Visual Vita

A Few Pictures From The Past

 

I Loathe Having My Picture Taken So I Am Surprised There Are Any Photographs

 

Paducah, Kentucky the early 1970s at St. Mary’s High School.  The Christian Brothers established one of the first TV production facilities in a high school.  Ampex cameras and Ampex one inch black and white video tape machines.  Note the advanced linear video tape editor circled in red.  We taped everything from sports to plays.  I personally recorded cheer leader practice for the team competitions.  We also time shifted educational programming from the Kentucky Educational Network.  Well, the video bug had bitten and I was off to Loyola University Of The South after high school.

The John Korbel Video Era

My first job out of college working with the new “minicam” technology.  Note the Sony 1600 camera in the picture to the left.  Local commercials, industrials, training videos , Mardi Gras, and multi camera remotes kept us busy. 

 

More Pictures Soon

Dillard Childress and I in San Diego for

 The Official Airline Guides:

“The World Of Travel”

I have over 25 years of analog videotape to digitize.  TNT commercial will be posted later.

The “Time & Temperature With A Twist” Era:  I left Baptist Hospital  in 1984, went solo, and established an Audiotext company with a group of cardiologists I met at Baptist.  They were looking to invest in something different, like pay phones.  I researched payphones, discovered you can not compete against Bellsouth.  I did learn about the new “976 & 900” telephone services.  We started “Time & Temperature With A Twist”  Call 976-1234 for 50 cents, hear the time and temperature, and be dealt a five card hand.  If you got 2 pair or better you won cash prizes.  (no purchase necessary)  There was no lottery in Louisiana at the time and this service’s call volume accelerated to levels no one in the industry could believe.  When I met with Phone Programs in New York, the original dial-a- prayer dial-a-joke company, I had to bring telephone bill to verify call volume.   We expected an 18 month run for the service, it lasted for 8 years.  (Louisiana Lottery started in 1991) 

Videodex Productions:  I left JKV to establish Videodex Productions with a group of lawyers and the principals of Reco Crane Company.  Local commercials, Mardi Gras balls and parades, and offshore oil training programs.  Reco Crane represented FMC cranes, the de facto standard for offshore cranes at the time.  We produced crane operational programs and basic Coast Guard safety training programs.  We spent a lot of time in helicopters, on oil rigs, and in Venus (Louisiana not Italy).  Multi camera remotes for telethons and churches became part of the production mix. 

 

More Pictures To come

 

Vinnie Grosso, Drs. Norm & Frannie Stein and Russ Myerson.  Click picture to be connected to Russ’s blog regarding the

Loyola “Gang Of Five” days.  Photo Courtesy Russ Myerson