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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