What? And Give Up Showbiz?

Written by Doug – the northlondonhippy

1775 Broadway

MTV’s corporate headquarters, and production offices were originally at 1775 Broadway, a skyscraper at the corner of West 57th Street, right near the south end of Central Park in midtown Manhattan. The building is still there, but I’m not sure if MTV are in the same place. This was 37 years ago.  

It was an imposing office building, art deco I think. My contact, Harvey G, was MTV’s original Production Manager. He met me in the lobby, and brought me up to his office. I can’t remember what floor it was on, but his entire department was there.

There was MTV branding everywhere, but I quickly learned that the studios, where they recorded the Video Jockey (VJ) segments weren’t in this building.  The actual studios were in a separate outside facility called Unitel, a few blocks west, if I recall correctly. I didn’t go there that often, probably just a handful of times. Everything other than the VJ studio segments, was dealt with from 1775 B’way, on location, or in a hired studio, or soundstage. 

I hope I’m getting this detail right. I remember being really impressed by free, restaurant style soda dispensing machines scattered around the office. They stocked Coca Cola, Diet Coke,  Fanta, Sprite, and soda water. There was an ice dispenser too, and a stack of branded plastic cups. Someone told me the machines were part of a sponsorship deal MTV had with Coke at the time. I thought it was a really cool corporate perk. 

Harvey showed me around, and even introduced me to the Vice President of the department, a nice woman named Mona, who was also very welcoming. I can’t remember her surname. They were very keen to have an intern work with them.

Harvey and I then went into his office for a chat. He told me a bit about the department. He said quite a bit of what they did was dull paperwork, logistics, and operations. He told me that not all production was creative, or exciting. I thought I understood what he was telling me, but as I would later learn, I didn’t have a clue. 

We talked a bit about my studies, and my vague career goals. I really liked Harvey, and he seemed to like me too. We agreed a start date, and hours and he said he was happy to fill out whatever paperwork New York University required. 

He then went on to tell me an old joke about the circus, which I laughed at politely, without grasping its significance. Much later on, it would make a lot more sense. We shook hands, and I headed off.

NYU & Hoboken

My condo in Hoboken had cable TV, and I had proper access to MTV there for the first time. I had watched it before at other people’s places, but up until now, I never had it myself. 

I hadn’t lived in Hoboken that long. It was the summer of 1985, I was between semesters, and I was completely into watching music videos, and smoking weed. A boy needs a hobby.

When MTV aired the Live Aid concert that summer, I watched the entire broadcast from beginning to end. Bob Geldof and Midge Ure organised it to raise money for the famine that at the time was devastating Ethiopia. 

The concert was a massive, history making success. They had live stages in London, and Philadelphia, and many of the biggest artists in the world performed. 

Phil Collins played both stages, how cool is that? He played a set on the stage in London, and then hopped on a flight to the states, to play the other stage in Philly. 

Live Aid was the biggest event of the year, perhaps even the decade. MTV was the biggest creative force in the world at this point, it was a cultural behemoth.

The concert was amazing, and I spent the entire day dancing around like an idiot in my living room on my own, with a joint in my mouth. It was more fun than you might think. The concert is still worth watching today. Queen’s set alone was legendary. 

I had the summer off from NYU, having just completed my first semester there. I had transferred from Monmouth College (now University) in Long Branch, NJ. For that first semester at NYU, I commuted from the Jersey shore by train for my classes, so moving to Hoboken made a massive improvement to my life. 

I knew I wanted to work in film, or TV, but I had no idea how to do it. I thought studying it at Uni was a good plan, and NYU had a famous programme at their Tisch School of the Arts. 

I met loads of cool people there. One of my friends was roommates with Rick Rubin. His career as a music producer was already taking off while he was at NYU. Rick pops up again in passing a little later, I met him once, or twice at NYU, but I can’t say we knew each other at all. 

People at NYU talked about internships as a route into the industry. Again, I was clueless, but the basic concept is you work for free, and earn college credit. So in reality, because you pay for college  credit, you didn’t just work for free, you paid for the privilege too. Note my intentional, self aware word choice. Please.

