Arthur Bloom Chapter 2

00:00

AB: What I probably, majorly did was I produced and directed all the political coverage, which is, the... [INT: Conventions?] Conventions, primaries, election night, the presidential debates from ’74 through ’90. For a sixteen year period. [INT: And certainly in the early part of that, in ’74, they were extremely important.] They were very important. Yeah, very. The management felt that we got good ratings and were the leaders for these special events like election night and they would then, people would follow our news division all the way through. So you really had big budgets and we really carte blanche what we could do. [INT: So that you would basically do two conventions, there was always two so this would be a year’s worth of work?] Right. I used to start about a year; I would start well over a year in advance. So for example ’76 I start at the end of ’74. Because the first one I did was kind of interesting because you may have heard of Lou Dorfsman? [INT: Uh huh.] Lou Dorfsman was Paley’s [William S. Paley] right hand man in charge of the look for CBS and he was looking, and he heard I was doing it and he called me up and says, “Come on over to my screening room.” And he said, “I want to show you your opening for your political year.” And so I go over there and I sit down with him and he had the music and everything. [INT: What year is this?] AB: This was probably ’75 or ’76. [INT: Right. OK.] And he shows me this animation and I said. [INT: Let me guess. It was this chromium letters spinning in space?] No. It was something real big. And I said to him, “My God it’s like Masterpiece Theatre. But we’re not Masterpiece Theatre.” I want something different, I want something a little exciting. And he says, “You don’t understand. I’m in charge of this.” And I said, “I understand that but I think we have to change the way we do things.” And shockingly I still had the courage and got the support but I asked him, “Who’s doing some animation work?” And there’s this great animator who just recently died in September Bob Abrams. You may have heard of Bob Abrams and Associates. And I called Bob on the phone and introduced myself and I said, “I’m doing this animation and I understand you’re doing this new slit scan animation?” I said, “I have a logo.” Which Lou Dorfsman made up and I did use his logo, it was very good. In ’76. I said, “Let me send it out to you and why don’t you send me some ideas because I don’t have time to come out there.” It was like three or four months before we were first going to air this and he sent me a reel and it was an “L” that lit up, that sparkled as part of the reel. He said, “Tell me what you like.” And I called him back and said, “I love that “L”.” And we did an animation, which to this day may be the best thing I’ve ever done. And it was in ’76. It had incredible music and it was totally different. I wanted to try and make the political year exciting. [INT: Actually it was an exciting year.] It was. It was exciting. In fact I remember the conventions, part of it was the animation, the “’76” exploded, and the next scene was balloons floating over a convention hall which were animated balloons by the way, they were all filmed. It was beautiful slit scan work. And it really changed the way we did things in those days. Dorfsman [Lou Dorfsman] and I when we would see each other really get along very well today but for years he would say, “I don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going down this road of motion. We’re just the network with an eye.” You know the old early days of television where that CBS eye, which was a great logo. So that was how I started my career and as things worked, you said I had a lot of power? It’s interesting. I always tell people the reason I got power was not doing a show. What happened is I did the ’74 elections and in ’76 I was doing 60 MINUTES and I was doing a series on the assassination of Kennedy, which I was doing. I was supposed to do the primaries, conventions, and elections. And I was also in the middle of designing all these animations and having music done for them. And the primaries, which to me were always difficult shows because I used to not do live shows, then do live shows after a year of not doing them. And it’s just hard to give yourself up to doing live, not doing live. And we had a meeting in the primaries, first one in New Hampshire, and they were setting it up so I remember it wanted New Hampshire to be remote in New York and New York to be remote of New Hampshire. And I said that can’t work you have to control the show from one place. I want to control it from New Hampshire, where I am, and not control it from New York because they don’t know what we’re doing because we’re producing the show from back there. And we had a big fight over this and this executive producer said, “You know something? You’re doing seven other shows. Why don’t you just not bother doing the primaries, which we’re against the way you want to do them and concentrate on other shows?” And what happened, fortunately for me but unfortunate for them the first shows were disasters. The audio didn’t work, they didn’t get video, it was a disaster because you can’t control a show without having a central place to control from. [INT: And they need someone to blame it on I’m sure?] Right. So what happened was they called me. Bob Chandler, the same fella I told you about with the map story? [INT: Except you didn’t mention his name before so thank you for that.] AB: He said, “We want you to take over the primaries.” And I said, “No.” I said, “You’re blaming Bill Linden”, who directed it. It’s not his fault. I said, “I told them this wasn’t going to work, I’m not taking over.” He said, “I can’t make it work either if that’s the way you’re doing it.” I walked out. They called me back in the next day and said, “We want you to take it over.” I said, “No. I’m not doing it.” They said, “What conditions?” I said, “Number one, I want to control the shows, I want to produce them. I want to change the sets to my type of sets, and I want to have a budget to be able to do this and to control them.” And they had a meeting, they called me back in and they said, “OK you’ll become a producer-director.” And I was given all this power because of not doing those shows. [INT: Authority too.] AB: It’s sort of ironic how I got power by not by what I did do but what I didn’t do.

