stuff. But he'd also been an announcer on radio. I think he'd been a DJ. Okay. And so he came to our church, and so um uh I had gotten saved uh there at the church uh with a rock musical that they were doing. And uh so then I'd gotten involved in the youth group, and then he says, we're going to start a radio program. The local top 40 station had given him an hour on Saturday nights, and he said, Does anybody want to help? And my hand, of course, shoots up into the air. Uncontrollable. Uncontrollable. And so that was my first foray into an actual radio station. And so um that's what station call sign was that K-I-N-N, Almogordo, New Mexico. I mean, you know 1270 K-I-N-N. Almogordo, New Mexico. Oh my gosh. Um so anyway, so I I was immediately enamored and went in and learned how to queue up records on the turntable. Uh so we were playing records, and uh the commercials were on cart tapes. Uh Ray, um, the cart tapes uh back then looked like eight-track tapes, and I know Jake has no idea what eight-track. I know what's but they were they were four-track, and to get into the technical geek side of it, um reel-to-reel tape for uh recording and radio and uh a lot of uh studio stuff runs at seven and a half inches per second. Eight-tracks ran at three and three-quarter inches per second, cassette runs at one and seven eighths per second. You'll notice a mathematical change in speed each time. And uh so these carts at the radio station, they were cut to length. So, like a 30-second commercial would be on a 40-second cart, so you could have three carts in the rack, and if you went into a commercial break and you had four commercials, you hit the first one and it played, and then you hit the second one, and while the third one's playing, you pop the first one out, you pop the fourth one in, then you hit play on the fourth one when you get to it. Anyway, not getting too far into the weeds, but the Oh, that's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

That's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

And it was neat to to see that. And so I had just I don't know if I just turned 16 or was about to, but I decided that I needed a job in radio. And uh so I marched down to uh K-I-N-N and uh walked in and introduced myself to the receptionist and said, I'd like a job. And she said, Doing what? And I said, I want to be one of your DJs, one of your announcers. And she says, Well, you'd have to talk to our program director, uh uh Jim Bell about that. I said, Is he in? And she said, Yes. And so just a moment. And so Jim, I go back to Jim's office and he sit down and I said, Hey, I'd like to be uh one of your one of your DJs. And he goes, You would. And he goes, What would qualify you? And I said, Well, I said, I'm I'm familiar with your equipment and I've done it, and and uh I said, you know, I I think I can do this. And he goes, Well, the DJs do more than just on air. And this is where I key back into your question. He said, they also do production, they do the commercials and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Oh, wow, okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

To which I said, Well, I can do that at 16. And Jim decides he's going to call my bluff, perhaps. And so he reaches into his inbox with the commercials and he grabs the one off the top and he hands it to me. Like, show me. And he goes, Go into production B there and and cut this for me.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

So I had seen a reel to reel. I had never cued or threaded a real to real machine. Oh my goodness. It took me 40 minutes to be to get the machine to record. But I cut the commercial, and uh that was the beginning. And uh, so I could I could go more into detail, but I'd take up the whole show with just this story. So that's really awesome. So that's how I got into broadcasting first.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

Well, I know you've been around uh the valley for a while. Uh what did uh Phoenix Media look like back when you were getting started?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

It was dark, it was dreary, it was frightening. What did it look like? Um, basically, um when I graduated high school, I I looked at three cities for college: Phoenix, Dallas, and Denver. Not because of the colleges that were there and the educational opportunities there too. Those were each a major broadcast market 500 miles from my hometown. Wow. Uh-huh. And like it. Mom wanted me to go either to uh UNM in Albuquerque or to Inamazoo, uh New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. And I'm like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. You're getting out of here. So I got a little bitty scholarship to go to Devry for electronic engineering.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

And so that got me to Phoenix, and uh I hated Devry. And uh so I came out here, but I, you know, I was at Devry. Now, Devry was a good school, don't let me diss the school. I just did not want to be an electronic engineer. I didn't want to design circuitry, I didn't want to deal with that. I knew enough that I could, I could solder something together and I could I could build something, but for the most part, I didn't, you know, I wasn't looking for a career, you know, in electronics. Now, on the flip side, one of my roommates, uh really cool guy named Greg Westling, uh, Greg was the one of the three of us that started together, who actually graduated from DeVraye and um did all right. He invented the video cipher scrambling system that they use on satellites to scramble it so people can't steal information, steal the video off satellites. Yeah. He invented that. So he had a really nice house on the hills in Malibu for a long time. And uh so um, you know, you you could do all right going to Javurai. And uh interestingly enough, let me tell a quick side story since you know I can because I'm sitting in this chair. You're the guest. Um let me crank this up here just a little bit because I'm slowly leaning forward. Well, get that out. So North Phoenix Baptist Ray, I don't know if you remember back in the 70s when we were young and pretty, um, North Phoenix had a Wednesday night supper.

SPEAKER_03 14:04

Yes, I remember.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

And it was free to students.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

It was free to students, which if you were a college student at that point, that was a really big deal because that meant one of six meals you were actually going to have that week because you were poor. And uh so I would drag my roommates, uh Gino and Greg, and uh Greg wasn't Gino was a believer, uh, but Greg wasn't so keen on this whole religious Christian stuff. He was there for the free food? He went with us for the free food. But but uh so gr that that was that story. Now, what's interesting is uh as you guys both know, I did a short stint during COVID over at North Phoenix on staff. And by chance, Greg was searching North Phoenix Baptist Church, remembering the time he had gone there and goes there and sees me as part of the staff.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

No way, that was during that time?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

That was during that time. Okay. He reached out to me and and we connected and everything else. One of the cool things out of it was that connection and that opportunity to hear the gospel, eventually he was saved. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

And he he points to that time going to North Phoenix for those free dinners on Wednesday night as the beginning of his transformation. So it did build into something, even if it wasn't instantly. And so he uh he then uh um now actually leads uh a small ministry in California. And so it's kind of cool to know that you know you may not be doing something at that moment, but it will potentially make a difference. God has a plan. So so anyway, so I came out here and went to went to Devry and uh ended up over uh um at Cool FM, uh which was cool. I remember that. Well, and it's still here. Let's see if you 94.5 Cool FM. Which now it's it's really a stupid, they go by a stupid name because the owners now these days don't realize that cool is a cool name. So they call themselves Big 94.5. Ooh, they're so big. And everybody everybody in the broadcast industry on you know that I'm friends with are all going Big 94? What yeah, never mind. Anyway, cool sounds better. Yeah, well, and it was. Uh the story behind that, I don't know if you know, is uh the uh singing cowboy, Gene Autry.

SPEAKER_04 16:30

Yeah, Gene Autry.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Gene Autry owned two uh uh radio television combos in Arizona. He owned a station in Phoenix, and he thought it would be neat to call the one in Phoenix Cool, K-O-O-L. Yeah, and the one in Tucson, he got the license for cold K-O-L-D. So it was cool in Phoenix and cold in Tucson, according to Gene Autry.

unknown 16:53

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

So I landed at Cool, and uh it was a great time. Um for one, I also ended up at North Phoenix Baptist Church. And the way I ended up at North Phoenix as a member was when uh I was um a a young teenager, right after I got saved, our youth pastor um had graduated. Uh at that point, our youth pastor had graduated from Grand Canyon University, and there was a seminar, a basic youth conflicts seminar. I remember those. I've attended one or two. The Bill Gothard Basic Youth Conflict Seminar. I think somewhere in in my attic is is is the the syllabus uh for the week that we had, and I don't I think it's Phil Blank. Uh so um we we came out here on uh church buses with no air conditioning. Oh boy and uh we went to Veterans Coliseum for the basic youth conflict seminar.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

The sombrero.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh so we were we were we were there and uh then he got Grand Canyon University, because it was summertime, to allow us to stay in the dorms. So that was also my introduction to G Grand Canyon. So um we did that, and then that Sunday, he had been involved when he was uh college student at at North Phoenix Baptist Church. Okay. Back when it was at uh 6225 North Central, which is now Church of the Nations. That's the street, yeah. Yeah, and so he um uh the North Phoenix at that point had three services every Sunday morning. The earliest one was 7 a.m. or 7 30 or something crazy like that. And so he had talked the the the music pastor into us being the guest choir uh in there. And so we march, you know, we hadn't even been into the sanctuary. And so we march up from the backstage up into the choir loft and we sit down and I sit down and I look out in the room and I'm like, those are television cameras. This church has television cameras. It just hit you? You didn't know that? Well, I didn't know anything about the church. Oh I'd never been in it before, but I'm sitting here looking out, going, those are TV cameras.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

That was remarkable for its day, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

This is cool. I could do this in church. It's like these these people have TV cameras. If I ever visit Phoenix again, I should come to this church. That's cool. So the Sunday after the Wednesday after um I came, I moved out here that following Sunday, um, I went to North Phoenix and uh went forward and said I'd like to uh transfer my letter and be a member here at North Phoenix. And so the following Wednesday, one week from the day that I arrived in Arizona, um someone had said that if you want to get involved in the production, because I'd been asking, how do you work on with those guys? And they said, well, you need to go up to the booth and talk to Mike Poplin. And so I went up to the booth and introduced myself to Mike and I said, Hey, I'm um I I've got some background in technology. I've done radio for three years and and I I know a little bit about television, and I've done some uh some half-inch VH, uh half-inch reel-to-reel uh video recording and stuff. And I said, uh I'd love to help. And he goes, Have you ever run one of these? And it was the old ITC cameras that we had. And uh I said, no, and he goes, Well, here's the zoom control, here's the focus control. He says, Why don't you uh get comfortable with it for a minute? I'm like, oh, cool. So the reason that we ran cameras every service at that point was the church was so full every service, and they had expanded the sides of the building, but there were these giant columns holding the building up, literally, that had blind spots. And so they had TVs on the back of every one of these columns. Oh, wow. So people could see the the service. Because you know, you sat in one of those seats, basically, you you know, you saw the column. And so I'm sitting there fiddling with the camera and I'm zooming in on people, and I'm and Mike comes back and he goes, Well, my camera two guy's not here, you're it. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03 20:52

You were just thrown into it.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

And that's how I joined North Phoenix's production team. Good thing you're there. Well, they would have done what you know churches have done in the past, and it's like, well, okay, two's gonna be a wide shot and we're gonna lock it down.

