THE FBN PRODUCTION CENTER
When Faith Center signed KHOF-TV, Channel 30, on the air in late 1969 local programming was either produced in the main auditorium where church services were held or in a small open office area with a low ceiling on the same floor where KHOF-FM was located. The small upstairs production area was sufficient for small productions and even housed the daily kids program, Black Buffalo’s Pow Wow. Larger productions were produced in the auditorium. The auditorium was furnished with temporary seating made up of rows of black metal frame and red cushioned chairs that could be easily moved out of the way. During the week the rows of chairs were moved to clear the way for sets, lighting “trees” to support studio lights and studio cameras. For church services the lighting trees and sets would be moved to the east wall and hidden by moveable scenery flats to clear the main floor for the rows of chairs for the congregation during church services.
This limited the ability to do large productions where sets needed to be left up for a week or more. Additional studios were also on the horizon to support multiple productions occurring simultaneously. It became evident a dedicated television production facility would be needed due to the increased demand for Christian TV programming both locally and for syndication.
As the plans developed, however, obstacles quickly arose. Just having a Christian school on the same property with a production center presented challenges. The parking lot for church services on Sunday and mid-week services served as a playground through the weekdays for the school. Other than a limited amount of parking for the staff on the south side of the building the only parking available for studio talent and guests would have been street parking. There were also concerns regarding the relocation of classrooms with respect to the main school wing that had been added to the north side of the Faith Center campus. The general consensus began to develop that it would be better for the TV Production Center be placed at a different location.
Of course, Pastor Ray Schoch was no stranger to difficult decisions when it came to the work of God. And when those decisions came Pastor Ray would say, “BUT GOD!” Pastor Ray was good friends with the owner of Glendale Hardware. The owner mentioned he was selling the business to Virgil’s Hardware and the store would be relocating leaving the current location vacant and for sale.
Pastor Ray ran the idea of converting the old hardware store into a television production center by Bernie Marston and other engineers on the staff. Upon giving the idea due diligence several positive things became evident. First, the building was an arch truss design. This means there are not as many columns needed to support the roof which leaves more open space for a studio. The building was large enough to house two fair sized and one small studio. The location was line-of-sight to both Faith Center and Eagle Rock, where the FM station was located. This meant a radio link could be easily installed to transmit video and audio to either location! And moving moving television production to another location now opened of the possibility of constructing a new Faith Center sanctuary and leaving the former sanctuary for full time use by the Christian school for classrooms and an activity center. God had indeed opened up a door!
An early production of “Faith In Action” taped in the main auditorium. This photo was taken from the TV control room area looking out a large window onto the floor of the auditorium.
The small upstairs studio area utilized for small productions and Praise-A-Thons. It became the home of Black Buffalo’s Pow Wow, a daily kids program. Note the low ceiling area and the window blinds as this was on the south side of the building.
The sanctuary converted to a TV studio. TV lights hung from the ceiling and on lighting “trees” in the background which is the east wall of the building. The TV control room area is in the upper left corner and the glass window can be seen that overlooks the floor. The moveable chairs show in the foreground with the platform to the far right.
This photo was taken in the early 1970’s. Note the blue background set up on the same stage used for church services. The production was a Meetin'Here Tonight with the McQuary Five. On camera is Paul Manning and Keith Miller. Steve Rudolph is floor directing and Frankie Cardoza, Co-Host, is on the front row far right.
In early 1973 plans began to provide a full time television production studio. It was originally thought that the full time TV production studio could be accommodated at the existing Faith Center campus at 1615 South Glendale Avenue. This was so seriously considered that a ground breaking ceremony was held. Those present were Reverend Ray Schoch, Faith Center Pastor; Paul Crouch, KHOF General Manager; Dr. Willard Peirce, Faith Center Associate Pastor, Dr. David du Plessis, known as Mr. Pentecost; Doug Clark, End Times Evangelist; Bernie Marston, FBN Director of Engineering and Joseph Baumgartner, Contractor.
Pastor Ray Schoch is manning the shovel. Over his right shoulder is Bernie Marston. To the right of Bernie is Dr. & Mrs. Williard Peirce. Standing to the left of Pastor Schoch is Doug Clark and to the left of Doug is Dr. David du Plessis.
Present day aerial view of Faith Center. Glendale Avenue is on the right. Cerritos Avenue is on the south (bottom of photo). The sanctuary/auditorium is at the top and the main office, radio station and school was housed in the center building.
