Convention 2000: With the CBS DGA Directing Team

By Sean Mulcahy

Director Eric Shapiro (center) with AD Ken Einhorn (left) and Dave Hallmark (right) in the CBS booth at the convention. (Photo: Richard J. Cartwright)

If you want to see how much network television convention coverage has changed over the years, you need look no further than this year's Republican and Democratic National Conventions. No longer do we see correspondents like John Chancellor being dragged by police from the floor as in years past. Gone is gavel-to-gavel coverage and in with the fully scripted programs that some are calling infomercials and yet as much as things change, they remain the same.

For any directing team covering a convention you're still looking at a live remote event and the unpredictability that follows. And with any remote you are always concerned with a variety of problems, some you can predict and guard against and others where you are flying by the seat of your pants. Such is the nature of the "live" beast.

This past August, I sat down with the directing team from CBS' convention coverage (director Eric Shapiro, associate director Ken Einhorn and stage manager Scott Berger) during the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.

Like any live event, live convention coverage requires thorough planning and preparation including a backup plan that adapts to changing newsworthy events. Shapiro, who heads CBS' Special Events coverage explained, "We start a year in advance. I make at least six visits. There are meetings with all the networks and meetings with the political parties. We start surveying and looking through a series of camera angles. We see how the podium is going to be laid out. We talk to the parties and there is a negotiation regarding camera positions. The party usually comes to us and tells us 'Here are all the places you can put cameras. Here are all the places you can put anchor booths. Now you guys decide for yourselves.' Put the numbers in a hat, draw them out. Draw No. 1, you get to pick first. We even draw individually for each of those camera positions."

Those camera positions included 15 cameras inside the Staples Center. Outside there was a camera on top of the roof of the Hotel Figueroa, an RF mini-cam in the crowd they shared with KCBS-TV, plus two helicopters in the air full time. For security reasons there was a five-mile restricted air space so both helicopters were equipped with camera lenses to overcome that restriction. A large platform was built in the demonstration area to accommodate several cameras and there were several drops (lines to provide audio, video and RFB) around town to cover breaking news.

Shapiro, who has been covering conventions since 1972 in Miami, added, "Over the last 20 years, the technology has changed. We now have wireless microphones, wireless tally lights, there are even wireless teleprompters. The production can be slicker; you can put cameras in places we couldn't before. On the other hand, because these events are not as newsworthy as they once were, the viewership is down; the networks are not committing as many resources to the conventions as they once did. I think you're really seeing the end of convention coverage as we've known it in the past. That is the competitive pressure from network to network to make their coverage the biggest and best and most expensive. I think we now are seeing the networks saying, 'Who is watching these conventions?' and 'Why don't we find a way to cover those speakers we really care about?'"

This year the nominees from both parties were decided long before the respective conventions. With multiple TV networks broadcasting the convention, the challenge for a director is to make his coverage different from the competitors. "I always try to come up with a unique perspective that I don't think our competitors will have," Shapiro explained. "This year we had a robotically operated camera on top of the Tennessee party standard that can swing around 360 degrees to see the whole convention floor. No one else had that. We negotiated with the Tennessee delegation about it because we knew they would be down front because they are Gore's home state.

"Then we had a little pencil-size camera mounted in the scenery behind the speaker's podium in the 'O' of Democratic National Convention. It gave a panoramic view of the floor. The resolution is not as good but it is something a little special, it gives a little added value. All the networks try and do things like this."

According to Shapiro, past conventions were more seat-of-the-pants events and now they are more scripted. "The parties know it is in their best interest to feed the networks enough information about their production so that we make them look better," Shapiro said. "Consequently, we get advanced copies of all their speeches, so we can cover them better, we can find the cut away of the elderly when they are talking about Social Security. It enables us to make our coverage more effective.

"By the same token, it puts a little more pressure on a director because when you have advance copies of the script, and you don't find those very shots you really need to find, then you're not doing your job well. There is a great deal of competition in my mind, anyway, to do the very best job of supporting the words in that script with the right pictures. One thing I think that will never change at these multi-camera switched events that are on for many hours is that you don't have control of the event. You can have control over the anchor booth and the reporters and you have control over the cameras but you're not really controlling the event. All you can do is try to anticipate where all of it is going to happen."

Since electing a president is the most important decision we make every four years, it follows that the respective National Committees are doing their best to spin their candidate in the best possible light. That spin includes feeding the networks information they believe will best get their candidate elected. Does that present a conflict for the director as a journalist trying to just present the facts? "On the night that the presidential candidate makes their speech, the party has traditionally produced a ten-minute film," Shapiro said. (This year's piece was directed by DGA member Spike Jonze.) "We try to backtime our show so that when they are putting on their ten-minute documentary, we're airing our own ten-minute pre-produced piece by a CBS News correspondent which we hope is fair and valid. You don't want to avoid the speech itself, but we try to avoid the aspects of the convention that are truly propaganda."

