WEBVTT - How COVID Changed TV Production Forever 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:13.440 Hello, Strictly Business listeners. This is host Cynthia Littleton. Today 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:16.560 we're queuing up a Strictly Business rerun of our very 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:21.239 special extra long episode examining how the pandemic changed television 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:24.919 production forever. I spoke with ten industry insiders, most of 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.400 them in TV news, and wove their perspectives together into 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:31.520 a chronicle of how TV stayed on the air during 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.720 those difficult early months of the lockdown. This episode ran 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:38.159 March twelfth of this year, around the five year anniversary 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:40.920 of the stay at home orders that rocked our world. 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:44.680 We're sending this out again today to shamelessly brag that 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:47.880 this episode has been nominated by the Los Angeles Press 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.280 Club for a national Arts and Entertainment Award. I worked 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:53.239 really hard on this, so I hope you'll give it 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.960 a listen. Thank you, and we'll be back next week 0:00:56.040 --> 0:01:02.400 with another fresh episode of Strictly Business. 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:07.880 Our show Prime launched on February tenth of twenty twenty. 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:11.200 We were making all these plans about how we were 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:14.720 going to be collaborative. We had a brand new team assembled, 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:20.280 and then all of a sudden, within a month. 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:23.160 We weren't ready for a virtual control room we had 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.360 no real infrastructure in place. 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:30.600 The day I realized it was real is the day 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:32.960 the Big East Basketball Tournament was canceled. 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:35.800 It felt like one of those movies where you're like 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.640 one you wake up and you're wandering through the streets 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:50.640 and a place that's normally bustling is absolutely lifeless. 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:56.480 Welcome to Strictly Business, Varieties weekly podcast featuring conversations with 0:01:56.600 --> 0:02:00.680 industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:04.840 Cynthia Lyttleton, co editor in chief of Variety. We don't 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:07.720 typically do a cold open on this show, but this 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:11.600 isn't a typical episode of Strictly Business. We depart from 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:15.240 our standard solo interview format to take a long look 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:19.639 back five years ago when Covid sank its pointy Corona 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.760 fangs into New York and soon after the rest of 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.519 the country. We didn't know it then, but March twenty 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:30.680 twenty marked a huge inflection point for the television business. 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:35.359 Stay at home orders, masks, and antigen tests. It all 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.560 seems so distant and not so distant all at once. 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:43.040 The story of how Covid helped supercharge the streaming business 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.919 and the streaming wars has been well documented in recent years, 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:51.160 but another big TV story unfolded during the early months 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:55.840 of lockdown that hasn't gotten as much attention. Old fashioned 0:02:56.000 --> 0:03:00.680 linear TV rose to the occasion to keep local national 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.000 news outlets on the air. The same was true for 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.640 daytime and late night talk shows and live to tape 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:13.200 entertainment such as ABC's America's Funniest Home Videos. The first 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.720 few weeks of the pandemic spurred more seated the pants 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:21.480 innovation to broadcast operations in engineering than had been done 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.520 since the days of Sid Caesar and Milton bur in 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.920 the early nineteen fifties. In our business, the show must 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:32.959 go on, Ethos Israel. The last thing TV pros wanted 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:37.160 to do was serve America dead. Air times were hard enough. 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.520 By the end of twenty twenty, the death toll from 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:44.600 COVID in the US alone had reached a staggering four 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:49.920 hundred thousand. The social distancing conditions imposed forced producers and 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:54.280 crew members and technicians to create virtual control rooms on 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.360 the fly. They had to figure out how to recreate 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:02.080 networks for communications and video collaboration tools in a matter 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:05.560 of days. They ordered a whole lot of digital video 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:09.720 equipment from Amazon to assemble home bureaus in a box 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:14.760 for anchors. Talk shows quickly moved to create virtual studio audiences. 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.159 I've been wanting to tackle the story of the great 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.880 scramble of the early COVID months for several years. I 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:24.200 had the privilege of being a fly on the wall 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.200 at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in June twenty 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.640 twenty one, as Colbert returned to filming shows with live 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.560 audiences at the Ed Sullivan Theater. In those interviews, it 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:39.240 became apparent how much daring do and experimentation had been 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.240 going on behind the scenes at a time when production 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.360 staff was spread far and wide. I knew there were 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.000 great stories there, but I didn't know how good they 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.320 were until I started interviewing the ten sources that you'll 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:55.280 hear in this episode. They shared stories that captured this 0:04:55.440 --> 0:05:00.680 fraut period with moments of humor, moments of meltdowns involving 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:04.720 both tech and tykes, and some true moments of heartbreak. 