BTV: Behind the Scenes: Behind the Scenes
By Nathan Hoobler,
writer/director for Adventures in Odyssey
| August 1, 2003
"BTV: Behind the
Scenes" proved to be my favorite Odyssey episode to write and work on.
But what went on behind the scenes creating this behind the scenes
show? Sit back (or lean
forward, perhaps) and get ready to find out!
The
origin of "BTV: Behind the Scenes" was a note on my PalmPilot saying,
"Jonah Whatever." A bit of a strange way to get an idea for an Odyssey episode?
Probably, especially since that phrase doesn't appear anywhere in "BTV:
BTS." But this was
a pretty bizarre episode from beginning to end.
The story really begins
at Asbury College, Kentucky, in the fall of 2000.
I was delving into my media communication degree and one of the
many outstanding classes I took was "Live TV Production."
The best part of the class was putting together our own TV programs
and actually shooting them ourselves, with real cameras, the control room,
and everything else…just like many of the media students would do when
they later worked on TV shows. Each
class became their own "production team" in the studio and there was a
lot of fun camaraderie among the various team members.
Often the things that happened behind the scenes were far more
interesting than the shows themselves.
People would make jokes through the headsets, equipment would
break, crew would be running here and there, and often we'd be chuckling
after the recordings about all the craziness that went on.
And none of this made it into the tapes of the show because the
whole goal of TV production is to make the show look seamless.
One
particularly harrowing production led to one of these unique scenes.
It happened during a live interview with a soccer player.
When an interviewer is on camera during a live production, a person
just off-screen signals them to let them know how much time they have
left. Unfortunately, in this
particular case, we hadn't adequately explained the hand signals for the
interviewer and she kept asking questions even as time ticked away.
Finally, we had ten seconds left until the end of the program and
we gave her the 10 second count. The
surprised interviewer suddenly tried to wrap up the session very
quickly. She said something like this, "Oh! I've been talking to Jonah…whatever. Join us next meek, er week, when we'll be talking to…somebody
else important." The
whole thing had us joking about it for weeks after.
Many months later, I
was driving across the flatlands of Kansas on May 10, 2001 toward my
second summer working for Adventures in Odyssey.
The endless plains threatened to lull me to sleep and my mind
wondered back to things that happened at school that year.
I got to thinking and chuckling about the things that happened in
TV class. Maybe I had a BTV episode playing in my cassette deck, I
can't remember. Suddenly, I
thought…you know, it might make a really fun episode to see what goes on
behind the scenes of some big production…like BTV!
I quickly grabbed for my PalmPilot and while still driving 75 miles
per hour, scribbled the words "Jonah whatever" on the tiny green
screen. I drove onwards, thinking on other things that happened at
college.
The tiny note stayed
hidden away in the PalmPilots memory for more than two years untouched as
Odyssey (and me) primarily focused on the Novacom saga.
Several times, I nearly erased the note, thinking that there
probably could not really be an episode about it.
We finally wrapped up Novacom with a recording in early 2002 and we
had our first "post-Novacom" writers' meeting in May 2002.
Marshal Younger, Odyssey's producer, asked us to submit ideas to
put in the writer's meeting booklet that we always bring to the
meetings.
I have always had major
problems thinking of ideas for Odyssey shows and so, as per my usual
routine, I went into panic mode trying to think of any Odyssey ideas that
might vaguely sound good. I
pulled files out and searched through my computer for any idea I hadn't
used. I even used a tried and
true method recommended by Marshal of looking through the yellow pages for
idea starters. Then I
remembered my jotted message from years earlier—good old "Jonah whatever." Perfect!
At least I had one idea to submit.
In the "Odyssey Idea List," I wrote:
Behind
the Scenes of BTV!
A few of
the kids do an exposé about BTV for Kids Radio...a bit of cross promotion
perhaps. They find out all
the strange things that go on behind the scenes.
Last-minute running around, people scrambling, etc.
Fun?
Do a BTV show (ie, BTV: Bible) one week and do the exposé the next week?
This would make hearing the original BTV more fun seeing what was
happening in the background.
When we got to the
point in the meeting where we each pitched our ideas, I reluctantly shared
my typical bevy of lame ideas, along with the BTV one.
Most of the others were quickly (and thankfully) passed by, but the
BTV one drew some interest. We
talked about how the show would work from a technical point of view.