My dream, like just about every other student in my programme, was to be a film director. I just didn’t know how to get from A to B, but an internship of some sort, seemed like a good start. 

While I was at Monmouth College, I also had an after school, slash summer job in an office, so I knew how to work, and behave in a professional situation. What I needed was industry experience, and contacts.

When I started my internship with MTV, I had already completed two full semesters at NYU, which included their basic, mandatory production courses, Sight and Sound 1 & 2. 

My first semester the previous January, was the television side of the course. My class was I think, the last last to use their black and white TV studio, circa I Love Lucy. The kit was really old. They were moving into a new facility the following September, with brand new training studios in full living colour. 

On the studio TV course, we played with various genres, and formats, from basic news production, to soap operas, but what seemed to limit us the most was the age, and poor state of the equipment. 

My second semester that started in September 1986, was when I got to do the film side of the Sight and Sound course. We shot on black and white 16mm film, without sync sound. In other words, no significant dialogue on the soundtrack. It was an intentional limitation, meant to focus your storytelling on the visuals, the sound effects, and music. 

I’d been playing around with cameras for years, since High School. I had no interest in football, but I filmed the games anyway, just to have access to a wind-up Bolex 16mm camera. And my high school had a fancy colour Sony 3/4” broadcast camera, that no one was allowed to touch. I had to fight to get access to it, with the principal, and the school board, and I won. 

I preferred film over video back then. Mainly for the aesthetics, but there were certainly some pretensions about it too. Video always felt more disposable, film felt more like art. 

At NYU, I was the cameraman on lots of student flicks, since I was comfortable with cameras, lenses, and light meters, and I seemed to pick up on the basics of 3-point lighting rapidly too. Other students were always happy for the help, and many were slightly technophobic. I benefitted from the extra experience, and getting to be creative. The more time I spent with a film camera in my hands, the better. 

We didn’t record sound on location, so that was one less thing to worry about, but we did use lights. Anyone who could afford it, augmented the meagre NYU kit we were allocated by hiring additional equipment. 

Or if you were really extravagant, you might hire a 16mm film editing suite, because the few hours you were allowed in the NYU suite were nowhere near enough to complete your masterpiece. I did that, along with my production partner, for our final main project. I have a copy of it somewhere on VHS, I should get it digitised, and stick it on YouTube for a laugh. 

Before I get to my first day as an intern at MTV, I want to explain to you how I fell into this big opportunity. 

Don’t worry, it will be a brief, but necessary detour. Part of how I got this cool chance to be an intern at MTV, was because I was a bit of a computer nerd.

I had home computers, and dial-up modems in the early 1980s. One of the private online systems I used in a period I call “the pre-internet”, was called PeopleLink. It was one of the smaller online services, and it was strictly for networking, and meeting people. It doesn’t seem to exist in quite the same way anymore. I looked. 

PeopleLink used to organise in-person gatherings, and I attended one in NYC in Autumn 1985. Some alcohol may have been consumed, and unquestionably, I would have already been high when I arrived.

I hadn’t lived in the area for long. I didn’t know anyone in Hoboken where I had recently moved. The in-person meet-up was the chance to encounter people in actual real life that you may have been chatting to online, either in the public rooms, or privately one-to-one. 

The event was held in a moderately priced restaurant bar in midtown Manhattan, where a large private room had been reserved. It was surprisingly well attended. 

I only went to that one event, but as a result of it, I met four different women that I remained in touch with afterward. I had a couple of dates, and a snog with the first, a one night stand with the second, a dirty weekend with the third, and a six month relationship with the fourth. The fourth one was fifteen years older than me, I was her midlife crisis I think. Good times. 

Oh, not all four at once, but one after another, and pretty much in that order. I was easy, but not cheap. 

The reason I am telling you all this is that there was one other person I met at this event, who actually did change my life. And it had nothing to do with romance. 

The man’s screen name was “MTV”, and it turned out he really worked there. He was MTV’s original Production Manager. His name was Harvey G, and he gave me my start working in the media. 

