Dr. Who . . . and me?

David Ryan (2nd from right) with (l-r) Producer John Nathan-Turner,
Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickland (Turlow)
 and Peter Davison (5th Doctor Who) on set in 1983

(note: I posted this blog article first on my website, DavidRyanMediaSolutions.com, back in Aug. 2011. As I moved on to other professional situations, I've since let the DRMS site go dormant. I've received several requests to re-post this article on my current personal blog here. I've updated the article a bit. Enjoy! - DRy)

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So it was in August 2010 that I arrived at work (then at Video Labs in Rockville, MD)  and opened a new email that said,

“Are you the David Ryan who was on assignment with the Doctor Who team in 1983 that produced The Awakening story?”

I smiled.  With the age of the internet, I knew it was just a matter of time before they found me.

Let me digress.

Back in the 80’s, when I was working at the Denver PBS affiliate, KRMA-TV, I produced a documentary on the then exponentially growing popularity in America of the campy BBC TV sci-fi series, Doctor Who, which at the time was being aired primarily by PBS stations.  Aficionados of the series will recall that actor Tom Baker played the Doctor at that time.

Now, if you are not familiar with Doctor Who, the overarching storyline is about the adventures of a human-looking alien of the Time Lord race, known as the Doctor.  Time Lords have the ability to travel through the fourth dimension.  It turns out that the Doctor is sort of a renegade Time Lord and his time vehicle (aka a TARDIS) is in the shape of an old British police call box (that defies normal physics by being spacious with many passageways and rooms on the inside).

The Doctor and his companions constantly stumble upon crisis situations where they are called upon to intervene for good – not in a typical comic book super-hero manner, rather more in a quirky, almost geeky fashion.   And oh yeah, Time Lords don’t die, they just regenerate into a new body when the time comes.  (How convenient for carrying the series forward as lead actors change.  The series began in 1963.)

My producing that documentary about the series back in 1982 came about through a series of coincidences.  At the Denver PBS station, I was among the corral of on-air pledge drive hosts.  I had a knack (ok, zaniness) for successfully soliciting pledges during the PBS lineup of children’s programs and weekend special programming, shows like Doctor Who.

Pledges from the fans of the Doctor Who series turned out to be numerous, and the station figured they could further capitalize on the interest by having me produce a documentary exploring in more depth the appeal of the series and selling the resulting program to fellow PBS affiliates.

My crew and I went to Chicago to videotape at a Doctor Who conference attended by hundreds of fans (aka “Whovians”).  We also met and taped interviews with the show’s BBC producer at that time, John Nathan-Turner, and stars, writers and other personnel connected with the series who had “crossed the pond” to attend the convention.

The folks from the BBC were naturally very supportive of our documentary, both at the convention and in the months afterwards.  The final-edited program, titled, "Once Upon A TIme Lord," ended up being a big success, with lots of airplay here in the States.

Well, for a PBS television guy like me back then, having an “in” at the BBC was very valuable.  I had always dreamt of getting an opportunity to spend time at the BBC.  So I took advantage of the connections I had made with the Doctor Who team, and eventually producer John Nathan-Turner helped get me approved for one of the BBC’s professional exchange programs.

I was granted a leave of absence from my Denver station and was off to London for four months of observation of the production activities of Doctor Who.  Too cool!

I was also fortunate that a college friend and her husband had a house in London with an extra room located four blocks from the Doctor Who office and the nearby BBC Studios in Shepards Bush.  Excellent!

The Doctor Who team, for both the series and for the particular two-part program, “The Awakening,” (featuring Peter Davison as the 5th Doctor) to which I was assigned, couldn’t have been nicer.   John Nathan-Turner also arranged for me to have pretty much carte blanche within the BBC -- and coolest of all, he allowed me to take photos of whatever I wanted pertaining to my activities with the Doctor Who series.

The Awakening - studio

And boy, did I take photos . . . predominantly color slides, because I knew they would be the best format at the time for giving presentations of my trip when I returned home to the States.  (Remember, this was well before digital photography, and making presentations projecting 35mm slides was state of the art at the time.)

When I got back to Denver, I indeed gave a number of presentations about my experiences to my colleagues at the PBS station and to various television industry trade groups.

