[QuadList] New user introduction

[Thomas, Stephen D]

Greetings,

Allow me to introduce myself:  My name is Steve Thomas.  I am currently the Senior Editor and a Technical Director at WWJ-TV (CBS) and WKBD-TV (CW50) in Detroit, Michigan.  I administer three Avid Media Composer Adrenaline editing systems tied to a Unity LANshareEX media storage system.  I also TD for studio productions and in Master Control.

My career in television began in 1973 working as a high school co-op student in our school district's black-and-white studio, recording and playing back educational programs on Ampex 1" helical-scan VTRs before there was a Type A, B or C.  I learned how to run camera, audio, playback 16mm film and video tape, floor manage and switch on a mechanical Dynair switcher.  We distributed programs to all the schools from our studio via analog coaxial cable.

I attended college at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, graduating in 1978 with a B.A. in Communication Arts and lots of experience in our college TV studio.  We started recording programs on 3/4" U-Matic and 1" IVC VTRs, but around 1975, our engineer Daniel Brown took a few of us "Audio-Visual" students to a military surplus store in Lansing, Michigan.  We found two used Ampex VR-1000B's and lots of spare parts and hauled them back to our studio.

About a year later, after cannibalizing one machine to get the other working, replacing lots of tubes, wiring and transformers, installing an air compressor and getting some spare heads from Merlin Engineering, we could actually record, playback and even edit in monochrome on 2" tape.  (Yes, one machine had Intersync and EDITEC.)  I still have the "Preliminary Instruction Manual" for the 1000B on the shelf at home.

After I graduated in 1978, I worked at GTN (a production house) first as an equipment rental manager and later as an apprentice editor and then a full online editor.  We used CMX340 editors and Ampex AVR-2Bs by the time I left there in 1984.  I still remember outputting an Edit Decision List on paper punch tape before we had floppy disks.

I spent about three years at WXYZ-TV (ABC) in Detroit, mostly editing on Convergence editors and 3/4" and 1" Type C VTRs for an afternoon magazine-style show.  I also worked for two years at another local production house on the ISC (later GVG) Super Edit system with 1" and Betacam VTRs editing industrial training videos and commercials before coming back to broadcasting at WKBD in 1989.  I was the first "production" editor at the station, meaning I worked on commercials, station promos, PSAs, long-form programs, special projects and pre-production for our local news, but didn't have to cut any daily news stories.

I've always been interested in television history and have done quite a bit of research into the production of the old network musical specials like "Cinderella" for CBS and "Peter Pan" and "An Evening with Fred Astaire" for NBC.  Reading the messages on this list for the past few months has been very interesting.  If I can be of service to anyone, please let me know.


Steve Thomas

SENIOR EDITOR and TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
phone:  248.351.7905
e-mail:  sdthomas at cbs.com<mailto:sdthomas at cbs.com>


"This user thinks that too many people have no idea how to use words that they should have learned in grade two."

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