SPEAKER_04 21:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Uh, but that was incredibly that was a major turning point for me um in my career as well, because between Channel 10, uh, which was cool TV at the time, which is now um uh Fox 10, but uh at that point they had, you know, obviously the TV station. And so I would slip across the alley and watch a guy named Mori Helly uh directing. And I'm like, between him directing and Mike Poplin directing in North Phoenix, I was like, okay, that's cool. I want to do that. And so Poplin gave me my first shots at it. Um let me direct a number of projects at North Phoenix, including uh Glenn Campbell's um debut Christian album. No way. Yeah, he did a live concert uh to debut his album, No More Night. Oh wow. I want to say that would have been early 80s. Do you remember Ray when that was? No, I wasn't that. That was before my channel. Yeah, so that he Glenn did uh had had released a Christian album called No More Night. And we had worked with Glenn Mike, had produced several music videos for Glenn, and so I had had the opportunity to be part of that production team, and we'd gone out and done that and so forth. And so uh so that was the beginning of me turning the corner into television. So um you mentioned audio. You want to know where that came from? Yeah. So I'm at Devry. Okay. Like I said, I do not want to be uh an electronic engineer. Does Devry teach audio? Devry does not teach audio. Okay. Um I went out twice, count them two times, with a wonderful lady, uh gal, college girl, named um Faith Hibbs, no, excuse me, Faith Carr. Okay. And Faith was uh the eldest daughter in a missionary family.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

And uh her sister's name is Hope, so it was Faith and Hope. And uh her brothers were all named after apostles, so they were pretty hardcore missionary family. And uh so um I was a little probably too wild for faith, which is probably why we only went out twice. I can only imagine. But she did something that changed my life. She she said, uh, I told her how much I didn't like Devry and that my plan was back then, if you lived in Arizona for a year, you were eligible to be an in-state student at Arizona State. Oh, wow. So my plan was to wait it out until the next July and uh and then switch over to ASU. Uh and she says, Well, uh, what do you think about Grand Canyon? And I said, uh, nice place. I'm a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks, and it's a private college. And she said, Oh. Um, she says, Well, you know, they've got a singing group there and they need a sound engineer. And I said, Uh, okay, that doesn't change this equation. Poor kid, wrong side of the tracks, private college. And she said, Well, I think there's a scholarship.

unknown 24:02

Really?

SPEAKER_03 24:02

Oh, your label went on, didn't it?

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Really? So I marched down to Grand Canyon and uh with the same a palm I'd had at 16, walked in and met with uh uh Macon Delavan, who was chairman of the music department, and uh I said, I understand you're looking for a sound engineer. And he goes, Why, yes. He says, uh, he says, Have you done sound? Now, in high school, I had done some studio recording. Now, studio recording basically meant that we had two um AKG 451 microphones plugged into the left and right input on the Revox A77 Reel to Reel.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

And I was adjusting the level going in there too. That was the extent of my sound. However, I worked in radio, and of course, I could talk a really good talk about all the things that I had to do technically in radio. So I landed the job, the scholarship, and uh learned on the job how to mix sound. So that was my entree into live sound mixing. And uh, so that that was part of the track was so basically I was I was learning television, uh, I was doing radio, and I was dabbling in sound.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

You have no lack of confidence in yourself, do you?

SPEAKER_01 25:17

You know, that's and that's all my grandfather and my mom's fault. Um it's not so much confidence in myself, it's just that my family had the mentality of, you know, you have to try. You have to give something a shot. And when you do it, you don't do it half-heartedly. You just you basically commit yourself and you say, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it well. And complete it. Yeah. Don't quit it. Yeah. And so that was it. So it wasn't so much that I was arrogant or egotistical. Uh, it's just that I believed that, okay, yeah, I could do it. I I didn't tell the guy at the radio station I could do it because I was guessing. I'm like, yeah, I'd actually touch the turntables. And so I'll rewind back to that payoff on that story. So the he tells me he's going to give me a part-time job as a DJ. And I go back to high school and I tell everybody at my high school that I'm going to be a top 40 DJ case. Oh, man. And they're all like, right, sure you are. Yeah. And that afternoon, I jump in the car to drive home, and the afternoon guy isn't on, but the program director was. And the program director is on the air, and I get to the house, and mom had posted a note next to the one telephone, you know, that we had in the kitchen. And uh Ray remembers those days. Jake doesn't know what a telephone in the kitchen is. Really? In the kitchen? No, I'm playing. So um Big Note says, call Jim at K-I-N-N, urgent. So I call him up, and the afternoon guy had just walked out, had just quit. And J Jim's like, hey, listen, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to work this thing out with you right now to get, you know, for the weekend thing. And he said, I'm I'm really sorry. And I'm like, Jim, what's wrong? And he goes, Randy, just quit. And I said, Really? He goes, Yeah. And he says, he says, and I'm scrambling here to put things together. And uh and my grandfather had taught me something, and this was critically important to everything that I did. And that was, he says, Whenever you meet somebody who is having a problem, regardless of what you think your ability is to help them, ask. Wow, is there anything I can do to help you? Wow. And so that by that point in my life, by my mid-teens, that was a that was a given. That was the question. And I said, Jim, I'm really sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do to help you? And I could hear his, you know, on the other end, you know, probably pull the phone away from his head going, Who is this kid?

SPEAKER_04 27:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

And uh he said, I he's I can't talk right now. He says, Can you come by right after school tomorrow? So, long story short, was um he literally sent me into the control room with the with the midday guy and said, Play the songs, play the commercials, don't touch the microphone. So my first hour on the radio was literally pushing the buttons, shaking and and in my boots, but got through the hour without messing things up, and that's that's what opened the doors later on. And uh so anyway, that was that was that story. So I'll I'll let you guys go on now that you've heard the whole background of how I got into production and broadcasting.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

So, did you expect to stay in the industry for over 40 plus years back then to now?

SPEAKER_01 28:25

And well, I mean, I was I it was a different track, you know. Basically, I thought when I was 16 that I was gonna stay in radio for my whole life. And uh it was interesting because one of the things that the general manager did that that kind of again shaped my life uh was um imagine if you will, it's just before 7 p.m. on a Friday evening. I'm in the control room, the building is empty, as far as I know, and I've got the speakers in the control room turned to 11. Yeah, and I'm rocking out, you know, when the songs are playing, and the door swings open, and it's the owner of the station, Bill Lask. Uh-oh. And I'm diving for the knob. Turn it down. He walks in, and the GM never came in the control room. No, no, no. You know, he had a program director and an operations manager and everything else. He ran the station. He didn't, you know, so it was very rare for that. And he was an incredibly well-respected man in the town and everything else, and was on the chamber of commerce and all this other stuff. And so he walks in, and I'm I'm I'm immediately terrified because, like, oh, did I screw up? Did I say something wrong? Because I was never a guy that put himself at risk on the radio or TV. And neither one of you believe that. Uh no. I was waiting for you to say more because I was like, okay. So anyway, so he says, Hey Don, how you doing? I said, I'm fine, Mr. Lask. And he says, Mind if I sit down? I went, Yes, sir, you can sit down at your radio station, sir. And uh, so he he sits down and he says, uh, so he said, I was just just thinking about you. I was listening to you earlier, and he goes, I wanted to ask you, he says, uh, have you thought about college? And I said, Yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'm looking at Phoenix, Dallas, and Denver for for schools. And he goes, What are you gonna major in? I said, uh broadcasting. And he asked me one of the most important questions of my life. Oh. Why? Why? Why? Oh, that's good. Because I want to keep working in broadcasting. And he did something that to this day is still amazing. He goes, put on a long song. And I said, Well, I'm coming up on a he goes, put on a long song. Yes, sir. So I put on stairway to heaven or something, you know, and uh he walks me out into the office, central office area, and he points at the doors for the offices in the meeting along the wall. Oh, you know, the operations manager, the general manager, the sales manager, the managers. Oh, wow. And he says, How many of those guys have have degrees in broadcasting? And I'm like, I don't know all of them. And he goes, None of them. Wow. And I I'm like, okay. And he goes, Do you know why that is? And I go, no, sir. And he says, because broadcasting is a business. And he says, so when you go to college, and we're back in the control room by this point, he goes, so when you do go to college, he says, I would advise you at least minor in business. Business. And uh he says, because by he says, he says, you're talented, you're gonna do okay in radio. He says, you'll probably get a job in whatever city you go into in radio. He says, so by the time you graduate college, he said, you'll have been an a talent, the DJ, for going on eight years.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

And uh I think he said seven at the time, but it worked out to eight. But uh and he says, he said, but he says, when you're 40, he says, you won't be able to be in management if you don't know business. And it was tremendously helpful. And and so that was the reason I was gonna go to ASU and and be a business administration major, was for that very reason, you know, because at that point broadcast schools weren't weren't really in the vogue. I side note real quick is I was really excited this week. Grand Canyon University, 40 plus 45 years, um hence, finally has a broadcasting major. No way. So so Grand Canyon finally, now we'll say how long it lasts, but that's pretty cool though. But yeah, so that was that was the the the the change in in that part of my career was because he said, and that and I think that's one of the critical things of life, you know, as we as we deal with this, is would I have stayed in it as long? Yeah, at the time I thought it was gonna be that, but then it's when the opportunity came along to learn television, both at North Phoenix and through with Maury Elliott Cool, uh, I started digging on television. And so I, you know, I I learned how to run a camera, I learned how to uh mix audio in the field. Now that that's another one. So I was wanting to help out and learn more about television. So some of the guys came in and said, Hey Don, you want to come run sound for us on a on a location shoot? Sure. So we were using three-quarter inch tape to shoot at that point. The three-quarter inch BVU 910 deck weighed 80 pounds. Oh, wow. So for me to make sound was literally turning the two knobs on that deck, but that meant that I carried the deck. Yeah. That was what they wanted, was the young kid to carry the deck. Nice. But, you know, it gave me an opportunity to learn more, help me learn what field production was and stuff. And so, you know, my next thought was like, well, okay, you know, because because my original plan was, okay, I was determined I was going to be a program director by the time I was 21. I was going to be a general manager by the time I was 25. And then I was going to own a station by the time I was 30. That was my plan. And uh so I came close. Um You did a lot of those things. I was program director at KRDS in uh August of 1980, and I was 21, and it lasted a month. And that's you know, just the way things go in that business. And uh I was general manager at 25 um at uh um KOSS TV and Flagstaff. So it was a music video channel. So that was my that was my my two times that I actually did hit those points. I just hit them differently than I expected. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

You've worked in TV, live events, etc. What was the turning point that took you from beginner to professional? Are you still a beginner?