And then I packed away those slides, along with the rest of my memorabilia from that summer experience, and proceeded on with my career, which included moving to the DC/Baltimore area.  Yes, I did remain in touch with several of the contacts I had made over in England.

The powerful reach of the appeal of the Doctor Who series was certainly made apparent to me one day in the mid-90’s when I was directing a satellite videoconference for a government agency in DC.  There in a TV control room deep inside a government building, one of the crew members hired along with me for the event, Al Faison (great guy and superb multi-talented tech dude and director himself, by the way), came up to me and asked, “Are you the David Ryan who worked with Doctor Who in the ‘80’s?”  Imagine my surprise.  Turns out he was (and remains) an avid “Whovian,” and he had read an interview in a fan magazine with John Nathan-Turner where my time spent with the series had been mentioned in passing.

Fast-forward another 15 years, (during which time I had further encounters with die-hard “Whovians,”) to the winter of 2010 when I started thinking that I probably ought to digitize  those slides I had in my possession.  

So I began the tedious process of scanning.  Yeah, I had in the back of my mind that given the power of the internet and the on-going interest of the series, someone likely would track me down and ask if I had any memorabilia from the series -- even though John Nathan-Turner had by now passed away and my contact with anyone from the 1983 production team had pretty much dropped off.

Then arrived that email in August 2010 from a researcher for producer Chris Chapman of Dene Films in Newcastle, England.  Chris then communicated with me directly.  Turns out the BBC has over the past few years been releasing episodes of Doctor Who on DVD, and The Awakening was now in line (or as they say in England, in the "queue.")

Independent production companies, like Dene Films, are engaged by the BBC to produce the background special features to these DVD releases.  And sure enough, Chris and his team had run across production notes from the series indicating that a “Yank” named David Ryan from Denver had been allowed to take production stills.  Good ‘ole Google.  They typed in my name, “producer” and “Denver” and came up with my DavidRyanMediaSolutions.com website.

Chris asked whether I might still have any of those slides.  Needless to say, he was thrilled when I replied that I did, and after negotiations, I employed Dropbox uploads to send him a bunch of the photos I had taken those many years ago.

The result is a superb DVD.

Chris and his team deftly integrated my slides in to his background special features that contain interviews with the actors and production personnel connected with The Awakening, including director Michael Morris, who had been so gracious allowing me to tag along beside him back in 1983.

Yeah, it was gratifying seeing my old slides being put to such good use.

The DVD Chris sent me is a PAL version packaged with a second DVD of a story titled, “The Gunfighters,” featuring the original Doctor, portrayed by William Hartnell.  As far as I can tell by searching on the internet, The Awakening DVD is also available in NTSC as a single DVD release via Amazon and other online distributors.

After a hiatus of several years, Doctor Who is back in production today and can be seen on BBC America and various PBS stations.  Storylines and production values have been enhanced many times over from when I was observing the series in the 80's.  No longer can it be described as “campy” or “charming tounge-in-cheek” sci-fi.  No matter, I think it is great, and I have started watching it again.  (They've just announced the twelfth Doctor.) I highly recommend that you check the series out as well.

And oh yeah, lesson to keep in mind: keep those old photos.

Your comments are most welcomed.

"White knuckling" FCP 7?

Change is always challenging -- but you can relax those "white knuckles" grasping on to Final Cut Pro 7 if you have been considering moving to Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. This article also covers the effect of moving from a purely Xsan storage environment to a Quantum StorNext paradigm

http://www.chesa.com/blog/stornext-premiere-pro-catdv

Polarization? Nothing new. But Obamacare is. Yay or Nay?

I personally am not worried about the country being "polarized." It's always been polarized, from Adams/Jefferson in 1800, to John Quincy Adams/Andrew Jackson in 1828, to the most divisive election of all in 1860, to FDR's elections during the Depression, to Nixon/Kennedy, McGovern/Nixon in '72, Reagan's elections, and then of course the hanging chads of 2000.

Polarized is what we are as a country. (There actually was a time when the country was more polarized by which side of the Appalachians one lived on rather than North vs. South.) And somehow we move on, bouncing from left to right, North to South, East to West and then back right to left.

