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Mentor, College Media Mogul, Friend: Dr. Phil Hoffman’s Career in Media & Education

• Timothy "TMac" McCarty • Season 2 • Episode 28

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On this episode of the ZoomPod ... Mogul, Mentor, Friend. Dr. Phil Hoffman joins me to talk about media, students, education, professionalism, and his lifelong obsession converging media and music! 

The latest episode dives deep into the journey of Dr. Phil Hoffman, a media mentor who explores the intersection of education and creativity in media. Through his anecdotes and insights, we learn what it takes to nurture talent and pursue excellence.

• Introduction of Dr. Phil Hoffman and his background in media
• Journey from radio enthusiast to Emmy-winning program leader
• The impactful connection between music and media storytelling
• Insights on cultivating a strong work ethic in media students
• The significance of mentorship in shaping future media professionals
• Practical skills that aren’t taught in classrooms
• The balance of chaos and creativity in media production
• Navigating the challenges of managing teams in the media field
• Encouragement for new professionals to embrace passion and dedication
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Doc's links:

  • https://indianapublicradio.org/about/staff/phoffman/
  • https://www.bsu.edu/academics/collegesanddepartments/media/academic-programs/bachelors
  • https://www.youtube.com/officialballstate
  • https://www.instagram.com/ballstateuniversity/

Doc's work:

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TMac

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Zoom with Our Feet podcast, The Pod About Media Production. With me your host, T Mack, professional photographer, videographer, and teacher. My next guest started his professional media career in the late 80s as a reporter while still at the University of Akron. By the early 2000s, as general manager, he led University of Akron's media program to win 25 Emmys. After PBS management stints in Missouri and Central Florida, he landed his dream job as Assistant Dean of Media and General Manager of Ball State's public media. Mogul, mentor, friend. Dr. Phil Hoffman joins me to talk media, students, education, and his lifelong obsession converging music and media. Let's talk to a pro. Phil Hoffman, welcome to the Zoom with our feet podcast. How are you, sir?

SPEAKER_00

I'm doing well, T Mack. How are you?

TMac

I am doing well. Great to see you again.

SPEAKER_00

Nice to see you.

TMac

All right, you ready? I think so.

SPEAKER_00

We'll see what happens.

TMac

So, like myself, you've had an eclectic journey uh in media. So I always have people start and tell me about how you got started in the business, and then we'll work our way through all of the parts of your crazy career.

SPEAKER_00

Well, like so many people in my general uh age range, I was a TV kid growing up and watched an incredible amount of television, and uh never really thought about that as a thing until I was in high school. There was a communication class, a guy named Jim Biss taught the class, and uh it was this new technology of videotapes, right? And uh so we did a bunch of stupid stuff with it, you know, like high schoolers would do. We weren't really very serious about it, but I did discover that I liked it, right? And I liked playing with the gear. And uh over the summer of my after my senior year, but before I started college in the fall, a friend of mine worked at WZIP, which was then WAUP, at the University of Akron, and he had to go down and pick something up or drop something off. And so he asked me if I wanted to ride with him, and then we were gonna go somewhere else, and I said, sure. When we went into the radio station, I was like, this is it, that's it forever. Um, and so that was kind of the thing that got me interested in media in general. But I will say, even though most of my career has been in video, at that moment I had zero interest in video and only wanted to work in radio. So there you go. Lesson learned, kids. You don't always know what you want.

TMac

It was coming. Did you end up going to Akron because of that?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it was um, you know, there was I can't even really explain it other than I went in there and I always have liked technology, just generally, right? And uh, you know, I thought, okay, well, this seems like a cool thing, and I knew my dad would not give me a hassle about being in broadcasting. Um, so I knew we could get away with majoring in that. And so that's what I did at the University of Akron, and you know, another key person, obviously, that really made a difference in my career was Tom Beck, who was the general manager of the radio station. He was the professional person amongst all us crazy students. And uh, Tom is a unique human being. He's probably one of the best, most inspirational teachers you could ever hope for in the world. And so um, having that experience of going to school and being involved at the radio station and sort of working with Tom was awesome. One of my favorite stories, Tim, was um at the time the station was partly jazz and partly rock. And so during the day it was jazz, and I was on during a jazz time slot, and so I became sort of a dilettante of jazz because I thought I knew something. And uh so one afternoon I'm playing an entire album side by an artist named Thelonious Monk. It's one track, it's 28 minutes. Um, and if people don't know Thelonious Monk, just go out and listen to him. Um it's not the most accessible music sometimes. And after about 10 minutes of playing this 28-minute track, the door pops open and Tom Beck comes in and he's like, What are you doing? And I said, I'm playing Monk, man. And he goes, Well, stop it. So that was uh, you know, an early experience for me of having the boss at the radio station come in and tell you they didn't like something you were doing.

TMac

Degree in undergrad in MassCom University. Yeah, MASCOM. And then how did a transition to industry happen?

