Richard Moore, an influential public broadcasting pioneer in northern California and Minnesota, died March 25 at his home in The Redwoods retirement community in Mill Valley. 

        Moore was 95.  

        Although widely known as a veteran public broadcaster and respected filmmaker, Moore was also a poet. He died two days before publication of his final book of poetry, Particulars of Place.

        Moore's long and eclectic career in public broadcasting began in 1949 when he co-founded KPFA-FM in Berkeley, with Eleanor McKinney and fellow pacifist Lewis Hill. KPFA was the first station in what became the non-commercial Pacifica Radio network, which also includes WBAI in New York City.   

In front of the camera Richard Moore, left, conducting an interview

 In 1954, Moore was hired as one of the original employees of KQED in San Francisco, beginning as membership director and backup announcer to Bill Triest, another former KPFA staff announcer. Broadcasting on Channel 9, KQED was one of the very first non-commercial educational television stations in the country.

      Moore joined KQED's founding fathers -- General Manager Jim Day and Program and Production Director Jonathan Rice to present a varying array of mostly live, locally produced programs ranging from The Home Handyman and Japanese Brush Painting to Profile Bay Area and The Scotch Gardener.   

      At KQED, Moore went on to become an accomplished television producer, writer, and director. He eventually founded its documentary film unit, which was responsible for creating over 100 films funded and distributed by PBS's predecessor, National Educational Television. Films included were Take This Hammer, an exploration of racism which followed author-activist James Baldwin on a visit to San Francisco in the early 1960s; Love You Madly, a profile of Duke Ellington, soon followed by Ellington's Concert of Sacred Music, recorded at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral; and 

The Messenger from Violet Drive, a portrait of the African-American religious leader Elijah Muhammad. 

      One of the first films Moore made at KQED was Photography: The Incisive Art with Ansel Adams. Phil Greene had been a student of Adams at the San Francisco Art Institute and had recently joined the KQED film unit. Greene eventually teamed with Moore and editor-photographer Irving Saraf as the key members of Moore's prolific and creative team. 

     Greene, now 87, looks back fondly when he and Moore teamed up.

     "We got along famously right from the start, about 1960. He was an unusual guy, so sharp and insightful, so aware, yet quiet and unassuming with hugely meaningful values. At heart he was a poet, and a delightful human being."

     Moore also produced an outdoor ballet in Ghirardelli Square, Assemblage. Also, during the 1960s, Moore teamed with San Francisco Chronicle jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason to produce the first jazz performance series in the history of American television. Thirty-one half-hour performance-interview programs were taped in the old KQED studios at 4th and Bryant streets and shown nationally on NET, the predecessor to PBS, under the series title, Jazz Casual.

     Featured artists included John Coltrane. Moore directed this legendary performance, the only United States appearance ever made by Coltrane.

     In the late 1960s, Moore succeeded Jim Day to become KQED's second president when Day went to New York to put WNET on the air. That surprised colleagues like Catherine Allen, then a secretary in the KQED film unit and now a senior executive producer at Twin Cities Public TV.  To her, Moore "had always seemed like the consummate artist and intellectual. But, he was also someone with organizational and leadership skills. And more important, he could move easily from one world to the other."

    It was during Moore's KQED leadership that the station premiered a nightly local news program that eventually changed the face of how local news was presented, including newscasts on commercial television. Spawned by a San Francisco newspaper strike, the KQED Newsroom aired on weeknights and was anchored by Mel Wax, a former Chronicle City Hall reporter. 

Friends and colleagues James Scalem, right, with Richard Moore

    The broadcast featured a group of reporters, hired mostly from the Bay Area local print media, who told their stories to Wax and to the viewers as they sat around a horseshoe-shaped table. Newsroom became the most-watched local series in KQED history. 

    Moore left KQED in 1972 and formed an independent production company, PTV Inc., with Lawrence Grossman, who became a PBS president. Moore focused on literary themes with his 1975 series, The Writer in America, profiling authors like Toni Morrison and Eudora Welty.