In the 70’s AMPEX and RCA were the leaders in the manufacturing of 2” quadruplex videotape machines. As you can see in the photos these machines were large. That was the technology back then and these machines were capable of recording and playing back audio and video with high quality. When set up correctly they could make multiple generation passes when editing with little quality degradation. At the time these machines cost around $100,000 each! Compare this to today where you can buy a PC with a video editor for just a few thousand dollars. FBN had three Ampex VR-1200C’s shown in the pictures above. FBN Engineer/Director Bruce Braun is shown standing at a VTR in the photo on the right.
Hundreds of wires converge into the audio rack area. The photos above are the same except the one on the right reveals more of the wires to be connected. These racks were located in the main audio room. This is a view of the rear of the racks during the wiring phase. The input and output from every audio device in the building terminates in this room where it can be patched and routed to other equipment. The large unit in the left rack is called an audio distribution amplifier. FBN chief audio engineer, Rick Riccio, had this unit custom constructed for FBN. The contractor built this unit and sold it to FBN for a great price.
Maintenance Engineer, Steve Pair, who assisted in the installation of the audio room tells this story:
“Also, do I remember correctly; in the 2nd floor audio room wasn’t there an entire equipment rack with a set back aluminum panel full of those Triad Transformers (maybe 100 or more) that served as input/output matching & isolation for the audio board? I recall that Burt and I were doing all of the wiring in & out of that rack and while I was holding onto a large bundle of cable, Burt was tying them up with large Panduit cable ties. There wasn’t much room behind the rack so both of our heads were inside the back of the rack while he was pulling hard on those Panduit cable ties. Well you know what happened next! One of the cable ties broke while Burt was pulling on it with all his might. Since my face was right there inside the rack, when the cable tie broke and Burt’s hand (holding a large needle nose pliers) came hurtling back towards us, he struck me just over my left eye with the pliers. I do remember being hit but little else. The next thing I recall, I was looking up from the floor as the force of the strike from the pliers knocked me backwards out of the rack and flat onto my back. When I came to and was able to focus my eyesight a bit I recall seeing Burt’s face looming over me with a very concerned look, but I didn’t know why. Surprisingly I suffered no real damage other than a really nice “mouse” over my eye. Why do we remember things such as this??? :)”
Once completed, the audio distribution in the facility was of very high quality and state-of-the art for the time.
This is a photo of control room C which was the smallest of the three control rooms. It was the first, however, to be completed and operational. This is where the Director and, where utilized, the Technical Director and Producer would sit. Most of the time the Director did his own switching and could be called the Director/Technical Director. When a Technical Director was utilized the Director could concentrate solely on the production and give instructions over the party line (intercom headset system) and the Technical Director would operate the switcher panel placing cameras on-air when the Director called for it.
The production switcher is seen mounted in the console to the left. This was a Ricker (pronounced Ry-ker) video switcher that could only support a small number of sources (e.g. cameras, film cameras). It was acquired when Faith Center started its television ministry. The goal was to someday equip the 2 larger control rooms with larger and more capable switchers.
The console, which the Director set behind, was designed and constructed by our own FBN staff member Don Johnson, mentioned earlier. Don was very capable in set construction, general carpentry, mechanics and, also, a talented cameraman. Don started at Faith Center as a custodian. The light colored cut-out panels shown on the console were aluminum with a vinyl covering. This allowed for installation of buttons, switches, lamps and miscellaneous technical gear needed in TV production.
Don also constructed the monitor wall seen to the right of the photo. On the top row, left to right, is an audio monitor speaker, a color preview monitor (so the Director seated behind the console could see a camera in advance of putting it on the air) and to the right of that the program monitor showing what was on the air. The program monitor has Color Bars on it which is a test pattern used to align equipment. The preview monitor shows a production slate. Close observation of the slate shows a date of 3-1-75 which is assumed to be when Burt Lehman snapped this photo. To the right of the program monitor is a Favag Impulse clock. Since programming was run from the KHOF-TV transmitter site and live programming originated from either the production center or Faith Center it was handy to have the clocks synchronized at all locations to facilitate smooth switching transitions from one facility to another. A master clock system at the production center fed slave clocks at Faith Center, KIFM, KHOF-FM and the KHOF-TV transmitter. The impulse clock shown in the photo had a second hand that incremented with a jump every second showing the precise time.