Every other job I that I’ve had that followed after MTV, is because of having MTV on my CV. That’s why I’m only partially name checking him here now. He kickstarted my long career but I haven’t been in touch with him in over 35 years. I owe him a lot. I tried to find him online while writing this, but had no luck. I want to respect his privacy. Some people don’t want to be found. 

I got chatting to Harvey at the PeopleLink meet-up, and mentioned I was studying film and TV production at NYU. I asked if they needed any interns at the channel. 

Harvey shocked me and said yes, and gave me his business card. He told me to phone him if I was serious.

As I was getting ready to register for my third semester at NYU, in January 1986, I phoned Harvey, and he invited me for that first visit to MTV’s headquarters in Manhattan. It’s at that meeting, he made the formal offer. 

For my third semester, my main production class was on documentary production, and it was taught by an award winning film maker named Jim Brown, who was also my faculty adviser for that semester. I liked him, he was a good guy. 

I went to see Jim to discuss my potential MTV internship. I wanted to drop a couple of tedious core courses, some humanities bullshit, and instead earn the same number of credits by being an intern. He approved the plan, and dealt with the boring admin. 

Hey, look at me, I’m an MTV intern now!

My first day at MTV

I arrived early, as I always do. I was born prematurely, and I’ve been early for everything else, ever since. It was a Monday morning, bright and early, in January 1986. 

I should tell you what I looked like back then. I was only 23, I was bearded, and I had very long, somewhat curly hair, that went halfway down my back. I mostly kept it in a pony tail during the day, but would usually literally let it down in the evening, after a few drinks, or when I got home. It was an impressive head of hair, that I hadn’t started losing yet. I kept it long, on and off for most of my life, and for the very last time at age 55, before I cropped it all off for good.

Back then, I mostly dressed in blue, or black Levi 501 jeans, tee-shirts, and either denim, or leather jackets. Or if I wanted to look a bit smarter, I’d switch the leather jacket for a tweed blazer. And I always wore boots, cowboy, or biker, because I’m a bit short, and a decent heel never hurt. It was a look. 

I went for the blazer style on my first day. Harvey met me in reception, arranged for a building ID, and brought me up to the open plan office.

It was very corporate, I wasn’t the only long haired guy, but there weren’t many of us. Mostly it was smart suits, or dress shirt and tie combos, and respectable male haircuts. But I was young, a college student, and not getting paid, so I could get away with it easier. No one seemed to mind. 

I was introduced to everyone that day, so many people. I learned the department was formally known as Production Management, and Operations. I wish I could remember more names, and not just their faces. All of the people, but one, were really good to me throughout my time there. 

I was given a desk, with a typewriter, and telephone on it, and I was sat amongst a small group of production coordinators, and production assistants. Mainly, they doled out my work. Or to be more precise, they dumped the really tedious work they didn’t wish to do, on me. I didn’t mind. I was just happy to be there. 

There was a lot of paperwork, as they were constantly sorting out invoices for studios, production staff, and crews, that they had arranged for previous productions. Every desk was stacked with paper, mine included. 

And it really was my desk, I wasn’t sharing it with anyone. I could even leave stuff in the drawers! Trust me, as someone who would go on to work on nothing but “hot desks’ for the following few decades after this, having your very own desk was a BFD. 

My first task involved photocopying. So did my second. And third. You get the idea. There was a lot of photocopying. I became the king of clearing paper jams. I could also often be found in the departmental conference room, collating, and compiling stacks of documents on the huge table. And stapling, so much stapling. Welcome to the big time!

Mona, the Vice President, would occasionally ask me to go out and get her a regular coffee. That’s all there was back then. Coffee regular, coffee dark, coffee light, or coffee black, with or without sugar, all served in a Styrofoam cup, with a thin plastic lid. I wouldn’t have known what a cappuccino, or latte was in those days. I’d grab a receipt, and she would reimburse me on delivery. I probably did this once, or twice every day I worked there. 

On my first day, they told me I could take a lunch break. I had no idea what to do with myself, so I did what came naturally. I went into Central Park, and grabbed a hot dog with onion sauce, and mustard from a cart. 