06:36

INT: Well it’s interesting because the power we’re talking about is really all you’re just looking for is the ability to do your job.
AB: Exactly. But you know it was in those days and today most directors are really kept under the thumb of producers. Those days it was very important to be a producer-director. You get to control your own destiny. [INT: So what would be an example of your style in 1974 when they said, “Fine, go ahead and do it.” What would you do that was stylistically yours and that you were able to control?] For example, one of the first things is I kind of, I was shopping with my wife one day, I was in a bathroom store, and I was looking through great Plexiglass and she was on one side and I’m going, “God this is interesting. This would make a great set.” And I realized I could make an election night putting people in grey areas, presidential area, governing area, senate area. So I had to do a new set and I built this whole Plexiglass set, which really came out wonderful. We were in grey though. You know I said we never made the transition out of black and white? [INT: Right.] And it was a beautiful set but you know I realized that in news you’re really a two shot, you’re a single shot, you don’t see your sets. So I realized the only way to do it is to create some music and as we go to commercial or come from commercial go to what you call “bumpers”. So I basically started “bumpers”. Probably the first “bumpers” used in television. “Bumpers” were a way for me to show my sets. [INT: Was it a dedicated camera to make that “bumper”?] No. In those days you’d have to do an election you have up to twenty-four cameras. And every camera would have shots just for “bumpers”, groups of people working, through the Plexi, reverse things. So it was great. I was able to shoot this beautiful set but only in the ten seconds before or after commercials. So that was like an innovation and bringing music in. Music was never used at all. It was made as an upbeat type of element and to show, I show election boards, and I would start showing results coming in, changing. Those are some of the things I did to try and bring excitement in to basically show off. I mean here I’ve done this really wonderful work I thought, designing these sets, but not able to shoot them. Well it’s news. It was just two, three people, single people, talking.

08:54

INT: The infrastructure, the parts where they can hear in their ear all of that, are those things you got involved with as well or was that a parallel track? The non-visual parts.
AB: That was parallel track. We had such great audio people that that was probably the one thing we didn’t concentrate on but they came along with us and they did a wonderful job without our telling them what to do. [INT: Talk about being invisible, audio. You only notice audio when something’s wrong.] Yeah I know that but they were just wonderful. You just tell them what you want to do, but you tell the CD what camera to take but you would never tell the audio man what mic to open. [INT: Right. Got it.] The early days of television you go dissolve up mic queue and mic meaning open up their mic and then you just drop the mic and they knew that. [INT: Right, they’d have to.] So basically the audio people are the unsung heroes who never got direction and you only get the best people and they did wonderful jobs. [INT: What about lighting for your Plexiglass set?] Lighting, you know I’ve worked with some, Bob Barry was a great lighting director and I knew nothing about lighting. I think now I’m probably sophisticated in what I know about lighting but I would say I was so busy producing, directing that I relied on their talents and I would tell them that I didn’t like it or I liked it and I was not very sophisticated in those days. It was flat lighting. [INT: But still, it had to please your eye and if you had some image lighting could make it better.] They used to tell me how tough I was on lighting directors but I don’t recall it that way because I really relied on them. I’m a believer in getting, that what makes a good director is getting very good people around them to do their jobs. Like when I got Bob Abel like I mentioned earlier, he was a great animator. I always went to great designers. I tried to stay out of their way. I would tell them what I wanted and tell them not to give me what I tell them. [INT: I know what you’re saying but say it again, please.] Alright. In other words I would explain to them what I was looking for but I said, “I’m not a designer.” And I want something more innovative so where I’m telling you what I want don’t you dare give me back what I’m telling you. You know, I want your skills because you’re better at it than I am. [INT: That’s a very empowering thing.] I would try and get someone very good and why hire someone good unless you let them do their job? I would treat people who work for me, who I would hire, the way I would want to be treated. I’d want to be left alone to do my job. I would leave them alone and when they came back I would say yes or no. And I didn’t succeed always but I tried to stay out of their hair.

11:23

INT: So over time, and because you were connected to a hit, and because you clearly could deliver, over time you still must have kept coming back into a situation where people didn’t know what you knew?]
AB: Say that again? People didn’t know… [INT: Yeah. People didn’t know what you know so that you go in and they would want you to do what they want. How did you deal with that sort of thing?] You know I really was left alone. I would say Hewitt [Don Hewitt], who was a director, was the hardest to work with because he was a director and he knew what he wanted and you know 60 MINUTES was a small world, thank God, so we didn’t have to vary out of it. After I was successful in the early ‘70’s they really left me alone. I used to scare them and I used to even not show them the logos I was going to use until it was too late to change them because I did not want to go to people who did not know visuals, they were really management. And I did not like management telling me so I often would not show them anything until I had to. The very last meeting and by that time it was too late to change. [INT: It seems like the process, time it took for the process to happen was on your side. It wasn’t like all you had to (indistinguishable word) stuff had to be set, type, and so you were able to take advantage of it?] I’ll tell you the worst thing I had, the worst experience I did have where I made a change, it was the last one I did it, was ’88 it was the last major election I did, presidential, and I came up with this wonderful eagle. The body was made out of stripes and the wings were made of a donkey and an elephant. They were very hard to see and over the course of the year we were bringing them out and by the time we hit election night it was going to animate and people were going to say, “Oh my God. You see what’s there?” And they were always there but the eagle reminded people, because he had his head up straight, of a Nazi symbol. And what happened was Howard Stringer, who was British, and I find that the British have a great sense of design, loved it. And some people said, “No, but I see a Nazi type of design in here.” And I didn’t. I know in the Nazi world, and they were great designers by the way. And he said, “Let’s send it to Tisch [Laurence Tisch].” You know, he’s Jewish, and if he has an objection we’ll throw it out. And I said, “I can’t change this anymore. If he throws it out I’m dead for the year.” It was maybe a month before the conventions so what I did was I lowered the head of it, and I put a tail on it, and made it look lie a, actually there was a little fast food place in LA that had the same type of logo. So that was the only time I made a change, which really killed it, but I didn’t have a choice because if he said no I’d have to throw it out entirely and I wouldn’t have had a look. That was the only time, that was a self-induced change, I was afraid I wouldn’t have something.