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Are you a professional? Somewhere in between. There's a great old adage uh in in production. It's watch one, do one, teach one. Oh yeah.

unknown 35:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

And I mean, and it's interesting. You know, I mean, what's the definition of a professional? Um, a professional athlete, they say, is not a professional until they have done it 10,000 times. And so when you say, okay, when you've done what as a professional 10,000 times. Um, so in my case, you know, um I was always a professional. It's interesting enough because you know, I went to work at the at the station and I was getting paid for it. You know, I went to work at Cool and I was getting paid for it. Um, you know, I'd learned the stuff. Now, on the other side, my camera side and my directing side, I got a whole lot of that experience there at North Phoenix because as a 20-year-old director, it was hard to convince people that I could direct their projects without actually having having directed anything. And so that was the opportunity I had at North Phoenix. So again, it's just repetition, just doing it, analyzing it, looking at what you did, looking at what you did right and what you did wrong. There's an old saying in in television that every director, every time he directs, directs two shows.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

Oh, yeah? How does this work?

SPEAKER_01 36:22

There's the one in your head of how you imagined it would be, and there's the one that actually made it to air or made it to tape.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

In reality.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Sometimes this one's better, sometimes this one's better.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

So it just, you know, it it really, you know, sometimes it's better than you thought it was in the moment. And sometimes things happen that you weren't expecting to happen. You know, there's there have been magical little times. Um, we did a project once, um, oh golly, about 25 years ago, and the it was a record company wanted to do a television showcase of their talent.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

And so the idea was they were going to do a Christmas special, kind of like the old Andy Williams specials. Oh, yeah, I remember those. You do, but you know, he's he's gonna have to Google Andy Williams. And uh so these these little vignettes of of of sh of things in the show. And uh I learned real quickly that the producers of this project lied about how much money they had and how much influence they had. Uh we were producing it in Tempe at what I forget the name of it now, is it's the theater north of the river. Uh they do a lot of rock and roll concerts there. But anyway, yeah, um we were doing the show there, and uh we had created this one vignette for the gal that was doing the song Christmas time is here, the Charlie Brown song. And it was cute, and it was one of those trying to trying to solve the problem, and that's a lot of what production is analyze what you've got in front of you, figure out how you can solve the problem, then execute the solution. And the the the project was that she's singing this song, and in the middle of the song, and it's with a track, so it's not her with a band, uh, in the middle of the song is a an instrumental solo. So not only do we have to figure out a concept for her to sing this song, but we also have to figure out um, you know, how to how to cover, as it were, the the solo in the middle of it with something that's interesting for television. So what we came up with was a scene where she is decorating the house for Christmas.

SPEAKER_04 38:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

And as she's decorating the, you know, she's she's hanging out and she's singing and she's Christmas time is here, and she's hanging out stockings and stuff. Well, originally we had planned to have her have her kids peek in from offset watching mom decorate. That was the the premise of that. Um and I was promised children, yeah, you know, by the producers. Uh beautiful black cow, uh sharp, sharp, talented lady. And uh so she's she's she's decorating and everything else. Well, like we get down to a week from from uh from show and no children, and I had sworn I'd keep my kids out of out of shows. And uh so um I I had to break my promise at that point, and so my two blonde-haired blue-eyed kids.

SPEAKER_03 39:27

Oh no, no, I see where this is going on.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

And I don't know if you remember Billy Folsom. Uh yeah, Billy and Todd um brought their two daughters, and of course, Billy is is uh Chinese, Jake. Oh boy. So this gal had uh two Chinese kids, two blonde blue-eyed kids, and uh a black kid.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

It was the Brady Bud.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

It was the Brady Bud. And so she's she's decorating, and uh it gets to the solo. Well, the the solution we had for the for the solo was that she knows the kids have been spying on her.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

So she exits as the solo starts, she exits out of the room, as it were, and the kids come running onto the set, and they're underneath the Christmas tree shaking presents and doing things that kids would do. Oh, me. So the audience is drawn to that, and she's now peeking around the fireplace watching the kids. So we've reversed the roles of the characters. That's really cool. I like that. It was a good piece. It's it's one that I'm still proud of as far as design, both and directing. Very creative. Um, so the the upshot of it was was up center was a tray just like one of these. And on that tray was a set of chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk for Santa. Ooh, la la. And one of the kids was supposed to go over there and start stealing Santa's cookies. Oh no. So my four-year-old boy um was who we decided would do it. Okay, and so Donnie executed perfectly. He came out. Well, we had rehearsed it, and during rehearsal, um, my my my stage uh uh my deck manager, uh Joanna Miller, um, we had a metal um tumbler for him to to for the for the rehearsals and uh kind of like Ray's um you know uh mug there. And so that was what he rehearsed with each time. Well, we had this gorgeous glass goblet basically that was going to be for show that you'd be able to see the white milk in the in the gobl in the in the glass goblet. So we're in the middle of show, and in one of my shots, as we're in the shot, so it's our I mean, the the kids are already on stage, she's singing. Yeah, yeah. I see upstage that the set is there, but the tumbler is out, not the goblin. And I'm so disappointed. I'm just like, oh man. I said, okay, so they're they can't tell that he's drinking milk and you know, milk and cookies. Okay, well, get over it. Ready to take two. And so it gets to that point. Donnie runs over, he starts munching cookies, and he picks up the glass of milk. Well, during rehearsal, it only had a smidge. She had filled it. Oh he goes to drink it, and it literally milk comes out both sides and pours down his chest. He's wearing it. I'm in the truck yelling, yes, yes, yes, because it was just the perfect shot. Yeah. It and the thing is, is then that ends, and the children scamper off stage. She f she comes back for the back half of her piece, she sings the song out, the audience goes, Wild. But again, that was just one of those again where you know you don't know.

SPEAKER_03 42:47

Um So the the bad part ended up being really good.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

Yeah, you know, and that's it. Uh one of the motivational speakers who just passed away recently, and I'm sorry, I don't remember his name right off the top. Um, I have a couple of wristbands because I worked with him several times. Oh Zig Ziegler? No, I did work with Ziegler, though. But but this guy, um, he had a simple equation, and and and I it's one of those that I realized that I've been living my whole life. Um, but it's something that you can grab a hold of in that it's E plus R equals O. And so E is explain, yeah. E is event.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Okay. R is your reaction to the event equals the outcome or equals the opportunity. Oh, wow. And that's awesome. And so that's it. Is is is literally it's you know, E plus R equals O. If you have a bad reaction to an event, then the outcome is probably going to be negative. And you may even have a good reaction to a bad, bad, bad event, and the outcome still may not be what you want. But but the point is, is your reaction is the variable that you have control over. You don't have control over the E. You don't generally have control over events that happen in your life, but your reaction to that event and your response to that event are. And that's it. It's just in that case, you know, if even if the milk hadn't poured down the front of his chest, we still would have had a good project because the the the music was good, the the children were gorgeous. I'm sure the audience to this day, if they were to find that DVD on the shelves at Goodwill, um, would be going, Why look at the mixed family?

SPEAKER_02 44:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

What's something about production work that people completely misunderstand?

SPEAKER_01 44:36

I think probably the thought that goes into it and how simple many people perceive it to be. Um I I think that that it's really easy to walk into a concert or even a church service and look at it and go, wow, that looks easy. And you know, that that was flawless. And that looks, you know, looks like because it it takes planning. You know, just like that that TV project we were talking about, it, you know, it you had to plan everything. We had to plan the lighting of that part of the set. We had to plan the location of the scenic pieces on the set. We had to plan where the kids were going to come in. We had to plan where the presents were going to be. We had to plan where the the milk and cookies were going to be so that we would have the perfect shot on camera of the kid eating the milk and cookies. You know, so so that's one thing that I think a lot of people don't recognize is how involved production can be just getting something that looks flawless to come across to the audience flawless.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

Well, I remember um just recently I was talking to someone about uh my production work at church. And I said, um on a normal Sunday, it takes twenty about twenty five people to do it put it together. And she looked at me with her eyes so big and her mouth dropped open, I said, Yeah. And I started naming off all the physicians and all the people. And she said, Oh yeah, I get it now. She didn't understand that it takes that many people to put a a simple church service together. Well, not so simple.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

What is it? Somebody once said to me, they said, There are two types of people in the world. Only two. Just two. There are those who don't know. And there are those who don't know they don't know.

SPEAKER_02 46:20

That is so true.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

And and that's true, you know, it happens a lot. And I'm not gonna pick on just the musicians, but a lot of musicians are so focused on what they're doing as performers, and they don't know what it takes to make them sound or look good. And they may have a basic understanding of it. On the same flip side of that coin, there are technicians who may think it's nothing to get up on stage and play an instrument or speak or sing because in their minds, how can it be that hard? Yeah. And that's probably one place in in you know, you misunderstand is, you know, you don't uh recognize it's like uh when they start sound checking a drum set, and I've I've heard it multiple times in my career when the you know, and usually it's from the crew, and usually they know what it is, but it's like, how long are you going to you know keep beating that snare drum? You know, and it's like, well, until the audio guy gets the sound that he wants out of the snare drum, you know. And so so I think that's one of the things people misunderstand. They they don't know the the involvement. And sometimes it's easy for somebody who doesn't understand to make hasty judgments, you know, and say, well, if it's not it it can't be that hard, so why is it taking so long? Well, okay, we could, you know, we can do it faster and it's not gonna be as good. They don't know all the dynamics it actually takes to produce something like that.

SPEAKER_03 47:53

You're talking about different types of productions here. What separates a good production from a great one?

SPEAKER_01 47:59

Oh, good from great. Um, you know, um when you talk about great production, um there have been movies, for instance, that were great productions that stunk at the box office because the audience went, I I don't like this, I don't get this, I don't understand that. So oftentimes, you know, the term good versus great, I think you know, from because you can what you can execute something well, uh, you can execute something perfectly, and if it doesn't communicate to the audience, if it doesn't tell the story that you're trying to tell on stage, um, that's the difference. I think if you can if you can execute a production to tell the story, to communicate the message uh on stage, the better that the team, both the onstage team and the production team, are in tune with telling that story, the better the end result will be for the viewer, for the audience member. And that I think is what makes a great production. It may not have been perfect technically. And I mean, honestly, there are rarely perfect technical productions. You know, there's always the possibility that a wireless microphone uh may go out. There's always the possibility of a light may not work. There's always the possibility of a wardrobe malfunction. Wardrobe malfunction. Somebody can jump a cue, you know. And uh those are the things you have to adjust to. And and that's what I think makes a great production is when you can tell the story and everybody on the project is in tune with telling the story to the point that when it's done, you knew that. You know that you've done that.