Then I found a quiet spot by myself in Central Park, and smoked a joint. While I was enjoying it, I was startled by a tap on my shoulder. It was the guy who sat next to me back in the office, I think his name was Steve, and he would go on to buy my car from me later that year.

He asked me, incredulously, “Are you seriously sitting out here, smoking a joint, on your very first day?”

“Yep”, I said, as I shrugged my shoulders. What else could I say? He caught me red-handed. And it was decent stuff too. 

“Can I have some?” he asked.

Of course he could. Like I was going to say no! 

We passed the joint back and forth until it was finished, and then floated back to the office. And I made my first MTV friend that day. 

Routine plus fun stuff

The work itself was extremely dull, I fell into a routine. But there were so many cool people passing through the offices, it more than made up for it. Producers and directors from the studios, producers from different productions, and producers from the promo department too. I met so many interesting, and talented people. 

One producer, who gave me my first tour of the studios, and who I will call AA, always seemed to make a point of stopping to chat with me whenever she passed through the office. She seemed to be extremely well liked by everyone. 

One of the other producers I remember meeting was a guy named Joe Davola. I recall being introduced to him, and chatting with him. He was quite a colourful guy. They even named a minor character on the sitcom Seinfeld after him. He was fairly well revered at MTV back then, and a real creative force at the channel. 

I was meant to do around 2 or 3 days a week (officially 2.5 days a week), but with flexibility around my studies. I loved being there, but even more so when they started arranging for me to be more involved in the production side of things. 

The first on-location assignment they sent me on was as a production assistant for an ENG shoot for MTV News. They had an interview arranged with Tommy Boyce, one half of Boyce and Hart, the song writing duo behind many of The Monkees’ biggest hits.

The old Monkees TV series had been in syndication since I was a child, so I’d probably seen every episode ten times by then. And I grew up with their music too. I thought it was so cool to meet him. 

It was a three-man crew, which was the norm back then for ENG. ENG stands for electronic news gathering. There was the camera guy, the sound guy, and an assistant for them both, There was also a producer, and an assistant producer. That’s five people, plus me, the production assistant, so really six. And this was just for a simple interview with the interviewer off-screen, for what would probably end up being a 90 second item for the Music News. 

Kit was a lot bigger, and heavier back then, the recording deck was separate from the camera, and the lights weren’t LEDs. These days for news, there’s just the camera-person who also does the sound, and often they are the journalist/reporter/producer as well. Times change. 

The shoot was in a fancy hotel room somewhere in midtown, Mr. Boyce regaled us with lots of show business memories. I got to watch a real TV crew set up, and work. I got to listen to a producer interview him too. You never forget your first time.

I got sent out on all sorts of location shoots. I think they pitied me a bit, since all I did in the office was filing, photocopying, and coffee fetching. Oh, and I coded invoices too. Wow!

My real production experience came from my little field trips. I got to see small productions, large productions, and some in-between  productions. I went on shoots for promos, and for the news segments as often as I could. 

I asked loads of questions, and no one seemed to mind. I chatted with directors, and DPs, producers, costumers, and make-up people too. I tried to work out what everyone else was doing, and understand it as best I could.

I didn’t do much, I fetched things, helped carry things, I had no creative input, I was an agreeable, eager extra pair of hands. I went on so many of these shoots, that I struggle to recall them all. 

At the tail end of one studio job, while we were clearing up our stuff, Mona, the departmental VP dropped in to visit. 

Vice Presidents, or departmental managers in big organisations tend to be figureheads. They set policy, make big decisions, but don’t tend to get involved with details, so I was surprised to see her there. She chatted with the producers, and the director, but it was pretty obvious they didn’t know each other well, or maybe at all. And then she spotted me.

I was sweeping up with a broom. I can’t remember what this particular shoot was for, a promo of some sort, probably. I went on lots of those, because they often shot on film, which was my main interest. 

Mona spotted me, and came over for a chat. We spoke for maybe 10 minutes, I can’t remember the specifics, but we joked around a bit. She asked me how my internship was going, and I gushed about it. The incongruity of having a broom in my hands at the time was not lost on me then, just as it is not lost on me now. 