Originally, I thought that perhaps we could run a regular BTV show
and then run a "Behind the Scenes" show the next week to show what
happened on the other side of
the camera. Marshal suggested
it be a frenetic, action-packed story where everything is going crazy
behind the scenes, but things are going perfectly on-camera.
Bob Hoose suggested that some of the fun of the show be in people
getting embarrassed on live TV.
I went home and
frantically typed out some thoughts on my computer.
I thought that perhaps some company could have planted cameras
around the studio at BTV. For
what reason, I didn't know. Perhaps
they could be studying what happened at the studio…or something.
I thought that much of the humor would come from cutting between
the various scenes. You could
have a scene end with a line like "Who will save us from this mess?"
"Bernard!" another scene would come in.
One sequence of lines that remains in the show came from this
thought process.
Edwin:
"Who wouldn't be angry about getting an uncredited bit part on a low-class
local television show?"
Wooton:
"I'm gonna be on television. I'm gonna
be on television."
The idea was pretty
wacky and weird, but I couldn't think of any better way to cut between
scenes. I also tried to think
of a theme for the show. It
would be nice if the theme for the show in the background mirrored the
action in the foreground. But
what should it be? I
thought… "BTV: Anger?" Nah. "BTV: Encouragement?"
Nope. "BTV:
Honesty?" Hmm…no. "BTV:
Patience?" Oooh!
Perhaps… "BTV:
Humility?" Yes! That's
it. It should be about being
humble. Edwin should be in it
since he's such a perfect example of being not
humble. (Not to mention that
Edwin is my absolute favorite character for whom to write.)
I excitedly took all my
notes back to the team the next day.
They instead encouraged me to lose the cameras thing because it was
too odd and keep the majority of the show "backstage."
We thought that there needed to be some kind of a door sound that
would be very distinct to let the audience know when we were offstage and
when we were on. Our
discussions continued on and on about technical aspects.
Notice anything missing yet? Maybe…the
story? We would get to that
later…
After the meeting, BTV
once again lay dormant while I worked on "The Pact," "500," and "Live at the 25," all of which would come before BTV.
Finally, in late July, I came back to BTV and sat down to write an
outline.
The
original outline began with a "network guy" named Cliff Macintosh (can
you guess where I got that last name?) approaching Bernard to tell him
that the upcoming live edition of the show would prove that BTV was a
viable show for the networks to pickup.
He kept pestering Bernard with one idea and checklist after
another. Bernard finally
turned to him and said "Mr. Macintosh, listen.
We've done this show for a long time.
We know what we're doing.
We're professionals." He opened
the door of the studio to…chaos inside!
Much as in the final show, people were running creating all manner
of mischief. The network guy
asked Bernard what the topic of the day's show was.
He looked down at the clipboard.
"Teamwork." (I'm
not sure why the theme changed from "humility," but I think I realized
that a show with all sorts of chaos lent itself well to a "teamwork"
theme.)
Marshal pointed out
that the theme of "teamwork" sounded very "Sesame Street."
Bob Hoose suggested "Unity" instead, which became the theme.
The original outline
featured many things that were cut or changed.
The main kid in the show was Colby Cabrera.
There was a very long sequence where "Corey the Did-You-Know"
guy got laryngitis and Connie took over.
A skit on Paul and Barnabus strangely paralleled action backstage.
Connie's interview with a Tower of Babel interview went awry when
the teleprompter broke down. (I
tried to get in my "Jonah…whatever" line.)
And a final segment dealt with Nehemiah and the wall of Jerusalem.
The reaction was less
than enthusiastic.
Jonathan Crowe
suggested that we used Mr. Feldstein from "I Want My BTV!" rather than
some vague network guy. And why should it be trying to pitch the show to a network?
That was already done in "Nova Rising."
How about a telethon? That
would up the stakes in making BTV critical to the future of the station.
And it would give us a chance to make fun of some typical PBS / NPR
clichés.
Marshal's main
concern was that everything was too similar.
We brainstormed how to make some "different" things happen.
John suggested that some one sing.
How about Mandy, since we knew actress Aria Curzon could sing?
Discussion soon changed this to Edwin's soliloquy since we
thought it would be funnier to see Edwin get humiliated.