SPEAKER_00

Well, um it happened while I was a still student, actually, still a student actually, because uh one of the other fellows that was at the radio station was a guy named Doug Borman. Doug had gotten a part-time job at WKDD, which at the time, you know, in the Akron area, that was the flamethrower. It was the top 40 best-rated radio station in town. And uh Doug told me, hey, they're looking for another person part-time. And so I went over there and chased it around. And um Nick Anthony was a program director at the time, and Nick gave me a chance uh to be a part-time person, not on WKDD, of course, right? Because that was where the primo slots went. I was on WSLR at first, which was a country am station, and uh I was not a country music guy, didn't know anything about it, and uh had to learn real fast.

TMac

Thelonious monk?

SPEAKER_00

Yep, Alabama from Thelonious Monk to Alabama, and it was uh actually a lot of it what I did was on Sundays um in the evening, and so Sunday evenings were a lot of pre-recorded, um, oftentimes they were either religious programs or some other kind of community-based programming, and so I would typically load up a bunch of hour-long reel-to-reel tapes, so kids go out there and look up what those are, very ancient technology, and play those things, you know, and basically sit there for an hour and do my homework and get paid, and I was as happy as you could possibly be to have that gig. Um, so I really enjoyed that part, and then when the chance came to go over to the rock station, which is really what I wanted to do, right? I uh jumped over to WKDD and worked there for a couple years as a part-timer as well.

TMac

When did the desire to report uh come about? Was that foisted upon you or did you volunteer?

SPEAKER_00

Well, you might say it was forced upon me. Um for a period of time after WKD, uh, I went to a station that was uh AM Daytimer, right? Uh in Maseline, WTI G, Tiger Radio. Um, and when I was there, uh, we'll we'll just say I was probably not the most popular human being that worked there. And uh one of the people that was on the air before me, and I can't remember her name, otherwise I'd share it, um, she she was not a fan of mine. And so frequently when I would come in, uh, I would come in and run like seven to midnight or something, I would come in and she would often greet me in the hallway with her hands on her hips and start yelling at me about something. And so I literally, the way I started a news, Tim, was I would sit in my car in the parking lot, listening to the radio station, waiting for her to go on the air, so I knew she was busy, right? So as soon as I heard her click open the mic, I would dash in, run down the hallway, duck underneath the window to the air studio, and go hide in the newsroom. Um, and the news director at the time, a guy named Steve, he was awesome. He was great. He just thought it was hilarious that I was trying to avoid her. And so he would give me work to do in the newsroom because he's like, Well, if you're gonna sit back here, here, do this, do this, do this, do this. And that was sort of kind of the way I got into it. So it's the least elegant way you could ever imagine to get into journalism is avoiding hassle from my predecessor.

TMac

Amazing, and uh and a content creator was born.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, indeed, yes, not not through any design, I can tell you that, but definitely happened.

TMac

So you are cruising along, got a TV gig back in Akron. How does education enter the picture?

SPEAKER_00

So I think it was probably '92. Um one day I'm in the newsroom and I see these guys walking around, they've got clipboards and they're writing down serial numbers off of equipment. And having been through this at other stations, I'm like, uh-oh, we must be for sale. And so I came home that night. I had just gotten married, and I told my wife, Joan, I said, okay, well, I'm I gotta go. Like, I can't stay here, they're gonna sell. I need to leave. Like, now. And literally, Tim, I wish I was making this up. The next day, I'm in the newsroom, and Mark Williamson, who is the news director, came in. He had a couple of job postings from the Akron Public Schools, and he's like, ah ha ha. You know, they won't they're looking for somebody to run their radio station. Who would want that job? And he kind of like threw those down on the desk, and I'm like, Thank you. I'll take that. Um, and so I really kind of put on the full court press, dude. When I was interviewing and applying for the job, I was super obnoxious. It's kind of embarrassing. Like, I, you know, because I was a reporter, I knew like the mayor and the city council people and stuff, and so I called them and said, Will you please call this woman at the Akron Public Schools? Her name is Karen, and will you tell her like she should hire me? Now they said yes, of course, you know, politicians they probably didn't. But anyway, um, I really pressed really hard for that job. And once again, Karen for no good reason gave me the opportunity to do the job. Um, I really had no management experience. There was no, there was zero indication that I could be successful in the job based on my past experience. Um, but she did tell me later, she said, Well, you you clearly wanted it really bad. So I figured, you know, give the kid a chance. Um that's kind of how I got into education, because yes, it was working at the radio station and working in their their TV channel that they had on cable, but you know, a lot of it was going out into the schools and doing stories about schools and with teachers and about education and things like that. So my reporting came into play there because I was able to go and I could produce the story all by myself. So I could shoot it, I could cut it, I could do everything, write it, all that stuff. And uh it really kind of helped me become a better storyteller because literally I had to do all of it. And as anybody who's done that in their lives knows, I mean, when you're editing your own shooting, I found myself frequently cursing the shooter and what an idiot he was for not thinking ahead to get me the right coverage. And then sometimes when I would look at an edited piece that I had done, I'd be like, now why didn't you use this one shot, dummy? There was a great shot there. Well, how did you miss that? And this whole so it sort of forces you to become more analytical about all the things that you're doing, um, because you have nobody to blame but yourself. And so, yeah, I made a lot of dumb, dumb decisions early on, but you know, as you do it and you get a little bit better, a little bit more focused, and you think about how you're framing things and how you're trying to tell a story visually, it really gets you much more focused on the craft.

