So it was, on an icy November day
in 1999 that we headed for Pittsburgh. Four hours of slippery
roads and blinding blizzards later we arrived, confused and lost
in this town of many bridges. A friendly officer in a cruiser
told us how to get to our hotel, but seeing total confusion in
our eyes said, “you better follow me, it’s about two miles”
This escort to the hotel was a
warm welcome to Pittsburgh on this icy/wet day. After checking
in at the hotel, we headed for the stadium. It’s now a parking
lot for the new Heinz stadium. It is said that Heinz paid $57
million to have it named after the company!
We had known Jay Ballard for 20
years, but Chuck Pharis only by reputation as Senior Video
Engineer for ABC in Hollywood and a winner of three engineering
Emmys. We found them both in the video control booth at
the front of the Panasonic truck. To check out the
CamAlign, Chuck set up one of the 720P cameras by the truck.
As an engineer who had used matte
charts all his life, Chuck’s reaction on seeing the glossy
CamAlign for the first time was “but it’s glossy? Don't you have
it in matte finish?”. When we introduced the glossy chart
this was a frequent reaction so we always had a matte version to
demo. Chuck framed the glossy CamAlign in the viewfinder
of the 720P and we all climbed into the truck to look at the HD
waveform and vectorscope displays. With camera colorimetry
set to the new chart Chuck seemed to like what he saw, but asked
to look at the matte version on camera. We had the
impression that he expected to prefer conventional surface. But,
when he saw the difference in dynamic range and color saturation
he said "please, give me the glossy version.
Monday morning was spent chipping
the cameras to a glossy CamAlign driven around the stadium on a
golf cart. Monday afternoon we had to leave for home and
didn’t get to see the game.
Back at the lab on Tuesday
morning an excited Jay Ballard phoned to tell us that the
“powers that be” had called to say the Pittsburgh game in HD
looked superb. Since then we have been fortunate in getting to
know another facet of Chuck Pharis - where to start?
This is a man of many interests;
he enjoys the great outdoors, camping, fishing and driving into
the wilderness in his convertible with the top down. Panning and
digging for gold in California’s Mother Lode country, he once
panned a 24 carat nugget weighing over an ounce and dug up
others almost a big.
Chuck is a “packrat” who hates to
throw things out, he loves antiques and is seldom happier than
when grubbing through antique stores and garage sales. Our
industry can be grateful for this side of his personality,
because he has assembled probably the greatest collection of
antique television equipment and memorabilia in the United
States.
How did Chuck become what he is
today? Born in Detroit, Chuck has one sister and can trace the
family roots back to biblical times. A good student, his
schooling in Detroit was uneventful. When he was 12 the family
moved to San Francisco where Chuck finished school and went to
college. While competent academically, his main interests were,
as they are today, mechanics and electronics. You could say his
career started when he was in high school watching ABCs Wide
World of Sports with his father; Chuck thought, “that’s for me”.
After college he started in radio
and 16 years later ended up in television at ABC Hollywood.
Here he rose to the top of his profession doing what he loved
the most, video control on live sporting events, such as ABCs
Wide World of Sports. Chuck says "Live TV is the most fun
for me." He has done many live stage shows, 17 years on the
Academy Awards, 10 years on the Emmys, and many sitcoms and
variety shows. He has also done his fair share of "soaps"
including General Hospital and Port Charles, but soaps are not
his favorite.
Chuck lives in the country west
of Los Angeles and is happily married to his lovely wife Cindy,
who has her own career teaching photography and art. There are
five offspring, three in the UK and two girls at college in
California. During the recent fires we were concerned for their
safety and called Chuck. He said that the fires came close,
North, West and South of them, but fortunately they were OK, as
was Chuck’s priceless collection.
What’s ahead for Chuck Pharis? As
a freelancer he is currently consulting on a motion picture and
shooting three or four days a week, while still pursuing all his
other interests – what else would you expect from a dynamo who
goes to bed at 11.00PM and is up at 5.00AM every morning?
You can learn much more about
Chuck Pharis at http://www.pharis-video.com/ and don't be shy
about donating vintage TV equipment which he will lovingly
restore and display at his camera museum in the Hollywood area.
You can contact Chuck at
chuck@pharis-video.com.
We are embarrassed to tell you
what Chuck says about DSC, but not too embarrassed to print it!
"After 38 years doing Video
Control for both sports and studio shows, I have used almost
every camera set up chart on the market. Now that I have
seen and used the charts from DSC Labs, one will always travel
with me to every show I do! They don't get any better than this!
Thank you DSC!"
We said it was embarrassing -
thanks Chuck!
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