The second row of monitors were the source monitors. These monitors were black and white and allowed the Director to see all video sources. The small monitors on the left monitored tape machines and film island cameras. The Director could see when video was rolling and locked before placing it on air. The three larger monitors were for the cameras so the Director could see what each camera was shooting and talk to the cameramen over a headset system giving them directions on what to shoot and how he wanted the shot framed in preparation for it going on the air.
Many thanks are extended to the following individuals and their contributions.
Linda Schoch-Davis: Historical details on the groundbreaking and studio acquisition
Joe Shackleford: Comments regarding the studio floor
Burt Lehman: Photos of the video control, audio racks and control room C.
Steve Pair: Submission of his audio rack wiring story
Paul Diederich: Layout of the graphic arts area
We hope you have enjoyed reading about the FBN production center and our virtual tour along with the stories we have shared. The studio remained in operation until around 2005 though it never developed into the full time production center envisioned. The building still remains but to our knowledge it is no longer utilized for television productions.
ENGINEERING OFFICE:
A camera shy Joe Snelson, FBN Assistant Chief Engineer, holds up a TV Guide to avoid having his picture taken. Joe is seated in the Engineering office on the second floor and working on a piece of equipment setting in front of him on an equipment manual. In addition to other electronic parts decorating his office notice the old manual typewriter to the far right. This photo was taken circa 1976 and well before the widespread adoption of personal computers in the office environment.
Most of the certificates on the wall are from manufacturers equipment training classes, such as for camera and videotape recorders, demonstrating an individual has successfully completed training to maintain the equipment.
The former home of Glendale hardware was acquired and the remodeling plans began to convert the hardware store into a television production center. A man that was a contractor and good friend of Pastor Schoch, Joe Baumgartner, took on the task of the remodeling project. Joe was able to save Faith Center considerable money by using “rainy day carpenters”, or so we called them. These were men that worked for Joe and when bad weather prohibited them doing outdoor work they would come over and help in remodeling the building.
The building was single story, however, there was enough ceiling space to add a second floor in the front for additional office space and a second floor in the rear for control rooms.
What follows are floor plans of the lower and upper levels of the production center with some comments and stories we hope you will find interesting.
An aerial view of the production center in Glendale. The production center is large building in the center of the photo. Mario’s Italian Deli is immediately adjacent to the right of the studio building.
AUDIO A, Audio Racks:
OFFICES:
There were three offices upstairs in the main entrance area which were to accommodate producers, directors, programming and other television staff members.
STUDIOS:
The studios had high ceilings to accommodate a 14 foot
pipe grid. This allowed for
tall set pieces and where the studio lighting fixtures were hung. This author recalls
a time when a Chapman camera crane was brought in for a production. This is an extremely
heavy device shown on the right where the camera and operator are on the end of a
long moveable arm. To allow the arm to raise off the ground the rear was counter
balanced with many hundreds of pounds of lead weights to allow easy movement by somebody
standing on the floor. Of course the operator would never dismount the crane without
ensuring it was chained down with the arm at floor level. Cameraman Don Johnson was
on the crane in Studio A talking to Joe when Don suddenly jumped out of the seat
for some reason. The crane was not locked down. As soon as Don vacated the seat the
crane quickly began to ascend upwards! Seeing this happen Joe and Don grabbed on
to the handles on the front. This slowed the crane down to where it very lightly
bumped the camera into the grid and lifted them off the floor momentarily. Eventually,
both of their weights brought the crane down to a point where Don could jump in the
seat and Joe brought it to a safe landing on the ground where it was locked down
with the chain. Cranes have been known to “launch” cameras in the air when an operator
jumps off and is unable to slow down the fast rising arm. Fortunately, that never
occurred at FBN that anyone is aware of.
STUDIO LIGHTING ELECTRICAL ROOM (Stu Ltg):
Hundreds of wires from the lighting receptacles in the girds of the three studios terminated in this room. The wire ends were connected to patch points which, similar to an old time telephone switchboard, allowed connecting any light into a dimming system to control light intensity and for switching on and off. A story was circulated that a non-technical manager was touring someone through the facility. The room was still under construction and the hundreds of wires were hanging there and not connected. Not knowing what the room was and how to describe it they proceeded to tell the person touring something like, “This is where the phone calls come in from all over the world and are routed from one place to another.” I don’t know if the person being toured actually believed that, but it sounded impressive. I guess one could say the person giving the tour was “Evangelistically speaking.” The wiring did get completed although hard financial times hit preventing the full outfitting with dimming capabilities.