    In 1981, Moore became head of national programming at KTCA, a public television station in Minneapolis. In 1983, he became its third general manager. The next year, he began a campaign to fund new headquarters and studios in downtown St. Paul. Those facilities, which still house TPT, "were Dick's lasting legacy," says Jim Pagliarini, station president. Moore retired from TPT in 1990 at the age of 70, soon after the building was completed.

    At the time, Moore reflected on public TV and radio, program production, and his tenure at all three stations. 

    "There's a big difference between breadth of vision and running a public television station," he said. "KPFA, and to a lesser extent KQED, were simply a means of exercising one's interest in many things, the arts and public affairs particularly. That's a very different attitude from most managers who don't think in programming terms, or are not qualified, frankly, not having the educational or intellectual background, to say nothing of the openness of mind or curiosity. Translating broad visions into programming was very much a presence at KPFA and KQED in their early days."

    Moore retired to northern California, where he continued to write and publish poetry.  His work appeared in literary journals, several privately published chapbooks, and in his books, Writing in the Silences, published in 2010, and Particulars of Place, published this year. 

     Born in 1920 in Ohio, Moore's mother died of tuberculosis in the early 1930s, and he was left in foster care in Los Angeles while his father looked for work during the Depression. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, in 1939, but was expelled for his anti-war activities. He later completed his bachelors degree there.

    Moore was a member, with Kenneth Rexroth, of the original circle of avant-garde poets that came to be known as the San Francisco Renaissance. Moore was also a ballet dancer for several years.

    He was preceded in death by his wives, Eleanor and Ruth. He is survived by daughter Flinn Moore Rauck and her husband. John Rauck; son David Moore and wife Kathryn Shanley; daughter Lisa Moore Nardini and husband Paulo Nardini; son Michael Moore and wife Janet Tumpich; son Anthony Moore and fiancée Mary Thorsen; and son Aran Moore and wife Denise Lamott. Moore is also survived by 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.  

     James Scalem is a former KQED producer and program manager and a former PBS vice president of fundraising programming. Scalem was inducted into the Silver Circle of the San Francisco/Northern California Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1989. He was inducted into the Chapter's Gold Circle in 2014. 

        Roman was 90 years old when he died April 29 in Belmont. 

Save The Date! 

By Steve Shlisky

Chapter Education Chairperson

       The Emmy® name is as golden as its shimmering shade. Our NATAS awards are an important symbol of personal excellence in local video media.  

       High school and college students can share in this glimmer. 

       Every spring our local chapter sponsors college scholarships and recognizes high school students and outstanding high school programs.

       Judging is currently underway for this year's High School Awards. The 2015 program reveals a rise in entries from previous years. Videos come from over a dozen schools in northern California and Hawaii. The thirteen program and craft categories include news programs and individual news stories to animation, music videos and long-form fiction. Volunteer judges from the Board of Governors of the San Francisco/Northern California Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences score entries in a similar fashion to our local Emmy® Award. Each judge gives a one to ten rating in each of three areas, Content, Creativity and Execution.

       Look for an announcement next month identifying the top scoring "Awards of Excellence" and high achieving "Awards of Merit" on our website: http://emmysf.tv/foundation.html.

       As this year's high school awards finish running their course, it will be time to judge then distribute college students with scholarships. There is $16,000 available this year for talented young broadcasters.

       The Chapter sponsors seven awards: five $2000 scholarships and two $3000 scholarships. Each award is named for former NATAS members who have honored our chapter.

       Four are memorial scholarships: The Peter J. Marino Jr. $2,000 award, recognizing production; The Sheldon "Shelly" Fay Award, recognizing videography; The Kenneth Sloat Langly Award, recognizing writing; and the "Miss Nancy" Besst Award, recognizing an outstanding graduate student.

       One of the named scholarships remains active in our Chapter: The Rigo Chacon Reporting Scholarship.