14:14

INT: It seems like you needed to make a choice and you made it so it was better than denying it, pretending the problem’s not there.
AB: But I was given pretty much carte blanche over a fifteen-year period to do what I wanted to do. Which was great, I don’t know if anyone’s ever had that freedom. [INT: Well you’re the first person I’ve met that’s had that kind of freedom in that area.] Well they also at one point I think from ’80, for a couple years, I was head of production where I was in charge of every show. [INT: At?] At CBS. News. Which I didn’t like by the way because I didn’t like telling other directors how to direct. Directors usually don’t even go in other director’s control rooms. So I didn’t like that job and I wasn’t very good at it. I started getting good at the end because I didn’t want to step on people’s toes. [INT: There’s a moment, I don’t know when it was, when the conventions stopped being covered and became these kinds of variety shows. What are your feelings about that? It’s clearly after you stopped doing these things.] Well even when I did them they were always these, one year I remember, maybe ’84, some people started wearing dinosaurs, conventions of dinosaurs. But we always gave them full coverage. I mean the last time around they really knocked it back. [INT: How does it work now because it looks to me like it’s just one…] It really is a coronation. When I first started doing this all we wanted, basically what we wanted, was what happened in this last election. That was all we ever dreamt of but we wanted it to happen within the parties. The Democrats would go as a la Kennedy in ’60 where, remember he got that after several, it wasn’t the first ballot. But now when they changed the primary system they really changed politics. And probably we over covered them because it was a coronation and we knew who was going to win it. The only story was who the Vice President was going to be but because we were these news divisions and we made big things out of them but really what happened was politics changed by the primary system electing, nominating, and not the conventions. [INT: And what year would that be?] That probably, when did that happen? ’68 maybe? ’64 did it happen? I’m not quite sure. Somewhere in there it happened. And we kept covering them as they… [INT: As breaking news?] As breaking news. And you know something? It was cocky on our part. We wanted to strut our stuff, we had the backing we were used to, it was summertime, and there wasn’t much programming so we had the support. So probably the way they’re being covered now probably is the right way to cover them because they really aren’t news stories at all. The only story there is who’s going to be the Vice President and I think last time around they both announced it a week in advance anyway. So I think that probably right now we were wrong then.

17:12

INT: But you still made these good shows. I remember watching them in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s.
AB: They were so much fun to direct I got to tell you. They were a ball. And that was another thing where I changed coverage of that I think. They always were covered, the first one I did was ’76, and I remember the first one I believe was Kansas City, and I had most of my cameras shooting the podium. And I remember we got off the air and God I was really depressed, and I found it such a boring night and I remember Leonard [Bill Leonard] the president, “That was a great show, we did great.” The next day I went in I said, “I realize, you know something there’s more interest shooting the people in the crowd instead of the podium.” And I had pulled cameras and I left one camera shooting the podium and I turned all my cameras from the other side and started shooting the audience. I got up to thirty cameras at one point and I used to shoot more of the event on the floor, which was to me a bigger show than it was on the podium. [INT: Did you get wrapped up in the whole creepy peepy part of it with the camera rigs, the people who were wearing all of that pre mini cam days when they would be wearing head sets and carrying…] You know I think the very last one I had, I had on someone’s earpiece, or I think I took it once, he says, “Here” and I wouldn’t use it. We show that we can do this but I don’t know if we used it. [INT: I just remember the conventions were for a moment, the were like the NAB. They were to strut your new technology.] It was great you know? We would, they’d lent us incredible lenses. I remember once Fuji or someone had a lens that you could put yourself back at the end of the stadium and just one continuous zoom to a tight shot, it was the most amazing, and they lent us these cameras to use. So they could say, “Look what CBS is did and used it.” That was a great part about being in the position I was at CBS because people would come to me and show me equipment. Please use it. [INT: The stuff that you would see at the end but you couldn’t find anywhere.] Exactly.

19:24

INT: I remember there was a time when CBS had trucks with Marconi Cameras and Marconi Cameras were fairly good low light cameras. You could get away with a lot less.
AB: The very first paint box I used in ’76 where I wanted to do the giant screen and they wouldn’t let me? And I used as a small screen, I could take a full screen, and animate it. They punch on all blue and all red and it was the first use of the paint box. AMPEX was so scared that they sent in three back ups and like six people to operate them for us. What happened was I was talking to one of the software people and said, “This machine is nothing. It can’t do…” He said, “Yeah I can make it do that, it’s not supposed to.” And I had to have them do it. “What are you doing? You can’t use it this way.” I said, “Why not? It does it.” And it was great so they would give us stuff, we’d misuse it, they’d send more in to back us up. [INT: Great. As a person who’s always been interested in television there were two things that I would see growing up that were definitive of the state of the art whatever it was. One was the ACADEMY AWARDS and that was really hard to do because you didn’t know where that was going and the other was the election night, the election night coverage…] Election night and conventions. I think, actually we had more toys to play with at conventions. [INT: Well I just do remember there were some moments. There were moments with Dan Rather being thrown out that are these historic television moments and part of what I think makes them so powerful is that they are grabbed, that the camera is on a long lens, and someone is following it, and they are holding focus. When Clinton [Bill Clinton] was re-nominated there was a particularly strange, no, I’m sorry, it was when Gore [Al Gore] was re-nominated there was a particularly strange trucking shot where they followed Clinton all the way from the back.] That was weird wasn’t it? [INT: What a strange…] That was so staged. [INT: Yes, exactly. It was very strange and this could not have been done by a director, a director wouldn’t have done this. Someone told him to do this.] I bet you it was done by his friends uh… [INT: Oh, Thomas…] Yeah. I bet you that’s who did if for him. But it was so strange. [INT: It’s like they never talk to anyone.] That was probably a DNC camera because they used to give us feeds. [INT: Yes. See that’s where I was going with this. When you look at these things now they look like scripted shows, the camera cuts a moment too soon, it’s a little bit too tight, it lacks the kind of randomness that’s part of the directorial process where somebody in charge is sitting there making these choices and I think that we have much less of that now. We have it in the variety shows but we don’t have it in the news. It feels as if every last little shot is being manipulated by somebody else and it’s very interesting to hear from someone who’s actually in the position to make these choices. Have you done inaugurations and things like that?] Yes. I’ve done inaugurations. [INT: Is that pool feed or is that…] Yeah that would be all different now. I was privileged enough to do it in Regan’s [Ronald Regan] second inauguration I actually staged it because they decided to put it inside the rotunda. Instead of being outside because of the snowstorm and Roger Mudd, remember Roger Mudd? [INT: Sure.] Calls me over, he was no longer at CBS, he had already introduced me to Regan’s [Ronald Regan] advisors, and said, “Could you do us a favor and stage this for us? We wanted to move it inside.” And I said, “We’ll pool cameras up for him.” But basically those events, how they used to work, I’m not sure how they work now, but there used to be one or two pool cameras. Usually shooting head on to the podium, usually a medium and a tight shot and that was it. Everything else you’re into your own cameras.