VIDEO CONTROL:
The video control room is the “tail end” of a television camera. FBN had 3 Norelco
PC-70 S2 cameras (PC is assumed to have stood for Production Camera and not Personal
Computer, which didn’t e
xist back then). The “tail end” was the Camera Control Unit
(CCU). The camera CCU’s are shown on the left in front of the chair in the photo
above. A video control operator (VCO) would ensure the cameras were set up to make
perfect color images by making adjustments to overlay the three tubes, red-green-blue,
so they were perfectly aligned on top of each other. During production the VCO would
constantly make shading adjustments to ensure the exposure was correct. The two large
monitors above the CCU’s were precision color TV monitors to ensure precise color
and brightness replication of what the camera was shooting. The monitor on the right
showed what was on-the-air while the one on the left was selectable by the VCO. This
gave the operator the ability to match camera exposure and color to another camera.
This is called “shading and painting the camera.”
Up until 1972 Faith Center had two high-end industrial grade color cameras. While these sufficed when TV production started they were not high grade professional cameras capable of faithfully reproducing video images under diverse lighting conditions. Professional TV cameras were needed. When one of the staff engineers approached the KHOF-TV General Manager about getting professional cameras he was quickly turned down due to the cost. Sometime later the engineer was talking to Pastor Ray and explaining the increased benefits of a professional grade TV camera. After his explanation Pastor Ray looked the engineer in the eyes and said something like, “If you have the faith to issue the purchase order request I will agree with you that God can provide the funds.” The engineer filled out the request and submitted it to Pastor Ray directly who signed it! The KHOF-TV General Manager was surprised and within a few months three Norelco PC-70 color TV cameras were delivered to Faith Center. The entire TV staff was praising God for His provision. BUT GOD!
This is a rendering of what the aerial view might have looked like had Faith Center proceeded with constructing the sanctuary wing. The ground breaking ceremony took place at the approximate center of the new south wing depicted in the rendering above.
The groundbreaking ceremony actually had a two fold purpose. A new wing was to be added as a full-time church sanctuary which would then free up the auditorium to be refurbished into a television production studio. The new sanctuary was to be constructed on the south side and adjacent to Cerritos Avenue. Below are photos showing the current Faith Center campus and a rendering of what was originally being proposed.
LOWER FLOOR PLAN:
The two camera controls to the right of the PC-70’s were for the two film cameras. A film camera is similar to a TV studio camera in terms of setup and operation except its specific purpose is to televise slides and 16 mm or 35 mm motion pictures. One camera typically had a single slide projector and two film projectors associated with it. The selection of which film source the camera would look at was accomplished using a system of mirrors (a device called a multiplexor). Only one device could be used by the camera at one time. As mentioned earlier, this assembly of camera, projectors and multiplexor was called a “Color Camera Chain” or a “Film Island.” To the left is a picture of a Film Island from WHCT.
Audio control room A was the largest of the three audio control rooms. It housed a 16 channel Rupert Neve audio console. Shown here is FBN engineer Jon Palmer operating the console. This particular audio console was a very high quality unit. Faith Center essentially acquired it at cost from the manufacturer. This was made possible since the Neve regional sales representative happened to be John Marston, the son of FBN Director of Engineering Bernie Marston. Returning for a moment to Jon Palmer there was an event that occurred which was probably one of the pinnacles in his career as an audio engineer with FBN. Mel Blanc, the voice of Porky Pig, was in the studio for some production. John asked Mel who graciously agreed to step into the announce booth and do a quick “A be da be da be da be...that's all FOLKS” for Jon. He loved it! What a collector’s item.
Here are a couple of pieces of equipment mounted in the equipment racks discussed above. The unit on the top is a Revox ¼” reel-to-reel audio tape recorder. This allowed for the recording and playing of audio material, such as music tracks, for productions. The piece of equipment below the Revox is an ITC ¼” cartridge tape recorder/player. Short audio clips, typically a minute or less in duration, would be recorded on a tape cartridge inserted into this machine. The machine used tones recorded on a separate channel on the tape to stop the tape at the beginning of the clip. The operator only had to push a button to have the audio clip instantly start. With stacks of these cartridges handy hundreds of music clips and sound effects were immediately available. Of course, this technology is obsolete now and has been replaced by computer file servers.
CONTROL ROOM C:
MAINTENANCE SHOP AND ENGINEERING STORAGE:
The maintenance shop is where all of the “sick equipment” was repaired and brought back to full health. This was a spacious area compared to the small area at the Faith Center campus. There was also a storage room where parts and equipment was stored.