SPEAKER_03 49:51

Wow. I I can relate that to church lighting that I've done. On some Sunday mornings, oh, we did a great job. But if the lighting doesn't match the music or the mood or the atmosphere, we've done a lousy job. We're not helping the the people communicate the message to those in the in the congregation. So yeah, it was a great production. But was it was it productive?

SPEAKER_01 50:17

Probably not. Who was it? Uh was it Stephen Covey, I think, that talked about, you know, um that the pursuit of of perfect is the enemy of the good. And so sometimes sometimes trying to make it too perfect, you can actually take away from it being the best it could be. And but yeah, you always want to strive for the best. I mean, uh when we do our shows, um, one of the great things of working at a high level is that you're everybody's in tune, everybody's moving that direction, and you're trying to to be the best you can be. And that's I think what what comes out of it, you know. And we've seen that you've seen moments in church where in particular, you know, God moves, and you know, we may have set the atmosphere, but ultimately, you know, what's happened here. He owns it, yeah. Yeah, the pastor is is is all prayed up and ready to go and has studied. The musicians have done what they needed to do and and they've captured the moment and they've been able to capture the spirit, and the audience is engaged, you know, and that's that's a big part of it, you know, because uh if the audience isn't engaged, if if what you've done up to that point doesn't bring them into the story, you know, it it may the razzle dazzle may be cool, but uh ultimately, you know, does it tell a story? No.

SPEAKER_02 51:34

And that's when my good friend Don told me one time that you're only as good as your last show.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Yeah, well, sometimes that's true.

SPEAKER_03 51:43

Otherwise you don't get hired again, right?

SPEAKER_02 51:45

So coming off of this, what's the what's the most pressure you've ever felt during a live performance? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_01 51:51

Most pressure. Um during a live performance? Yeah. Interesting. Um the last show I did, I guess. I mean, I felt some heat during some of your production. So I mean, well, I mean it I've worked with you. Particularly, you know, where I'm at as a director, is when it gets to show, whether I'm I'm talking to cameras in a truck or whether I'm I'm calling cues in a in a ballroom or a convention center or something, is at that point in time, I'm under pressure to drive the bus. You know, the the thing you I guess would be best compared to would be an indie car driver. Because you've got a crew, you know, you've got a pit crew that has done everything they can do to get that car ready. You've got a sponsor who's given you a car that's the best car you can use for that race, and you've got a you know, um team that's looked at the conditions of the track and they've chosen the right tires, and it's your job to drive the race car. In my case, I've got a team on headset and we've rehearsed a particular transition or effect or look or series of cues, and the pressure on me is make it happen and keep my mind clear. So the moment of trying to capture, you know, the execution of the show is in itself muscle memory. You know, the way to think of it. It's back to that question of being a professional. How many times have you executed something similar? How many times muscle memory have you done this? Um, you know, when I I get into it, I have to make sure that I'm I'm clear with the crew on what is going on. And so the pressure on me there is okay, standby XYZ, XYZ, go. And so then coming out of out of that opening number or whatever it is that we're doing, the next cue, for instance, might be uh stand by to fade audio, standby subtle ballet. And it's say it may seem simple, and I may have a lighting guy and I may have a sound guy who both can take that cue on their own. Yeah. But the job in that time isn't for them to take the cue on their own. And if I skip that cue and they're waiting for the go, then that's going to affect the show. As so as the as the speaker, as the pastor in the church case or the CEO in the case of the corporate shows, as they take the stage, the goal of calling um ballet settle audio fade go is to pr give him that opportunity to speak. So if he starts speaking and I haven't called or didn't call that cue, the audio guy can start to dump it out, but the audience loses his first couple of words. Yeah. And they may be distracted because the s the ballyhoo's still going on of the lighting. So the whole point is pressure is just simply execution. Um, you know, it's you know the old adage, uh, Ray, you know this. You know what the definition of an expert is?

SPEAKER_03 55:13

Uh I heard that once, but I I forgot right now.

SPEAKER_01 55:16

Yeah, someone who's a drip under pressure.

SPEAKER_03 55:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:20

How did Videozone come to life?

SPEAKER_01 55:22

So Videozone was an interesting thing, and it's funny because um I'm a I'm a former board member and president of the Arizona Production Association. We had a um social gathering uh a couple of weeks ago in which I met a gal who had worked at TBN, Trinity Broadcast Network. She's probably the first person after 40 plus years that I met who actually worked for TBN who knew the people that I'm about to talk about. So TBN was a religious Christian network, a Christian television network. Trinity Broadcast. Exactly. And the son of the owners was a young guy about my age in early 20s, uh, who um put together a music video show. The show was called Real Videos, which they, you know, it was pretty much him being the son of the owner of the station. He could do whatever he wanted on the show.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

R-E-E-L or R-E-A?

SPEAKER_01 56:22

R R E A L, Real Videos. Okay. And uh so yeah, he wasn't even that cool to call it real videos with hip R. Yeah, I was like, that'd be cool. So I was fortunate in that I had put together one of the first music video TV networks in the 1980s uh called Music Channel. And so we had had an interest in uh music video television, and as a believer, I thought it would be cool to do what I had done in radio. Uh, because when I was in top 40 radio, I would do a Christian show on weekends. Oh I would produce uh both at KINN and at Cool, I had produced Christian shows on the secular stations. And I thought, well, it'd be cool to do something like that for television. And so a friend of mine, I worked with a production company called the Genesis Group in the mid-80s, in my mid-20s, and uh, we had started talking and started pre-production on a show at that time, it was going to be called Crossover. And uh, we had shot an interview with Mylan Lefevre, who was had had toured with Elvis and had written some stuff where Elvis was a believer, was a rock and roller. And uh so we'd done an interview with him, and uh it was in the can, and the show hadn't gone anywhere. So I'm watching real videos, and um Matt's wife, Lori, I believe her name was, was interviewing Margaret Becker. Margaret Becker um was kind of the Pat Benatar of Christian rock in the 80s. Um Margaret Becker was all of five foot tall and stratocaster slung around her neck and a voice that would tear paper in half. I mean, she she could sing. And she was a solid writer and had written some really intense lyrics. Uh, there's a song from her called Never for Nothing that is still will will just give you shivers, um, especially if you're going through a difficult time in your life. Um, you know, it's it's it's great, great, great, deep, you know, um recognition of the fact that when we go through difficult times, that it's never for nothing. That was Margaret Becker. So Lori's interviewing Margaret Becker, and she'd asked Margaret a question, and Margaret answered her, and I am literally leaning towards the TV. I'm so engrossed by the response that that by what Margaret was saying, and I'm drawn in. Oh, wow. At the end of her statement, yeah, I don't remember what the question was specifically, but it was so flip, so far off, and so disconnected from what Margaret had just said. It could be akin to, oh, that's great, and who does your hair? No way. That's what it felt like. And transfer. And I was like, do you not realize that you have an opportunity to let this person say some incredibly deep things? And at that point, we decided that if we ever did a show, uh, a Christian music video show, that one of the things we would do would be a feature called the spotlight. Okay. And in our spotlight, the host would never speak. And so that was the goal of the spotlight, was it would just be a spotlight on the artist.

SPEAKER_02 59:37

So that's a cool concept. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

That was the concept. And so we we started thinking, and so it was mulling around in my mind. Um, you know, it's like, okay, it'd be cool. What would we call it? And so we were trying to figure out a name. And uh Twilight Zone, uh, there was a song that came out um by a band called Golden Earring, uh um talking about the Twilight Zone that had that great guitar riff and and stuff, and that was rolling around in my head. And I actually thought about reaching out to Michelangelo Cajano and seeing if his band couldn't do a takeoff on that and create us uh create us our own our own theme song. We eventually gave up on that. But the concept of video zone, you know, being there was was was was born predominantly out of out of watching that interview. And so I had been shooting uh as uh as a freelance videographer, I'd been shooting for entertainment tonight. And one of the things that E.T. was doing at that point was these same types of interviews where you didn't see the questions, you just the the interviewee spoke, and then it was intercoat with video from their project or their music or whatever it was we were interviewing. So the artists are just speaking. Exactly. So awesome. So that was the motivation was to take that E.T. style thing that we were shooting and and do that. And so that was uh that was the genesis of it, and then North Phoenix Baptist was given a television station, and uh so they had this TV station and they they weren't sure what to do with it. So I went to the the director of production at that point in time, and uh I asked Rick, I said, Hey, I'd like to put together a music video TV show for the for for TV 39.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:20

No way.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:21

And yeah, and they said, No way.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:24

No way. No way, no way. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27

Pretty much it terrified them. Um basically think Baptist Church, rock and roll, long-haired kid. They couldn't see the vision, they were like, uh well, it was interesting because the the law for local television is there's a law about local origination. What that means is every TV station has to generate X number of hours of locally produced content to keep their license. Like community service almost. Exactly. And so when somebody at the FCC reminded North Phoenix that they didn't have any community programming on their channel outside of the worship services that they were brought, because they thought they were fine with just the church services.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

And uh the federal government said, No, basically you need a few more hours. So that's where Coffee with the Pastor came from as well, was uh they had to create these produce programs. So they came back to me and said, Hey, that uh show you were talking about doing, uh, what do you think? You think you could do it? I'm like, Yeah, we could do that. And I said, we could definitely get a weekly show going for you. And uh so we I started full-blown production trying to figure out how we would create the opening and you know what the what the format of the show was and everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:36

Big fun, big fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:37

It was, and it was probably one of the interesting things where uh again, Don tends to get himself crossways with management. Oh, geez. Um I've seen it. Well the the the director of production at that point in time came to me. He goes, Hey, uh I was hoping you'd get me uh a copy of the playlist of the show. And I'm like, why? Well, we'd like and I'd like to see it. And I'm like, okay, let's let's make something really clear here. I'm a a believer of at that time, 20 plus years, and I said, I know this music, I know these artists, and I said, if you don't think that I am competent enough to be trusted with this, then we're not gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:23

Yeah, don't tie my hands where you want me to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:26

If you think you're going to have a a basically the right to be able to say, no, we're not going to play striper because the pastor doesn't like striper, that's not gonna happen. Yeah. You need independence. And they were desperate enough at that point, they said, okay. Um, but uh it was the best kept secret at North Phoenix Baptist for years. What do you mean by this? It was never ever mentioned publicly.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:51

The actual video zone show or the in church.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:55

