The first I heard of Trinidad was from an uncle who had worked there for Shell Oil for a very long time in the late 40’s and through the 50’s. He drove a car with Florida license plates when he came to visit, adding to the mystery of exactly where this “dark-skinned” relative really lived. I guess he told us a lot, but stuff like that seems to fade to vague memories!
The next I heard of Trinidad in any detail, was when Barry Gordon said he was about to make a quantum island leap from England. Working in television! In paradise! Barry never lies and off he went. This time, I guessed he would be gone for years.
Early that December I learned another thing about Trinidad. They had telephones but they don’t work really well, or all of the time! Happily they did on this occasion. Barry called!
Barry: “You want to come down to Trinidad for a few months? We’ve got a studio, equipment and lots of willing people, but I really need a good two-IC to help me get them up to speed. You’ll love it here…it’s really warm with sandy beaches, beautiful women and everything!”
Me: “Yeah, sure, Barry! Send me a ticket! Can I bring the kids? They love the beach!”
Barry: “Whatever, but first you gotta go to Winnipeg for an interview with the television station manager there. He will look over your resume, approve of all your marvelous background, and send his approval back to our manager”
You have to know a little about Barry’s background to fully appreciate how this whole process goes down. This is a very serious TV guy, who has been around the track setting up television operations almost since he was born. Canada always had managers who really knew everything needed to launch a TV operation, because they used to be in radio where they received on-the-job training for television! With maybe a little newspaper experience thrown in to enhance their familiarity with advertising. Or some time with Muzak, the elevator music people.
There were no schools for broadcast in Canada… Ryerson was still a dream, so Barry went to the US! Where else but New York and Los Angeles where he actually got to work in TV. Along the way he studied with the Godfather of TV production, Rudy Bretz (Google that!) and with CBS, Television City in LA.
When he came back he was ready to climb in the fashion, familiar in those early years, to every TV production person in Canada who hoped to be a part of television’s limelight. By the time he left for the Caribbean he had covered a lot of territory…doing all the jobs. Director, Production Manager, Producer, Executive Producer, Program Director, Sports Producer, General Manager, Janitor and etc.! But all the good stuff, he learned setting up television stations!
His talent and personality had major effects on Stations in Hamilton, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Aberdeen (Scotland) and the Thompson Television organization, who “discovered” him.
But not before me! I hooked onto his star for a few years at one of his last Canadian station, and got an education and a free ticket to Trinidad.
Late December, not long after an entertaining trip to Winnipeg, the ticket arrives. One more Ice Race and I’m off to permanent summer! Like a thermometer climbing from –20 F. through Toronto, Bermuda, Antigua, Barbados, and finally Trinidad, at +88 degrees F (above zero) every day!
Trinidad knocked me out! The warmest people a visitor could imagine made me feel at home the day (night) I arrived. There is little or no tourist trade, except Trinidadians coming home to visit. No seasons, sweet steelband music and Calypso that literally swept me off my feet. And if you are a person with that specific kind of “joie de vivre”, the best non-stop party in the world!
Television House became a personal project to everyone who worked there. It was contagious! The staff had already begun to show the Barry Gordon influence. In truth, paint on the building was still wet, but they were on the air with daily programming that included News, Sports, Weather, Interviews, Public Service programming and whatever syndicated series CBS could send!
Mr. Goodsman, as he preferred to be called, welcomed his new production assistant with the warm greeting that he hadn’t heard anything from Winnipeg, but time was of the essence and they had decided they would have to take Barry’s word that Charlie Moore could help!
As it turned out, the letter from Winnipeg had been sent by regular post, meaning it would catch the next tramp steamer bound for the Caribbean. It arrived many weeks later with the firm recommendation that while this person seemed quite well-rounded in television, someone with a more stable employment record might be more desirable. Mr. Moore had changed jobs quite often and might not be a dependable long-term employee! (How come he didn’t get the opportunity to screen Mr. Gordon’s résumé?)
Over the next few weeks, I had my responsibilities described to me by Barry, then rounded out by Mr. Goodsman, Sales Manager Neville Welch and finally by Engineer, Jack Elvin. Interesting variations on a theme!
My official title was initially referred to as Commercial Production something or other, but in reality there was more to it than that. Not only did I work with salesmen, writers, producers and talent, but the demand for guidance in commercial production extended to local advertising agencies and their staffs. I even got to do some voice work for Old Oak Rum!
The universal response to outsider specialists is that an “expert” is just a man from out of town! It was the opposite at ttt …willing, attentive, talented, ambitious…words that collectively fall short of describing how enthusiastic they were to learn…often under “special” conditions.
Our film department received its first surprise when they learned we were to operate with a negative 16mm film processor with magnetic stripe sound and no printer! Try editing commercials or news with that handicap. Didn’t even slow them down. Louis Sorzano was a professional the day he walked into Television House and in truth I learned more from him than he did from me. So we made a treaty and became close friends…in spite of the fact that he drove a Peugeot.
