MDA Live Auction
One of the first big projects I worked on with Samid at TCI as a “temp” was the Muscular Dystrophy Association live auction that year. I believe it was actually the first thing he called me back to work on because there were some 250+ item promo segments that had to be prepared along with dozens of CG graphic overlays that needed to be done for the live event. He was the only person on the project, it was Monday, the auction was the following Sunday.
I went to school during the day and went to TCI immediately afterward every day that week working from about 3pm until 2-3am every morning. We worked all day Saturday from 9am until the following morning at 6am when we finally finished the last segment. We both went home to change and take a shower and meet back up at the studio at 8am. The auction started at 10am, and a huge live production crew of people showed up from some other TCI in the northwest to do the show. Samid stayed on to run one of the cameras and I was in the booth the whole 6 hour show talking the tape cue guys through the various segments that we were only able to half-document in advance as well as operate the CG insert computers. The most memorable part was the air conditioning was redirected into the studio to keep the on-air talent cooler and keep it a reasonable temperature for the call takers in the studio. It was so hot in the production booth that the meat and cheese snacks they brought into us started to cook on top of one of the monitors.
It was a lot of work, some decent money, and some very valuable experience with many different parts of producing and running a live show. Most of the production work beyond that I did with TCI was either for personal or school use, or simply taping or editing segments now and then.