TMac

I used to tell students that at some point during an edit, you will fire the camera. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

The worst. I am the worst cameraman. If I'm the editor, I am the worst. I hate myself. Um, but it's just, you know, and I'm sure you felt this. Like, there's so many times when you go back and you look at something you did years later and you go, Oh, it wasn't really that bad. At the time, I felt like it was terrible, but it's actually decent, you know. And and so with some time, you start to think that. But in the midst of it, when you're trying to cut something together and you need like locator shot, or you just need a pan or a two shot or something, and you're like, dummy! And so that trained me. Like, I became very methodical when I would come into a room to shoot. I had sort of a series of images that I would want to capture, different kinds of perspectives and different kinds of framing, so that I could make sure that I had enough coverage to get me through whatever I was going to cut together. And as you well know, like I don't care how much B-roll you shoot, you never shot enough B-roll ever. So I'm always cursing myself for that too, because it's like, man, if I'd spent three more minutes, right, I would have had those shots that I need. So that definitely forces. Yep, it forces you to get better and more efficient because you also you're you're the one dragging everything around, so like you want to be efficient but effective.

TMac

Uh a wise old camera operator owl told me, you know, just sort of generally, the person and the thing, the thing and the person. Repeat. And I never forgot that. And in my time of stress and hectic and all of that, always fell back on that and it and it served me, it served me well.

SPEAKER_00

For several years I was um uh member of NPPA, the National Press Photographers Association. And I'll never forget at one of the conferences uh one of the editors who was doing a presentation said, say cow, see cow. And that really stuck with me because, like, in your track, as you're thinking about what you're gonna write, you know, um, if you're gonna say something, you probably need an image of that thing that you're going to talk about, right? Uh, so unless you're gonna get weird and metaphorical with your imagery, but otherwise, you know, you need to be thinking about how what am I gonna say in this story? How am I gonna tell this story, and what kind of imagery do I need to capture in order to tell the story effectively?

TMac

Were you managing people at that time?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yes, poorly, but I was managing people. Um, you know, you're at that time at Akron uh public schools, I was 28 when I got hired, and um I had had zero management training, not the fault of the public schools, like right, they but but I'm just saying, like I had had no training, and so you know, you you come at it, I think, when you first start doing it, you come at it from like how would I do everything? And so that I find very quickly is not really effective with other people, right? Because how I would do things, not necessarily how they would do things, and so that either leads to conflict sometimes, or it leads to you have to like define everything for everybody all the time, and that's kind of where I found myself early on as I boxed myself into a corner and had to always define everything all the time for everybody, so there was a little bit of a challenge from that perspective, um, you know, and I think that we definitely had uh we had a couple staff members, there was a guy named Brian Glass who was awesome, and Brian was a great shooter and just really cared about what he would do. And so when you get somebody like that on your team, it's so much easier. My god, you don't have to like there, it's just it's like having power steering when you're not used to it, you know. Um, and so having a person who, of their own volition, really cares about the quality of their work makes a huge impact.

TMac

Yeah. But you were given where your career is gone, you were learning how to be a manager.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah, it does.

TMac

Learning how to manage.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, I I definitely learned what not to do early on by doing a bunch of stupid things. Um and things that, you know, it's interesting, Tim. I don't know if this happens to you, but I find myself, even like with teaching, for example, I look back at a syllabus from 15 years ago, and I'm like, who is this person that wrote this syllabus? And why are they so mean? You know, because I would have these policies of like, you must do this and you cannot do that, and you know, and I look at that now and I'm like, oh man, you really were a jerk. But but I think the reality is you get into it, and like so many other people in the world, you get into management because the whatever the thing is that you do, you're good at that thing, and somebody says, Oh, well, then you should manage that thing. Uh-uh. No. Um, they're two different skills, and so it took me a long time, and I would say, even still to this day, as far as management skills, like, you know, I get I get into some weird zones now with some of my team members because I find myself, I'm like Mr. Miyagi with them frequently. Of like, they'll ask me a direct question. I'll be like, well, let's think about what what happens at the end of the day and the sun goes down, right? And you know, I'm having this conversation, and they're looking at me like, what is what just dude? Do you want me to cut this or not? Um, but but it's it's uh I don't know. I I just feel like you know, if you learn to lean into people's skill sets over time, you can get a hell of a lot more done. And sometimes people will amaze you with the stuff they'll do that I never I never in a million years would have thought to do. You know, if I did it, it would be the same way that I always do everything, probably. Where somebody else can bring a completely different mindset and perspective. And so I've definitely learned over the years, and you and I both know some of these folks, but you know, like I work with Adam White, who I think has been on this podcast, right? Um, that's another person I'm like, I'm never gonna give that guy one direction. He knows what the job is, right? He knows what we're about, he knows what we're trying to do, and whatever I tell him will be less than what he would create himself. So it's best for me to just keep my pile shut and and just go along for the ride.