My first news assignment, a trip to Trinidad’s first offshore drilling rig the MV Zapata, was with film cameraman and Film Department Manager, Bob Archibald. We spent the day on board with the Auricon sound camera, shooting interviews, drilling operations and got a really close look at what was, back then, pure science-fiction technology. When we got back to Television House, we discovered that we had mostly black frames! The Auricon viewfinder does not have a through-the-lens viewfinder and most of what was shot was lost with either the lens cap in place or the lens fully closed down. Bob proved he was a pro in the way he handled the disaster. And he never looked back.
If you get the idea that one of our main functions was “Surprise Management”, you’d be about right! Jack Elvin was one the most agreeable members of the senior staff. He stood out in the crowd of radio and other out-sourced department heads as someone with whom you could discuss issues, especially management meeting procedures. One day, as a messenger, he invited me to do a walk ‘round the studio and storage areas to discuss the management concept that, given the studio lights we had in stock, we should be able to permanently light every square (read cubic) foot in the studio and save time resetting lighting for each show.
The messenger said this was not an option, so we proceeded to reinvent studio lighting. Charles Magloire and I worked at this for many hours and as always he seemed to have an instant cure for every problem. Among other innovations, he designed three-scoop light arrays on pantographs that would swing around to cover adjacent sets in seconds from any height. Charles’ minor miracles flowed like water allowing us to “follow instructions”! At least far enough to temporarily satisfy the creator of the concept.
When sanity returned, Charles’ innovations, without exception, found places in a more traditional lighting approach to speed up the lighting process and make the studio one of the most flexible to light. There isn’t a station production or studio manager anywhere who would not feel blessed by a crew of Charles Magloires!
One of the qualities of professionals in any business is their ability to take direction and adapt to rapidly changing situations. But it is real culture shock from working in familiar surroundings with a producer and an operator in radio, to a full-blown television studio with a crew of technicians, producers, writers, directors and sundry other staff, most of whom were themselves working in a new, challenging environment. But cream rises to the top!
There were a few radio pros among our on-air staff! They were expected to adapt to television without ever having seeing TV! In the movies perhaps, and the odd trip to Miami. But they had no idea how they would relate to the camera. But if Trinidadians in general can be described as theatrical or dramatic (as in playing mas at Carnival) imagine the disposition of radio personalities! They made it up as they went along!
They really didn’t require “training” as much as reminders that, unlike radio; you are being seen by your audience; pretend you’re not reading a script; don’t look at yourself in the monitor; smile! Massive attacks of “how do I look?” were immediate. Makeup appeared; “turn monitors out of the view of talent” become an order-of-the-day, at least temporarily. Rehearsals took on new importance. It was all great fun and rewarded by many successes and tested senses of humour! Remember, at this stage, we had no means of recording “live” performances, so most people didn’t have an opportunity to see themselves perform until they had done film news reports, interviews or commercials.
Raffie Knowles was a sportscaster. He was a sportscaster in radio, a sportscaster in sports arenas, and a devoted supporter of field hockey. And he would be a sportscaster extraordinaire on television.
I ran into Barry one afternoon just as Raffie was doing his daily rehearsal-walk up and down the hall adjacent to the reception area. With script in hand, he was preparing himself for his nightly sportscast. Barry said, …”Do you think you can spend some time with Raffie? He’s a natural, but seems to have a problem reading on camera. He doesn’t look into the camera very often.”
Unknown to Raffie, and after watching that evening’s sportscast highly weighted with scores and names, I asked him to fill me in on some of the major sports scores of the day. He simply rattled them off without reference to his script, which by this time had been filed away. Other sports news followed with the same result. I asked him if he thought he could use his memory of results to minimize use of the script and spend a little more time looking into the camera. He would give it a shot!
Within a week, easily half of Raffie’s items, lots of scores, stories about stars, a sports-event schedule and other results as usual, were done without use of the script. Before long, as the script-free items increased in number, Raffie built his confidence until he would walk into the reading room, put his script on the desk, and do his show. It wasn’t long before he began to get questions about working without a script from impressed staff and fans. The transition was never mentioned again by Raffie or myself. He was a classic!
One of the side effects of successful live shows was an almost instant demand for commercials presented by show-hosts, and the real star quality of our on-air “salesmen” (sorry…salespeople) was verified. The naturals took to the medium like a Canadian to the tropics. Hazel Ward was a natural for “12 and Under” a title/concept that was initially established by Barry for an unknown number of stations. The ttt version was outstanding!
Melina Scott was chosen to produce and present a cooking show, a natural advertising vehicle for many food products as well as non-food products directed at female audiences. The sales department recognized this immediately, and Charles Magloire was seconded to prepare a set! As if by magic, a kitchen appeared in a corner of the studio and “Cooking Magic” was born.
Melina soon found herself spokesperson on a lot of “live” commercials as sponsor products were integrated into her show. Blessed with Melina’s gift of the gab, “Cooking Magic” was a phenomenal success, and she quickly became one of our first “TV Stars”. Nobody was more pleased than the sales department!