23:20

INT: The pressure is kind of on in that situation because yes you know you’re going to get the head shot but everything else is really a choice and you know there’s only so many cameras that you can field. What was it like to field cameras in the days when they were big, and really heavy, and needed to warm up, and all of that stuff? You must have had a lot of lead-time on that?
AB: No. [INT: Nope.] No, I remember in the early days I got a call at home that said to go to Glassboro, Pennsylvania [Glassboro, New Jersey] there’s going to be a summit meeting tomorrow. And I actually went up with Hewitt [Don Hewitt] he was producing and I was an AD, but I was directing. And we actually used our cameras as mini cams are used today. We hid them in bushes. So that ABC and NBC wouldn’t see where we were because no one knew exactly where they were going to be on the campus. So we wanted to be able to get them wherever they were. So I remember we hid like six to eight camera and didn’t cable them, we knew we could run cable to them. In those days when I was an AD for the convention in Florida, the convention before Chicago I believe it was, where there was still some demonstrations down there? I was at the Fontainebleau Hotel, the headquarters hotel, where either Democrats or Republicans, I’m not sure what the convention was. We had street riots and there were stanchions at the hotel, a fence, large fence? I remember putting a cameraman, Roy Jackson, up on a stanchion with a studio camera. So we started using studio cameras actually as mini cams were used in certain elements. We did not have time; we just never had that luxury which was wonderful. [INT: But physically. You can say you did it, but that’s a lot of camera and a lot of support.] I mean we used to drive up there and these crews would work overnight. We’d tell them we want cameras here, here, and here and they would work overnight. And they were terrific. We had great crews in those days. [INT: The CBS crews?] Most of the networks probably. But they’re not the same type of people anymore. You don’t have cameramen who are cameramen as the old studio days. But you don’t have the musical shows, you don’t have the soap operas where they learned on. So you work with cameramen today and they’re not ten percent as good as the early, the early cameramen were great. [INT: Well, also the ones that learned how to shoot before zoom lenses so they had to actually change and move.] They were great. And how I used cameramen like in conventions they were salesmen. They would show me shots. I would tell them here’s what I want. You show me shots I’ll say yes or no. [INT: So you’re not directing them every second?] You can’t. You have thirty camera and you’re looking and you say eight no, six, seven yes. Hold that. So and so ready I’m going to pan over. So you see something you like you tell them to hold that but you work with good people they give you good things. It’s a team.

26:17

INT: I sense that at the height of that, just before the whole mini cam and satellite thing, that there was a whole technology, there was a whole craft developing. Of getting these large cameras in place and getting them set up and doing it quickly. Truck would arrive and…
AB: Do you remember the cable in those days? The cable for camera was that thick. Today it’s an extension cord, it’s an earpiece. No cords. I mean it was totally different. If you had time, for example, yes, you did a convention you’d have people down there sixty days beforehand. Starting to cable because if you had fifteen cameras one year the next year you’d have eighteen, and the next year twenty-four. I did one show, I think it was ’76 or ’86, it was in New York Harbor, and Regan was president. What year would that have been? ’86? [INT: It would be ’86.] ’86? You remember that big event? [INT: Yeah, the tall ships.] Where I had so many cameras, the tall ships, I had so many cameras that they couldn’t get them into the truck and they would sub switch them in there but you didn’t know where they were coming from and I’d say, “Take that.” Where ever it is and I’d said, “OK, ready to zoom.” And I said, “Zoom.” But I don’t know where the camera was. But what I said, “OK. On the count of three every camera zoom.” And I had you know like thirty cameras coming in at that time and I said, “OK. One, two, three, zoom.” And thirty cameras zoomed. So you know, it was such a wonderful, different era. [INT: Even though you planned it out ahead of time some of the things you’re talking about were very sudden and so there must have been a lot of patching and stuff happening literally right over your head?] These shows were so big, that for example the tall ships, all I did was go around, I said, “Artie [not sure who he’s referencing here] you got to pick some camera shots for the harbor.” And I was working on other shows and I remember they drove me around town and they went to the George Washington Bridge up in the elevator and said, “You want a camera here?” I said, “Sure.” “You want a camera here?” I said, “Sure.” Offer me a camera what director is going to turn down a camera. So then you do the event and it would just unfold and you weren’t prepared for what it was because it was bigger than you thought it was going to be and you didn’t have time to plan it out often. [INT: Or even get a sense of where stuff came up on the monitor wall because you don’t get that rehearsal time?] Well, but as a director, every director has his, that you learn to group your monitors and control room to how you’re going to use them. Like if you’re going to have Rather [Dan Rather] or Cronkite [Walter Cronkite], and their guest, and their cameras, you group them together so cut that as a small unit. Over here would be perimeter cameras. So you learn, and I used to actually take tape and color code my cameras that you’re looking at because you’re looking at so many feeds that you had to train your eye to be able to look at all of them.

