Director's Take: The Access Family

The world is certainly filled with the concrescence of so many disparate worlds, and our Access Hollywood family is no different.

When I look around at all of us, at our varied backgrounds, ages, races, genders, religions, politics, lifestyle choices, body sizes, etc., I think it’s amazing that we find common ground and get a show on the air every day. In this regard, we have a lot to be grateful for - our jobs for one thing, and the opportunity to work with each other! “Benevolent bosses” also comes to mind in the things-to-be-grateful-for department, and ours are definitely that.

This allows us the freedom to be more creative and original, and to collaboratively think of inventive solutions to the constant obstacles presented by that Doomsday Clock of our own (not to be glib about the real one), a.k.a., the countdown to our one o’clock satellite feed.

Just so you get a better sense of who we are, here’s a photo of our stage crew - well, most of our stage crew anyway. We took this camera grab in honor of Wayne’s retirement. Wayne is in the center of the picture with the tan jacket. More about Wayne in another blog.

A few of our crew were actually working at the time so couldn’t be in the picture: Neill and Aldo in the tape room, and Bill in maintenance. Junior, Head Carpenter, was off somewhere - possibly contemplating his next chili recipe. Junior is known for his famous chili, which he cooks from time to time for all of us. It’s yummy!

You may have seen these names in our long credits. Now you can put the faces with the names. They are, (pictured above from left to right -- click on photo to enlarge), starting with the bottom row of kneelers: Mark, Electric; Charlene, Audio Mixer; Shawn (Incredible Hulk), Teleprompter Operator; Andy, Tape Room Editor; Mike, Camera; MJ, Script P.A., 2nd row: Erick, Technical Manager; Monette, Deko Coordinator; Johnnie, Stage Manager; Wayne, Audio Assistant; Beth, Deko Operator; Cathie, Aprisa & Still Store operator; Kevin, Camera; Ann, Jib Operator. 3rd Row: Ray, Tape Operator; Kim H., Associate Producer; Chris, Electric; Dave, Head Electric; Rudi, Associate Director; Me (Kim A.), Director; Bill, Lighting Director. 4th Row: Scott, Video; Victor, Technical Director; Big Mike, Head Props; Justin, Graphics Coordinator; Dave, Head Electric. These are most of the people who make it all happen on our stage every day. They get it done.

The photo was shot in an area we call the “B” mark. We’ve labeled all the areas on the stage with letters. It makes it a little easier to move around from one location to another when you use shorthand. We use numbers from A - N for the general areas and more specific designations for variations on those marks, i.e., L-1, L-2, L-3, etc.

Now you know something about how we move around on the stage and when you see the show, you can say, “Oh yeah, there’s Billy on the “B” mark. I know that location.”