The bulk of television personnel, behind-the-scenes production staff, started from scratch. Commercial copywriters who, more often than not, came to television out of radio, suddenly had to add visualization to their scripts. In the beginning, more often than not, the salesman wrote their customers’ scripts. I spent a lot of my time at ttt with potential writing, producing and directing talent who treated my efforts as if they had registered for a course in university. They knew instinctively that this would not be a cake-walk, because once an idea hatched in already fertile minds, there is still much left to do before a commercial, or a show for that matter, is ready for the studio. Very much!
Errol Harrylal was an impressive growth project. He couldn’t get enough work assignments to keep him busy. So, Errol along with Michael Clarke, John Barsotti, Barry, and anyone else who would go sit in the hot sun for an afternoon, or all day, were joined by Cameramen Louis Sorzano, George Tang and Bob Archibald as “outside broadcasts” were added to our bag of tricks! We began shooting two-camera coverage of Cricket, Football, Horse-racing, Holly Betaudier’s highly successful “Scouting for Talent”, local Motor Racing, Ol’ Mas and Carnival events in general, to mention just a few. All on film and many shot, edited and aired on the same day. It is amazing just how well virtually green producers made things happen at ttt!
A BBC file-crew showed up at our door one day to shoot coverage of a local cricket event featuring another world-class team against the West Indies side. They were obviously impressed when I quietly mentioned to their director, just how recently our crew had begun producing sports film-coverage. They offered advice and guidance to our people during this three-day shoot, adding greatly to our professionalism and pride.
Apparently one of the talents for which Barry and I were selected, was the ability to produce low-cost programs and commercials. Part of the evolution of Canadian television, was comparison with our American counterparts to the south. And, as usual, the difference was almost always budget! Simply stated…they had one and we didn’t! So we learned to produce virtually everything with nothing but paper, cardboard (usually paper glued to dissected corrugated boxes), Letra-Set which were letters on waxy paper used by artists for lettering slides and other graphics, before the days of computers. Not to mention stuff you usually squirreled away with a pack rat’s developed instinct for potential use. But above all…a fertile imagination and innovative mind.
Our “students”, arrived with only the latter! Thankfully lots of that! The process was at once frustrating and rewarding since our audience was small and growth slow. But we got the ball rolling with commercials for our direct clients, and had our work cut out getting advertising agencies on side. The agencies were aware of television’s long-term potential for their clients but were reluctant to invest heavily until our audience grew. With leadership from Neville Welch and Mervyn Telfer, our sales staff learned to field requests for assistance in some pretty outlandish commercial concepts. Trinidadian love of the dramatic again! We provided backup as they brought in advertising challenges reminiscent of the early days of North American television. Not many people have an opportunity to live through that level of growth more than once. Except maybe Barry Gordon!
Helping the agencies was basic groundwork for a new television service. On the other side of that coin, agencies had many appropriate facilities and much of the talent, already in place and willingly provided us with assistance when we needed it.
The agencies and their staff were an important part of the development and success of ttt, as advertising provides much of the finance required to run a successful television operation. CPV, HCF, McCann–Erickson and Corbin–Compton were always very professional and it showed in the advertising growth of their clients, large and small.
Overall, our success depended on audience growth and the development of talent. Our on-air product grew with our audience and ttt, like small television stations around the world, provided interesting, informative, entertaining and often provocative programming. Sadly, many of the people who helped accomplish that growth and success, found challenges and opportunities abroad, often making us feel like a training ground for New York, Miami, Toronto, and London.
Good fortune provided us with some of the best young hopefuls a creative department could hope for John Barsotti comes to mind as he shadowed me for what seemed a long time, but his instincts were a rare find as he was more than ready to take over long before I was expected to leave. The workload had doubled so John simply took on a lot of what had to be accomplished every day.
Similarly Michael Clarke just seemed to appear one day, early in our development, as I recall, and simply picked up where he might have left off the previous day. Michael remained a fixture at ttt and surprised no one when he was selected to work in New York City for the Film Division of the United Nations. Michael is one of the key contributors to this retrospective about ttt!
One of the pillars who ultimately fought the system and kept ttt on track longer than it might have done without him, Farouk Muhammad was primed and ready for action from the moment he walked into Television House. Like me, he saw in Barry Gordon a source of contact with television’s early beginnings, adding to his already established credentials that ultimately led to a long run and successful career in broadcasting. He too, is a major contributor to this retrospective.
From the day we arrived until our ultimate departure, the people who were given the task of continuing the growth of Trinidad and Tobago Television remained very much a family, with hopes and aspirations for the future of their creation. TTT was indeed unique with a personality and identity that were a reflection of its builders and of Trinidad! Being part of that process was one of the proudest undertakings of our lives, and leaving the hardest task we faced.
The team that has put together this tribute to the successes and ultimate failure of ttt, retained close emotional ties as they stood by and watched their dreams reverse-engineered into history by a bureaucracy that lacked the necessary understanding to allow its success to continue, or the will to apply it, all the while sadly unaware of what might have been.
I salute those true pioneers!Thanks for the education!