       The Big Picture's George Lang, will generously underwrite two $3,000 scholarships, that would be awarded to one outstanding graduate and one outstanding undergraduate student.

       These scholarships memorializes two former Lang co-workers and KGO-TV journalists: Jerry Jensen, who co-anchored KGO-TV newscasts from 1969 until his death in 1984; and Steve Davis, an anchor and reporter at the station for more than 20 years throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

       Scholarship applicants must be actively engaged in a collegiate-level curriculum in one or more areas of the television industry. They must attend a college in northern California (Visalia to the Oregon border), Hawaii, or Reno.

       All entrants must submit a sample of their work, their transcripts, an essay, and a letter of recommendation from their professor or dean. All entries are screened by a panel of judges culled from the NATAS Education Committee. The committee meets to decide the recipient in each category. The committee can award or not award a scholarship for each category.

      The deadline for submissions is Saturday, June 19, so if you know of any qualified college students, please let them know about these awards or send them this link: http://emmysf.tv/graduate.html

      The scholarships will be presented during this year's Gold & Silver Circle Induction Luncheon event on Oct. 24. 

       For more information, visit http://emmysf.tv/silver-circle.html

      The Chapter awards these scholarships to encourage individuals who demonstrate leadership and talent in advancing the artistic, cultural, educational and technical qualities of television.

By Steve Shlisky

Chapter Education Chairperson

        We all understand the struggle: transition from an amateur, financially strapped college student to professional, wage earner in your desired field. For the young and energetic Taylor Mosley that professional pursuit is close to reality.

        Mosley, The Steve Davis Memorial Overall Undergraduate Scholarship recipient in 2012, recently landed an entry level position with NATAS Governor George Lang's production house The Big Picture.

Taylor Mosley Going for her dreams in a big way

    Mosley explained that: "After I won my award, it was still hard to know how to jump start my career."  Lang first witnessed Mosley's work as a member of the Education Committee and a judge deciding the 2012 NATAS scholarship recipients. Lang says she "Is across the board extremely disciplined in both editorial editing, working on shooting, and audio." This position for Mosley fits right in with her current trajectory: "(George) has become a great mentor to me and his dedicated staff have begun to teach me the ropes of video production."

        At the Big Picture, Mosley works in all aspects of professional production: "Getting gear ready for a shoot, running sound or a second camera, sending call sheets, conducting research, making the office neat for incoming clients, answering phones, stocking office supplies." She also works as an assistant editor: "I organize files, back up media projects, prepare editing projects for the lead editor, and sometimes make edits myself." For Lang, Mosley's addition fits nicely into production family: "Her demeanor is amazing she brings an energy and light to the company that affects everyone."

       Mosley did not arrive at The Big Picture tabula rasa. She received high marks as a student attending Laney College's Media Communication Department (Laney is one of four schools in the Peralta Community College District in the East Bay). Laney Professor Marla Leech, has worked closely with Mosley both as an instructor and as an advisor: "Each class she took with me, she excelled in all arenas: organizational, production, team work, and follow through. She was President of the Media Club for two years and did an outstanding job overseeing the Laney Reel Media Festival." 

      I have witnessed Mosley's learning curve as well. A top student in both my Sound Design and Beginning Video Production classes, I witnessed firsthand how she embraced the learning of new software, natural production capabilities, and willingness to both crew and direct crew on school projects. Once she understood a production technique or an editing tool, she would help other classmates get up to speed. Mosley says her Laney experience helped teach her: "The basics of production, editing, and how I naturally function in a group setting. My experiences at Laney have left me with some great friends, supportive community, and helped me discover what I was good at and eventually, wanted to do."

      Her Laney experience and The Steve Davis Scholarship drove Mosley's purchase of production equipment: "Before I owned my camera, it was much harder to understand aperture, ISO, shutter speed, white balance plus all the different types of lens but, once I owned a DSLR, I was really able to practice composing shots and learn from my mistakes. "

      Armed with her new equipment she worked as a freelance videographer on low budget productions: "They were great experiences while I was still understanding and learning the basics of production but, they didn't help make ends meet by themselves."