I mean, we would have people going, you know, it's like I'd run into people and they're like, Yeah, you know, I've been to that North Phoenix Baptist church. And uh they'd say, That's where you produce the show. And I'm like, Yeah, and I go, Wow, I didn't know that. Because again, it scared them. You know, we were playing some some hardcore artists. Now, we were playing the fluff stuff too. We were playing the Amy Grant and Rich Mullins and Stephen Curtis Chapman and stuff like that, but we were also playing some hardcore rock Christian artists. Um, you know, Skillet's very first video. We were playing that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:26

Uh you were playing some real music.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:28

I mean, we weren't just playing the softies. Well, and that was the thing because I I'd always felt uh a little biased against Christian radio. Um, and part of it was years later that uh, you know, as I grew up, I realized that that Christian radio has to pay the bills, even if it's nonprofit. And so they tend to cater to the safe stuff. Yeah. Because they'll get it. Uh Michael Tate, who was formerly DC Talk and then recently formerly Newsboys, yeah, got into some issues recently. And a lot of the radio stations that had played Newsboys going back to the 1990s, um literally dumped every Newsboys song out of their rotation. Because of the situation because what happened with Michael Tate. Yeah. And I get it to some degree, but at the same time, you know, um the the thing that really annoyed me was a lot of those stations didn't cancel the DC Talk music out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:26

That's the thing, because DC Talk, I really love DC Talk, and that's how I know of Michael Tate because back in the day, I mean, he was obviously a big part of that band.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:35

But you know, the thing is they can't afford to to m tick off their audience as it were. They can't afford, you know. So as a result, a lot of good, solid music over the years, um, for the last forty years, never got played on Christian radio because Christian radio was afraid of it. Politics. Well, not even politics. It was it was it was financial, you know. If you had an older audience, and that the same things happened in churches, you know, as music styles changed, and and you know, we got rid of the choir at North Phoenix, and we got rid of the orchestra at North Phoenix, and we went to the praise team format and the and the band and contemporary well, I mean not even so much contemporary, because the church was doing contemporary before that. But as the style changed based upon the demographics that you're focused on, that makes a big difference as to, you know, how people do. You know, that's the thing with production as well, getting back to what we've been talking about. With VideoZone, our goal from day one was to create a program that would stand up on television with anything else that people might watch. So that you might be tuning across the channels and you'd hit it and you'd go, huh, I've never seen this video before. Who's this guy? And you'd watch that band perform, and then at the end of the song, you know, you'd say, Oh, this show's kind of cool. I'm gonna watch it a little more. Well, every show, because we were on a station that was owned by the church, one of the things I had always done on my Christian show on Cool FM was I did the plan of salvation on a secular radio station.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:11

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:12

Every show. So we carried that over to Video Zone. In fact, the closing song on Video Zone was the closing song that we used on the show that I did on K on Cool FM in the 1980s. Uh a song from a band called Sweet Comfort with uh Brian Duncan and the boys, uh, called People Get Ready. And so we thought, well, you know, we used to close with a song, so we'll close with a song now. And but the we'd do the plan of salvation every single show. And that way, you know, people would have a chance to at least hear the gospel if they had stumbled across it. Believers would come across it, and it was just second nature for them. We did uh close to 500 shows.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:52

No, wait, videos though?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:53

Oh, yeah, we did almost five, four hundred and eighty-nine, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:56

I've seen clips. Those are pretty that's really good work. I mean, you should feel proud of that because even like you're just saying, when you're watching the show, coming from my point of view, knowing nothing about like the production behind the scenes, it feels like a musical-based show without any like trying to make you feel like it's Christian or non-Christian, or it's not trying to pull you into any certain way, you're just presenting the music and letting the artist speak, and then you form your own opinion, and that's what's great about it, is it doesn't try to shape its, you know, and that was that was a big part of what we wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:33

We didn't want there we had a rule, the artists on the show had to be believers. Okay. So if it was a pop star doing a Christian cover, that didn't count. You know, if it was a Christian believer doing a pop song, that did. Yeah. So for instance, we had people like um, because we'd play anything. Um Paul Overstreet was a country artist uh in the mid-90s who was very successful, was a believer. And we played Overstreet's music. Um Alice Alice Cooper? Well, we Alice didn't have anything at the time, and Alice wasn't a known believer. Well, he he wasn't nobody knew he was a believer until our show. Oh wow. And so that was that was a big part of it was that uh, you know, but for instance, we played Glenn Campbell. Yes, you know, um, but we were playing, like I said, some of the hardcore Christian rock groups uh and interviewing them. Um, and we had, you know, we had DC Talk, um, Mylon and Broken Heart. That we had the newsboys on with different iterations of the newsboys earlier in their career. Uh they still have the album title, which is still my favorite album title of all time of Christian music. Adrenaline Rush? Nope. Hell is for Wimps. I still think I still think that's a brilliant album album title. You know, but but that but that was the history of videos on the whole. It was it was designed as a ministry, you know, to to reach people, but it was also you know, uh an entertainment format. You know, it gave us a chance to to feature these artists who, you know, probably in many cases, some of them were the Amy Grants and the Stephen Curtis Chapmans and stuff, were getting the attention. But we when we got to our apex, um the record labels were were were crowning their way in, trying to get us content and interviews and everything else. They would work extra hard to get you know artists on the show and they would do custom promos for us and things like that just because they knew that we had enough reach and enough drive, especially after we went national. And so it was it was a lot of fun. Um how many cities or states did you make it to? Well, that was the thing was we, you know, and again, we started out in Phoenix. That was the goal. It was like, okay, we're just gonna be a show in Phoenix. And then we had some interest in uh um Flagstaff out of uh KUSK, Channel 7. And so we they didn't want to didn't want us to pay for it, or they wanted us to pay for it, but we weren't going to pay for it. And so we started shipping them tapes, and so they started broadcasting it, and then we got picked up on uh cable in Tucson, and so now we're uh covering the whole state of Arizona.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:22

And then the Alice Cooper interview happened, and uh that's what kicked us into national. And so we were national on satellite for um what almost 20 years. Oh wow, yeah, almost 20 years.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:36

Was it ever live or was it like pre-recorded and then distributed?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:39

The the sh we recorded the shows live uh with an all-volunteer crew. Oh, wow. Um, it was all people at North Pink's Baptist, and it was all people um who we trained on back then with the first machines that we ran for playback were the big one-inch reel-to-reel machines. Yeah. And so we had to teach the people how to run the one-inch machines. Um, somebody had to mix audio live, and that it was like mixing a radio show. You literally had to, you know, have the music, especially if I was talking over it, you had to have it duck under. Figure it in, figure it out, yeah. Yeah. And so, but it was uh my my coordinating producer uh was somebody who sat across from me keeping the times of how long my segments were and everything else. Oh, wow and so we recorded the whole show live to tape, and I would do some cleanup editing, but for the most part, uh, you know, what you see on the air was what uh what we did. What really happened, yeah. The exception was the craziness. Um was when Dan Ure was our pastor, um, he was trying to do things to involve the community, and he decided that we needed to do a trunk retreat in our parking lot. And so they brought in um, you know, um Ferris wheel and some small rides for kitties and stuff, and they they you know set up this trunk retreat in the parking lot, and it fell on a Friday night. And the first year that they did it, uh, Halloween fell on a Friday night. So I was thinking, wouldn't it be fun? Quotes, wouldn't it be fun to do the show live and do some Halloween alternative stuff? Well, one of the things was was the student ministry was doing their own Halloween thing over in uh the buildings, the old portable buildings that used to be over north on the north side of the campus. And uh they were going to have uh a guy and a gal um come in and uh do a do a performance there for the students for all of about 75 kids. Okay. Now, from a TV perspective, the television audience doesn't know how big anything is. No, you know, and so and they don't have a perspective of location. No. We didn't talk about the fact that we recorded video zone at North Phoenix Baptist Church. Yeah. So what we did for to cover both the thing in the uh in the in the student building and in in the parking lot at North Phoenix, we literally just stretched the camera cables and took the cameras into the parking lot and into that other building.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:20

No way.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:20

Nobody else had ever done that at North Phoenix. We had done some stuff down in the amphitheater for uh for a couple of music videos. But so so I literally would say on the air, it's like, well, let's go live to North Phoenix Baptist Church. Doink.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:33

Oh my goodness. I had no idea.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:36

And so we went live to North Phoenix Baptist Church, and you know, we were sho you know, we had Pastor Dan on, and one of the first things I did was uh KRTS Radio was a Christian radio station then. And I had friends over there and I had been done a lot of stuff with them. And so we uh we um got the DJs to be our guest hosts in the field. Oh my. And so they were scared to death, you know, because they'd never done television before, but it's like okay, just do it like you're doing the radio. Yeah. And so, you know, we're sitting there interviewing Pastor Yuri, you know, talking about what it what it was all about and everything else, and doing this live five-hour show. And five hours away. Oh, and it gets worse. It gets worse. Uh so we did that the first year. Well, the group, the the the brother-sister group, and unfortunately, I'm sorry I don't remember the names. I'll try to look it up for you. Uh, the brother-sister group that performed in the student center that night got a record contract out of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:34

No way. Because they got it.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:38

They got a piece of the video from the show. No way.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:42

That was what they used to pitch the record list. That is incredible.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:45

And I didn't know about that for years until years later we interviewed them again.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:49

And we were making connections.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:50

And well, and that was the thing was that now we're now we're into something. So the next year we do it again. And uh this time now, um, we had a a member of the church who had done film television work that shot all the old Shasta Pool's commercials and stuff. And uh Matt's a great believer and uh and was was very involved in church and our orchestra and stuff. So Matt owned a broadcast camera. So we did the show again the next year, and this time we sneaker netted um the clips. So we'd we'd Matt would be out at uh um uh castles and coasters. Oh, yeah. They do a Christian alternative concert at Castles and Coasters.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:34