29:13

INT: I always like going up to a place like CBS and do some small projects, a certain something, and you go into one of those control rooms where every image is coming in. Just for the fun of it because it makes people think that you know what’s going on but you don’t you just know to ignore those over there, those are weird feeds from somewhere else. What was it like when you had a breaking story where satellite technology hadn’t come into play yet? What was it like when they had to do phone patches and go down into fine lines and plug them together? Were you involved with any of that?
AB: I worked in the very first satellite feed. AT&T did it. And I remember it vividly because our instructions were don’t put the AT&T on the air. [INT: Meaning?] So in other words, AT&T would feed signals on the satellite but whenever they would go back to their cameras we had to get off of them so it was a show full of jump cuts. We would take the satellite feed and all of a sudden you’d see these AT&T management team at microphones and we’d flip off them back to Cronkite [Walter Cronkite]. So you do things like that. It was crazy but it was sloppy, crazy television. The early days things just didn’t work well. The one thing, the great luxury of doing a television show today, is you walk in and your equipment works. [INT: It does doesn’t it?] It just works all the time. I don’t remember the last time something broke down but in the early days of television, which I almost forgot about, nothing worked and if you were in there two days, three days a week taping your 60 MINUTES show or a show you were down at least thirty percent of the time. It was remarkable. [INT: And that’s in a studio?] Studio, in the field, anywhere. And it was really an amazing thing that we ever got on the air. I forgot about that until right now. I remember one show we were doing a special, in fact editorially it was terrible, it was great little thing. I did a thing with a great nuclear arms debate with Cronkite [Walter Cronkite] in New York and two people on one side, one in London, one in Italy, and two others in other parts of the world and it was a key in front of Walter [Walter Cronkite] with four monitors. I was manipulating through them through a squeeze zoom, so I would zoom, actually zoom on a squeeze zoom, using that as a camera. It was four Chroma-key screens in front of Cronkite [Walter Cronkite] and we had to do the show at a specific hour because the only time we could get four satellite feeds at the same time of the day. And Bud Benjamin [Burton Benjamin] who was the executive producer of the show whispers in my ear five minutes to airtime, he goes, “Artie. The guy in Florida hasn’t shown up. What are you going to do?” Well, thank God he showed up because what could I have done? I had four screens I couldn’t recreate a set. That was the early days of television and I blanked my mind because I didn’t know what I could do. And I thank God I didn’t have to make a choice. [INT: They were putting a microphone on him?] He got lost apparently on the way to the studio and by the time we started the show he just sat down.

32:31

INT: So when you would have, I know this is when you were just starting, but you must have memories of this. RFK is [Robert F. Kennedy] assassinated and that’s kind of pre-satellite so they would have had to have been making hard patches just everywhere and it all unfolded so quickly including the train coming?
AB: You know what we did? We did a very clever thing we actually, we shot, had someone go out and shoot railroads tracks because if you recall, we just shot the railroad tracks. [INT: On film?] On film. We actually would run it so we had nothing to go to, we go to railroad tracks it was a train procession, the body was on a train, a casket on a train, and we would just go. [INT: That’s so interesting. First of all there’s a lot of connections between that and your watch at the beginning of 60 MINUTES that you know it’s just going to keep going, but it’s also, that’s the earliest version I’ve ever heard of what is now become kind of a background soup. They all have it; they all make this animal soup. I have some of my own that I carry around with me when there isn’t any. Just so you can have something to key all those boxes over, or go to, or something so there’s not nothing and this tracks a good idea about it.] In my career whenever I would do a show, if I had four cameras that was easier, whenever I would do these multiple camera shows I would always have one camera was my safety camera. If I got in trouble, without looking I’d go, “Ten. Take it” And it would be a wide shot. I remember I did a round table debate at Columbia University one year and I just had one camera it would be locked so when you got in trouble because it’s hard to shoot in the round you can get lost. So whenever in doubt I’d go, even the convention I called it “Beauty”. Most of my shows I had one safety camera. [INT: Which gives you a moment to think and get organized.] Exactly. You get into trouble, “Ten.” I learned that trick early on and it really saved me many times.

34:37

INT: It’s interesting because I’ve never actually heard anybody actually articulate it. I mean it’s a trick we all have but nobody ever says it out loud.
AB: Well it’s tricks of the trade. You learn. [INT: Well, people don’t. I mean it’s interesting if you commit to your master shot being a jib arm that’s moving. That’s not the same thing as “Ten” and you got to really get that shot set up and going.] You see I never had to look at that camera, I didn’t need that monitor. I need to know the cameras still working but I knew it was always feeding so when in doubt. [INT: Were you there as methods of communications improved because I know that one of things that was almost fun to watch in old, live television shows was that there wasn’t always the best communications.] No, I still have bad hearing in one ear from an unbalanced system at a convention. You had to wear your headset if want communication, which some people would be unbalanced and you just throw the earpiece out of your ear but I still have bad hearing in one ear, it was terrible communications. [INT: All those rock and roll concerts.] Exactly. By the same time, we had terrific people at CBS, great techs, and they would actually develop these systems for us to talk between producers into correspondent’s ears. [INT: That’s where I’m curious because you were at the heart of technological advancement. Not the big steps, that happened anyway, but it’s the little things. It’s the IFB’s [Interrupted Feedback]; it’s all the little things.] You couldn’t do a show without communications. I could talk to so many people that I used to have different sized sticks put on certain sized nobs, one to Cronkite [Walter Cronkite], one to certain people I had to just go “Bang” and I could hit them in a hurry because there was so many, plus it got to the point I could dial in so I had my fifty people here so I could dial the numbers here up to a hundred and fifty people. So they say you have a camera coming in from Dulles Airport he’s on number fifty-six I could go to fifty six and talk to the cameraman or correspondent. [INT: And I get the sense that once you did it once the CBS people got behind it and backed you up so that if it didn’t work this time it worked the next time. That you began to build up a pallet of tools?] It worked. I have to say in all the shows I did, and I’ve done many shows, boy knock (knocks), I never had a disaster. And these things were great because audio-wise they have more audio problems today than we had then. [INT: They do don’t they?] They do and I don’t know why but I’ll tell you one other thing is a trick I always did I would never go to anything unless I checked it myself so if we had Roger Mudd somewhere, “Where’s Roger? Thirty five?” I’d have thirty five dialed in, “Roger you hear me?” He’d go, “Yes” I’d hear him back, I knew his mic was working. I would never go somewhere unless I checked it first. [INT: Interesting.] That was one thing I did because there were so many times you didn’t have audio and they say, “Artie it’s time for Walter [Walter Cronkite] to go to so and so.” I wouldn’t tell Walter [Walter Cronkite] to go until I checked it myself.