      Employment at The Big Picture has helped Moseley's career more than economically. She has been able to work toward her professional dream: "I have always loved television, it is very nostalgic for me, and I believe now is a great time to be producing scripted television, especially as an African-American woman. I like the idea of producing short films because they are a great stepping stone to possibly producing feature films."

     For those who teach media, Mosley's transition is the kind of school-to-career arc they wish for every student. Mosley says "I believe that my time at The Big Picture and having George Lang as a boss and mentor will raise my abilities and help me grow toward my goals." Lang summarizes the ultimate outcome "If students like Taylor are our industry's future we are in great shape!!"

        Goodbye diaries, hello code readers. Nielsen is making some big changes that start in the Fresno and Reno markets this November.

        Fresno and Reno are two of 14 medium-sized markets in the country that will receive ratings information from code reader boxes that are being installed on television sets right now. The code reader boxes are said to be about the size of a Roku set top box.  

        But, instead of getting the ratings info to stations overnight, like in bigger markets, these code readers will send out information every 30 days.

        These 14 markets are the first of the 154 being converted: Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, Calif. (123), Yakima-Pasco-Richland-Kennewick, Wash. (122), Traverse City-Cadillac, Mich. (118), Reno, Nev. (107), Charleston, S.C. (95), Madison, Wis. (82), Paducah, Ky.-Cape Girardeau, Mo. (81), Tucson (Sierra Vista), Ariz. (71), Flint-Saginaw-Bay City, Mich. (70), Mobile, Ala.-Pensacola (Fort Walton), Fla. (59), Albany-Schenectady-Troy, N.Y. (58), Fresno-Visalia, Calif. (54), Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York, Pa. (45),  Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, Mich. (DMA 40). 

By John Odell

Chapter Secretary

        Last month, I told you about a special feature of Studio "A" at 2655 Van Ness Avenue -- the garage door that allowed them to roll cars right on to the set for live advertisements during the KPIX newscast. There was another special feature of that studio --

"The Bohrman Blast" High-capacity blower to cool a perspiring Stan Bohrman (not seen) on set. Sitting in is Chris Strand.

a device called "The Bohrman Blast."

        KPIX's weekday anchor in the late 1970s, Stan Bohrman, was fond of good food and beverages, enjoyed between the 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts. 

        But, he also suffered from what I'll call the "Albert Brooks Disease" from the 1987 movie, Broadcast News -- excessive perspiration.  

       In an era before full-spectrum fluorescents and other modern lighting technology, the incandescent studio spots emitted a ton of heat, and air conditioning was a major necessity. 

       Bohrman, however, needed something more specific, especially at eleven. 

       So, the engineers rigged up a high capacity blower aimed directly at his face, and it quickly earned the moniker "The Bohrman Blast." (After Bohrman was replaced by Dave McElhatton, he went to Philadelphia, where, in 1980, he was involved in a then-famous videotaped verbal confrontation with former Philadelphia police commissioner and Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo. Both men are long gone, but the video lives on.) Click here to Check it out. It's a classic.

      One of the really special aspects of starting a career in television in this era was that you got to work with folks who had been there from the beginning. One of those men was Howard Yuen, who had served as an Army electronics tech in the Second World War. (He told me he had once scared some soldiers in the Presidio, who thought he was Japanese.) Yuen was on hand when KPIX turned its transmitter on in 1948, and had some great stories to tell as he taught me the intricacies of Master Control.

KPIX Master Control, 1978 John Pardini at the controls

     KPIX was first housed in an attic suite of the Mark Hopkins Hotel, above the "Tonga Room." The audio editing equipment was perched on a board straddling the bath tub. They often had trouble with the take-up on the early film projectors, and would have to deal with a large tangled ball of film lying on the floor. 

     Solution? 