Someone (I'm not sure who) suggested that they put in the wrong
tape because one melted…and the wrong tape should be about something
boring…how about okra? Marshal
suggested that Bernard give some sort of motivational speech in the middle
of the show that turns everything around and makes the team really
work together. Kathy
suggested that there be a fire in the middle of Bernard's talk with
everything going crazy as Bernard tries to continue.
John suggested that the sprinklers go off, just when we think that
it can't get any worse.
I wrote another draft
of the outline incorporating the changes.
John Fornof gave me a script of a body parts sketch that he
originally wrote as a shorty in "split show" era.
He said that I could use it in BTV if I could find a place for it.
Finally, the team approved the outline and it was time to write
draft number one.
I sat down at my
keyboard…and had a lot of fun. The
script felt like one running gag after another and it was probably the
most fun script of all the ones I've written.
One difficult part of
the show was always the Bernard speech.
At first I thought that I could use some real AIO letters that we
get at Focus as a guide. ("I
have every BTV memorized."
"I
listen to BTV as I go to sleep.")
Another tough part was
where Wooton spouts off techno-babble.
I thought it would be cool if this babble wasn't just random
nonsense, but actual audio terms. I
asked Rob Jorgensen for help on this and he wrote the entire scene just as
it now appears in the show. (Marshal
came up with the great closing line, though: "Nah, I just heard that
some place.")
Finally I finished the
first draft and we had a read-through.
Read-throughs can be frightening times for the writer.
You've been slaving on a script for hours and days and weeks.
Then you go into a room with a bunch of people and watch them write
notes on your beautiful pages and not laugh at the jokes that you thought
were hilarious. However,
read-throughs are probably my favorite part of the writing process because
they are the time when you see the script improve the most in a short
amount of time. Read-throughs
are also rather like my time in the TV studio with lots of team
camaraderie and many running jokes.
The BTV read-through
was no exception. As the read
ended, there were a few moments of painful silence in the room before
someone brought up the two largest problems with the script—the
perspectives were very confusing with constantly jumping from one room to
another and the ending sketch of Nehemiah "Bob Vila" that I had
written was a real dud. Bob
Hoose immediately came up with probably the most important suggestion of
the entire process of BTV writing: What if the entire show was from the
perspective of Alex's microphone? And
Jonathan suggested that the body parts sketch (which I currently had
buried in the background) be used as the episode finale.
I immediately saw the wisdom of both suggestions and thought about
slapping my head, wondering why I hadn't thought of them.
The Alex microphone thing would give us an easy way to get out all
the exposition needed and make the show comprehensible.
And the body parts sketch was much funnier and interesting ending
to send the show out on a high note.
With
these fixes in mind, we went through the script page by page and looked at
how to adapt it to the "new format."
Surprisingly, the existing story blended very easily with the Alex
idea and there weren't any major stopping points during the notes
process. Many of the
sequences in the final show existed in the first draft, but were tweaked
or made better by the team. For
example, in the first draft, Connie used the IFB to talk to Bernard, but
it ended with Bernard saying, "I meant that.
I mean…what I say." Marshal
suggested that Bernard also repeats the "Bring up music" bit, which
made the segment much funnier. The
first draft also didn't contain the visit to the call-in room, had Mandy
playing the soliloquy music instead of Wooton, and featured a scene where
Wooton had to fill in for someone who had gone home.
Just after the
read-through, I went on a short vacation with my brothers.
I couldn't resist taking a Focus laptop and so I wrote much of
the second draft of the show along a river in central Colorado in the
shadow of several 14,000 foot mountains.
Not a bad place to write! I
made the changes that everyone suggested and incorporated a few new gags
and changes.
And once again it was
time for a read-through. This
time, the reaction was more positive.
The show was finally starting to come together.
Probably the most exciting thing for me was that Jonathan said he
wanted to be the sound designer to produce the show.
It's definitely something when someone not only likes what
you've written but actually wants to work on it.
There were still
problems with the show, however. Wooton
didn't have enough to do. We
thought about removing him completely until Marshal suggested that Wooton
should want to do everybody else's job.
He should try to run the switcher, try to direct, and try to run
the cameras…all while people kept telling him he had another job.
Finally, at the end, he would really be able to use his knowledge
with the audio cables thing.
Bernard's speech also
remained a problem. It really
needed to be truly touching. At
that stage, it sounded like a clinical lecture from Bernard about how
Christians should be unified. For
the next draft, I tried another tactic—having Bernard talk people
telling him about BTV touching their lives.
