TeleVISIONS (Autumn 1976)

countries. You do buy time for a spot, but you do not specify where that spot will be. It has no relation to any program. It is a subtle difference but | think it is an all important difference. The point of that is that the strongest control is exercised over the spot itself. Control is exercised over entertainment by the fact that you can choose where your spot is going to be. But there is also some control over things like PSA’s as a result of the Ad Council—which I’m going to trace historically to some extent. Then of course you have the underwriting situation. So you have different kinds of control, different degrees of influence, let’s say, over different aspects of programming. Almost all the companies that have gone in for heavy underwriting, have had some kind of image problem. Underwriting goes way back to Alcoa sponsoring Edward R. Murrow because they’d had an anti-trust problem which had given them a black eye. Almost every time a sponsor decides to sponsor something like that there has been something in the background. Dupont sponsored the Calvacade of America because of the ‘Merchants of Death” phrase that came up in the mid30’s when there was a congressional investigation that brought out how much Dupont had made out of World War |. The statistics were quite horrifying. Before they even reached print Dupont had decided, through their ad firm, to go on the air witha history series, Calvacade of America, which went on for 10 years. They had very strict rules: no war stories; no shot was ever to be fired on that series. The slogan that went with the advertising was BETTER THINGS FOR BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY. They had feminist stories once a month, things having to do with civil rights. What happened in the case of radio and TV? There was a freeze period: the 4-year period in which TV was in full operation in selected cities so that a sponsor could test here and there and see what would happen. But none gave up their radio spots because you couldn’t cover the country with TV. They didn’t have wire connections. Lots of cities—Austin, Texas, Portland, Maine, Portland, Oregon—quite a few didn’t have a TV station at all. Lots had only one TV station. Then the freeze was lifted: The FCC began handing out licenses thick and fast. They had fantastic success stories during the freeze period. Advertisers just abandoned radio and plunged into TV. They had an enormous boom. It was a situation that allowed TV to be tested pretty carefully. The tests were almost bizarre in their results. Hazel Bishop lipsticks increased something like 3000 percent. Castro Convertible, one little store did a commercial. A little Castro girl opened a couch herself. That was the foundation of an empire. Advertisers will plunge into cable. A lot of stuff on cable will be sponsored stuff. Some of it will be pay TV stuff. What the proportion willbe, | have no idea at all. One of the things feared is that the audience will become fragmented because of the multiplicity of channels. Now I've seen some comments by advertisers who would actually welcome that because they say it will create great opportunity for the kinds of communications you control ... like in radio before we went to scatter. You're right, it may encourage a reversion to the kind of sponsorship we did have, in which the sponsor produced the program. But I’m not making any predictions. | i __as the model. 9 EDUCATION Keeping it in Perspective: Educators Use Video Modeling for Environmental Design Aid in visualization developed in Ann Arbor, Berkeley By ERIC CARLSON For hundreds of years architects have relied on drawings to illustrate the buildings and cities they envisioned for the future. Since the 16th century, when Albrecht Durer perfected the technique for creating the perspective drawing, one of the more show-stopping tricks in the architect’s bag has been the perspective rendering of a beautifully landscaped building, situated in a vibrant city. Attractive as such utopias, drawn by generations of artists and architects, have been, they have in fact conveyed only a limited amount of information to their target audiences, and have become very costly exercises. The perspective drawing now more often serves as part of a ritual in architectural design than as a tool to make better informed decisions about the future. In response to this problem designers and researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of California at Berkeley are capitalizing on developments in video and have begun to develop tools which will more comprehensively, and quickly convey design concepts. The intention of these researchers is not to make drawings obsolete but rather to enhance the process of visualization which is vital to the design and planning of our environment, by using video. Professor Les Fader, of the Architecture Department at the University of Michigan, describes himself as an architect, photographer and inventor. His primary interest has been in developing ways for his students to become better designers. A major problem for young designers has been visualization. Designers must learn to “see” the three dimensional consequences of their drawings and, visualizing a three dimensional building or landscape from a set of two dimensional drawings is difficult for beginning designers to learn. While the perspective