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:09.640 And in the end, what changes really mattered, what innovations 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:14.160 stuck around Beyond the crisis, we examine the lasting legacy 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:19.080 of pandemic era workarounds. I'm extremely grateful to the sources 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.279 for their time and their candid thoughts on a most 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:27.040 extraordinary time in their careers. My guests are Lindsey Davis, 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:31.400 anchor of ABC News Live Prime and World News Tonight Sunday, 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:35.440 Vin de Bona, executive producer of one of TV's longest 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:41.440 running series, ABC's America's Funniest Home Videos, Chris Dinan, executive 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.560 producer of ABC News World News Tonight, Tony de Koppel, 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:50.640 anchor of CBS Mornings, Bill Hemmer, co anchor of America's 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:55.320 Newsroom on Fox News. Jason Kurtz, executive producer and showrunner 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:59.680 of The Drew Barrymore Show, Simone Swink, executive producer of 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:05.040 Good Good Morning America, SHAWNA. Thomas, executive producer of CBS Mornings, 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:10.840 John Tower, Senior broadcast producer of CBS Mornings, and Scott Wilder, 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:15.680 Executive Vice President of Production and Operations for Fox News Media. 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:22.240 Their stories are coming right up after this break, and 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:24.919 we're back with the story of how TV rose to 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.640 the occasion to stay on the air during the pandemic. 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.240 I started each interview with the question, when did it 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.000 sync in that COVID was going to change the way 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:39.200 you were here? We'll hear from ABC's Chris Dinan, CBS's 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:43.400 John Tower, and ABC's Lindsay Davis and Simone Swink. 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.520 When it first began, it seemed somewhat unreal because of 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.760 the extent and scope of what people were saying was 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.960 going to happen. The idea that America would essentially shut 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:57.400 down was just shocking. 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:03.200 It didn't quite feel real until the day that somewhere 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.360 up in corporate they had decided to and we were 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:10.280 over in uh West fifty seventh Street over in the 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:17.040 CBS Broadcast Center, and there were sort of rumblings that they're, 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.920 you know, they're they're they're talking about something. We know 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:24.760 that they're they're something's happening. And then at the end 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.080 of the day we had we had gone home after 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:30.680 the show and I I remember I was on my 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.920 way home and I got a call from a colleague 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:39.600 saying they're shutting the broadcast center down, and and it 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:42.560 was it was that abrupt. It was like we were like, okay, 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.160 And so immediately the question was where are we going 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:50.120 to do the show from? And it wasn't like we're 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.360 going to send everybody home. It was again the pandemic 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.120 was New It was just like and so somewhere it 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.400 was a it was almost like a corporate decision, like 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:04.920 having the virus around this particular building is not a 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:07.280 risk that we want to take, and so you have 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:12.080 to find another building to broadcast from, which you know, now, 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:16.560 in hindsight, seems ridiculous because you're just moving, You're just 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:18.080 moving to another risky space. 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:19.280 But that's what we did. 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.559 And they decided that we're going to go to DC 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:25.560 because you know, as you just remember, in like New 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:27.960 York was sort of like a hotbed. 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.320 I remember the night that it really became real for 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:35.880 us and the NBA canceled a game, and it was 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:42.680 just a moment unlike anything I've ever I've been reporting 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:46.960 for about twenty five years, and I have not you know, 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.440 it was just I remember texting even you know, friends 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:52.280 of mine about it and they were like, wait, no, 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:54.560 that can't be happening, you know, and then it was 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:58.480 just a domino effect of you know, people just I 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:02.200 think the governor of Pennsylvania started telling people don't go 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:05.040 to work, you know, don't go to school, and it 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:07.240 just became really real very quickly. 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.160 I think the moment that the company and the show 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:14.440 started creating protocols for how people would be tested and 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:16.560 how people would come to work. And when it really 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.600 sank in is that people would have to quarantine. Because 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:22.720 right around that mid March date, about fifteen of us 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:27.880 had to quarantine at home and couldn't come to work. 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.400 Right then, everybody else was like, what do you mean 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:32.040 you can't come to work? And how is this going 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:33.360 to work? And how are we going to do it? 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:37.360 CBS is Tony du Koppel remembers taking a fateful call 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:38.280 at the gym. 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:40.480 The moment I realized this was going to be different. 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:42.840 When is when I was at the gym and I 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.360 got a call this two or three weeks later from 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.840 Diana Miller, our former executive producer, and she was like, 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.920 they've found COVID at the Broadcast Center. They're shutting it down. 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:58.040 We're doing the show from Washington tomorrow. You got to 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.640 get on a train now. I'll limit your contact And 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.160 I was like, what this is? Limit my contact? I mean, 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:05.920 I'm in a room of one hundred people at a gym. 