This worked a bit better, but still wasn't quite right.
Finally, I tried going at it from the "responsibility"
angle—that the BTV team needed to be unified because so many people were
watching them. That draft
didn't quite hit the mark either so Bob Hoose took what I had written
and re-wrote it to make it better. Bob's
version of the speech is what we used in the final show.
The team also came up
with Feldstein's tagline of "literally" and suggested that I use
Feldstein's cheapness more often, thus the "renting the tape library
as office space" and the "turning off the water" were born.
And finally, we realized that the show ended without the results of
the phonathon. Had the station been saved or not? Someone suggested that the Gumbo Farmers called and gave a
bunch of money because the station showed their video.
The show went through a
third draft…and a fourth draft…and a fifth "polish" draft.
At each draft, the changes became smaller, but the script got
better and better due to the excellent team suggestions and changes.
Finally, the team declared the script "studio-ready."
The episode now
officially titled "BTV: Behind the Scenes" was recorded in early
September. The session turned
out to be much like the episode itself—chaos.
A number of difficulties in the show reared their head in the
studio. Much of the
background material (stuff heard over the speakers) had to be recorded
separately. Most scenes
involved all seven of the actors, which was difficult because there are
only six microphones in the studio. And,
most difficult of all, the script contained tons of physical action
(fires, people running around, etc.) that is exponentially more difficult
to record than just conversation. The
session ended up lasting nearly six hours.
However, having the
actors together for a long time in the studio also gave the show a nice
sense of camaraderie (just like the real TV studio that inspired it) and
led to some humorous ad-libs that exist in the final program.
Corey Burton's Mr. Feldstein voice was so hilarious in the
studio, recording was occasionally paused for a few moments while everyone
stopped laughing. Corey also
added the final line of Tom Brokejaw: "Seeyoumorrownight."
Travis Tedford (Alex Jefferson) suggested the bit about having the
snoring guys wake up for a moment then go back to sleep.
Earl Boen (Edwin Blackgaard) did a number of hilarious
over-dramatic touches and came up with the line, "They say there are no
such thing as small parts, only small actors, but there are
small parts, believe me!" Katie
Leigh (Connie Kendall) went to college for broadcasting and therefore
acted as the TV director with ease and even added some lines that real
directors say. Jess Harnell
had several lines where he was supposed to ad-lib Wooton lines, and
(amazingly) could ad-lib Wooton lingo without stopping for minutes on end!
Aria Curzon (Mandy Straussberg) asked if she could do a Southern
accent for the eye, which made it funnier.
Dave Madden (Bernard Walton) added little bits of emphasis to lines
that gave them a new (and much
funnier) meaning than I had in mind when I wrote them.
All of the actors did a terrific
job, staying funny and personable even while having to panic in what
seemed like every scene.
Marshal Younger
skillfully directed the show, as usual.
He made certain not to miss anything as much of the show was
recorded out of order. His
leadership and guidance kept the session humming along at a quick pace.
And we haven't even
started on the most time-consuming part of the Odyssey process—the production!
Though the show was recorded in September, Jonathan Crowe didn't
start production until January due to other projects (such as "Inside
the Studio" and "Live at the 25").
The
first task in production is the voice-track edit.
This is a tough task on any show, but the difficulty was
intensified on BTV because there was so much going on in the background.
Jonathan also wasn't content to just go by the script.
He rightfully thought that we should cut lines that didn't work
and move lines around if they worked better in other places.
This made the show much "tighter" and cut out the lame jokes.
It also made things easier to understand.
For example, in the final show, Connie asks Alex if he can hold cue
cards just before Bernard walks into the studio.
Originally this line was much earlier and it was confusing when
Bernard left the room. Jonathan
had a true dedication to making the show understandable and "fat free"
(no boring parts).
Jonathan also cut down
several sequences that went on too long.
The fire was much longer in the original cut.
It even featured Wooton coming in and yelling, "Stop, drop, and
roll!" But we decided that
it was odd that Bernard would keep talking if a life and death struggle
was unfolding behind him. Jonathan
also cut out much Bernard's crucial speech because it dragged the pace
down too much. Here's the
full text of the speech if you're interested in what was cut:
BERNARD:
You know,
I'm not sure if I should be talking about unity right now. We haven't
been the best example of it today.
And
I get so frustrated when things go like this.