Filming promo material, adverts, channel idents and bumpers, and the like seemed to be a lot of what MTV produced, outside of the core channel content. In many ways, this was the one main bonus of being in this department, I got to see so many different types of productions, and on different scales. 

I loved being around MTV. I started skipping some of my classes, so I could hang around the office even more for those chances to do something fun. I still went to my production classes, the classes I enjoyed. And I continued to help other students with their filming, mainly one of my fellow students who was shooting a long form documentary. I was his cameraman, and shot many days for him. That was on 3/4” video, not film, NYU had reasonably decent ENG kit at this point.  

One last memory, which really illustrates the difficulty of breaking into the media industry in the mid 1980s, and especially into proper film. On one of these studio shoots, I got chatting to the director of photography, a freelance film cameraman with his own production company named Bill Dill. 

Film crews were bigger than ENG crews, and Bill’s crew was no different. He had a 1st and 2nd camera assistant, and a sound recordist, plus several more junior assistants. It was a big crew. 

As I was super-duper interested in film, and cameras, I got chatting to Bill. I think he had an Arriflex, or it might have been an Aaton, I don’t recall which. We had Arriflex cameras at NYU for my Sight and Sound course.

A film crew like Bill Dill’s would have mainly filmed high-end, but small projects, like commercials, or PSAs, or in this case, a promo for MTV. There was always work around, if you could find it. 

Bill was happy to answer all my questions, and seemed to appreciate my enthusiasm. I asked him if he ever thought about having an intern. He laughed, and said he already had three, and gestured towards the junior assistants. And he went on to say he had a long waiting list of more people eager to work with him for free. It made me realise how lucky I was to have such a good internship with MTV. 

MTV Studios

Eventually, they arranged for me to spend a day at the MTV studios, where they produced the main VJ segments, which was their bread and butter in the early days. 

I was really excited, I was a fan after all. That’s why I wanted to be an intern there. I couldn’t wait to see the studios.  

I was greeted by one of the producers, AA, who I mentioned earlier. She was expecting me. It was my first time ever, visiting an actual professional studio.

Like everyone at MTV, the people at the studio that I met that day were really nice to me, especially the producer showing me around. 

The producer, AA, explained that they pre-taped all of the insert segments between videos, none of it was live. It was the same for the music news segments, everything was prerecorded. I kind of figured that, but it was still cool to see the factory floor. 

The first area I was shown was the control room (or gallery if you speak British TV), which was the technical centre. There were half a dozen people in there. Someone was doing the graphics, someone else was mixing the audio, and yet another person was running the studio videotape decks. I’m pretty sure the director, and technical director were still separate roles back then, but in other studios I’ve been around since, the roles are combined. 

The studio director that day was Beth McCarthy (Miller), and she spent some time talking to me. If the name is familiar, she’s been a TV director for decades. Last I saw her name, she was credited as the director of Saturday Night Live. She directed episodes of 30 Rock as well.

On all the monitors was the main set, where the VJs would record the links played between videos. When the team took a break, my producer guide showed me around inside it. What surprised me was how small it seemed, compared to how big it looked at home on TV. I guess that’s part of the magic of television. 

I was introduced to two of the original MTV VJs that day, Martha Quinn, and Alan Hunter, but I can’t say I spoke to them very long. 

Besides the studio, and the gallery, and what I imagine were some dressing rooms, was a small production office with a few people in it. And that’s where I encountered to me by far the most interesting person I met that day. 

And who might that be? It was the studio intern, Ted Demme. 

Wait, what? The studio had its own intern? 

That’s right, the studio, and main production department had their own intern. That’s part of the reason my department wanted one too. Free help, is free help!

That studio, and production department internship was the internship I thought I was signing up for when I arranged mine. Ted worked directly with the producers, and directors in the studio all the time. I won’t lie, I was jealous.

Ted was a nice guy, I ended up hanging out with him that day. And I hung out with him whenever I went back to the studio. I wouldn’t say we were best friends, but we became fairly well acquainted with each other around this time.

Now that the studio people knew there was another intern in Production Management, and Operations, they would occasionally ask for me to be sent over to help when they were short handed, so I returned more than once.