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:06.840 We go to DC. 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.120 It's a super weird show because we have no news 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:13.160 reason to be in DC. We have this crisis reason 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:16.360 for being in DC. And then I go back to 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.480 the hotel room that night, and in my memory anyway, 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.800 that's the night when I'm watching TV talking to my wife, 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.040 the news breaks at the NBA shutting down the season. 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:31.360 Tom Hanks and Rita, his wife are coming forward and 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:35.960 saying we have it, and Cuomo and Trump and every 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:38.000 other leader you might turn to to. 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:39.280 Say something stabilizing. 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.400 Suddenly, in my view as just a citizen of the country, 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:44.480 looking at people and being like, they don't seem like 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.480 they have it under control anymore. This seems scary. We 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.520 don't have a broadcast center, we don't have a sports league, 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:52.839 we don't have leaders that seem to know what's going on. 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:55.120 I don't know what happens from here. That's when it 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.720 really landed, like we're going somewhere hard. 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.440 As Covid descended and Drew Barrymore was in pre production 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.160 getting ready to launch her daytime talk show that September. 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.480 Showrunner Jason Kurtz remembers the nervousness of the moment. 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:16.240 It was my first in person Withdrew in March. 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.839 It was early March. I had come on. 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.160 In feb so it was our first I was at 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.640 our apartment and we were like kind of like talking 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:28.040 about staffing and structure and getting into the bodies that 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:29.680 we were going to bring on and all these great people. 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.920 And it literally was the day that things started to 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.360 heat up, and we were both looking at each other 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.160 like wait, and I was like, I got a text 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.080 that the bridges and tunnels are closing. It was like, 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:44.400 you know in New York, like the rumor started, and 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:46.680 I was like, that's strange, and we both kind of 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.080 were looking at each other, getting a lot of texts 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.280 from people, and I was like, maybe we should just 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:53.360 hit pause and figure out, like what's going on in 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:53.760 the world. 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.920 And then literally like three days later, everything shut down. 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.880 Another question I asked all ten sources was what was 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.520 the first things your teams did to build alternatives to 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:08.680 your studio and technology setups. Here we'll hear from Fox 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:13.760 News's Scott Wilder, ABC's Lindsay Davis and Simone Swink and 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:14.680 then Wilder again. 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.480 So it became clear immediately that we were going to 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:22.800 need to start broadcasting from locations outside of our building. Really, 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.360 the premise at the time was that we weren't going 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:29.400 to be able to broadcast from here. At all, like 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:31.840 we were going to need to be cleared from this building. 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.840 And so that was the moment that it hit me 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.960 that we were going to have this immediate need to 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:40.920 start broadcasting from someplace else. And does that mean that 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:42.760 we're going to go find the location where we send 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.560 all of our people or what actually happened where people 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:51.320 start broadcasting from their homes. So you know, that was 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.640 the immediate order, and right away we went out and 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.960 just started contacting and working with all of our talent 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:02.840 and going to their own and figuring out what we 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:04.920 can do at each one of them. There was none, 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.280 no two that were the shame. They were all a 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:08.040 little bit different. 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:10.760 My husband, who at that point was working from home 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:16.480 as well, doubled as then my engineer. So he set 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:18.480 up a hole and I'd posted a picture of it 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:21.720 on Instagram at the time. We set up a little 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.640 we made our TV into kind of it over the 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.160 shoulder that had the graphic that said ABC News Live Prime, 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:32.720 and set up a desk. And at the time my 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:39.040 son was six and so we were in the basement 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:41.000 and we did not ever put a lock on that 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:43.560 door or anything, so he just kept coming down during 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:46.719 the broadcast like whispering, you know, as if that was 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.719 okay while we're trying to you know, run this teleprompter 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:54.360 remotely and do the broadcast. So needless to say, we 0:13:54.480 --> 0:14:00.280 only ever did it one time remotely, and the rest 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.080 of the times I just said, look, it's just it 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:04.320 just makes more sense for me to come in. 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:06.760 We really sort of hit the deadline, Like on Friday, 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:08.880 we were still putting the rundown together the usual way, 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.920 and by Monday we you know, you actually can do 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:13.880 a lot of things from home. It's not ideal. It 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.880 added five steps to every part of the process, but 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:19.520 it's possible. The one thing I will say is that 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.800 we had a group of people who came in every 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:26.800 single day for three four years into the control room. 