Our Interview with TV Writer Frank Beacham

One Man’s Impact on The New Media Scene: Frank Beacham
1969 Graduate of University of South Carolina

Jan Manon | tvscreen.com

New York City-based independent writer, director and producer Frank Beacham talks about his career and the direction of  Web Video, TV and more. Frank has a B.A. in Journalism, 1969, from the University of South Carolina. He did post-graduate studies at UCLA, the University of Southern California, and the American Film Institute.

What is your background? What challenges did you overcome to get to where you are?

Frank Beacham: I’ve been a writer, producer, and a cameraman since the late 1960s. As a 16mm TV news cameraman, I saw my first small, lightweight portable video camera in 1968 at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. It would soon be introduced in the United States as the Sony Portapack. Having lugged all that heavy film equipment through the streets of Chicago, I was entranced by the very idea of portable video. That little video package would later start the small format video revolution of the 1970s.

Later, I became a staff reporter for United Press International, Gannett Newspapers, Post-Newsweek Television and the Miami Herald. In 1975, I decided to leave the “reporter” business and bought a color version of the Sony Portapak.  That led me into the video production business, where I remained until 1986.

It was an exciting time since video was exploding on the scene. In 1976, I bought the first self-contained portable broadcast camera, the RCA TK-76. It was a very heavy three-tube camera that cost $55,000. Not only did it break the bank, but it would break your back to carry it. We used it with a ¾-inch U-Matic portable video recorder—also very heavy to carry.

Later, in 1982, I got delivery of one of the first Sony Betacams. It had a single tube and was serial number #3. By today’s standards, it was large and heavy. To give you a sense of perspective—in the 70s—one battery for one of our cameras weighed more than today’s small camcorders. We had to carry several of those “bricks” along with the production gear.  We travelled with about 25 cases of gear!

As horrible as that sounds now, it replaced something much worse. When I began as a studio cameraman, the first color cameras were almost the size of a Volkswagen Beetle on a pedestal. They took hours just to warm up for use. Until the 70s, all television gear was huge, heavy, and very expensive. Back then we wanted to be free of the giant television networks, who controlled all video since they were only ones would could afford the production equipment.

I got involved in video just as the broadcast networks were switching from 16mm film to videotape. During these years, through Television Matrix, my company, supplied video gear and freelance crews to all the major television networks. We eventually worked in 27 countries, much of it in Europe and Latin America.

In 1983, while shooting a segment for Entertainment Tonight, I was approached by Robin Leach about shooting a very low budget magazine show. It had to be done for $100,000 an episode, which had never before been done. He wanted to know whether it could be put together at that cost on the then new Betacam format. With the help of Sony, who built the first inter-format Betacam edit bay for my company, we moved to Los Angeles in the summer of 1984. A few months later, for better or worse, we gave birth to Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Proving that life can take some very strange twists, the project with Robin Leach led to my meeting the great director, Orson Welles. Orson was very interested in exploring video and wanted to do a show using Betacam. I worked with Orson as a producer, helping him raise money and putting together the production. Unfortunately, it never happened. The day before we were to begin shooting, Orson died at his typewriter while working on the script. After Orson’s death, I took a story he had given me to the actor-writer-director Tim Robbins. Out of that came the 1999 feature, Cradle Will Rock.  I was an executive producer on that film.

Any current projects you would like to share?

Now, I am mainly a writer living in New York. I do a lot projects, including the column in TV Technology. Mainly, I enjoy digging up and writing true stories, and currently have two feature films in the works, the Orangeburg Massacre and Charlie’s Place. I am developing the website www.orangeburgmassacre.com, which will have audio, images, and multimedia involving the cover-up of an unresolved 1968 civil rights murder over the past 40 years. It came from a story in my current book, Whitewash: A Southern Journey through Music, Mayhem and Murder

Any ideal length for videos now? Thoughts on this?

Right now, on the Internet, you’ve got mostly short videos, mainly due to lack of bandwidth. I think that is temporary. Once the bandwidth increases, we’ll be seeing longer videos.  At some point in the near future, length will cease to be an issue.

What trends or predictions in webvideo coming in the future/near future? Thoughts on making videos today?

Today, we have many different ways to tell a story. Creating a good story is what matters. It distinguishes one work from the rest. I remember being fond of Gordon Park’s photo essays in Life Magazine. Recently, I’ve seen talented people make beautiful photo montages, setting stills to audio in an application called Soundslides.  These slideshows surpasse many full motion videos made today. It is what you do with you have that counts. As more bandwidth becomes available—which it will through fiber optic technology and the like—the possibility for watching full-length movies online becomes closer to reality.

With web video, an artist can create works without a huge amount of money. Less money equates to more artistic freedom. More and more artists are opening their own personal studios.  That doesn’t mean we will have better quality video.  It just means we will have the possibility of it because entry barriers are removed.

Storytelling remains a craft, a creative process for the individual. Whether you have the latest gear or not, your ability to tell a good story is what makes your movie or multimedia project stand out.

I feel that there are incredible opportunities for talented people. The old gate keepers are falling. Anyone with a powerful story to tell can now tell it. There will be more of everything—and that includes medocrity.  The trick will be cutting through all the clutter and finding your audience.

Any additional thoughts about the future of the Internet and video?

The Internet is the next big media outlet. It’s personalized media—what you want and when you want it. Right now, the content is “half-baked,” some good, some bad, most mediocre. As bandwidth and delivery systems improve, I have no doubt that the Internet will replace the traditional television stations and networks.  Their time is nearly up.

Right now, the Internet is more democratic than existing media outlets. There is more diversity online and no one owns the Internet. However, there will be a huge fight to keep it that way. The world’s media conglomerates don’t want to see individual producers communicate directly with their audience.  They will try to price independents out of the game.  That’s a certainty!

I think the Internet is at an experimental stage regarding video sites such as YouTube. Today they can get by with amateur home videos, but that is already getting old. It’s bit like being bored by the vacation photos of a bad photographer.  Our eyes glaze over.  As the novelty of web video wears off, the age-old demand for a “good story, well told” will come into play.  Always has, always will.

So today we’ve got powerful new media technology and more people using it.  But the quality of the content is generally low. Just as having a word processor doesn’t make a writer or a camera makes a photographer, having a web video outlet does not make skilled video producers.  It only creates the opportunity for them by lowering cost barriers.  It does not create talent. That must come from each individual.

With all this technology, the creative possibilities are enormous.  But making a compelling video story is about craft, skill and—most of all—talent. We have yet to see the best, but it will come. I think the golden age of the independent filmmaker or videographer has arrived.

Visit Frank’s Web site at www.frankbeacham.com

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