TMac

Adam's episode was a master class in how to shoot a scene. Shocking, right? And he and he just he was so um so direct and so awesome at this this is this is this. Don't do this when you're done, then do this. I do not change until I am done, right? We're not going back. You're right. He he just gets this is the thing, Tim, and you know this because you've done this in your career.

SPEAKER_00

Like, you get to a place where you can very quickly, like, when you start working with somebody, almost immediately you're like, Oh, okay, I see you, right? Yeah. And uh, like I've been at Ball State now for three years, and early on, a couple months into it, we have a team member, a guy named Ben, and uh, you know, I went out on a shoot with Ben, just not to do anything, I wasn't doing anything, I was just managing, right? I'm just observing. Um, but I'm watching Ben work and I'm like, oh, oh, okay, oh, okay. Like Adam, right? I just like you let Ben go. Um, and so that's a big change, I think, for me in terms of managerial aspect. Um, because when I recognize somebody has that motivation and that talent, why would I slow them down? One one direction for me is only gonna slow them down, just let them do their thing.

TMac

So I asked because the next step then was the same sort of general manager situation at Akron, but you were also teaching, correct?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, one of my favorite things I've done in my life. Um, you know, I I will say uh, you know, I sort of did my master's degree while I was at WAPS, and I um had the opportunity to teach part-time because when you know I was doing my master's degree, um the you you have to uh do a graduate assistantship, so they assigned me a class. So I got assigned radio production, and as you'll appreciate this, like any knucklehead first-time teacher. I came into this and I was working on a syllabus, and I'm like, well, I'm gonna make them work. I'm gonna make them work. And they're gonna learn, you know, and and so what I did in the industry. Listen, man, I'm gonna tell you what, I did the stupidest thing possible, which was they had projects every single week for 15 weeks. And and right. So A, I learned very quickly, hey dummy, who has to grade those, right? But B, as you're well aware, like you can't when you're just constantly lurching from one project to another, the learning is negatively impacted, right? Like they're they don't have enough time to even absorb the previous week's lesson to reflect on it, to make any they can't integrate, right? To reflect on what they've learned. So it was a huge mistake on my part. So again, you know, it's sort of like I get these opportunities and then I launch into them with basically no idea what I'm doing. Um and it's interesting because too, uh, part of the thing in Akron that I loved was, you know, there wasn't really at the time, there wasn't really the TV equivalent for WAZIP, right? So that's a co-curricular, you don't have to do it. Um, you can do it if you want to, uh, but it's really about getting your reps in. It's about getting experience. So you learn things in class, but then you go to WZIP and you really can apply it, right? Well, there wasn't at the time, there wasn't that equivalent at Akron for TV. So um that was part of the reason why Dudley Turner, who was a school chair, brought me in at that point in time. He wanted to kind of get a rough analogous, same kind of situation for the TV side of things. Um, and so I started kind of building that, which became ZTV. And again, you know, as you were probably well aware of Tim, having been a teacher for many, many, many years, um, it takes you a while to figure it out, right? So structurally, it took me two or three years to kind of figure out how to build a machine that would be effective for the students to actually learn. And, you know, again, this is one of those times where my life circles back because Tom Beck, who was so influential to me as a student, was still there, and so now he was my peer, my colleague. Uh, he's not my peer, he is I am not his peer, let's put it that way. Um, but I I will say, you know, having him there at that moment, he was really dedicated to trying to make the TV thing happen. And he just kept helping and and and funneling money from the radio station into the TV thing to help it get where it needed to go. And it took me probably, I think, almost four years. And as any teacher can probably tell you, they'll relate to this story. I'd like to say that it was because of all my genius uh work that I had done that suddenly, you know, ZTV took off, but in fact, it's not. It was um, I just happened to have a group of students who just were not typical, right? They were really go-getters, they really wanted to make things happen. And I learned later, I didn't understand it at the time, like that's just the thing that happens sometimes, right? You get this class and they're just kind of magical because of the people that are in the class, and that's not always going to be the same every year. But that 2004-2005, that group of students just it was insane, you know, the amount of work they would put in and the level of the work they would do was well above what we had done before that, and so then very quickly um they start, not shockingly, they all start getting these amazing jobs, you know. And I can remember with one of the students, her name was Zaina, um, she was looking at an internship with MTV. And, you know, you're a kid from the University of Akron, you don't really assume, you know, you're gonna go work for MTV. And uh I remember having a conversation with her at one point, kind of along that line, and I said, Zaina, you know, you know what the magic is of the students that intern at MTV? And she goes, No, what? And I said, they live in their parents' basement in Jersey. They're not they're not special, they're the same as you, right? You you have exactly the same amount of talent that they do, except you gotta hustle, right? They live right outside of New York City, they don't have to hustle as hard as you do. So you've got to really prove yourself, and she did. And from there, we had students get into NBC's page program, and the next thing I know, like the the thing's on fire, and it stays on fire even to this day, right? Um, years after I'm gone, it's still a very good program with students doing amazing things.

TMac

So 2010 rolls around, or maybe it was 2009, and how did the um steel drum project come about?