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.040 And without that group of people, you couldn't get the 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.000 rest of the show on. So ninety eight percent of 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.320 the staff could be from home, but that two percent 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:34.560 kept it on the air every day. 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:35.080 You know. 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:37.760 It was like zone defense. We were just trying to 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:41.160 get people, and we tried to look where people live. 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:43.480 I have a news photographer who lives in New Jersey 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.720 and an anchor who lives in New Jersey. Marry that 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.440 team up together. I have a new photographer who lives 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:51.640 on Long Island, or an anchor lives on Long Island. 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.800 That's a team Westchester, Connecticut, and you know, so on 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:59.120 and so forth, keep going. And that's how we started 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:04.800 going back to the edict that it looked and sound 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:07.840 like Fox News for the viewers. You know, the hardest 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.720 part of it. You know, listen, there's no guest, right 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.840 these anchors and contributors were in their home. You're really 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:18.440 talking about a glorified live shot. It's one camera, you know. 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:22.560 But now they're anchoring programs. Yeah, you need tell a prompter, 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.800 you need return video. They're taking press conferences all day long. 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.800 They need to interact, and so you know, really we 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.920 just relied very heavily. I'm talking about in the immediate 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:34.960 days and those you know, I really call it a 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.640 ten day period. I think we set up over forty 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:42.520 home studios within ten days. And you know, we were 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:49.560 relying on the anchors home you know, internet connection again. 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:51.400 You know, there's a story that I know it's been 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:53.920 told before, but you know, we had an anchor who 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.840 was on TV and their children were playing video games 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.800 and we saw degradation in the video quality immediately. So 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:01.840 you know, we had a team of like four people 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:06.560 who were just driving from place to place, repairing, fixing, advising, 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.440 setting up in addition to the people who were running 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:13.280 those So but again, you know, that all came Honestly, 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.080 it may sound cliche, but it came from the top. 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:19.640 We had our leadership who never left the building. They 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:24.800 were here every single day, Suzanne and Jay in particular, 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:27.440 along with several you know others, But they were in 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:30.280 the building every single day. Kind of you know, not 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:34.000 kind of action, steering the ship and giving the guidance 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:36.480 of how we wanted to, you know, make it through 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.200 this pandemic that nobody had had any experience, no blueprint. 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:40.480 Yeah. 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:44.960 Vin de Bona, the maestro of AFF, had only one 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:47.920 more show to tape for the twenty nineteen twenty twenty 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:53.440 TV season when lockdown orders upended TV production. Here he 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.640 explains why he was one and done with the idea 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:01.480 of doing AFF with Alfonso Rivieriro hosting from his home. 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:06.800 We realized that if we didn't figure out a way 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:11.000 to make it work for the show, you know, who 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:15.560 knows what would have happened with broadcast. So the first 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:20.600 thing that happened is we did one show called at 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:28.640 Home with AFV and literally it was at home with Alphonso, 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:34.960 who was running his own camera, running his own prompter, 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:40.000 did his own lights. I directed through Zoom, but we 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:42.520 really directed together. 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:43.720 And he was. 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:50.120 The sole person on the show, and we did wraparounds 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:53.720 in different areas of his house, the kitchen, the living room, 0:17:54.560 --> 0:18:00.400 the pool by his RV. And we put the first 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:08.760 show together, all on Zoom, all linked together with each 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.480 of our staff members, and then we would look at 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.680 the playback reels that we're going to go into the show. 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:21.000 We would build them and then view them as a team. 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:25.240 Everything was teamwork, really teamwork, and. 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:25.679 It was. 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:30.920 It was actually fairly easy to get it all together. 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:36.280 The toughest part wasn't the video. The toughest part was 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:41.200 making sure audio was great. It's sometimes hard to hear 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.560 the nuances, you know, when you're on Zoom. 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:48.199 Let's drill down on the ingenuity that Cruz techs and 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.560 engineers demonstrated under pressure. Here we'll hear from John Tower, 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.760 Simone Swink, Vin Dea Bona and Tower again. 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.840 Over the course of fifteen hours, they had to set 0:18:59.880 --> 0:19:03.719 up an entire workable control room and show for the 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:10.359 next day, and under probably normal conditions. I'm just using 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.800 like an example that would you maybe give a team 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.919 like that a week maybe two to do that, and 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:17.560 they had. 