There was a maintenance engineer that worked at the studio who was a member of a
rather notable Southern California motorcycle group at the time. His name was Bob
Lawrence. Bob was a rather large and burly character but was one of the nicest individuals
you would ever want to meet. He kind of reminded me of one of the characters from
the K&B Construction Company on the television program Tool Time. Bob worked in the
maintenance shop that was illuminated with recessed light fixtures that contained
75 Watt light bulbs. The air conditioning worked great in the shop, in fact, too
great. The room would get cold and of the morning when you flipped on the light switch
the bulbs experienced thermal shock going from 
a cold environment to white hot in
a few thousandths of a second. The life on the bulbs was about a month, if that.
Bob got tired of replacing bulbs and bought a batch of “bulb misers” shown in the
picture of the right. You can click on the picture for more information about them.
These were small disc appliances (for those technically inclined they were thermistors)
that were inserted into the base of the bulb socket. When the light was switched
on the misers had a high resistance that slowly lowered as current would flow into
the bulb and heat things up. As the resistance lowered the bulb got brighter. This
slow turn on greatly increased the life of the bulb, but with one hitch. With the
cold room and turning on the light switch the bulbs would barely start to glow. It
seemed like it took several minutes for them to finally achieve full brilliance.
At least the misers cut down on bulb replacement. We supplemented the ceiling lights
with fluorescent fixtures over the benches.
The maintenance shop was also the home of the central equipment racks. These equipment racks contained the video distribution amplifiers, patching and switching gear to route video signals throughout the production facility.
UPPER FLOOR PLAN:
GRAPHIC ARTS:
Almost every television station in this era had at least one graphic artist on staff. FBN had two talented individuals that were the primary graphic artists, Alex Valderama and Paul Diederich. The graphic artist would design and produce art cards and slides used in television production. For example, before electronic titling became widespread and affordable names of individuals that would be superimposed over the video picture was done either by putting the name on a black card with white lettering and shot with another camera to be superimposed over the main camera or, in lieu of an art card, the artist would create a 35 mm slide that would be inserted into a slide projector on a film island to be superimposed over the main camera.
The primary tools used by the graphic artist were an abundance of black non-reflective card stock and white rub on letters. The artist had to properly size the letters and ensure they were even and squared up on the black card. For creating slides there was a darkroom where high contrast film would be developed with white letters over black.
Graphic Artists also created sales and promotional print brochures for the station. The FBN Graphic Artist area provided the room to support the tables, storage for supplies and a dark room to produce all graphic arts for FBN and Faith Center.
This is the rear entrance to the production center. You will, again, see another white arrow pointing to the rear entrance back when the building was still Glendale Hardware. The black lettering was also painted over with white paint to hide the lettering. Through the years with the sun beating on the arrow you can see the lettering bleeding through.
This small parking area in the rear sufficed for most of the productions that occurred at the studio. The lot was actually property of Mario’s deli to the east of the studio building and was leased to Faith Center to provide parking.
OFFICES & ENTRANCE:
The main entrance for the production center was on the north side of the building facing Broadway. There were three offices downstairs, the main entrance and a lobby area. The offices accommodated various staff such as producers, directors, programming and others that needed a desk to work at.
STUDIOS:
The production center had three studios. This would allow us to devote a studio to a recurring production, such as a daily program, without having to tear down the set to accommodate another production and then set it up again for the daily program. That was the intended vision for the small studio C. While the studios were not considered huge they were sufficient for the productions FBN undertook. Studio A, the largest, had a permanent Cyc wall with a sweep. The term “Cyc” (pronounced Sike) is short for cyclorama and is typically a neutral white back ground. Colored lights directed towards the Cyc would allow for making a pleasant colored background for a production. The “sweep” was at the bottom of the Cyc and was a curved section that gracefully transitioned from the vertical Cyc wall to the floor. Painting the Cyc and floor the same color resulted in a camera shot where you could not see the seam of the Cyc meeting the floor and made for a nice seamless background.
You will notice in the first floor plan that the studio and adjoining hallways are shown in gray. There is a story we will tell about these floors. An ideal studio floor would be perfectly flat. That is, if you rolled a billiard cue ball along the floor it would travel in a perfectly straight line without jumping or deviating to the right or left. You may wonder why this is so desirable. In television production it is often desirable to move the camera along the floor while it is on the air. We sometimes refer to it as “trucking the camera.” If the floor is not smooth the televised picture would bounce and jump as the wheels on the camera dolly rolled over the floor surface imperfections.