SPEAKER_00

You know, it's funny because you know I I had been working with the marching band forever. I mean, since I was an undergraduate, and so I knew all the people pretty much in the music faculty in terms of bands. And so one day I was at the game and doing the announcing for the marching band, and Larry Snyder, who's the professor there that um ran the steel drum program for many, many, many years, Larry's talking to me, he said, Hey, you know what? We've got something really cool that's gonna happen next year. And I said, What's that? And he said, Well, we're you know, it's our anniversary, and it's like the I think it was the 30th anniversary of the steel drum band. And he said, We're gonna do a concert. And I'm like, Okay, and he said, That'll be a great documentary, won't it?

SPEAKER_02

And I'm like, No.

SPEAKER_00

And he says, What do you mean? And I said, Nobody cares about your anniversary, like you do, but an audience won't. Like, just because it's 30 years, doesn't that's not a reason to watch something. And so we started talking, and he started explaining how the program came about, and there was this dude, Cliff Alexis, and Cliff was from Trinidad, and Cliff kind of started Larry down the path, and Cliff built all their drums, and he comes in every year. So now I'm starting to go, okay, all right. Now there's a little bit of a story there. And then at one point when we're having the conversation, Larry said, the thing that's really a bummer is all these guys like Cliff, who kind of launched the steel drum, the originated the steel drum, they're all like in their 70s and 80s, and they're all gonna die. And there's really not a good documentary about it. Ding! Okay, let's do that. And so we wound up doing a video of the concert and a documentary, two separate products, but we did them during the course of that year as they were leading up to the concert, and you know, again, Tim, it's like I had the opportunity to go to Trinidad. Adam White was the shooter with us uh in Trinidad. Um, obviously, you were director on the concert, right? And uh it just gave me a chance to do things that I can't believe that I got to do, um, and interview people that I still to this day can't believe I've actually engaged with those people. Um, so and it turned out Larry was right because shortly after we completed the documentary, a lot of those guys started passing away. And so it's very lucky for us that we captured their stories and got them like Bertie Marshall, who's in the documentary and one of the originators of the steel drum. Um he passed away, I think, a year or two after we finished it. And we were one of the first people outside of Trinidad, like everybody knew the story in Trinidad, right? But we were one of the first teams outside of Trinidad that really sat down and took the time to listen to the story and really, you know, gave Bertie the chance to talk about what he did and stuff. And so there were a lot of uh musicians like that that we got to do. And and then, you know, the thing I always think about when we did the concert live, Tim, is you know, it was the opposite of what you and I would normally want to do in a production, right? Which is we didn't have any gear there until I think the day before. And it was all stuff we had rented. None of us knew it, you know, so you and I are in there in a panic trying to get this stuff connected and working properly. And then, as if that's not a challenge enough, then on top of that, we had really, I think, only one pass at a rehearsal for you to get your eyes on what they were doing. We didn't have scores, we didn't have any of that information. So you were literally flying kind of blind. It was almost like a sports, you know, production, like you didn't really know what was gonna happen. And uh it was a heck of a challenge, but again, a great experience. I loved every minute of it.

TMac

Well, that was the from my from my side, that was the second time that you allowed um me to kind of spread my wings because uh the first time was I had never taught in higher ed. And you came to me and said, Hey, I have a bunch of kids that need to take um our studio production class in the evening. Would you be willing to teach that? And I said, Absolutely. And had a ball, it was great. And it was so funny for me because my industry was showing, so we did our thing and we did all our stuff, and we got dumb like at the first day, and I started saying, Okay, you and this and this, and they're looking at me like what? And I'm like, we're not just walking out of here. We got we got some stuff to do. So I said, Okay, so here's here's what we're gonna do. See that camera? It's ultimately gonna, they're ultimately gonna end up right in a row. But we have three sets of cables. So first thing we're gonna do is untangle them all, then we're gonna make figure eights right in front of them. I showed them how to make a figure eight with cables. I said, um, and everybody's like, well, you know, what else? I said, Oh, we got a lot of stuff. So I had everybody go around and um found uh found a uh push broom, so they had to rotate through all the different different things. And I remember the next week, it was like a one-day uh kind of thing in the evening, and I came in the next Wednesday, and your engineers were like, dude, correct. Like, clearly, you've worked in a studio before. I'm like, do no harm, baby, do no harm.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, this is the thing, you you and I both know this. Like, one of the things that I would spend class time on is teaching the students how to coil cables. And I would occasionally have a student say, I can't believe I'm paying all this money for a class. You know how you're teaching me how to. And I'm like, listen, dude, when you're out there in the world as an intern, they're gonna ask you to coil up cables. They're going to, right? Because that's an intern job. And if you do it well, they're gonna go, Wait, okay, wait a minute. Where are you going to school? Um, and and so that's exactly what happened. And the kids would come back and they would be all shocked, like, oh my god, they were so impressed I knew how to coil cables. I'm like, right, because most people don't, and you think that doesn't matter until you are busted up against a deadline, you're trying to pull things out, get things set up, and there's a knot, and you have to unknot it. So believe me when I tell you, this is part of the professional practice. And you know, it took a while for the students to kind of get to a place where they would believe you about that. But after a few of them came back and said, Oh, yeah, no, that's no, that actually does matter, you know, and I would I would tell them, you know, for example, say, go get me uh uh male to female XLR adapter. Had no clue what that was, right? And if they came back with the wrong thing, I'd yell at them, right? And say, wait, that's not nope, that's not um, but the idea being like you got to know the terminology too. And so if you're in the field and you're working with somebody and they ask you to go get a stinger, they ask you to go that you you have to know what the terminology is so you can be useful. And if you don't know the difference between something that has a BNC on it and something that has an XLR on it, then you're not really that useful. And so it does seem really silly to focus college classroom on that time, uh, but but I really felt like this is just part of understanding the world that you're going into.

