Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1081203
37 Q1 2019 / CINEMONTAGE 37 Q1 2019 / CINEMONTAGE station in Chicago. In high school, he was involved in the school radio station, where he was a production manager and had his own show. After graduating, he moved to Colorado to pursue his dream of becoming a professional skier. When he realized that wasn't in the cards, he returned to Illinois and enrolled at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. During his first year, Shapiro started working weekends for his father's company. It was after learning how to use a new slow-motion instant replay machine that Shapiro started traveling to work on sports events and variety television. Shapiro worked on the national broadcasts of the World Football League and met the crew, including Gene Crowe, who went on to become one of the top technical directors in Los Angeles. "It was a tremendous group of people who were the cutting edge of freelance live television in the mid-'70s, and that gave me a lot of opportunity," he recalls. While in California for a game, he visited another show at Pepperdine University in Malibu and struck up a conversation with the crew working in the VTE (Video Tape Enterprises) broadcast truck. When the technical director learned that Shapiro knew how to operate and maintain the new slow-motion/ instant replay disc, he asked if he wanted a job. "And it was like, BAM — I'm there," Shapiro remembers. "I'm done with school. I'm moving to California. And there was no turning back." Shapiro traveled to work on sports and specials. In 1984, he came off the road and took a studio job (as a videotape operator/editor) at Entertainment Tonight (1981-present). It was an opportunity to learn new equipment — and also a turning point in his career. "I had a fascination to learn the new Ampex ADO Digital Effects System (the newest DVE device at the time) because ET had such high demand for constant effects," he relates. "They wanted a lot of pizzazz. They wanted lots of effects transitions. Different DVE boxes were being utilized for live shows and it Kenneth Shapiro, right, with fellow technical director John B. Field in a Denali television production truck working on the 80th Oscars broadcast in 2008. Photo by Gregory Schwartz