Imagine that you're in a television studio, lecturing to a group of teenagers
about starfish. Besides the studio audience, approximately 10,000 students
are watching you in high schools throughout the state. Suddenly a youth shoots
up his hand to ask a question. As you begin answering, the producer hisses
into your microphone:
"Quit fiddling with your tie!"
"It can be nerve-wracking," admits Jonathan Bird. "The producer talks to
you and you have to keep talking. And then you have to keep watching the floor
director to know which camera to look at."
Jonathan Bird runs the Oceanic Research Group, a nonprofit organization
that is dedicated to teaching about the importance of conserving marine life.
For two years, he hosted a television series about marine creatures for the
Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunications (MCET).
Bird says he wanted to do a television series because he was seeking a
venue that would allow him to do underwater cinematography. "Underwater is
my angle in life," says Bird, who developed a passion for diving when he was
a student at the Whistler Polytechnic Institute and needed a physical education
credit to graduate.
He filmed a pilot episode exploring the cold-water creatures living in
New England. "MCET liked it and asked me to do the show."
Besides hosting the show, Bird wrote dialog and edited footage. "Every
show had a theme," he says. "For example, we might have one show on plankton,
and another on echinoderms." Besides a live portion where students could call
in, there were several pre-recorded segments shot on location.
Hosting a television series was a learning experience for Bird. He worked
hard to give his character a quirky personality that would hold the students'
interest. "We tried to think up funny things to get the audience laughing."
A regular feature was a Star Trek takeoff where "the cameraman would fade
me out like I was being beamed up." At other times, "I would pretend to trip
and there was a sound effect."
Unfortunately, he learned the hard way that market share, not content,
determines which television shows make it. A major problem was that the special
camera work required for underwater shots made the show fairly expensive to
produce.
"MCET was a government-funded educational venture which didn't take off
as expected," he says. "A good enrollment for them would be 100 schools watching.
You figure 100 people watching in each of 100 schools, that's still only 10,000
people. It wasn't practical to support a show with that much overhead."
Despite the drawbacks, Bird would love to repeat the experience. "It's
a great way to teach," he says. "Few teachers get to teach 10,000 kids at
once. Plus, I got to use a lot of high-tech things to get my point across."
Unlike Bird, Kevin Brauch always aimed for a career in communications.
Well, almost always. "Actually, I wanted to be a professional hockey player,
but I was too small," he laughs. "But I was very creative and liked writing."
Brauch beat the odds to become one of the 10 percent of applicants accepted
into a prestigious radio and television program. Upon graduation, a radio
station hired him to do street promotions. But the job disappeared in a wave
of downsizing.
If it wasn't for a good friend, Brauch might not be in television today.
"He literally forced me to apply to an ad," says Brauch. At that point,
he had spent four years going from one odd job to another. There didn't seem
to be any point in applying. It didn't help that a poorly written ad made
the job sound boring.
But his friend persisted, dragging Brauch out on a snowy Valentine's Day
to make a demo tape. "Valentine's Day evening we both sat there dateless and
edited the tape. And what do you know, I got the job."
Today, Brauch is co-host of a children's television show that demonstrates
fun things school-aged children can make at home. Originally, he was hired
to host a series of programs for teenagers, "but [the network] gave up on
youth when their funding was reduced and started concentrating on children."
Given the task of formulating a children's series, Brauch thought, "Youth
talk, but what do younger kids do? They do stuff, create stuff." Brauch and
a co-worker put together the basic format for the show.
Brauch hopes that kids who watch his show will try to make the projects
at home. "We want them to get off the couch and try something new." He adds
that everything they make on the show has a practical purpose.
Brauch says he enjoys meeting the show's young fans. "It's amazing how
kids look up to you." He takes his position as a role model seriously. "It's
important that on camera, you are the person you are in real life. I always
say I'm a horrible actor but I'm a real person."
And the challenges? "When you're going on camera, you have to clear your
head of everything. For example, I've been in several budget meetings over
the last week, and I've got to clear my head of the politics."
But he says the kids make it all worthwhile. "They're really what the show
is all about. We're just a conduit."
Brauch was lucky to start on the air right out of school.
"One does typically enter television through the basement," says Charlene
Prickett, host of a fitness show. Today, Prickett both hosts and produces
the half-hour show. But she got her start writing copy in the promotion department
of a television station.
How did Prickett manage to make the transition from writer to performer?
"I had a very heavy performance background," says Prickett, who studied drama
at university. "The television company decided they wanted to do a fitness
show. I was athletic, which was unusual in those days -- I was fit as both
a runner and a dancer. So I had the skill set."