TMac

I took it even farther with my high schoolers. I had a standing bet that I would buy the senior class lunch if we had um, I believe they were 150-foot multis, kind of like triacs, about that size. And uh I I would I would say to them, if you can beat me coiling this, I'll buy the whole class lunch. And I had them, I'd come, I'd come flying in the and I'd see some kiddies down at the end of our facility, and he's he's working the he's working the the thing. And I did have one kid come close one year. Um I got a little I got a little cocky because I used to like I'd I'd say to somebody, all right, you start a phone, because we'll get a time, and you you get to you're like the girl at the drag races, you get to get ready, set, go. And she'd do it, and I'd go like this, and they're mad trying to, and I'd be looking at my watch and they'd go, What are you doing? I go, he's gonna slow down, and then I'd I'd start it, right? Well, the one kid took off, and I was like, Oh, oh shit, and um, you know, I'd beat him, but it was like, okay, don't do don't get cocky. Don't get cocky.

SPEAKER_00

So that's I mean, it's interesting because little stuff like that you wouldn't think is such a big deal. Same thing with editing, and I know you understand this. Like, I would spend a lot of time on organizing your files. And you know, I have, after all these years, whenever I start a new project, I have like I have a set of folders that I create instantly for each project, they're always the same. Everything goes in those same folders the same way every time. And the way I organize things, the way I uh prep prep for an edit is very formulaic for me now, right? And so students would frequently you talk to them about stuff like that, and they first of all, and I know you know this, like they don't care my desktop C drive, the external drive on a on a disk that's removable, like they put files everywhere. If you don't teach them, like you can't do that, you're going to be very sorry. And so frequently, especially when we had, you know, we had all these avids and stuff, and they were on an avid network, and kids would log in and they would save things to the desktop of the computer instead of to the network drive, and then they would come back and nothing would be there, and there'd be a lot of angst. I'm like, right, because you didn't do what I told you to do, right? Like you have to save it to this mounted network drive, otherwise, you're gonna have stuff disappear. And the university frequently would make it so that when you logged out of that computer, whatever was on the desktop, it would wipe it. And so they would come back and they had done a bunch of work and it was just gone, and there was no getting it back. And uh, so so there's these little things which seem like they're not the actual skill that a student thinks they're paying to learn, but yet, in fact, they're the the underpinnings of everything else you're gonna do.

TMac

So the second time you acted as mentor was the aforementioned uh steel drum project when you came to me and said, Would you like to direct it? And I remember going, Really? Yeah, and you were like, Um, yeah, you got all the sports experience. People have been yelling in your ear forever. And I'm like, Yeah, and and what's interesting is yes, it was chaotic, yes, it was, but it was I was 40 years old and had finally got to pick my TV band. And so uh as you mentioned earlier, I surrounded myself with uh Adam White on Steady Cam. Duh. Um uh Jeff Alberini, fellow teacher, but also camera operator, and I forget who the the third one was, and and it was like I don't have to direct them. Yeah, once I lay down the marker and what the what the coverage pattern I think is gonna be, subject to change, boys. Um it was so much easier to to select than direct.

SPEAKER_00

And that's that's actually it's interesting that you say that because that's a thing that I picked up from you, right? Is that your experience in the sports world had taught you like I I need to be an active participant, right? Like I need to be using this as much as I'm using this uh on the camera. And so you would frequently tell me, like, if I have to ask you for something, that's bad, right? And so that really stuck with me through all this. And so when this opportunity came up, I thought, okay, we're not gonna really have a chance to really prep for this properly, right? Like it's just not, they couldn't get the band together, they had these guest musicians, you know, it just wasn't gonna happen except for maybe a little bit of a rehearsal the day of the concert. And you and I both know that is not sufficient to really prep for a live production. And so, you know, it's interesting too, because here just this past year, um, I got to do it the right way for a change in that we had a an orchestral concert. And so you may know uh Mike Vendeland, who worked at WVIZ for a And WEWS before that. Great director. So he's kind of become like known in retirement as this guy who directs orchestral music for TV. And so we were working with the con the symphony here in town, and I said, Hey Mike, is this a thing you could do? And he was available. So the difference that in this concert versus the concert you and I did was we had time because it was a professional orchestra and they were rehearsing. And so Mike was able to go. They also had scores. And so Mike. He actually hired a score reader who Mike works with. So they prepped the thing ahead of time. And Mike, again, this is like if we had only had this luxury of time. But one of the things that Mike does is he creates it. It's insane. He creates the entire show is blocked before you even get on the stage. You know, every song, every piece of music, every solo, where it's going to be, what time it's going to be, which camera he's going to shoot. And so he he makes these little devices, which are super simple, out of like electrical utility boxes that you buy at Home Depot, and two little wooden dowels. And it's almost like a receipt from a grocery store where he prints out the rundown for each camera, and they just have to scroll as the concert's going along, and they can see where they're going next and they know what the blocking is. And so to be able to watch Mike direct the show that way and think about, oh man, if we had a week's worth of rehearsals and we could block this out and we had a score and all those things, it would have been so great to have that luxury. And we just didn't, right? Because it was there were too many moving parts coming in, and it was students playing and stuff, so you couldn't really, it just was not possible the way it was with a professional orchestra.