drawing has traditionally been an important tool to aid such visualization, it is a time consuming practice, and is often frustrating for beginning students when they find they have spent hours on a drawing which has not provided ,them the information they desired. The use of scale models helps students to visualize design concepts but models, by themselves, can be misleading because of their small size. Les Fader believes that the use of video equipment, coupled with scale models, can alleviate some of these problems for students, as well as for more experienced designers. With videotape, the visual experience of full scale environments can can be simulated using models. Not only students and professional designers will benefit but the public can become more involved in the design and planning process as well. ” Fader has his students build simple, rapidly constructed cardboard models of their designs, which may be rooms, houses, neighborhoods or city projects. Using small, specially adapted video equipment (Sony AVC 1400 cameras, fitted with lenses of Fader’s invention) students can maneuver cameras around their models as if they were walking or driving, and can see images on the video monitor from the perspective of a person the same scale The visual effect is one of experiencing a full-sized environment. With this technique, students can quickly see what their designs will look like without constructing perspective drawings or full sized mock ups. They can discover what will be seen when moving around or through a particular project. With the rapid feedback available from video, students can quickly change their designs, using scissors and cardboard, and evaluate the results, eliminating the need to go back to the drawing board. Fader calls this process of rapid feedback an exercise in peaking perceptual powers, and he feels that such perceptual peaking is important for beginning students in design because it develops their powers of visualization. The Simulation Lab at Ann Arbor is equipped with extensive lighting, and audio equipment, and a variety of photographic processes are readily available so that simulations under a variety of environmental conditions can be executed, recorded and quickly reproduced., Rapidly developed photo transparencies and prints may even end up as aids for making traditional, perspective sketches. : Several videotapes, simulating proposed projects in the Ann Arbor community have been produced in Fader’s lab. These tapes have been used to discuss new projects with citizens and Fader has found that people respond favorably to such tapes because they provide more — information than drawings alone. Fader also surmises that the ready acceptance of video-transmitted design concepts has to do with most people’s familiarity with the video image. People have spent thousands of hours looking at TV and know how to “read” it. a models in architecture design class. Univ. of Michigan students using video with scale equipment, whose optical design creates the impression through the camera of seeing a life-sized environment. Pre-programmed routes or ‘joy stick” controlled trips can be taken through model neighborhoods or districts and viewers can realistically see what such proposed projects will look like. The concept here is essentially the same as the work done at Michigan but the Berkeley Lab has been more highly automated. In a recent project at the Simulation Lab, members of the Berkeley community participated in a city planning “game” to decide how an undeveloped area on the city’s waterfront might be utilized. When a plan had been developed, architecture students built a scale model of the area in question, along the guidelines for development which had been agreed upon. After the model was completed videotapes and films were made of routes through this model. This fall citizens will be able to see these tapes and films and can review the visual implications of their planning decisions. Appleyard and his colleagues are currently working on anather project, commissioned by the Federal Energy Commission, to study the visual impact of wind generation facilities on residential neighborhoods. Scale model windmills of various types will be installed in a model of a typical residential neighborhood and videotapes and films will be made of the models to determine what types of windmills are most compatible with neighborhood housing. The objectives of Appleyard’s work involve the achievement of high quality color simulations, and the costly, miniaturized optics of the periscope apparatus have —o While Fader’s concern was helping his students, the Environmental Simulation Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley has been more explicitly concerned with citizen participation in design and planning. There, Professor Donald Appleyard and his associates have developed a computer-directed periscope apparatus which can be directed through model environments. Movies, photographic __, Stills or videotapes can be made with this , Sulting firm. - imposed certain limitations. Because of relatively high light demand levels for color video cameras, the periscope apparatus is more suited to 16mm and Super 8 film for color work. However, where rapid feedback is necessary, video will still be employed. Eric Carlson, a founder of Videa, a Seattle-based video architectural con ¥30V4 S37 Ad