But with that said, certain elections indeed have had more at stake for the society at large. And it appears this one on Tuesday is one of them. 

I personally think Ezra Klein's recent article about what this election really comes down to is a referendum on Obamacare, is correct. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/26/the-most-important-issue-of-this-election-health-reform/  

Those close friends and family who know the personal nightmare I went through during a medical crisis in the mid-1980's, where while deathly ill, I had to wrestle with insane issues such as being denied health insurance while in between jobs because of pre-existing conditions, forcing me into financial ruin (and subsequent litigation against the insurance company, which I eventually won) -- probably can guess where I stand on Obamacare.

And how many can say they don't know of someone close to them with a similar story?

I don't mean to re-hash the health insurance debate all over again, and we can argue all we want about the so-called culture of entitlement and the threat of encroaching socialism, but I don't believe returning to the tattered health insurance safety net of the past is the answer for getting us out of this recession. While an aggressive capitalist in my work, at the same time I've seen too many cases where concern about health care actually stifles entrepreneurship, risk-taking and competition. Let's not go back there.

But I'm an adult, and looking at history I realize polarization means that the other side sometimes win. If that happens on Tuesday, and the other side eventually succeeds to repeal Obamacare, I'll just say that I pray they have a plan that's more than just "tear it all down."

(Even though this is clearly written on my personal blog, given my online presence for my employer, Chesapeake Systems, when it comes to the realm of politics, I feel it important to stress that the opinions stated above are solely my own and are not to be construed as representing the company or my colleagues in any way. Thanks - DRy)

10/11/12: On the day of the VP debates . . .

I must be working too hard again. I had one of those anxiety dreams last night . . .

(My attempt to inject a bit of non-partisan humor in this contentious campaign season :-)

BTW, I continue to have a blast in my Marketing Director role at Chesapeake Systems in Baltimore. I post on the company website some of my articles from my monthly "Sales and Marketing Minute" column for the TIVA media organization, (Television, Internet and Video Association). Here's a link to one titled, "Are You Staying Curious?"

David Byrne & St. Vincent at The Strathmore

My wife bought us as an anniversary gift tickets to the Sept. 30, David Byrne / St. Vincent concert at The Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, MD.

The Strathmore is a really fine concert hall, alternate home to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. And parking, access to the hall, food and drink amenities, etc. are all very accommodating in comparison to many venues.  Having "hung up my hat" regarding large stadium and arena shows in general, the idea of seeing "the thinking man's rocker" with fellow avant-garde musician St. Vincent on a Sunday evening had a lot of appeal to me.

I am told that it is becoming more common at concerts these days for artists to allow - and even encourage - recording and picture taking. Still, this was my first experience of that. So I certainly found it refreshing when Byrne, before the show started, came over the PA and gave that message. I liked how he added, "But I encourage you to not get too caught up with you devices, and enjoy the live show." It made for a nice relaxed yet enthusiastic readiness for the start of the set.

However, to our dismay, the sound during the first half of the show was "boomy," at least back in our section (these concert halls are supposedly perfected to make every seat an acoustic pleasure, hmmm). The bad sound was made all the worse with the unusual band combination of a large (to my mind, too large) brass section. And furthermore, St. Vincent's cool fuzzy guitar riffs were inaudible. I couldn't help but keep thinking back to stories (perhaps apocryphal?) over the years of how Bruce Springsteen always checks out the sound from all sections of a venue during the sound check. That would seem de rigeur to me and obviously didn't occur before this performance.

And while I appreciate -- and was looking forward to -- experimentation (e.g. one of my favorite albums of all time is David Byrne's collaboration with Brian Eno on "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts"), all the songs in this concert came off sounding the same. By the time intermission arrived,  I thought, "No wonder he doesn't mind songs being recorded and posted to YouTube -- who would want to?" Sorry, David.

But then after the intermission, things changed. It appeared that someone had addressed the sound issue, and the songs, at least to my mind, started having their own individuality.

Still, I am not sure the collaboration of Byrne with St. Vincent is remarkable, since for me the highlights of the show were songs from their individual pasts.

I particularly liked St. Vincent's "Cheerleader" from her Strange Mercy album,

and I have since bought the song on iTunes. It's become one of my favorites.