     Making sure the end was firmly affixed to the take-up reel, open a window and throw the ball out! 

     The San Francisco winds would straighten it, and you could reel it in with ease.

     Yuen was the daytime Master Control Operator, and John Pardini ran it in the evenings. 

      Walt Stewart (not the courtroom artist) taught me how to fine-tune an Ampex VR-2000. I owe a lot to those guys, and to Rod Macaluloy, who taught me electronics maintenance. 

      What I gleaned from them got me off the

Preparing the weather forecast Christine Craft in studio

graveyard shift and on to a schedule where worked videotape, ran Master Control, and did maintenance.

      Studio sets were pretty primitive in those days.                   Christine Craft had to arrange the fronts and temperatures on her weather board using magnetized pieces.

    This was before the advent of the Chyron and other electronic graphics generators. 

     Credits were done with superimposed slides, and here's mine from the early days of the Evening Magazine show.

     Speaking of Evening Magazine, I will, in a future installment, tell you about the 1976 premiere of that ground-breaking program.

       When was the last time a gang member came up to you and told you to watch out and pretended to shoot you?! That happened to John Soderman during his time as main 10 o'clock news anchor at KMPH FOX 26. 

       Even a Central Valley police chief was worried for the anchorman's safety because of the way he and the news team reported crime stories in the mid-1990s.

       "It was the most gratifying job in my career," Soderman says today, looking back. "We delivered the news the way people talked about it."

       Here are a few examples from a newscast during that time:

       "Tonight, gunfire in a drug deal gone bad. But, wait. When does a drug deal go good?"

Back in the day at KMPH John Soderman with co-anchor Janet Stoll, who is now the public information officer for the Clovis Police Department.

       "Tonight 5 punks are in jail, involved in yesterday's gang shooting."

       Soderman recently told me over the phone that this phrasing came about during an editorial meeting. The news staff was talking about the stories to cover that night amidst a really bad crime problem in Fresno. With the support of the station's then-news director, Roger Gadley, they decided to call out gang members.

    "We would also highlight stories of people standing up to the criminals -- even lead with those stories to laud people's bravery," Soderman proudly reminisces. He fondly remembers consultants questioning the use of 'punks,' and 'thugs.' Then, years after huge Ten o'clock News ratings, he got calls from consultants asking for advice.

      These days, Soderman works at KUSI in San Diego. He has quite the impressive resume. He left his home in New Jersey after high school to join the Marines. He played minor league baseball with the Angels and the A's.

      "I always wanted to get into news," he says. So, while he worked on getting a TV job, he became a police officer in Tustin, in Orange County. His first break in news came in Redding. That was followed by Reno, Beaumont, Oxnard, Santa Barbara, Fresno, Denver, Los Angeles, and currently, San Diego.  

      Soderman worked at KMPH FOX 26 from 1990 to 1996, but still, to this day, people will come up to him on the street in San Diego remembering those days in Fresno.  

      "It was the best time in my career."

By Joyce Mitchell

Chapter Governor, Sacramento

       Art gallery to art gallery, Sacramento KVIE Public Television Photographer Martin Christian is  igniting a passion that grabbed his soul about six years ago. Christian has been working at KVIE for fifteen years as Director of Photography. While in college before branching out into television, Christian  studied still photography. Recently, he's been returning to those roots doing a most soulful and creative one-man still photography art show called Doors of Sacramento.

      "Something happened six or seven years ago and I rediscovered my real love for still photography," Christian said. "I found that passion again and that's where the doors came in during that rebirth. I had been doing still photography for myself. Then, I found I really wanted to start sharing things with people. I decided it was time to put myself out there with the doors."

      In the fast-changing landscape of the downtown area, the endeavor captures and documents historic architecture. The artistic and color saturated exhibit in some cases raises haunting questions of the past, often leaving people wondering about who and why they crossed the threshold of these Sacramento doors.

