I’d like to introduce all of you, my readers, to two of my least favorite people: Crystal and her sister Michelle. They were both producers at my old public access studio in Claremont, and they both drove me crazy. There are many lessons that can be learned for these two, and as you no doubt suspect, I’m going to ram these lessons down your throats.

Michelle was the least annoying of the two sisters. She had a funky freeform program that allowed her to do whatever her spoiled little heart desired. One week it would be an interview show and she’d have on some addle brained pseudo-preacher and they’d talk about something they considered very important. For the life of me I can’t remember even one of these topics to site as an example, which only illustrates how unmemorable they were.

The next week Michelle would float into my office in a cloud of silk and announce that her guest had canceled (read: she’d let it slide till the last minute and the one person she called wouldn’t do it) and she was falling back on her old standby: meditating. Yes, your suspicions are correct: she sat on the stage, played soft music, and meditated in front of the camera for 28:30. Will the excitement never end?

Then there were her field productions, of which the best thing I can say is I didn’t have to shoot or edit them. Michelle had her own Canon Optura, a very nice little miniDV camcorder she took with her on her outings with her super rich husband and pampered little dog. These field productions fell into two categories, the most common being her vacations. The three of them would pile into their camper and tramp off to remote parts of Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico in search of ancient Indian sites. Once there her husband would give lectures about the pile of rocks they traveled three days to find. He’d then explain why it’s important to protect these rocks and show off his .32 caliber pistol he uses to protect Michelle and the dog from the bad guys they might run across in the middle of the desert. That would constitute about half of the program. It might have been considered educational if we could have heard his lectures, except for the wind blowing across the Optura’s pathetic microphone and Michelle, pretending to be a camera operator, panning off of him to her dog walking around the rocks. The rest of the program was panorama shots of the desert and extra shots of the dog doing something Michelle considered cute.

The other field production was her husband showing off how rich and manly he is, for you see, like Paul Newman this guy has his own Formula-1 racecar, complete with trailer, mobile shop, mechanic, pit boss, and crew. These episodes were him once again lecturing about the workings of his car and his adventures on the track. And once again Michelle would pan off of him to get shots of the dog, losing his audio in the process. Then there would be a lot of race footage with pans to the dog thrown in for good measure.

As I said, at least I didn’t have to actually shoot or edit these episodes. Final copy was always supplied to me on a new SVHS tape, but it was always recorded in VHS-EP mode. And now I’d like to move on to her sister, Crystal, who’s very name sends shivers down my spine and threatens to loose my bowels.

Crystal was the first producer I met upon taking the job at CAPT, and she almost made me regret it. Have you ever heard that if you took a Barbie doll and blew he up to life size she’d be a monster? Over six feet tall, huge head, bug eyes, wiry hair, nasty complexion… If Crystal had been missing a couple of ribs she could have passed. And the worst part was she believed herself to be as beautiful, talented, and likable as her mother obviously told her she was. I really hated that woman: every moment was excruciating. Her day job was substitute teaching, and over her long carrier she’d been a substitute for just about every student in Claremont, and this included every one of my interns. They told me horror stories about her covering math, science, foreign language, and classes from every other curriculum, and disregarding the teacher’s instructions only to show an episode of her program to these poor, hapless, captive students. There were stories of her bursting into tears when the one mean kid in class would give her an honest assessment of her program. I liked those stories.

Her program is called “People to Know”, which is a deceptive title. Tuning in an unsuspecting viewer would expect to be introduced to interesting people with interesting things to say. In truth, she did manage to get a few very interesting guests, but they never got a word in edgewise, for you see the only person you need to know on “People to Know” is Crystal herself.

The only purpose of the program is to prove to the audience that Crystal knows interesting people, and thus you should want to know Crystal - even want to be Crystal. I’d get calls into my office all the time from subscribers who just discovered her program, wanting to know who she is and what institution she’d escaped from.

A lot of the locals watched her show for laughs, finding her haphazard interview style funny. I’d have to admit it had it’s moments, but all too often I felt the pain of having to sit in the studio directing her program, or I’d empathize with the guest who would sometimes visibly show the anguish.

The movie “My Girl” was shot in Claremont’s “historic village area”, and Dan Aykroyd found himself cornered by Crystal and a camera. This was before I joined the organization - I would have loved to meet Dan and spare him the torment I saw on that video tape. She did her own camerawork since it’s impossible for her to get anyone to shoot with her. You could see it in his eyes every time a new stüpid question was asked. His eyes would grow wide and the pain would surface on his face. Occasionally Crystal would ask an open ended question that allowed Dan some latitude in his answer, but Crystal usually cut him off, disliking the guest taking the spotlight, even if she was behind the camera. He was such a good sport, plowing through the questions, trying to end the interview. Once the questions started most of Crystal’s guests took this same attitude: “let’s just get this over with”.

Her opening monologues take forever to shoot, even when she has queue cards. Eleven takes is not unusual, just to get 5 minutes into the program. Yes, her openings are 5 minutes because she has to prove to the entire audience how much research she’s done on her guest, and what a clever writer she is to think up such a long monologue. By the time she’s done the guest can go home because she’s already told the viewer everything the guest came on the show to say, but what does that matter? They’re only tuning in to see Crystal anyway, right?

She’s even got a second program where she reads classic children’s stories. Correction: she butchers classic children’s stories. When I talked with kids in Claremont, and they found out what I did, they immediately ask me who’s that scary lady reading “Hansel and Gretel”? For both of these shows I had a difficult time getting anyone to show up and operate the cameras. Usually I had to work it alone. Even when she told all the interns she would bring in pizza for the next shoot no one showed up. It was easier to get crew for the show hosted by suspected Nazis - and they never brought food for the crew and the students got no credit for working their show.

She is a mewing, simpering, pathetic individual with dreams of making it to network news. I tried, at times, under various guises, to educate her and help her improve her show, but to no avail. She is totally convinced she is perfect, and no one can give her advice or criticism. Her pride and vanity blind her completely.

So what can we learn from these two?

Have a clue.

Have a format for your program or a script for your show before you start shooting.

Know when it’s over. When you run out of ideas to fit your current format either call it quits or make up a new show format and start over.

Stay focused on your show. If you’re shooting a guy with something to say don’t pan off of him to a dog sitting on a rock. You can get b-roll for that.

Don’t listen to your mother for constructive criticism. She may be like my mother, who is brutally honest and focused on all the wrong things. She may be like Crystal’s mom, who pampered her daughters and raised them to believe they can do no wrong. She may even be very even handed and a good critic, but don’t listen to her! I’m not sure why, but it feels wrong.

Pride and vanity are your worst enemies. They will blind you to the facts and deafen you to the cries of mercy from those you torment.

Don’t believe your own propaganda. Jim Jones told people he was the Second Coming and created a cult. When he started to believe himself he created a Tragedy.

When your crew falls asleep, little children are scared of you, and teenagers mock your show to your face it’s a good indication you’re doing something wrong. Unless you’re a punk rocker, then you want to scare babies and relish the mockery of teenagers, but you still don’t want your crew to doze off.

When you pound half an inch of makeup on your face and you still look like death warmed over, rethink your cosmetics policy. And stage pancake is not for day-to-day use - it clogs your pores and causes zits and then you have to use more pancake to cover them up. Endless cycle.

And the final lesson: If you can’t get a crew, even when you pay/feed/bribe them, even when there’s a large stable of eager inters who fill the studio on other shoots that don’t pay/feed/bribe, and the studio manager tries to get you out as soon as possible, then your show sucks and you’re a terror to work with.

For your own sanity, please, learn these lessons well and avoid people like Crystal and Michelle.