And sure enough, there was the Talking Heads anthem, "Burning Down the House."  I agree with the Post reviewer of the concert who said that the crowd was chomping at the bit to get up dance. Yep,  out came my camera during that classic Talking Heads song:

The triple encores were also very cool, so yeah, in the end, the concert finished as a net positive for me.

Of course, even had it not, just the evening out with my wife would have made it all worthwhile. ;-)

BTW, I am the Marketing Director at Chesapeake Systems in Baltimore these days, and I am having a blast. I post on the company website some of my articles from my monthly "Sales and Marketing Minute" column for the TIVA media organization, (Television, Internet and Video Association). Here's a link to one titled, "Is everyone on your team thinking like a salesperson?"

And on the 7th day, God gave us basketball . . .

Why do parents say, "You can be anything you want to be?" 

If so, then I would be a great basketball player.  

But no matter how much I practiced in the cold fall and winter afternoons as a kid, the fact was I couldn't jump, I had small hands, and I had no speed.  The best I got to was church league basketball, basically because they needed bodies.  But it never bothered me, even when selected last in pickup games, just as long as I got to play. 

And I loved watching the game just as much.

I was raised in a fundamental Christian family where we attended two hours of church Sunday morning and then two more in the evening.  But my parents were cool enough to let me watch the NBA on tv in the afternoon after our big Sunday dinner.  And my love for the game became cemented watching the likes of Russell, Wilt, Barry, Havlo, West, Oscar, Billy Cunningham, Hal Greer, (notice a 76er fan with those last two?)

And I still love to watch, especially during March Madness and the NBA playoffs, even with some of today's "bad behavior," and my puzzlement over the appeal of multiple tattoos. (oh, just get over it, David)

I have always enjoyed the fine arts of dance and drama, but it's hard to beat the excitement generated from the unique combination of those two art forms in a close basketball contest.

And it seems we have a great series taking shape in the current NBA Finals.  Yeah, I guess I probably am rooting for the Mavs in the end (i.e. the so-called "good" guys), but what I really want, and if there is a god up above . . . we'll have a Game 7!

UPDATE:  Well, no game 7.  Oh well.  After the way Wade & James mocked Dirk (how immature!) I'm more glad that Dallas won (like most everyone else outside of Miami, I guess.)

So I settled on Tues evening for watching the Game 7 of the NHL, hockey - Vancouver vs. Boston.  Yeah, I used to watch the Bruins a lot as a kid, too, Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito and gang, but it was always second choice to basketball.  Gotta say, personally, no offense, but even with HD, it's still second choice for me.

What I am Reading for the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War . . . and Why

As you may know, we are in the midst of honoring the 150th Anniversary of the start of the Civil War.  The Washington Post has been printing excellent installments, and I have been collecting them.

I also highly recommend reading the masterpiece, "Reveille in Washington," by Margaret Leech.  It was published in 1941, but it remains a classic.   It is superbly written and well-researched, resulting in riveting detailed stories.

If you had any relatives who fought in the Civil War or lived and worked in the DC region during that time, this is a must-read.


But even if you do not have familial ties to that era, this book well illustrates the seismic transformation our country underwent during those five years that continues to reverberate to this day. 

For example, it chronicles well how DC transformed from being a Southern political power base to a Northern-dominated town, one of the most historically important transitions for our country as it signaled the demise of the Great Compromise of the Constitution (where slaves counted as 3/5 of a person in apportionment).  

As historians will tell you, that one compromise impacted our history in many ways, ranging from the election of Jefferson as president in 1800 to shelving the debate on slavery thereby ensuring generations of suffering and irreversibly setting the country toward a brutal Civil War.

And this book shows the macro aspect of that through the telling of countless personal stories. 


And for those thinking this book might be just another exercise of reading "dry" history, let me just say that the author showed that our "proper" ancestors certainly had a lustful side to them that would make even readers of today's tabloids blush.

If you live in the DC area, an added bonus will be that this book will make walking and driving around the region so much more interesting for you.

If you can't find the book in your library, (I found mine in a musty bookstore up in southern NY) it is available through Amazon.


If you get a chance to read it, I invite you to share what you think of the book.