The Perfect Vision
September/October 1999
Janet=s Index
by GREG SANDOW
And now a footnote to our interview last issue
with Phillip Byrd and Janet Shapiro, producers of classical music television broadcasts. Janet talked about a terrific show
she’d just finished, called Can’t Stop Singing, a documentary about the 60th annual convention and contest of the Society for the
Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in
“Although the show is a documentary,
it contains a lot of straight performance as well. It exists in two forms: an 81- minute version for pledge time on PBS stations,
which airs nationwide on PBS beginning August 11, and also in a slightly longer version that will air at an unspecified time after
August without pledge breaks.... There will be a home video version. My role in the production was Producer and Editor, and
I’ve poured my heard and soul into this show. I want people to watch it!!!”
Which they should – it’s engaging from beginning
to end and the quartets look and sound pretty fabulous.
Janet’s stats, for her 87-minute show:
$ Number of field crews: 4, each with its own producer, shooter, audio tech and PA.
$ Number of field tapes: 86 30-minute tapes
$ Amount of time
needed to log and transcribe said field tapes: 2 months
$ Number
of pages of logs and transcriptions: 591
$ Number of cameras
at the Georgia Dome: 5
$ Number of contest tapes: 67 90-minute
tapes
$ Amount of time to edit finished program: 2 ˝ months
$ Number of video edits in finished program: 662
$ Number of
audio edits in finished program: 361
$ Number of e-mails in
my Barbershop folders when I last looked: 202