Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

November, 1945 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE 4? Bob Purcell and members of his University of California Extension-KFI Advanced Radio Workshop services of one of its producers, Bob Purcell. In the hope that you can get one of your local radio stations to cooperate in such a program and do its share in keeping its own industry alive and well-fed with fresh, energetic talent, here’s the set-up of the University of California Extension-KFI Advanced Radio Workshop. Before the course started, Bob Purcell had the applicants fill out questionnaires in which they were asked to state what specific things they wanted to get out of the workshop. One girl, for instance, had done odd jobs in a radio station and aspired to producing. She felt that her weak point was timing, and so that was the phase of radio that interested her the most. Another girl was concerned only with improving her radio acting technique. One fellow, who had a minor job in pictures, wanted to study radio as a preliminary to learning about television, his eventual goal. His wife took the course, too, not out of prolessioiial, but out of marital, interest. She wanted to be able to discuss her husband’s work intelligently with him. “I always try to get a varied and yet a compatible group,” Purcell says. “Anyone who looks as though he is a sourpuss, or might go snooty, or temperamental, is out. “I also like to get people with as many different backgrounds as possible, so we can each profit from the other fellow’s experiences and the knowledge he can bring to us.” Purcell’s current company of thirty, the second one since the plan started, runs in age from 19 to 60. Half of the group are teachers who want to be able to pass on what they learn to their radio-appreciation students ; several are college students taking the course for academic credits (they get two credits for the course from University of California Extension) ; and several want to get professional r a d i o, television, and recording jobs. Versatility is something Purcell rates high on his list of qualifications for the workshop. For example, he feels that a radio director ought to be able to pinch-hit for an actor who may be taken ill or arrive late ; and an actor ought to know something about the way soundeffects are achieved. So that it doesn’t take most of the sessions for each member to get to know all the other members and their backgrounds, Purcell hit on the wonderful idea of mimeographing a “directory,” with all this information, and distributes a copy to each one. This is a practical, time-saving device which does away with a situation that frequently exists in such groups — finding out, when the course is over, that another member had the same specific interests you did and that, if you had known about it before, you might have had some i)rofitable discussions with him. The group meets every Wednesday and Friday evening, from 8 to 10, at KFI. The first session is usually devoted to learning some basic things like