KCPT's first original HDTV show ready to air

Inside a roomy editing lounge at Paddock Productions on the Country Club Plaza, a group of video pioneers has spent this spring learning the wonders - and aggravations - of high-definition TV. I visited there last month during the mastering of "Uniquely Kansas City," the area's first TV program created in the new digital format. Part 1 of the five-part series airs at 8 p.m. Wednesday on Channel 19 and in high definition on Channel 18 (to the few hundred sets capable of decoding and displaying a digital signal). The four other parts will air in December. By mid-2002 all Kansas City TV stations will be required to air digital signals. KCPT is the only one already broadcasting digitally but thus far has relied solely on programs beamed from PBS headquarters in Virginia. Civic leaders Jeannette and Miller Nichols last September wrote the check that made "Uniquely Kansas City" possible, after a fortuitous meeting between Jeannette Nichols and KCPT's director of production, Chipp Tate. In that meeting, arranged by local arts impresario Joan Israelite, Jeannette Nichols envisioned a video companion to Kansas City's sesquicentennial celebration. It would showcase the city's contributions to the arts. For Part 1, Tate and the program's other executive producer, Randy Mason, decided to focus on the city's architectural achievements. Shooting outside in late summer against a powder-blue sky would show off the brilliant, almost three-dimensional picture quality of high-definition TV. The resulting hour looks terrific even in regular TV format. But high definition proved a fickle friend to director Dan Diefenderfer and videographer Troy Paddock. Its richer color palette captured minor but telling differences in the hues of the sky from scene to scene that standard cameras don't. You might never have noticed on your TV, but the color shifts were painfully obvious to the two men as they watched their video on the 60-inch high-def screen at Paddock Productions. Reshoots were needed of several buildings. Then there were the streetlights. Standard TV is shaped like a square, but digital TV is rectangular. So whenever Paddock filmed from the street, the wider frame inevitably captured a light pole or two, annoying Diefenderfer to no end. But high-definition also captures night scenes more brilliantly, as seen in the hour's closing shot of the "steeple of light" at Community Christian Church on the Plaza. Filmed on a winter night, it shows snowflakes passing through the light beams as the camera pans the heavens. And for those of you who've had trouble warming to the Charlie Parker statue near the intersection of 18th and Vine, you'll reconsider after seeing it softened and matted by the camera in "Uniquely Kansas City." The proud, serene visage of Bird is one of the hour's highlights. Departing KSMO head: 'I was asked to stay' In my April 22 On the Air column I reported that Gloria Rudd, sales manager at KSMO, Channel 62, had been fired. I also noted that general manager Missy Gaines had announced her resignation and that sources familiar with the situation at KSMO speculated that Gaines had "jumped before she was pushed." The speculation was wrong, says Gaines: "I made a decision a week before Gloria left the company," Gaines said this week. "My family has a desire to go back to Cincinnati, and I want to reconnect with my kids again. I was asked to stay (by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns KSMO). I'll be here until my replacement is hired." What goes up Management at KMBC, Channel 9, created an uproar last month when it circulated a waiver form that seemed to hold the station blameless if its new helicopter crashed. The waiver was written by Metro Networks Inc., the traffic-report company that actually leases NewsChopper 9 to the station. Everyone in the newsroom was asked to sign the form, which releases KMBC, Metro Networks and station owner Hearst-Argyle Television from liability related to the helicopter. "It was typical of a lot of things that lawyers get involved with," KMBC general manager C. Wayne Godsey said. "The first time I read it I didn't understand it either, frankly." Neither did a lot of his employees, who refused to sign and contacted their union representative instead. "On one hand, we're told that 'everybody flies,' " one KMBC employee complained to the News Blues Web site (www.newsblues.com). "On the other hand, we're being told that you don't fly unless you first sign this release." Godsey eventually got on the phone with Hearst and Metro Networks and, after meetings with the union rep and employees, restored peace. "Our position on the helicopter is that anyone who doesn't want to fly in the helicopter doesn't have to," Godsey said. Clearing up the insurance matter was more complicated. The real owner of NewsChopper 9 is Helicopters Inc. of St. Louis, which leases it to Metro Networks, which then contracts it out full time to Channel 9. Metro doesn't insure the chopper because Helicopters Inc. does, to the tune of $50 million. And according to Godsey, "There is nothing in the waiver that waives anybody's rights or access to that insurance." To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit www.tvbarn.com >>>