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:18.680 Literally the night. 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.159 One thing that the News division did very quickly was 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:26.240 figure out and build at home sort of kits that 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:30.320 a team could swoop in and set up and so 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:32.560 that everybody could broadcast from home, and then as long 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:34.200 as we could work it out from the control room, 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:36.480 you could actually have all three main anchors from home 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:39.879 in a given broadcast. And that being able to do 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:41.760 that so quickly and realized that we could get on 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:43.640 the air and just sort of adjust the shots from 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:47.240 there gave us a lot of flexibility. It also meant 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:50.840 that we didn't have to substantially change parts of the show. 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:53.040 It was just a few were a viewer. The aesthetic 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:55.600 changed a little bit because people weren't next to each 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.479 other physically, but they were next to each other in 0:19:58.560 --> 0:19:59.560 boxes at times. 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:04.600 God Story, our set designer created an idea to build 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:10.119 these stacks, and by stacks, I mean vertical columns with 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:16.000 three flat screens in each column, and the total amount 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:22.280 of Zoom audience members would be ninety six and they'd 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.760 be broken up into these three columns. So Al would 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.320 walk around studio and he'd walk by a column or 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:35.320 two columns, and the audience saw him live to studio 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:40.199 by a zoom. And it was quite an undertaking. We 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:49.479 wound up having four additional technicians in the process. So 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:56.000 basically what we had was each operator had two computers. 0:20:56.680 --> 0:21:02.440 Each computer had sixteen people that they were culling from 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:09.160 the zoom audience to control. So the total was each 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.479 person had thirty two people times three, which wound up 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:18.359 being ninety six. And so the three technicians operating the 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:24.360 computers would make sure the signal was strong. We sent 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:30.200 out a three page memorandum to audience members. Audience Plus 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:34.399 was the company that secured audiences for us, and it 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:36.920 wasn't just LA, it was all around the country. They 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.680 put out a blast and people would write in saying, yes, 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:43.600 I'd like to be on the show. Yes, I can 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:49.760 guarantee you four hours of my time. Don't wear any 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:54.760 identifying T shirts, no licensed art on the wall, so 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:57.520 all of that had to be taken care of and 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:08.520 then these ninety six accumulated audience members. Then it was 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:12.639 assigned to one producer who would say you up in 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:17.120 the upper corner, be more attentive, you know, or we're 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:18.800 going to go to a break if you guys want 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:22.720 to take a bath, all that stuff through another producer, 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:29.200 and actually we wound up having al talked to the 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:32.640 home viewers asking them, you know, how many you want 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:35.040 to go to raise hands? And it was it was 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:39.600 kind of fun. So we really had as complete an 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:45.440 audience situation with laughs and reactions as we had in studio, 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:49.880 and it was. It was actually a great look and 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:53.880 and we kind of missed it when we into studio. 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:57.439 But it was a lot of work, and of course 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:02.680 the other thing was we had to pretest the crew 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:07.159 two days before they would show up in studio, and 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:10.239 we had to pay them for the test, so it 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:13.080 was a full day to test them, and then on 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:17.040 studio day we'd have to back up key crew members 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:22.720 like lighting director, technical director, and probably one cameraman and 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:26.320 a few other studio people just to make sure on 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:29.600 that last day when they came in and tested that 0:23:29.640 --> 0:23:30.320 they were fine. 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:32.840 So eventually we made our way to at Solvent Theater 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:36.400 and because Stephen Colbert was off and that was sort 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:39.320 of like our last that was the last space that 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:43.560 was available to use that they were comfortably using. It 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:47.399 took very very minimal amount of crew at that point 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:50.240 they had This was probably a couple of weeks in 0:23:50.280 --> 0:23:54.000 to the actual lockdown, the start of the pandemic, and 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:59.480 we had started a wrapperhenser around masking, which seems late 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:02.600 and quick now looking back, but like we'd started wrapprehension 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:06.440 un masking, and so we were we were a few 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:08.679 of us. It was like probably four or five of 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:12.280 us with a director and a t d uh in 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:17.159 a in a uh insulivent theater control room with our 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:20.679 anchors remote, all just putting the show on. 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:22.120 All the producers were remote. 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:27.000 People had started to like they'd been using uh they 0:24:27.000 --> 0:24:31.359 had developed a system for saving for remote editors, firing 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:37.120 up remotely dating videos onto you know UH drop boxes 0:24:37.320 --> 0:24:41.240 that again we did we were not using often or 0:24:41.280 --> 0:24:46.080