37:40

INT: I think CBS built some of the best mobile units. They were the first ones to do expanding sides where the control room was actually bigger.
AB: I think that basically they were built before sports. We used them less. We used to use a lot of sports. I think we had a couple dedicated; we had small flash units we built. We had some great small units. [INT: They would field one camera or two cameras?] I don’t think there were ever any that had less than four cameras devoted. [INT: Really? They weren’t station wagons they were small trucks?] They weren’t small. They were like FedEx truck today, a small FedEx truck size. [INT: Just a van. Right. Excellent. I’m convinced as I’m hearing you describe these things that less is more. That if you can get four cameras somewhere it’s better than fifteen cameras because fifteen cameras take a lot of work where as four cameras…] Most places you don’t need that many. When you had so many cameras at a convention it wasn’t, for example, I thought to get reaction of the audience I used to do series of shots I’d go off and I’d be on the speaker and you’d go, “Six, nine, twelve.” So you set up three, you may do a half sequence you’d do. You want reaction. You want interesting people. [INT: You make them hold on the shots so that it doesn’t go away?] I’d say, “Eleven hold.” And I’d wait to go to that shot. But that to me, you know, these conventions were boring and the way to bring interest to them is what’s going on there, there’s a show there. And as a director I was just a good viewer, but I was interested. [INT: And do you believe, that you must believe in listening then? You must listen?] I could listen to every word that was said and afterwards, after three hours, I couldn’t tell you what happened but I was part of the event. I could actually become part of the event.

39:38

INT: I’m curious, how do you do that? Listening is very important and listening in directing is important.
AB: It’s focus. It’s mega focus. It’s super focusing. [INT: But how do you be the producer as well then? How do you take in that?] When I say I produced them I could not produce the event as it was happening. I produced what we were going to do and how we were going to cover it. OK, once we were inside you have to let the producers produce. And I would direct. [INT: So you create a bubble, you create a sphere?] Right. And then once it’s in I’m ready to go. I can’t control, I have to stay in the here and now. And they would be working, following the story, things coming in, hearing off the wires there’s news breaking, so and so. So you can’t produce, today you have to specialize. OK? So I never produced the story on air, I would produce the event, I would set it up. I would say here’s what we’re going to do. [INT: Were there any particular producers that you had memorable rapport with? That you would like to mention in this context?] I think I probably did my best work with a gal named Joan Richman. Was a very bright lady that was head of special events, she was terrific. I did great work with Hewitt [Don Hewitt], Les Midgley, Bud Benjamin [Burton Benjamin], great, great producers at CBS. CBS was, in the early days, I would say between, when I was there ’60 through ’86, where I think it was the peak of television news, we would always do better work with less people because we had the best people.

41:13

INT: Is there a turning point, and this is not about naming names, but when you say it changed is that because of cable or were there other factors as well?
AB: Two things. There were two factors in mind and I’m convinced is the reason. One is the satellite dish, made everyone equal. The paint box. Paint box, you know we’d have the best artists you can now get a good artist at a little station in Peoria and have better artwork than you can in New York. [INT: Or the same artwork.] Or better. Often better. It’s the artist, it’s up to the artist because here’s a great tool that’s inexpensive and everyone can own. Before that we had better tools, they didn’t have any tools. Satellite dish made everyone equal. You know all of a sudden you could have the same Peoria station have someone sitting next to Dan Rather covering the convention or be in Afghanistan. Satellite dish was the major, major change. And then of course it was the financials of the Tisch’s taking over the network etcetera. Saying, “Wait a minute. You guys are now a business.” And you know the guys who followed me basically are doing these shows in unfair conditions because they don’t have the financial support. I stopped doing them after ’90 and ’92 they rope my budgets in and they offered me ten percent of my last budget to cover the conventions. And I said, “You know something? It’s time for a change.” So it was really satellite dish and a financial reality. [INT: You also got the good time when people noticed it. Because the stories that you tell about doing something and it showed up the next day in terms of criticism and ratings are not available now. So you could do brilliant work but who’s going to get up and fight if there’s no way to affirm.] No, it was great. And I was sorry when I stopped doing it after ’92, ‘90. I was sorry and the phone didn’t ring as much, and it didn’t have the creative, but I was happy I stopped because I had done it in the best of times.