TMac

But here's the uh here's what I wanted to end with is that that gave me confidence that yes, I had taken in a number of great sports directors, and that I I could do it. I mean, it crazy as it was, plus I loved the music, I loved um just how the show, how we made it look, even in the chaos, and being able to do it from the multi-camera perspective, we you know, we covered uh way more than it was for us.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

TMac

So for me, uh just to have the opportunity and ultimately to get to work with my fellas was I was I was happy with that.

SPEAKER_00

It's the best. I mean, you know, and it's funny, Tim, that you say that, because I don't really think about that kind of thing in terms of like to me, it wasn't a risk because your experience with sports, like I knew this is similar-ish to covering a game in the sense that it was gonna be unpredictable. Um, and and so I'm like, all right, well, he's done this a billion times, he's gone to the Olympics, like he can handle this, right? It's not that complicated. And one of the things that I really like doing, especially now at this point in my career, is I will occasionally see something in somebody that they don't even know that they have. Um, and so when I see that, I love to kind of like, can I make this bloom? Can I make this become a thing that you can do? Um, and so like we've got it, we hired a uh young professional recently at the stations who's had some experience, but still pretty pretty new in our in our world, right? Three or four years of experience. And uh, I mean, just they came in and just immediately had an impact, like their after-effects skills, every everything they produce just has that little sprinkle of magic on top of it. But where they have some level of discomfort is in traditional TV, like they've done all YouTube all day, all night, no problem. But old school TV is a little bit like I don't know what this thing is, and so bringing that person on staff and sort of pulling them into the traditional TV world is really interesting to watch that happen. So they just started not even a year ago, so it's it's gonna be interesting to me to see how their abilities blossom from that point. But it's just one of those things where it's like if you can find somebody that you know doesn't even know what their own capabilities are, and kind of push them down that road a little bit. Never forget at Akron. I had a student, she's kind of a quieter student, and I knew she was really smart, she had done very well in classes, and she was in ZTV, and we were talking one day, and I said, Hey, I think you should apply to be the producer of the show next year. And she, you know, she's like, Oh no, I you know, I don't want to be in charge, and I don't think I can do that. And I I don't know, Dr. Hoffman. I don't know. And I said, I'm not sure you understand me. I'm not asking you to apply, I'm telling you to apply for this job, and so she did. Um, and she did did the role that next year and did great at it, which is exactly what I knew was gonna happen. Uh her team loved her, they had great success. It was really, they really did a great job producing things, and then she went on, you know, after graduation to do things like she would run the the halftime show for the network at the Super Bowl. I'm like, well, okay, that's about as high as you're gonna go in our world. Um, so if you can manage that, I think you could do anything. So there's there's examples of people like that where it's like for me, it's just you know, it's one of the things I like about the job, right? Giving people that little push to get them out there beyond their comfort zone.

TMac

All right, coming down the home stretch.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

TMac

I always tell people that photography and video for me is good for the soul. So for you, uh leadership, music, education, what's uh what about those is good for your soul? You touched on it. What is good for your soul? Keeps you going.

SPEAKER_00

I think the uh, you know, for me, uh all roads lead back to music. All roads, all the time. Um the leadership piece, you know, when I was leaving the University of Akron and going to Missouri, went to lunch with the dean at the time, Mark Auburn, who is just a fantastic human being. And I remember talking to him, and I'm like, I just feel like now this is gonna be different, right? Because instead of working with students, now I'm gonna be working with professionals. I don't know that I know, you know, how to do that at this level, right? I've not done that before. And he said to me, Phil, just do the exact same thing you did with students. And of course, I didn't listen to him because I thought, well, no, that's too easy. Um, and so, but now over time I've learned like he's right, like the same sort of pulling the band together and finding the mix of the players and getting people to be willing to step out and do a solo and that kind of stuff. It's the exact same thing, it's the exact same thing as working with students. And I erroneously thought, because I used to do this thing when I was at Akron, I'd call it the rah-rah. Um, sometimes with students, you gotta get up in front of them in a class and you know, let's go get them, you know, and do that kind of thing. Um, and students will often like, yeah, let's go. And so I always erroneously thought grown adult professionals don't want or need that, right? And that's wrong. Like, people still want that. Uh, even even people that have been in the industry for a long time still want you to like be enthusiastic and to paint the picture for where you're trying to go. So that's really to me, that all loops back to music because it's exactly the same thing, you know. And I think about like you and I have talked a lot in this about having your team and the group of people that you like to work with. I mean, I look at like a Tom Petty or a Bruce Springsteen, once they find, like, okay, Gary W. Talent is my bass player, he's my bass player forever. Like, that's it. That's who is my bass player, right? Or uh Ron Blair with the the Heartbreakers, is my Tom Petty's bass player forever. Uh, so so I think once you find the people that have the right talent level and the right sort of sympatico with you, who kind of like you can you you get it without having a whole lengthy conversation. Adam White is a good example of somebody that I work with where like I don't have to have a whole lengthy conversation with Adam. He immediately like he knows what it is I'm after, and sometimes he knows that I don't know what I'm after, and so he just goes and makes something better than what I think I want.