But then,
maybe I'm being foolish. Maybe…
I talked
to a girl, a while back, who called and said she accepted Jesus after
hearing a BTV show. Now, I
have to ask myself, did we do that?
Did
we draw on our great individual skills and change her?
And my answer would have to be…no.
We just showed up. God
took what little we had to offer, He pulled us all together, and He used
us to bring a little sense into a young girl's life.
And I think that's the heart of what we're talking about today.
When we
started BTV, I was a janitor with a squeegee…and…well, I'm still a
janitor with a squeegee, but I'm also a person that has been changed by
this show and the wonderful people God has teamed me with.
I'll tell you what, that makes me want to work all the harder, as
part of this team, to do something worthwhile.
We
need to take a break and pull things together. We'll be back right after this.
After Jonathan finished
the voice track, it was time for the fun part—adding sound effects.
We decided that the
show shouldn't have any music, aside from what came over the speakers.
It didn't seem worth getting an original score for the show, so I
listened to all the past BTVs and grabbed the few music cues that seemed
to fit with the spots we needed it. But,
then, what about the spot where Wooton plays "Camptown Races?"
That wouldn't be in the library.
We only needed to look down the hall in the Focus studios to find
John Doryk, an engineer in the creative services department.
A brilliant piano player, John gave us a perfect rendition of the
song to fit with our voices…off the top of his head, with no sheet music
at all!
We also used several
existing BTV segments for background material over the speakers (such as
the "Did You Know" segment) and a number of already-produced
commercials (such as "Jumbo Fork" and "Super Watch").
John Campbell composed the song "We Like Wood" for the episode "…And the Glory" many years earlier, it was hard to hear much of the
song in that show. Jonathan
and I thought we should find another use for the very catchy tune ("We
like wood! Don't like
plastic stuff. We like wood! Wooooo!!") in another show and found a perfect spot in BTV.
(Listen as Mr. Walton comes back in the studio.)
The unique nature of
the show led to some unique innovations in the foley as well.
(For those who don't know, foley is the process of adding
customized live sound effects that you couldn't get from an effects
library. You create them
yourself.) For the many doors
sounds, Jonathan recorded his own studio door with four separate
microphones. He also hit the
door with different emotions—blinding energy for Mr. Feldstein, dramatic
flair for Edwin, and gentle for Alex.
Typically for
footsteps, the foley artist walks or runs in place with the microphone
planted near their
toes.
Since there was so much walking in BTV, Jonathan decided to
take the mic with him as he walked or ran.
He put together a rudimentary mobile mic stand and held it near his
feet as he ran around the room acting out the various characters.
Also, on the subject of feet, listen closely to Wooton's
footsteps and you'll find he's wearing "duck feet."
They quack every time he walks!
We recorded many of the
control room effects in Studio A, the main studio at Focus where Dr.
Dobson records his radio show and several happy accidents occurred during.
I started typing on a keyboard to get the sound of Wooton adjusting
the audio levels and we found that the computer made a beep every time you
touched a key. Jonathan
thought this would make a great sound to indicate that something was wrong
with the sound coming from the speakers.
(Listen to the continuous beeping as Wooton repairs the audio late
in the show.) Not long after,
we tried recording the sound of Wooton punching the button that starts the
deafening sound of feedback to the speakers.
We tried various buttons and in the process of pointing the
microphone at different parts of the room, I snapped my fingers in front
of the microphone to see if it was on.
Jonathan liked the sound effect and used it as the "button
push" in the final show.
After many long days
(and nights) of work from Jonathan, everyone gathered for the show
playback. The verdict: Thumbs
up. The script, acting, sound
effects, and everything else on the show came together nicely and the team
could truly give themselves a nice pat on the back.
Now all that remained was seeing what fans would think.
We
also noticed a bit of unintended poignancy in the final lines of the
show.
Just after the episode was recorded, Travis Tedford (the actor who
plays Alex Jefferson) moved to Texas, making BTV his final show.
The episode ends with, "The show is over and I'm almost out of
tape. This is Alex
Jefferson, signing off…"
In the end, I'm
enormously happy with how the show turned out.
It ended up being far more "epic" in scale than I imagined.
As always happens on our team, everyone elevated the show to a
level far beyond anything I could hope to accomplish on my own.
Now, let's see…what other notes do I have on my PalmPilot?
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