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:35

And so Matt would be there and he would shoot a segment, pop the tape out, hand it to a uh a volunteer kid, you know, who'd jump in his car, drive back to the church, run back in, and we would we would be, you know, we'd say, Hey, uh they they've got the uh the Halloween alternative show going on at a Castles and Coasters, let's go out and take a look. And we'd roll the tape and we'd we'd do the hit. So now we're we were doing that. So then the next year we get even crazier, and uh now then we are sending um we're we're sending out the hosts, and we found that the old microwave link from Grand Canyon University to the church back when we used to broadcast the basketball games from Grand Canyon, the microwave link was still there, and nobody knew about it. No. So we turned it on and we fired it up back to the church, and we sent the morning guy from KRDS radio out to Grand Canyon, and basically um we've got one camera there, and he's giving away uh well, to give you an idea, um, Mars, MM Mars company gave us a pallet of Halloween candy. Oh six feet high. No way for the show. That's crazy. Because, you know, so we're giving away boatloads of candy, and we're doing live hits. So now we're actually doing real-time live hits with Jeffrey out at Grand Canyon University, and we're sending one of the other radio talents out. So we like I said, we had shot the music videos with uh Glenn Campbell, and I had done his uh Christian concert, and uh so uh Jerry Calangelo at that point owned the Suns. Yeah, and Jerry's a believer, and uh he had decided that he wanted to do something of a Halloween alternative, and so he had got called in a bunch of favors. So they were at America West Arena and they were doing this show. So we sent Jill Austin from KRDS down with Matt. And because we knew Glenn, you know, she was all excited because she got to interview Glenn Campbell. So she finishes the interview with Glenn Campbell, and you know, they they talked a while, and Glenn talked about his faith and stuff. And so then uh when they're done, they're off camera and the tape's driving back up Central Avenue. Uh he turns to Jill and he goes, You want me to go get Alice? As in Alice Cooper. Yeah. And so she's like, sure. And I gotta say no to that. So so Alice comes out and so they shoot the segment with him. And we don't know, you know, again, I don't know that this is even happening. I just you know, Matt's down there. And Matt told me, he says, I I didn't know what to expect out of this. And so Alice starts talking and he starts talking about the fact that North Phoenix Baptist had had an influence on his life. Yeah. And that influence was apparently when he and Glenn got to be friends and started playing golf together, he had a couple of kids, and so he got his kids into the this the children's program at North Phoenix Baptist. He said that he would slip into the back of the church to pick up his kids, sit on the back row back when we had the the where the chairs, the theater chairs are now it used to go back underneath. Yeah. And he was sitting on the very back row, and he swears to this day that Richard Jackson was preaching right at him. I I've heard the story, it's fascinating. And so that was Alice Cooper sharing his faith on television, on Halloween.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:21

Gave his testimony, which is very, very, very special.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:25

So that's how that's how that came. So what was interesting out of that, again, the the industry, it got passed around the industry, and that's when we got the phone call from Sky Angel Network, and that's when we got picked up on satellite, and we did the 20 years on satellite nationally. We did the math, and roughly, um, going back to the fact that we had a chance to share the plan of salvation, our estimate is that on the low end, that five to seven million people have seen it. Oh, wow. On the high end That's incredible. On the high end, which we think is more realistic, we think that somewhere in the ballpark of 40 million people have seen it at some point in time. That is amazing. Because for instance, VideoZone, when it was on Sky Angel, started out on Thursday nights and it became so popular they would air it like at two in the morning on Monday, and you know, they literally ran it four times a week. And so, uh, like I said, just the sheer number of times. So, and again, did did we ever think that it would become as big as it was? No. Did we ever think it would last as long as it did? Uh no, but the the goal at the time was this was something that we thought would be a great opportunity to share these artists and to share the message of the gospel and to do it in a cool way. And so there, so um we own um videozone TV.com, uh, the URL. We've not been able to do anything with the website. We own a YouTube channel, VideoZone TV. Um, we've posted the Alice Cooper interview and a couple other things up there. We started to do a GodTube channel um to basically reinvigorate the the re-green the shows. Uh and the thing was um god tube is great, but they've got no way to deal with if they have copyrighted content, they just take it down, they don't tell you. Oh, ouch. And the problem is is we'd we'd posted several shows and they just disappeared. And we'd reach out to them and they say, Well, at least YouTube, for instance, uh, from the live show, we had a segment of the live show, yeah. Um, and uh from for the five-hour live show with Alice Cooper, and we played the song Flood from Jars of Clay.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:46

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:46

And we had played it on there. Well, the record label basically said to YouTube their their bots went to YouTube's bots and said, This is ours, you can't play it. Streaming, yeah. But the thing is, YouTube has a uh a means to escalate. So we're going through the process now. And I'm sure if we start putting the shows up, which we're planning to do, um, that we're gonna run into that. They're gonna say, well, you know, this is this is copyrighted material. Yes, and I have all the documents from all the record companies giving us the okay to play this stuff on video zone. So we're hoping uh that uh starting this summer we'll be able to start uh repopulating videos on uh on uh on videos on TV on YouTube.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:27

Well that's a whole new audience, isn't it? That is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:30

So we'll see. That's that's kind of where it's going. So we'll see where it goes from there. Um, you know, and hopefully it gives us a chance to do that. And you can come back and plug it.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:38

Yeah, and we'll see. So uh did you like uh doing on-camera work or did you prefer being behind the scenes?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:46

Uh I uh you know, the on-camera side of it was cool. Um I am such a uh introvert that I, you know, I really just kind of you know was scared to death. Never mind. Uh no, um it was it was fun. I mean, the the cool thing about first radio and then when I did the music channel, um, you know, and I could tell stories all day. Well, you know, my favorite one being my stories about Dirk, our helicopter pilot at Music Channel 61 for the TV's for the TV news show that we didn't actually have. Oh yeah. Uh oh yeah, that's great. That's another one that almost got me fired. Um But it was fun to do that stuff. It was fun to tell a story, it was fun to to do that kind of thing. And it was interesting after music channel went bankrupt. Um, I was at that point where I was doing production and I had done talent and I was trying to decide which way to go with it. And there used to be um a movie critic on channel 10, uh, which was still cool at that point, um, Bill Rose, and Bill would do these movie reviews, and Bill would retired, and I went to channel 10 and said, Hey, I'd like a shot at that job. Oh, really? So they sent a camera crew out and I reviewed karate kid, you know, and had written wrote my whole stand-up and everything else. And so um did it and was was I think I pretty much had the job because the the operations manager and the program director, news director were very positive. And they're like, Yeah, you know, we think this is gonna work. And so the Friday before they were supposed to tell me yes or no, um, he calls and he goes, Hey, um, management has another candidate we'd like to look at. Uh-oh. And whenever they say management has a candidate, so a weather forecaster from channel 12 had uh been fired at channel 12, and uh he was fairly popular in the market, and so they hired him instead of me. And that was the turning point. That was at that point I said, you know what? That the behind the scenes, you got more controlled. You're you know, there's a lot of fun in it. And VideoZone was kind of another outlet for me to be able to be back in front of the camera again. But um, you know, it's the same thing, you know, in performing. Um, I sang, for instance, when I was uh I sang in high school and and college choirs.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:13

No way.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:14

Yeah. And then uh I sang uh a friend of mine talked me into auditioning for the Phoenix Symphony Chorale, and uh I sang with him for several years. And so the the the cool thing of that audition was uh I walk into audition and not knowing I knew I had to sight read. I didn't know I was going to have to sight read in Latin. Why? Because a lot of those songs are written in in Latin. No way, you know, so so yeah, so I sang with the Phoenix Corral and uh North Phoenix um never sang on stage there of sang in the chapel a number of times, but uh um I narrated three, I think, of our big musicals over the years. You know, we had these big Christmas and Easter musicals, and I was a narrator a number of times. Um we the musical that I that changed my life that I was saved at as a teenager was a program called Celebrate Life, was one of the first Christian rock musicals uh written by Cynthia Clausen and uh um Burl Redd and Reagan Courtney. And uh I talked John Chillington into um us doing that as adults, and so we did it, and uh so I was able to play the part of Luke that I had played as a student as a grown-up. Uh this time I got to wear a real beard, and uh so yeah, so I I've done the in front of the camera stuff, it's fine. I I you know I'm I'm very comfortable on microphone or on camera, as you can tell. Uh I'm just you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:49

That's good though.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:50

I mean But the behind the scenes, yeah, it's fun too.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:53

How has production changed from when you started to now the new digital and streaming eras?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:00

Well, we were talking earlier off camera um or off microphone about uh the fact that you had no idea what uh razor blade splicing was, so I think you should do some homework on that.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:11

I'm pretty old and yeah, I I missed that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:13

I'm gonna loan you my uh razor blade kit. And uh what was funny was uh the uh April Fool's was just a couple of days ago, and one of the plugins for one of the audio um DAW systems had a um had a uh razor blade plug-in available only on April 1st.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:34

Oh, that's funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:36

And and it even had a a finger bleed setting, so you could set it to the point where you sliced your finger open cutting them. So yeah, I mean the technology's obviously changed. Um, you know, when we first had TV cameras, we couldn't point them at the lights. You know, we couldn't point them at the sun. Uh well, no, not just glare. You could physically damage the pickup tube. It would burn out the tube. Yeah, you could actually damage the pickup tube. And so, you know, we had to be very careful with that. Obviously, the tape formats, I own several VTRs and so forth, and you know, it ranges. Uh, you know, I've got a three-quarter inch machine, and uh and I've got a beta cam machine. And I've been to your storage shed. You have some toys. Well, it's interesting when you realize that um the beta cam machine I did not buy new, I bought it used. Uh the betacam machine that I own that doesn't work that I can't let go, um $70,000. No way. A VTR back in the day costs twice the price of a car. And uh, you know, that was one of the things that was amazing. Is now that you know you can record on a on a thumb drive and uh use a laptop as the recorder.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:54

It's just you know, it's just amazing. I mean, so from that side of it, lighting, you know, that's obviously changing as Ray has seen that happen. Uh LED has really changed that industry a great deal. Lasers, I'm telling you. Well, we had lasers even in the 70s. In fact, the scariest thing I ever saw, um, I at the time was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. And then when I got older and realized what I'd seen, I realized how stupid these people were. Uh 1975 or 76, the Electric Light Orchestra was touring, and I saw them play at Tingley Coliseum, and they were playing the song Roll Over Beethoven. And in the middle of Roll Over Beethoven, there was a cello solo. Um, basically, I think rock and roll cello. Oh. And so it goes into this solo, and on the downstage edge of the stage, about ten feet in front of the celly player, um, is a green laser shooting back towards it. And on the bridge of the cello is a mirror. Oh. And so when he's in the middle of the solo and sawing across that that thing and it's moving around and swiveling around, that laser's hitting and it's scattering laser all over the auditorium, which was really cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:18

