WMTH Alumni

[Story pasted here by webmaster. Ken has been invited to insert his WMTH memories ahead of the published article below.]

Oscar’s Digital Effects Master

Technical Director Kenneth Shapiro Works His Magic on Hollywood’s Biggest Awards Show

by Laura Almo, photographs by William Stetz for CineMontage Magazine

… A Chicago native, Shapiro grew up in the television and live TV world. His father was a technical supervisor for WBBM, the CBS-owned-and-operated station in Chicago. In high school, he was involved in the school radio station, where he was a production manager and had his own show.

After graduating, he moved to Colorado to pursue his dream of becoming a professional skier. When he realized that wasn’t in the cards, he returned to Illinois and enrolled at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. During his first year, Shapiro started working weekends for his father’s company. It was after learning how to use a new slow-motion instant replay machine that Shapiro started traveling to work on sports events and variety television.

Shapiro worked on the national broadcasts of the World Football League and met the crew, including Gene Crowe, who went on to become one of the top technical directors in Los Angeles. “It was a tremendous group of people who were the cutting edge of freelance live television in the mid-’70s, and that gave me a lot of opportunity,” he recalls. While in California for a game, he visited another show at Pepperdine University in Malibu and struck up a conversation with the crew working in the VTE (Video Tape Enterprises) broadcast truck. When the technical director learned that Shapiro knew how to operate and maintain the new slow-motion/ instant replay disc, he asked if he wanted a job. “And it was like, BAM — I’m there,” Shapiro remembers.

“I’m done with school. I’m moving to California. And there was no turning back.”

Shapiro traveled to work on sports and specials. In 1984, he came off the road and took a studio job (as a videotape operator/editor) at Entertainment Tonight (1981-present). It was an opportunity to learn new equipment — and also a turning point in his career.

“I had a fascination to learn the new Ampex ADO Digital Effects System (the newest DVE device at the time) because ET had such high demand for constant effects,” he relates. “They wanted a lot of pizzazz. They wanted lots of effects transitions. Different DVE boxes were being utilized for live shows and it was all about what it can do, how quickly can we get it done, and what’s new/different about it?” As part of the Miss Universe team, Shapiro would create nearly 200 effects during both pre-production editing and the live show using different DVE equipment. Any chance Shapiro got, he would learn the new equipment/switchers and video effect boxes. He devised the “page turn” effect, which was used for many years on ET and was key to his effects training. When he started working on awards shows and specials (Miss Universe Pageant, Emmy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, American Music Awards, etc.), he pretty quickly showed producers/directors that he had the chops to deliver the types of effects they were envisioning.

OSCAR BOUND

In 1990, Shapiro’s technical prowess landed him an opportunity to work on the Oscars. The director was Jeff Margolis, with whom Shapiro had worked on the AMA Awards. “He saw that I could make that box perform, and when he had the opportunity to bring me on to the Oscars, he jumped at it.”

The complete article in PDF appears here. Click anywhere in the PDF image to navigate all pages using up/down arrows at bottom-left.

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