Donald Jacob’s road towards becoming the seventeenth recipient of the DGA’s Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award began when he was a small boy and his father worked in a radio station in New Orleans that transitioned to television. “I was always interested in broadcasting and production,” Jacob recalls. “I guess it was in my genes. My earliest memories were thinking ‘I really want to get into this,’ but the station my dad worked at had a no nepotism clause so I couldn’t work there. Then the opportunity came for a summer job at the ABC affiliate in New Orleans, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
Jacob thoroughly immersed himself in the various production-oriented jobs at the station doing everything he could from set construction and lighting, to becoming a property master and doing makeup. At the same time he was making his first steps towards building a personal career, Jacob made a concerted effort at giving something back in honor of what he was receiving. He became active in his union and was elected the shop steward of the technical employees at the station. “It was IBEW, local 1139 and getting involved seemed like the right thing to do. A union is not an entity by itself. It takes a lot of people to make them run and a lot of work and effort on the parts of everybody. The membership is not just there to receive benefits from the union, they have to work to make sure it runs correctly.”
After working his way up the ladder in New Orleans, by 1976 Jacob decided he had gone as far as he could go in the production end in that market. “I knew I had to move to either New York or Los Angeles if I wanted to further my career, so I moved to Los Angeles and got a job at KTTV in the lighting department before I was able to get my DGA card. I knew I wanted to get into the DGA and become a Stage Manager or Associate Director. It took about a year and half to make enough contacts for somebody to give me a chance as a Second Stage Manager on a sitcom called Baby I’m Back.”
As soon as Jacob became a member of the DGA, he became active in the Guild just as he had previously done in Louisiana. “I enjoyed going to council meetings. You meet a great bunch of people and made some very good friends and I enjoyed the ability to make a difference.”
Jacob was appointed to the Safety Committee, and also served as a member of the AD/SM/PA Disciplinary Committee, and the AD/SM/PA Mentor Committee where he assisted countless new and existing members and participated in various committee-sponsored panels. But some of the work he’s proudest of was the time he spent working to gain protections and benefits for his fellow members by participating in the past seven Network Pre-Negotiations Committees, participating in the FLTTA pre-negotiations meetings, and being appointed as the West Coast Representative for the recent contract Network Negotiating Committee in New York, which just concluded a successful agreement a few months ago. “I was honored to go and work with the guys from the East Coast who are wonderful group of people. Spending those six weeks with them in negotiations allowed me to make quite a few new friends and I gained a lot of respect for our counterparts on the East Coast and the work that they do.”
Jacob is also charged with looking ahead to the future of the industry as the Co-chair of the AD/SM/PA New Technology Committee. “We’re trying to keep the Council up to date on technological advances and how they affect the television production environment. There have been sweeping changes over the years. A single person can now handle edit rooms that used to be staffed by two to four positions. The computer revolution has really made production more efficient, and it’s only the beginning. Once it gets into the mechanism of how the content is delivered, it’s going to change our industry radically and it’s important that our membership keep up with it.”
Although Jacob spent a lot of time working for his fellow DGA members, he did not have to do so at the cost of his own success in the workplace. For a while he freelanced as a Stage Manager for three major networks and various production companies, working on sitcoms, dramatic shows, variety shows, game shows, soap operas, news, sports and commercial productions. “I worked for whomever would take my calls,” he laughs. “It was the heyday of video sitcoms and a lot of sports broadcasts were done on the West Coast too. But I got to work with some of the legends, like Carol Burnett, Carroll O’Connor, Norman Lear, all kinds of awards shows and sports events like the Superbowl.”
As a freelancer, Jacob even did some work with 2006 Lifetime Achievement in Sports recipient Joe Aceti. But in 1979, when the CBS television network hired Jacob on staff as a Stage Manager he found a home and he later went on to become the as 1st SM on the most successful soap opera on television, The Young and The Restless. He’s proud of the fact that the show was also recognized by the industry, winning six Emmy Awards and earning the DGA Award in 1996. “I had the opportunity to work with a real genius, William J. Bell, the creator, head writer and executive producer of the series. He was a real inspiration to the cast and crew and his example inspired us all to do our very best. That’s why the show has been number one for almost two decades.”
Perhaps that is one of the reasons it seems so appropriate that ten years later, after standing on the DGA Awards stage as part of that award-winning team, he has the chance to be recognized for his personal contributions to his Guild and the industry. It has been made especially poignant in light of what that his childhood home of New Orleans suffered this year as a result of Hurricane Katrina. “I have a brother who’s a Stedi-Cam operator and DP involved in production in New Orleans, and it affected his work tremendously. When I found out what the DGA was doing for our members, and that other unions and guilds were going to follow suit I thought it was terrific. That the DGA really looks out for its own shows the quality and the character of this organization and the people that run it.”
Modest about his personal successes, Jacob likes to credit his family with providing the sort of environment at home that allowed him to go out and deliver his best at work. “Without the support and understanding of my wife Joanna, my son Don, and my daughter Kristina this would not have been possible.”
Still active in his career and his DGA council, Jacob was asked how he feels about receiving the honor and replied, “I was absolutely blown away when they told me about it at the National Board Meeting. It was one of the few times in my life that I was speechless. I can still hardly believe it. I’m just fortunate to have had such a great career, but other people get lifetime achievement awards, not me. The most amazing part is that my peers gave it to me. I guess I did something good. I just did what I thought came naturally to help other people and give back a little bit of what you’ve gotten.”