After his internship, Ted went on to properly work for MTV, and to direct promos for them, before going on to direct episodic television, and eventually feature films. You might be familiar with his most well-known work, Blow  starring Johnny Depp, and Penelope Cruz. 

Ted’s own story doesn’t have a particularly happy ending, but he does make one more appearance, when we are briefly reunited at a large event later on. 

No sour grapes here, even though I learned my situation wasn’t ideal. I still got to go on location shoots, studio shoots for promos, and more news shoots too. Some shot on video, some shot on film, there was a wide variety of production types, and styles and I got to be around it all. 

In some ways, my internship gave me a more balanced, and rounded journey through MTV. It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, but it turned out to be a whole lot more.

I learned about the business of production, hiring crew, hiring camera people, renting studios, scouting locations, applying for filming permits, dealing with freelancers in general, and most importantly, paying people’s invoices on time. I also learned about the real nuts and bolts of television operations, studios, and satellites too. 

I learned so much, just by watching other people. I was a knowledge sponge, and I soaked it all in. It wasn’t quite as creative as I had hoped, but it was still practical experience. It gave me a strong foundation in production, and broadcasting. Eventually, I managed to build a career on top of all of it. 

I ended up spending so much time hanging out at MTV, that I neglected some of my studies. If anyone at MTV noticed I was putting in more hours than agreed, they kept their mouths shut. I was still doing all the scut work, still making photocopies, still fetching regular coffees for the big boss too. My presence was very welcome, even if they had no idea how badly I was screwing up at NYU. 

And boy oh boy, was I screwing up.

What? And give up show business?

I went to see my faculty adviser at NYU, Jim Brown, I didn’t neglect his class. I made sure to attend, and I was still working on my classmate’s documentary for the same class. 

I was honest, I told him what had happened, how I was getting more from my time spent around MTV, than I was from my classes. I asked if I could drop two more classes, and instead get even more course credit for the extra hours I’d put in on my internship?

He looked at me, perplexed. He certainly understood why I was drawn into spending more time at MTV, but he explained it was impossible to retroactively change my semester coursework now, and get credit for effectively a nearly full time internship. 

I really screwed up. I ended up with a few incomplete grades in a couple of classes, but decent grades in the rest. Ooops, to the power of oh shit. 

I kept all this to myself. At this point it was too late to do anything about any of it. I finished my internship on the agreed date, and Harvey said they would hire me on a freelance basis whenever they could. And I got excellent feedback on my intern assessment form, so there was that. At least. 

On my last official day as an intern, there was a cake. There were gifts too, an official MTV baseball cap, and an MTV tee-shirt. I wore that tee-shirt out, but I think I might still have the hat somewhere. 

They thanked me warmly for my hard work, and that my friends, was that. I didn’t know if they would really ever call me again, or not. Spoiler alert: There are three more parts to this tale.  

As I walked out the doors of 1775 Broadway, for what I thought could have been maybe, the last time ever, I thought back to my very first visit to their offices, and my first meeting with Harvey, before I started my internship. 

I recalled the old joke I mentioned that Harvey told me about the circus. I didn’t really understand why he told it to me at the time, but by the end of my stint as an intern, I totally got it. 

Here’s that joke in full, I hope I do it justice: 

A father took his son to the circus. They saw all the big acts, there were the clowns, the jugglers, the high wire, the lion tamer, the trapeze artists, and the final act of the night, dancing elephants. 

After the show ended, as they were exiting the tent, the father and son noticed a hunched over, older guy with bucket and shovel, who came out into the middle of the now empty circus ring.

They watched as the old man began to scoop up the elephant dung left behind after the performance. 

The man’s young son was repulsed, and questioned his father as to why that poor guy had to shovel the elephant poo.

So the father called out to the man and asked, “why are you doing such a horrible, disgusting job? Why don’t you quit?”

And the older gentleman turned around, smiled, and said, “What? And give up show business?”

In Part Two of MTV Redux – Name Dropping, I tell you about the biggest event I worked on with MTV.

(All words © Copyright 2023 – Doug – the northlondonhippy. All rights reserved)