TMac

Um, and so if he needs to know something, he'll ask.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I mean, he's never gonna, he's never going to not give the person he's working with the opportunity for input, but at the same time, like, doesn't really need it. He's he's gonna do great work, and you can just sort of hands off and let let the magic happen. And so when you find people that you work with where it's like that, that's like having that band, you know. I mean, and and uh having a group of like-minded individuals who sort of get what the project is and that kind of thing makes a huge difference, you know. I it another stupid little story, but a good example of like working with Adam. We were in Trinidad and we were shooting, and we were kind of at this place, we wanted to go in to this athletic facility to get some shots inside the facility, and there were a couple of guards standing outside of it, and they were sort of hemming and hawing and farting around, and they wouldn't really let us in, but they wouldn't tell us no, and there was a lot of fooling around, and I could just sort of tell like they wanted something from us, but didn't want to say, yeah, they didn't want to say they wanted something from us, and I didn't have any. Like, I work for a university man, I don't have cash to give you. And uh, so very quickly, I sort of kind of figured out like if I was gonna bribe them, we could go in, otherwise, it wasn't gonna happen. And so finally, after some talk, I turned around to Adam and said, Okay, let's go. And you know, a lot of people would go, wait, what, what, nope, not Adam. He's like, All right, turn around and walked away. Like that was it, because he knew he knew what was going on, he knew what I was thinking. We didn't have to have a whole conversation in front of those guys. It was just like he's like, All right, and I I know that seems like such a little minor thing, but when you're in the field and you're producing something and there's all these moving parts, and you're trying to keep everything moving forward, like having team members who just instantly get it and can instantly pivot is priceless.

TMac

Final pay it forward question. You've probably hired everybody from an intern to a manager at some point. What give me two or three things that you uh that you think they need to know, students, uh young folks just getting started about the industry that isn't in school. You just mentioned one, but give me give me some more and how you've advised uh students that are going on to the industry because I know you have probably a similar speech that I give to the ones that I know are gonna go off. You know, it's slightly different than the school speech. Yeah. What do you tell students?

SPEAKER_00

I've been doing this for a long time now, and I will tell you this has changed. Like the advice I would have given you ten years ago is radically different than what I would say today. It's really simple. If your give a damn's broken, I can't fix it. I don't care. I don't care what your experience is. I don't care. Maybe you're missing this, missing that. Listen, I've interviewed so many people, hired so many people. You're missing this, you're missing that. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. There is no perfect candidate. Um, but if you're really focused in the hiring process on finding somebody who displays a real strong give a damn and a good attitude, that to me makes up for any technical shortfall or any experiential shortfall or a big gap on their resume. None of that matters. If you get the right kind of person who's just really motivated, that's really all that matters. And I can't give them motivation. They either are like that or they're not. I will say to the people watching this that are trying to learn about stuff, caring about your work is the single most important trait. Like, you know, I will tell you, Tim, I've done a lot of stuff and gotten it distributed nationally and won awards and done all that stuff, and I hate everything I've ever produced. I look back on it all and I'm like, ah, I wish I would have done this. I wish I would have done that. You know, like with our concert, I'm like, I wish we would have had a whole week of rehearsals. Oh, I wish we had, I wish, I wish, I wish. Um it's just always striving to do the best work that you possibly can. And I don't doubt for a minute that a a Spielberg or whoever probably looks back at Jaws and says, Oh, I wish I had more money for a different shark. I wish I had CGI back then, you know. I I'm sure that the same the people that you think of as untouchable, Scorsese, Coppola, those people, I'm sure they look back on their stuff. Even the Godfather, I bet Coppola looks back on and is like, I wish I wouldn't have done that, or I wish I had shot this. So if you have that kind of desire to really be excellent, that's the most important thing.

TMac

So well said. Dr. Phil Hoffman, friend, mentor, and badass music nerd. I so appreciate you being a part of the project, sir.

SPEAKER_00

Well, thank you, Tim. It was great. I'm very happy to talk to you again. It's been a while, so thanks.

TMac

It's been a while. See you soon. Alright. Thanks again to my friend and mentor, Dr. Phil Hoffman. You can check out his work and program at BSU.com slash academics slash media majors. The Zoom with our feet podcast is a production of TV Commando Media. The Zoom Pod theme is by Novembers, and they're Funky Groove, Cloud Ten. Until next time, creators, if your give a damn number isn't off the charts, you're not learning.

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Timothy "TMac" McCarty

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