43:25

INT: What have you been doing now?
AB: 60 MINUTES and 60 MINUTES 2. [INT: Right. Which is full time?] It’s terrific. Full time and 60 Minutes 2 is great because 60 Minutes is an aging shop and 60 Minutes 2 is a young group, a terrific group who probably combine and take over 60 Minutes in a few years and it’s rejuvenated the shop. And I’m actually having a great time, I’ve actually been more useful because in 60 Minutes we’ve all been doing it for thirty something years and here’s a new group that needed some help. So it was actually more fun and re-invigorating. [INT: So they really did put in another new crew? That’s good. That would be, I assume, Don Hewitt’s credit that he would fight. First he’d fight the idea then he’d fight to have it properly staffed based on his standards because you really can’t tell the difference between the two.] No. At first you could. The first, maybe, half year because the correspondents, even until they learned how to do it properly. It’s so different being a correspondent in the field than sitting in the studio. It’s a totally different bag. [INT: Do you sense that it’s going to go, is there anything new that you could talk about, not for your career, I mean in terms of the 60 Minutes because you just said this interesting thing which is that it’s got growth potential. Is it going to go in some direction? Is it a technically based growth? Are you going to start carrying DV cameras around?] AB: I don’t think so. It’s like the comfort food we discussed earlier. [INT: It still is comfort food.] It still is just good old fashioned reporting and it’s an old fashioned show in a way. [INT: Well, maybe that’s what makes it so unique.] I know. It is kind of unique. You see we don’t add music in fact our only music is a ticking watch which is not even a stop watch it’s a grandmother’s alarm clock because a ticking stop watch makes too much noise. [INT: It’s a grandmother’s alarm clock.] The old-fashioned wind up type. [INT: I’ve come around to it so I know I don’t have to keep doing it again but there is something to be said for the fact that it is so distinctive and the more people try to copy it the less distinctive the copies are. I don’t know anything quite like it.] No. Number one, we look like a magazine. None of them do. We don’t have any music. And you know exactly what it’s going to look like before you see it. [INT: You also don’t have a lot of effects.] No. It’s not a sexy show. [INT: I’m not sure effects make things sexy. I think effects make things look like everything else. If I see that starburst wipe one more time…] It’s simple. We don’t even use many dissolves. In fact if someone starts dissolving, one of the producers, editors, expects a lot of dissolves we send it back to be taken out. [INT: Interesting.] We always wanted to use dissolve for time change or something. Where a dissolve was needed. You know you’re zooming and you’re changing from a still to someone talking you dissolve. We don’t dissolve for the sake of dissolving. And sometimes you’ll see it and you don’t bother stopping it but it’s like “Keep it simple stupid.” The KISS Theory. [INT: I believe in that completely and I’m glad you had a chance to affirm that.]

46:41

INT: I’ve asked you none of the questions on this, they wrote seventy-eight questions all of which are very interesting but you sort of answered them all. There’s got to be something here. Are you in a position as a director, this is my question, to mentor other directors? Not even so much directors but people in production. Have you been able to do that?
AB: Yeah, over the years, I think I directed my first show when I was twenty-one and God there must have been ten, fifteen people, folks out there who were all at one time my PA’s. [INT: And do they come back?] They stop by and say hello. Some of them don’t write. [INT: They never call, they never write.] They never call. [INT: This is wonderful. I love the details and the work speaks for itself so I love hearing all the little details. Did I forget anything?] I don’t think so. I would say the shows that scared me the most doing were presidential debates though. [INT: Because?] You just wanted to make sure you didn’t screw up.

47:54

INT: What would be a screw up in a presidential debate?
AB: We just don’t want to make a mistake. Take the wrong camera. You just want it to be right, you want to cut a perfect show. [INT: Also it’s all of those experiences, anything when it’s like that, are so ritualistic. Ever since the Nixon [Richard Nixon] – Kennedy [John F. Kennedy] debate that Don Hewitt, you know I mean they’re so formalized.] AB: Yeah but the point to me, I’m very critical about camera work. Cross shooting should be tight and crisp, and the grouping if you’re there you really frame them well or not well. For example the two shot that’s perfect was you know Bobby [Robert F. Kennedy], John Kennedy [John F. Kennedy] that was my shot. One of the debates I did Regan [Ronald Regan] – Mondale [Walter Mondale] was it? I got a call at the end of the debate from the campaign manager of Mondale [Walter Mondale] who said, “Who do I speak to about getting you fired?” Van Sorter gave me his number. I said, “Why?” He said, “You took a cut away during his closing remarks of Regan.” Which was you know I think the right thing to do it made a comment. And it turns out the next day, because we were afraid of attacks in the press, they counted every cut away in the show and I think it was like one hundred thirty one to one hundred thirty two. So I cut really a very even show and you want to be fair you don’t want to influence an election. You wanted to cut a show and not over cut it. You just want to cut it right. [INT: Also you have a rhythm.] AB: Exactly. [INT: See you’re a director.] You see, like I said though, the way I always thought the right way to direct and it worked for me was I was a wonderful viewer who was really interested. If I saw something I took it. Not that I was looking for a shot but you saw it you took it. In other words if someone says something and you look like this you want to see that reaction. So you don’t take a shot for the sake of taking it, you take it because you see it. [INT: I agree with that.]

49:56

INT: I also think there’s two different universes. There’s the live debate, the one that happens in real time, and if you want to change what happened afterwards and re-cut it, be my guest. If you give me the money I’ll shoot the…
AB: Trust me, I’ve done those, I done half a dozen presidential debates and you could influence it. [INT: But you mean you could in a live moment?] You could make someone look bad. I mean I’ve seen them looking bad and stayed away from shots where they would look bad. [INT: What would be an example of somebody looking bad, it’s just not a flattering angle or is it more than that? Timing?] It’s hard to describe. You have to see it. You can make someone look bad. Certain things you want to show. If someone’s nervous you want to show it but there are things they do that’s an inappropriate time to show it. If they’re drinking water, you want to take it because it’s pertinent. [INT: If they’re wiping sweat away. Right.] Exactly. One of these two guys is going to be the president you want to give them a fair shot. It’s really not about, what it was for example in the Kennedy [John F. Kennedy] – Nixon [Richard Nixon] debate Kennedy won because Nixon looked bad, you don’t want to do that. That influenced an election. That was wrong in my opinion. No one made the mistake. It was the first debate and no one knew it. But after you know it you don’t, one example is that while there’s a lot of advisors out there who aren’t very good, who come in for lighting and they tell you how to light, and you’re bringing professionals in you’re doing an equal job. [INT: People have built careers on that.] INT: Exactly. And people who can do those, who can teach is that expression. A lot of these teachers become advisors for the presidential candidates and I remember one, I’m not quite sure which debate it was, but they really wanted to change the lighting. [INT: Oh, they wanted to change the lighting after the second Kennedy – Nixon debate. The second one.] Yes. They wanted to change our lighting and I personally was supposed to stay out of it, but I couldn’t stay out of it because you have to understand if you change it he’s going to be dark and he’s going to be well lit. And I intervened where I wasn’t supposed to by saying, “Let me show you something now. Put a person there, put a person there.” And I split the screen and I said, “Now look at the difference. So that’s what’s going to happen to your candidate.” That’s one way to stop them from looking bad. I remember Connelly [John Connelly] who was shot in the Kennedy car, is that his name? Governor Connelly? I remember I did a debate, which was not a presidential debate, but up in Iowa where it was the Republicans debate and there were eight guys and his advisors said, “See the red light on the camera?” He points and he says, because I went to each candidate, he said, “That’s where you look. Where ever you see a red light you look.” And I said to him, “Governor I want to remind you there are two cameras behind you.” So these guys can kill you. [INT: I know just what you’re talking about.]