      The work has been overwhelmingly embraced by the community. "The reaction has been wonderful," Christian said. "I've sold a handful of photographs at one show. I just moved to yet another show and sold three in the first week. And I've been asked for yet another show.  I think I've found something that people respond to."

      Christian started his TV career in Maryland while studying at Salisbury University. "I saw an ad for a Friday night football shooter and because I knew how to use a still camera pretty well I thought I could use a television camera," Christian said. He was given the chance and taught himself how to use a three-quarter-inch camera. The stars aligned and he soon became weekend sports photographer at ABC station WMDT.

      "Salisbury University was perfectly situated for people in college because it was located near a TV station in a very small market," Christian said. "It was an ideal place to go to start your television career. I didn't know that at the time. I just sort of fell into it."

      From Salisbury, Christian made a couple of jaunts to TV stations in Reno but  was especially drawn to ABC's KXLY in Spokane, Washington for its excellence in photography. While working there, he experienced fireworks in learning and love. "I literally went there to learn how to take my story telling to the next level and ended up falling in love with one of my producers."

      Wedding bells rang for the couple ten years ago. Christian and his wife, Karen, relocated to Sacramento. He took a job as a KVIE photojournalist and she was hired as special projects producer at NBC Station KCRA. Today, she is an Emmy-award winning freelance producer. They still once-in-a-while work on projects together but more importantly, they support one another's excitement for adventure, art, and life.

      "We continue to this day to make adventure a big part of our life," Christian said. "Just last month, we went to San Francisco and took the trolley car at midnight across the city. We've made a relationship of being behind the scenes and continuing on with the adventure of life." That includes hiking in the Sierra foothills with their trusted and loyal companion Ralph. Christian outside of his work in photography is an endurance athlete, an ultra runner and cyclist.

      "Karen gave me my final refinement of my door exhibit," Christian said. Initially, Christian had three-hundred doors on file. Then came the input from Karen. In one photograph, she said that she knew what was going on in the picture, that it was a loading dock. "She challenged me to refine my focus on doors where there's really a mystery left," Christian said. "So my marriage to a producer helped me take from three-hundred doors down to forty. She really pushed me to look for doors where peple would have questions. My show wouldn't be what it is without her input."

      At KVIE, Christian photographs long-format programs including documentaries and a popular ongoing feature, Rob on the Road. During his time in Sacramento, Christian has been honored with three Emmy Awards and Ten nominations. "I love my job because it keeps me integrated in the community," Christian said. "I'm really part of our city and region. That's what I really love about my job. It's a great way to stay stimulated and alive."

       In February, AVT Productions brought Frank Zamacona back to direct the capture and image mag for Cisco at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco. Zamacona then directed the live multi-camera capture of the Purple Silk Music Education Foundation's Youth Orchestra concert at Oakland's Laney College. This youth orchestra, based in Oakland instills the appreciation of music from all cultures through instruction in traditional Chinese instruments.

       Zamacona was part of the production team that streamed the Game of Thrones Red Carpet Event at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco.  The event was streamed live on Facebook for HBO. Zamacona then joined the Facebook 8 production team at Fort Mason in San Francisco for the streamed Developer's Studio Live show. Facebook 8 is Facebook's yearly worldwide developers conference.

       For the third year, Zamacona directed the Goldman Awards live in San Francisco on April 20. This year, the 26th Annual Environmental Prize Ceremony will have former KPIX 5 news anchor, Dana King, hosting the worldwide event. Providing the entertainment will be the Afro-Cuban inspired, Alayo Dance Company. 

       Six recipients from around the world will receive awards for their environmental achievements. The event will be streamed live on http://www.goldmanprize.org/ceremony/

       Show Boat, a San Francisco opera production that Zamacona multi-camera directed in 2012, will be seen in theaters beginning with Los Angeles on May 25 and New York City on June 12. Other cities include Boston, Chicago, Washington D.C., Miami, Atlanta, St. Louis, Philadelphia, San Jose, and Honolulu, with more locations and dates soon to be announced.