From left: Tipper Gore, SM Scott Berger and CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather at the 2000 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. (Photo: Monty Brinton/CBS News)

Another key member of the DGA team on CBS' coverage of the Democratic Convention is the associate director. Ken Einhorn, who has worked on The CBS Evening News With Dan Rather since 1996, discussed his role as associate director on the convention. "I am responsible for backtiming the show." Backtiming involves seeing that the running time of the show is adhered to, that all commercials, promos, station breaks, etc. happen at the correct time. "In addition to my backtiming duties, I was responsible (along with Patricia McBreary, the other AD in Los Angeles) for any tape elements that might air either from the production compound in Los Angeles or the CBS Broadcast Center in New York. There are five ADs and two PAs in New York responsible for chyron and graphics. With all the technology available to the producing staff, I was still called upon to give time information using my trusty Minerva [stopwatch], pen and paper."

In the anchor studio with Dan Rather was stage manager Scott Berger, a veteran of conventions in Philadelphia, San Diego and Chicago. Scott serves on the DGA National Board as Assistant Secretary-Treasurer and is the former Chair of the AD/SM/PA Council in New York.

"My responsibilities during the convention mimic what I would do in New York [as stage manager of The CBS Evening News With Dan Rather], but here it is more amplified," Berger said.

"It is a remote for us. Each day is quite different from the last. I begin with checking in with Eric (the director) to find out what is planned for the day, although we rarely stick to a plan. You never know who might all of a sudden become available for an interview. Because of that we have to be ready to record at anytime and I have to keep the crew on a hot standby for the entire day." (During the day I spent with the DGA team, I observed Ted and Caroline Kennedy record an impromptu interview with Dan Rather that would air later that evening.)

Berger, who has stage managed sports, soap operas, talk, variety, and live news events such as inaugurations, state-of-the-union addresses and space shuttle launches described his day from the time he arrives.

"After going through a massive security check just to get into the building, the first thing I do is to make sure the crew has restored the studio from the Morning News. Their needs are somewhat different from convention coverage. Because the conventions are a 'special event,' local news anchors want an opportunity to have recorded or live conversations with Dan Rather for their broadcasts. We do this in the early afternoon. It's like a revolving door, with one local anchor interviewing Dan, finishing, and then starting with the next one within a minute or so, to accommodate the limited and expensive amount of satellite time. Because of this pace, we may or may not get lunch and hair and makeup needs to be coordinated on the set. Around three o'clock Eastern time we start to set up for our daily Newsbreak which is a live one-minute news inset. We may have to sneak in an interview or two with politicians, candidates or their wives. And once all that is finished, it is time to start my 'normal' day and begin pre-production for the Evening News. Given that the convention is a live, ever-changing event, we update the Evening News for each time zone across the country. Early in the week, we provide live inserts for our prime-time magazine shows, 48 Hours and 60 Minutes II. Wednesday and Thursday nights we provide live convention coverage. Throughout the day there are a million and one things to try to keep up on - security, script, show rundowns and even making sure the anchorman has eaten. Because of this I have to make a point of getting to know various officials running the event such as people at the FBI, Staples Center personnel and especially the food services folks."

Scott's involvement with the DGA (negotiations, Internet Committee, Council Member, Board Member) takes him away from New York and The CBS Evening News With Dan Rather from time to time. How does Dan Rather feel about Scott's dedication to the DGA?

"Dan is very supportive of all the unions and he is always interested in how involved I am with the union to ask how it is going," Berger explained. "When I was elected to the officer position at the DGA, he was really happy for me. He's been a great friend to me."

It is obvious from watching this DGA team how much they rely on each other to do the best job possible. "Producers will call me and ask when they can get in the studio for a two-way with Dan and I've got to try to coordinate that with Eric and Kenny and they in turn will call New York if things are being recorded there. Everybody is trying to overlap the other to make the team work. We'll pick up a little piece of information by eavesdropping in on a producer and then we'll tell each other heads up for this or that. It is amazing," said Berger.

"There is a tremendous amount of trust that Eric puts in his staff. As the director of The CBS Evening News With Dan Rather and Special Events, it's important that he has people that can work closely as a team. Without that trust and 'family' quality, the job would be much more difficult. There is a tremendous expectation placed on the DGA staff by Eric to accommodate each broadcast's needs," added Einhorn.

Director Shapiro said, "I've known Ken Einhorn for a long time and when we had an opening for an AD on the Evening News, he was tempted by the offer. Scott Berger I've known 15 or so years, as long as he's been in the business. We've worked together for a long time. They're all very good at what they do. It's a great team."

Sean Mulcahy is a DGA director and AD member, past chair of the AD/SM/PA Council, an Associate Member of the National Board and author of The Sitcom Bible.

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