53:03

INT: I guess I’m curious as to how you keep everybody looking so good because that’s a pretty intense close up on 60 MINUTES and these are not…
AB: Very good equipment, very good video men, very good lighting directors. [INT: What’s interesting is they also look good in the field. Now I know that they carry a lot of chimeras and stuff out there but they still look good. There’s still a consistency of images.] Well there you don’t have to use them if they don’t look good too though. [INT: Right. That’s true. You have control. That’s true. The nature of the technology is both liberating and dangerous I think and I’m seeing a lot of stuff now that’s done because people can do it. You can make a sparkly white because you can make a sparkly white. It’s not necessarily the right choice and the idea that there was somebody in this position for such a long time who really was able to make choices including not doing things that’s kind of wonderful.] AB: Well, you know there’s a lot of fear in the early days of computer graphics that you could change history. [INT: Really?] With a Harry [Quantel Harry] you can take someone out of a scene. You can do frame-by-frame painting. [INT: Like the Russians used to do? They paint people out of photographs.]

54:17

INT: Could you describe just for the benefit of the oral history what it was like to do graphics before there was electronic graphics? Physically? Things we take for granted then.
AB: The early graphics were telop’s where you’d line up, as a PA I used to have to line them up, so you would actually do a dissolve from one, telop was actually a picture that you put into a metal holder and there’d be two machines and you’d dissolve from one to the other. A machine A and B. [INT: Are you talking about two little cameras?] They were actually very big machines. They were actually giant slide machines you could say because each telop was like a four by five card so you’d have two strips and like eight telop’s in a strip. [INT: And there’d be a crew back there?] And there’d be two guys who push one through and then you dissolve the other one, and you take it. It was very, very rudimentary. [INT: Like Vismo. This big overhead projectors. Right.] You could add and arrow. [INT: But it was mechanical? It was all done by hand.] A lot of the things we used to do with maps would be put an arrow on a map or super a name on a map. That’s all we could really do. Or take a picture in the clear or project it behind them. We used to have rear projection screens. [INT: So if you’re having a presidential primary and it’s just pre-Chyron the names would have to be made ahead of time?] AB: OK, the first election I did in ’72 was the first one that we computerized. [INT: Right. Which means?] AB: In other words all the votes would come in by a computer screen that was the first time. That was ’72. [INT: And you were able to take that screen?] AB: I would take that from the screen but the problem was, which brought us to the next generation and what I had to do the following year when we changed it you couldn’t see the changes because it was so identical. There was no slide, the names were changed, and often you didn’t know it changed because it was so one on top of the other. So basically that’s what we called the squeeze zoom. We brought in, I said I have to go away so I could do a cube turn, a slide. So actually the graphics, OK, if you go back to an election before ’72 all the, you put boards on a wall and you would shoot a wall with a camera. [INT: Keep describing that…] AB: That’s how we did early elections, which we actually would have, early days they would actually do the numbers by hand and then you shoot it. OK? Then you had a thing where they have all these wires going and you could type in the numbers. [INT: Right and it would come out as a mechanical thing.] AB: A mechanical thing. You’d line up cameras; you’d have like four, eight cameras shooting the walls. [INT: So your graphics room was a big physical commitment?] AB: You actually use it as part of your set. That was a wall of your set was a graphic wall. But then that was hard to shoot because the cameras, it was ten feet, only one certain ones would be head on. You pan a little to the right they would be askew. So in the early days, you’re looking at an early election, you see a board that was head on, some would be this way, some left on, because you’d have to turn.

57:25

INT: So anything you wanted to show if you wanted to show information you’d have to cut to it. It wasn’t a matter of super-ing it or…
AB: No, you’d have to cut to it. Right. They had supers. The early supers were, you heard the story of Hewitt [Don Hewitt] and the sandwich board. So the early supers were we used to take a board and put letter-by-letter type on it. [INT: You mean the kind, like in restaurants?] Exactly. Then super impose that. And then we got machines that would do that, or the Chyron actually did the telops we type them out put them on a telop those were early supers so if we wanted to super someone’s name we’d have to type it out, shoot it as a negative. [INT: So there’s always a passage of time?] Always. These things would take, I mean the graphics as a PA in the early days when I was a PA, would be supers. And you’d have to get all these cardboards, you’d make the negative shots at them, white on black and then you’d say super the telop. [INT: So even a credit crawl at the end of the show would, someone would spend days working on that?] They would be going from telop to telop usually. It wasn’t a crawl. We’d go, dissolve to telop A, to dissolve. We used to call “lap it’ that was the term for a telop change. [INT: So for every camera that had people on it there was a whole other set of cameras that were not?] Right. They weren’t really cameras they were cameras I guess in a box that shot them.