That sounds neat.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:19

And incredibly dangerous because the laser light's being reflected back into the audience's eyes. Yeah. So I mean procedures. So and this was long before anybody understood, you know, and I mean, they were doing pyrotechnics and stuff like that. That later on was it's like, okay, that was dangerous, and we really shouldn't have done that. Um, but yeah, I mean, so but I mean, a lot of it hasn't changed. I mean, some of the cues that we do in shows, you know, for instance, uh, the thing I learned in in listening to the master that I learned under David Peel, um, was some of the shows, you know, it's it's standby, you know, um lighting queue 127s, standby stinger five, uh, standby pyro, standby um audio stinger, you know, whatever, uh curtain, whatever. So what you got all these standbys and XYZ go. People have been doing that in theater for well over a hundred years in the United States, and then some of them go up back even further than that. So some of the things the technology will change, but you know, pushing somebody out on the stage to speak, that hasn't changed. Yeah. Uh, you know, uh more wireless guitars and so forth like that, and things like that now. We have more tech that we can do. But um for the most part, you know, it just if it makes the job easier, great.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:39

Uh I got a question. I'm gonna beep the name when I say it in post. But have you ever done a show like before? No. Come on. I I need an honest answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:57

Well, I mean you when you're that show is wild, Dawn. Yeah, and and from a standpoint of I almost walked out with you, yeah. Content, content neutral. Um You're hardly speechless. Well, I'm I'm not I'm trying to say something appropriate. Well, uh again, this was these were people that had a story to tell. Okay. And my job was to help them tell the story. You know, that's the truth. Um the mo that was not the most uncomfortable gig I've done. You've done one more. Oh, you've got to share because I didn't tag along for that one. So years ago, I had two gigs back to back. Okay. And I'm not gonna hold either one in judgment. But at the moment, I'll let you guess which one I was more uncomfortable with. So I got a call to do camera work for a faith healer show.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:54

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:55

Miracle. So I'm down on the floor and I'm shooting, and I'm doing my best, and and I did my best job, and I did good work, and my shots followed the action, and I did exactly what I needed to do. Okay. Uh two days later I got a call uh from wasn't Entertainment Tonight. What was it? One of the news shows. Inside edition. Inside edition. Really? Yeah, it was. It was inside edition.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:20

Oh, I guessed it.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:21

That's funny that you mentioned that. So I had done a number of things for them, and they were at that point, they were a legitimate news show.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:28

And they had Oh, that's hilarious. Sorry. I get it.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:33

So they called and they said, Hey, we've we've got a shoot that we need you to do in Phoenix. And uh they said, uh we'll do the first interview at the Hyatt Regency downtown. And so I've got my betacam and I've got the light kit and I've got everything. And I get down to the the Hyatt Downtown like park and I let my stuff into the elevator and take it up to the 25th floor, whatever it was, to the room we were going to. And I walk in and I said, uh, I said, What do you mean where do you want me to set up? And they said, Well, uh, you can set up over here, but you won't need the light kit. Huh? And I said, Why not? And they said, Well, we're shooting the interviews in silhouette. So you couldn't see the person's face.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:15

They do this sometimes when you they don't yeah, when they're speaking anonymously. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:20

Uh the piece was on spouse swapping.

unknown 1:35:23

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:23

There were two spouse swapping clubs in the West Valley that they were looking into. Oh. I'll let you tell whichever one of those two made me more uncomfortable. Oh. I'm glad I didn't follow to that one.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:36

I'm glad I wasn't there.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:37

Yeah, that was one of those, like, well, I think I'm gonna probably not take as many phone calls from these guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:43

I'm telling you, that one gig that you and I were a part of takes the cake for me still. Yeah. And I'm not waiting for anything to like up it. Because that one was wild.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:54

Well, and uh, you know, I mean, I've I've worked with with polit politicos and um on stage people. It's interesting that that again, the whole point of being there is to help tell a story. Yeah, some of these people recognize that and they appreciate it. Some of them are total jerks. Very it's interesting more often, particularly with the higher-ups, it's more often it's the handlers, not the principal. Yeah. And so, you know, there have been several several shows where I've just kind of scratched my head and said, Yeah, these people are fired. I'm not gonna work for them again.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:30

So I was scratching my head like, did that really happen?

SPEAKER_03 1:36:35

What advice would you give to someone today trying to break into production? Don't do it, don't do it. Don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:46

No, I mean, it's interesting. I mean, like I said, the fact is, is you know, I grew up a poor kid in New Mexico, and I've been to all but four states nationally. I've been to all but one continent nationally and uh globally, all because somebody's paid me to go there. Um and I'm very blessed by that. Now, is that gonna happen to everybody? I don't know. I you know, I don't know if it's gonna happen to them or not. I do know that it comes down to harder work. I do know that it comes down to, especially when you're starting out, being willing to be there early and leave late, being willing to do stuff that may not be your job, but being willing to help. Um, going back to that thing that my grandfather taught me, asking that question, is there anything else I can do to help? That will get you noticed, that will get you attention of the people. And if if that group of people, if it doesn't work out, then probably the next group will. Uh, but it's it's not easy. You know, I mean, there's a lot of people out there who are trying to make a living at it. And, you know, the corporate side, and to some degree the rock and roll side, and to a lesser degree even than the church side, um, you know, it's uh it's dependent upon the economy. You know, uh I've I've been through several crashes. You know, after 9-11, my calendar cleared and it was it was terrifying because, you know, I didn't have any work. Yeah. Um, you know, when the 08 crash happened, I'm still to this day thankful because uh I picked up a couple of world tours of Microsoft and that paid my bills for those two years. Even the COVID thing hit your industry very hard. Yeah, COVID almost, you know, there are people who got out of the business after COVID. Uh we had a production company, the production company folded, you know, and and I went back to freelance. Um so it's it's hard. And it's the the breakup rate in our business is massive. Uh relationships are hard to hold on to in our business. Um, because of that, you know, spouses do not understand for the most part what the travel, what the hours mean. Um and it's hard, and that's just one of the things, you know, I'll tell young people in the business, you know, take your significant other on the worst gig you have. You know, don't take them on the best one, take them on the worst one. Because if they're going to learn what you do, they need to think that it's not all candy and soda pop. You know, they need to recognize that you know these are long days and hard days. That's real talk. Wow. But it's it's you know, it's true. And the thing is, is I have many, many friends and myself included, that are victims of of their relationships in this business because it's it's hard for people, particularly if they don't have any understanding of the business, you know, just to know what these late nights are. You know, they see the razzle-dazzle of the live show, you know, like if it's a broadcast or something else. Uh I remember when I directed the TV broadcast for the Golden Karma Awards, and uh Jane Seymour was one of the awardees.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:57

I've met her. She's a nice lady.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:59

Jane Seymour was and is an absolute gorgeous lady. Oh, she's nice. And Julie knew that I I was enamored with Jane Seymour. And so she was very specific. She says, You stay away from Jane Seymour. And yes, there's a photo on Facebook of me and Jane Seymour. I have a photo with her. I was really young. But the the point is is is if if you're s significant other, if you're your boyfriend, your girlfriend, whatever it is that you know, if you're it it's hard for them, you know, if they think that it's all lollipops and sodopop, uh, you know, because it's they don't understand what the late hours mean, you know, and the hard rehearsals. And frankly, there are times where the director will yell at you, or the producer will yell at you, or the client will yell at you. And no way. Yeah, go figure. It's not all roses and lollipops and but I mean, you know, and and you know, and that's uh but that's one of the things in the business is just that just keep in mind that that's gonna be one of the hard things that you're gonna have to deal with. Yeah. Is you're gonna have to work your butt off, and you're gonna have to deal with the fact that you know your your relationships may suffer from it because you're gonna, you know, have to work a gig sometime. And yeah, do I regret it? No. Um, you know, could I have made some better decisions at different places in my life? Probably, but I think that's true of all of us.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:22

Yeah. That's definitely true. Looking back, what is something that you are most proud of in your career so far?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:30

Most proud of? Yeah, so far.

unknown 1:41:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:35

Um well, I okay. Proud of is is is probably not the right word in this case. Okay. Um surviving is part of what I would be proud of. Um, the relationships, you know, I've I've met and worked with some great people. Um one of the cool things of our business is walking into a ballroom and somebody you haven't seen in five years that you worked together five years ago, and you're you're just like you just pick up where you were yesterday. Yeah. That happens a lot. I mean, we see each other in airports, we see each other on airplanes, and it's like, hey, how you doing? You know, and that kind of stuff. So I mean, that's that's been cool. Uh you know, I'd say probably the thing that I would I would I not so much again proud, blessed. You know, uh we you know, we talked about it a little bit before. I have gotten to go places, shake hands with people, and and do things that millions of people don't.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:38

You know, they don't know what it's like to experience something like that. Well, and I mean it's just again, it's and it's not necessarily because of what I've done. It's just, you know, by the grace of God that I've I've been in this opportunity. Yeah, there's some hard work behind it. Yeah. That got to it, but but at the same time, it's you know, um You're blessed too. Yeah, I'm very blessed and I'm very grateful for the opportunities that I have. And that's that's a big part of it. But yeah, what am I proud of? Uh, you know, I'm I'm I'm I'm very proud of the fact that I'm married to an incredible woman who has supported me um, you know, through this industry and through what we do. And we're a partner. You know, we're partners in what what we do and what I am, and and uh that's that I'm proud of. I'm proud of, you know, I've got a daughter who's doing well and is happily married and that. But you know, I mean, for the most part, um there there have been times that you know what came out on tape was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:33

What it took to get there, maybe not so much, but the the final product, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:37

If you could sit down with your 18-year-old self for five minutes, what do you think you would tell him and what would you warn him about?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:47

Uh 1987, uh stay home.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:51

Um what the whole year.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:55

No, well, one particular instance, I'd just say in 1987, you're gonna have an opportunity to stay home. Do that. Um Okay. This reminds me of Back to the Future. Yeah, not fit for radio. Um, I know that's the title of the show, but no. It's uh but yeah, that'd be the that'd be the one thing I'd say. The other thing I'd say for real would probably be it's not gonna be easy, but it's gonna be cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:22

Do you think you had actually listened back then, or would you have ignored the advice from your future self?

