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Page 4-Sunday, October 15, 1978-The Michigan Daily
Dollyin, camera one ..".
By Shelley Wolson
rHE CAMERA dollys in for a planning, the split-second blueprint of
medium shot of the bedridden man. every speaker's words and each shot of
He looks into the glass eye of the the camera.
camera and quietly says, "I have acute The script is carefully penciled in
leukemia and when I first found out I with the director's commands and
had the disease, I didn't even know how laced with the producer's creativity.
to spell it. I had no idea what it was." After several rehearsals, the crew is
Another camera zooms in for a close- alerted and the countdown begins. The
up. The director in the control room director rushes through a series of
barks to the switcher, "Ready "ready" commands and finally snaps
two.. . take two." The middle-aged, to the floor manager, "Cue talent!"
terminally ill patient continues, "I had The director has absolute control of
never been sick in my entire life. My the studio throughout the taping. He
first question to the doctor was how must watch four monitors - one apiece
long do I have? In all my life, the har- for the cameras, one for preview, and
dest thing I ever had to do was get in my one that reveals what is being recorded
car, go home, walk up those stairs and on tape - in addition to giving cues for
say to my wife,'I have leukemia." slides, films, balop cards, graphics,
"Ready one.. . take one." talent, and cameras.
The camera cuts to.a medium shot of
a doctor who begins her part in the AT THE FINAL cut, the floor manag-
documentary, "Whenever I tell a ter- tier signals to the talent frantically
minally ill patient..." with a slashed throat imitation. But for
These are the opening shots of one of the producer, the taping is the one time
the many educational programs he can sit back and watch the fruit of
produced by the University Television his meticulous plans come to life on
Center. Entitled "To Die with Dignity; videotape.
to Live with Grief," the film offers an Executive producer Al Slote is quick
insight into the dilemmas faced by ter- to point out that he works with a corps
minally ill patients. The program is of talented professionals. Yet those
4designed to subtly inform the viewer, professionals point to Slote as the main-
and help him understand the questions stay of the Television Center's niche of
these patients must ask. creativity.
What the viewer sees on his television He is constantly in motion, searching
screen is footage of interviews. But for new ideas for yet another program.
what the viewer does not see are the Slote has earned a reputation around
time-consuming, intricate steps of the center as the man who is always
searching for the right face, the right
Shelley Wolson is a Daily night idea. One time Slote raced out of a bar-
bershop with a towel around his neck
because he'd seen a little old woman
Daily photos by Brad Benjamin walking by he thought would be
and Maureen O'Malley perfect for the film he was working on.
He ran after her yelling, 'Lady, would
you like to be on TV?'
Slote recently finished "To Die with
Dignity; to Live with Grief" and his
next projects include a program on
nuclear power and another illustrating
the problems of the elderly. And
although the TV Center staff strives to
produce quality television in its own
right, it does so primarily for the pur-
poses of education.
HERE'S LESS emphasis on broad-
casting, with more on instruc-
tion," says Slote who writes children's
books as a sideline. 'Hopefully, the
same quality we put into a broadcast -
;y television programs - we put into in-
struction. TV is the professor's tool."
Programs produced by the center are
sent via cable to over 800 stations
across the U.S., while approximately 25
commercial broadcasting stations
carry University programs. "We send
teachers out via TV," says Slote, "the
University of Michigan faculty is
teaching nationwide."
Slote has produced hundreds of shows
for the center and is well-known as the
creator of the trigger film, a series of
one minute educational films designed
to initiate disussion. Slote says the ky
to the trigger film is that there "is no in-
=yY "formation in them, they're all
emotion." He has produced nationally
distributed trigger films on topics such
as driver education for the Highway
Safety Research Institute and the
problems of the aged for the Inter--
national Center for Social Gerontology.
Thne Mivchigan Ugiy-auiuuy,