Video Production story from Author Ben Bryant’s “Waiting For Elizabeth”

Four months before the saddest day of my life when Elizabeth moved out of our apartment in 1996 an unexpectedly wonderful

video production

job presented itself. This is an excerpt from chapter 33.

“My old friend Ellie Ellsworth, with whom I’d done Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris way back in ’71 and from whom I had heard not a word for several years, called one day and asked what I was doing in August. I said something like, ‘It’s March. I don’t know what I’m doing in April.’ She invited me to breakfast to discuss a project.

“We met at a diner on Broadway in the 90s a few days later and Ellie told me about her current passion, something called The Cabaret Symposium. ‘Cab Symp’ as it was referred to by familiars, was a nine day training program for Cabaret performers of which Ellie was founder and artistic director. Held at the famous and pastoral O’Neill Theatre CenterLawn in Connecticut each August, the program attracted singers – called Cabaret Fellows – from all over the country as well as the occasional Brit. Each year thirty to thirty-six Fellows were selected from auditions held in NYC, LA, Minneapolis, Chicago and Boston. There were about a dozen so called ‘Master Teachers’. That list comprised such luminaries as singers Margaret Whiting and Julie Wilson, songwriters Babbie Green and Carol Hall as well as five of the best piano player/coach/accompanist/arrangers in the business including Tex Arnold, Shelley Markham and Paul Trueblood. … For each of the first five days of the event there were approximately ten hours of activities that Ellie wanted videotaped including classes and performances held in a variety of venues across the campus. The last four days were lighter but still would require several hours of shooting.

“Dollar signs began to dance before my eyes. At a C-Note per shooting hour this gig appeared to be a serious moneymaker. At my full rate, seven or eight Gees for the nine days and editing hadn’t even come up yet. I was thinking that for such a large job I’d need to give a discount but even at half-price it would still be a nice paycheck.

“Then Ellie dropped the first shoe. She asked me if I would do the job for the same fee as all the master teachers. Knowing who they were (Tex Arnold charged $75 an hour for just accompanying singers, never mind coaching.) I figured I was still okay in the dollars department then she dropped the other shoe. ‘They each get $1,500 for the entire nine days.’

“This affront took me aback. (I’ve waited seventy-eight years to write that line.)

“My excitement at what had appeared to be a financial boon began to abate. I told Ellie I needed to think about it. She needed an answer asap because if I declined she needed to find someone else. I told her I’d let her know in a week or less and we parted.

“For me one of the best features of riding a bike is surprisingly shared with taking a shower. You can think or sing but other than those two ancillary activities showering and biking are singular undertakings. Some of my best ideas and solutions to problems have been born while on my bike or in the shower. What popped into my head around Columbus Circle was one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite authors. In his fourth novel, Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut wrote, ‘Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.’ I treasure that line and often substitute work or job or project for travel and this practice has proven useful to me for many years.

“When I got to my office I called Ellie and told her that with a few conditions I’d take the gig. She agreed to cover the cost of tape (which was a lot) and pay a fee for equipment rental so I was booked for nine days in August.”

Not only did this gig turn out to be a money maker in a number of unexpected ways beyond nine days of video production, it provided a goodly number of interesting, sometimes hilarious, stories all of which you will read when you click here and get Waiting for Elizabeth.

 

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