SPEAKER_01 1:44:28

I think I well, and that's one thing I'm really fortunate. You know, I told you the story about the general manager, you know, and and I listened to him. Now, you know, when I was starting to direct, you know, I I was pretty confident as a 20-year, 25-year-old that I was a good director. And in some ways I did some good things as a director. Was I the best director there was? No. But um I would listen to what other people were doing. I'd watch what other people were doing. So would I have listened to myself? Probably, just simply because you know, I I needed the advice, I needed the opportunity to learn and to grow.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:04

I have a off-the-script question.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:07

Okay. I haven't read the script anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:09

So off topic. Um, you being production director guy, is there a production out there, past or present, that when you see it, you're in awe of, or you would be like, oh man, I don't think I could ever direct something of that magnitude, or you'd be afraid to even touch it. Or is there is there a production out there that that Don awes over that's not his own?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:34

Well, there's two questions there. So let me tackle the first one first. Um I and Julie both um have a have a challenge to turn off our mind when we watch something. And it's true of everybody who works professionally. Oh, definitely. You know, as you as you watch or listen to a project, part of your brain is going to the analysis of the project.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:57

Oh, yeah, how they put it together and how they did the lighting, how they did the script, how they did the camera show. Yeah. Where's the microphone at? Because I know can't I can hear exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:07

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:08

And you know, in the case of of Julie, she's a uh a text editor, copy editor, newspaper editor at one point in time. Every single typo that ever hits the screen, she will see it. And uh and uh, you know, and so I mean there's so but there's a that's again, there's a human element involved.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:26

Um that's a gift too, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:28

There are, you know, our uh second part of the question. Um shows that I'm in awe of. Yes. I mean, there are times, um uh same show, two different stories. Uh Grammy Awards, I don't remember what year it was. I think one of the Cassetti brothers was directing, I don't remember which. But um there were two things that happen. One during the show. Um normally I'm I'm a multicamera guy. I like to direct. If I'm doing video, I like to direct multi-camera. Film style is what they do for movies where they'll set one camera up, shoot the dialogue of one of the characters, swing the camera around, then shoot the dialogue of the other character. Uh, or they might have two cameras set up, but they're not switching in real time. They're editing it in post. Yes. So multicamera live directing is because I'm an adrenaline junkie, is the opportunity to tell the story in real time.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:18

One of the things I'm hoping to do with VideoZone is I have several concerts uh, including uh Audio Adrenaline, Big Ten Revival, and a couple of others that I directed live concerts of that I have uh Pray for Rain, uh that I have the footage of. No way. And uh nobody has ever seen those concerts. And so I've thought a few times, you know, I might clean those up and put them back out because I'm proud of the work that I did, because the live directing is an adrenaline rush. You're telling the story, you've got one shot.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:48

So you gotta capture the whole moment. So I'm watching the Cassetti Brothers, and award shows are traditionally multi-camera shows, and they're very there's a lot of cuts. You know, you got the person on stage, you know, please welcome onto the stage. So-and-so, you cut to the wide shot, you cut to the full-length shot on the jib, you're walking them out, they get to the lectern, you cut back to the tight shot. So in my head, I can hear the director. Um, they go to a shot, and I think it was was it Henley? I don't remember. One of the guitar players from the Eagles. Um, the camera opens up on a shot of an acoustic guitar tight, and the camera pulls out as he starts playing acoustically. It comes out, and as the drums come in, the camera has tracked back around and reveals the drums in the background. And as the piano comes in, Diana Kroll is over on the grand piano, and the camera's tracking around while he's playing and she's playing and the drummer's playing. Single shot. One shot. One shot, one continuous tracking shot. The camera tracks around behind the drummer, comes back around, and at the end of the song, as Diana Kral is literally going up the keyboard for the last few notes, the camera comes in and is tight on her hands. What? Oh, and I was just raptured. I was just like, that is so cool. Because creativeness to exactly to do a single shot and and a single moving camera shot can be it for one, you've put an incredible amount of trust on that one person in that camera guy, yeah, or gal to to capture what it is. And you've you've structured the set, you know, as the director, you structured the set as as I so like I said, I I had been there just sitting and just totally enamored, going, that was amazing. That was absolutely amazing. We get to the end of the show, and um it's McCartney, Paul McCartney, is on stage and a band. And he goes into the song a little help from my friends, the Beatles. Okay. Okay. Out of the wings come seven or eight of the world's greatest guitar players. Clapton's there, and all these other guys are walking on stage, and they're all jamming. And then they start to go into little solos. And so the director cuts to the shot just as Clapton finishes a riff, and somebody else starts playing and you can't see them. And they finally get to that shot, and then they finish and somebody else starts playing and you can't see it. I'm screaming at the TV set. No way. Now, I will never probably get to direct the Grammys. So obviously, I'm considered a rank amateur compared to Cassetti or whoever's directing. But I'm yelling at the TV, get to your wide shot. Get to your wide shot. Because in in television, your wide shot is your friend. Because from the audience's perspective, on television, the wide shot sets the perspective of the theatrical stage. The whole room. It tells you what's going on. Yeah. So the point I was making was, you know, he would he would finish a guitar riff and he's so he's trying so hard to figure out who the next guy is. Because in the truck, he's literally yelling, camera three, get me a shot of whoever's playing. And camera three is going, Who's playing? Oh, geez. And and he's like, uh just find them, you know, and and he's not thinking ahead on his shots. Whereas you cut back to your wide shot, it lets you breathe for half a second. And it's like, the guy, two to the left. So the camera guy pans two people to the left and you pick up that shot. You know, all right, camera four, you'd be ready for the next one. It's like if he finishes playing on camera two, you cut back to your wide shot, then camera four finds the next one, and now you're cutting into a rhythm. And I I was I was aghast that in the same show, probably the same director, that this was so amazing, and this sucked.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:11

Wow. You gotta see the good and the bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:15

Well, I found out later on that he was not completely at fault. He didn't get to rehearse it. After they rehearsed the shot, the song with McCartney, McCartney picked up the phone, called all of these guys, and says, Hey, I'm doing this big finale on the Grammys. You want to come jam with me on it? So the director had no idea until it goes, the camera guys had no idea who they were, you know, and so at that point in time, he's just flying blind. And so, like I said, in that case, had he have known or had he have, but you know, as you're as you're doing it back, you know, to the question, you you know, you you do your best to plan, you adjust as things change, because things will change, and you know, you try to do the best outcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:09

That's really cool. All right, so we got our signature question coming up. Our signature question is something we try to ask everybody on the show. If you got to be, you know, with God, what would one of the first questions you would have for him? One of my first questions for God? Yeah. Like Ray made fun of me because I was like, you know, what was the fruit? Something that doesn't really matter, but everybody wanders from day one, like it was an apple, a kiwi, a cucumber. What was it? We don't know. Oh my.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:42

Um, you know, there's at least half a dozen flip answers that jumped in my mind immediately. It could be serious, it could be funny, whatever you um the the thing that probably I don't know that I have a question. I'm gonna just say I would just simply be thankful and and recognize the fact that that I'm I'm in his presence first of all by his grace. Oh, of course, yeah. And that anything that I wonder about here, I'll not have any wonderings there. Um because I and don't even get me off on on my my theology as far as temporal existence. Because I could go there all day. Um because honestly, I I think that God gives us the opportunity to take this life and follow the current of life and trust Him with the outcome in our lives. Um you know, probably if I were to say the one question that I might ask would be, you know, why me? Why was I blessed? But I recognize that that again, we're all blessed in different ways. And so it would be somewhat ungracious of me to ask it. But that's probably the closest I could come because I am I am so thankful for all of the opportunities of my life. I am so thankful for the the the fun that I've had, um, even the the pain that I've gone through at times. Um, I recognize okay, part of life is going to be pain, and part of life is going to be joy.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:34

And living is the part sometimes in between, and sometimes at the same time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:40

That's great. That's really uh fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:42

I I appreciate the You didn't really answer the question, but you're welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:45

No, you did. You went from not wanting to answer it to you actually went in and you gave an answer after you thought about it. That was great. I appreciate it. All right, though. Uh this is your spotlight time. I'm sure you know what to do with this. Take 30 seconds-ish, give or take, more or less, whatever you want, to plug whatever you want, your company, adventures, jewelie, your doggies, whatever you want, whatever shout-outs, uh, whatever the world needs to know that you haven't said yet, go for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:13

Oh. Well, you left out the last line. Uh, the mic is yours. Thank you. I've I like these. I was going to take one with me.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:20

Oh my God. The mic is not literally yours. He took it literally. Sorry, I mean nice mics, though. Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:30

That was the one thing I looked at on the script and I went, oh, that's fine. The mic is yours. Okay, I'll take this. I need one of these.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:37

That's hilarious. I've never had somebody go for that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:40

Yeah, I'll take the mic. Um okay, so let's see.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:45

Anything. It's yours.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:47

Three, two, one. I want everyone to know that Jake is doing an amazing job with this program. Ray is doing an amazing job with this program. If you haven't listened to this program recently, it's a mistake on your part. You should learn better. They're doing an amazing job with the program. What's the name of this program again? I forgot. Unfit for radio, podcast, something like that. Anyway, you should listen to this program more often because after all, it's a really good program. Tell your friends about it. Tell your enemies about it. If your enemies don't like it, you don't like your enemies. So we don't care. But you should listen to this program. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:27

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:29

That was our best 30 seconds we've ever had. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:33

Remember, this is the kid that went into the production room at 16 and got the commercial.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:38

That is hilarious. Hey, it's his time. He can do whatever he likes with it. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's our final cut for this episode 32, Behind the Production. Huge thanks to our special guest, Mr. Don Woodard. Next week on episode 33, we have another exciting episode with a guest coming your way. Stay tuned. I can't wait to see who it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:03

Hey y'all, if you've been enjoying the program and want to dig a little deeper, we've got you covered. You can find us on worldwide platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, and beyond. Just search for Unfit for Radio with Jakers. And hey, if you're really loving the show, take about 10 seconds and drop a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or whatever you're listening to on Spotify or whatnot, drop us a review. A lot of listeners have already done it, and it really helps the people discover Unfit for Radio. We appreciate it more than you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:35

Just do it. Folks, Unfit for Radio is an independent, self-funded podcast powered by us and people like you are listening. If you believe in what we're building and want to help keep the mics hot, visit unfitforradio.buzzsproute.com to donate. Every contribution and subscription helps our radio community grow stronger together. We truly appreciate the support. Thank you. You can always send in your questions, comments, and suggestions. Or if you are interested in being a guest, email us at unfitforradio show at gmail.com or send us a text at 602-767-3390. And we just might read the next episode. Remember, the show on Instagram, Unfit for Radio. The credits for this episode belong to executive producer Jakers. Contributors, Donald Woodard and Ray. Recorded by Jakers. Mastered in UFR music by Ronald L. Jones on Instagram at Ronnie CashLife.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:46

Defenses are more Mountain Dew. I am Mountain Dew, you're getting a little bit.