There are various techniques utilized to create a flat floor. One of the techniques being explored for production studio floors at this time was a poured resin type floor. The FBN engineers toured some studios where this technique had been utilized and the outcome was rather impressive.
In simplistic terms, you start with a sub-floor that is already fairly flat. The resin, typically in five gallon buckets, is mixed with a catalyst, and the person doing the application, wearing golf shoes, begins pouring the resin on the prepared floor. The resin self-levels and if the application is successful you have a very flat and smooth floor. That’s in theory.
Unfortunately, the outcome for us was not quite as successful as we had hoped. The old concrete floor of the hardware store was not in great condition. The contractor decided to place a one-inch concrete cap on top. The initial cap looked good but after a few weeks, and before the pouring of the resin, it was evident the cap did not bond to the original floor and some cracking occurred. He attempted to remedy this by pressure pumping epoxy into the cracks. That appeared to work in terms of bonding the cap to the floor though there were portions that seemed to lift as a result of the high pressure application. After some grinding and other messing around we were ready to apply the top coat, so we thought. The installer came in with his golf shoes and applied the top coat. The studios and hallways were beautiful. Unfortunately, over time the concrete cap under the top coat developed problems in some places and in time we had to do repair work on the floor.
Overall, we classified it as a moderate success and it did serve our needs. The lesson learned going forward is that the key to a poured floor is having a near perfect thick, well reinforced concrete base sub-floor with proper moisture barriers installed.
Joe Shackleford shared a story regarding the floor. Some years later the management decided to tear out the wall between studio B and C to make for one large studio. When Joe had the wall removed he was surprised to see the elevation difference between the two studio floors. What he did not know, since he was not there at the time of construction, was the concrete cap was poured after the walls had been framed so there was no assurance the floors would match between studios. This, however, became a moot point. Shortly after the wall was removed management decided to reconstruct the wall between studio B and C. This was done to convert studio B into a computer room. The former studio B was outfitted with a raised computer floor with a significant increase in air conditioning to support a rather large and somewhat antiquated IBM mainframe that was installed. Chances are your desktop or laptop PC has more power than this old mainframe did.
As an interesting aside, it is reported that some years later after the conversion of studio B to a computer room a car slammed into the front wall of the building and into the computer room. I think a live telecast may have been in progress at the time in Studio A. Repairs were made on the front of the building and if you stand in the right place on the south sidewalk of Broadway you can see the coloration difference of the repair job with respect to the original stucco.
LOADING DOCK:
The loading dock area served as a handy way to load and unload deliveries to the studio. Deliveries ranged from sets to technical equipment for the studio. You may have noticed the wide hallways joining the studios and videotape room. This made it easy to wheel large sized items from the dock to the destination area.
This area was also the construction area where sets and other items such as control room consoles were constructed. There was also ample storage on the south side and on a mezzanine level to the south. This area was watched over by Don Johnson a talented carpenter as well as a studio cameraman.
Another important piece of gear located in this room near the power vault was a large air compressor. Clean particle free compressed air was needed for operation of the 2” quadruplex videotape machines. Don ensured this compressor was in tip top shape and performed whatever maintenance was necessary to keep it working. Of course, he also used some of the air for his power tools.
VIDEO TAPE AND TELECINE:
This room also supported a couple of film islands. Film islands were also called a “Telecine” within the industry. Telecine is a combination of the word television and cinema for film. While these have been described elsewhere on this site a film island was made up of a 35 mm slide projector and two 16 mm film projectors. Any of these three projectors could be directed into a television camera using a mirror system called a multiplexor. The specific multiplexor used at FBN was made by Kodak and the mirrors changed through the use of a compressed air piston system. More will be said about the film island later on this page. The film island made up of the three projectors, multiplexor and television camera was also called a “film chain.” As a little side humor Bernie Marston had a “Color Film Chain” hanging in his office. The picture on the right is a depiction of what he had hanging there. Notice that it is a 35 mm film camera suspended by a color chain. The colors are red, green and blue and are the primary colors for white light. Color television cameras had three imaging devices inside them. Light would enter the lens and through the use of red, green and blue optical glass filters be separated into the primary colors, focused on imagers where light is converted to electrical signals and passed on for further processing by the cameras electronics. So we have pictured here a camera supported by a color camera chain and a funny take-off on the term.
VIDEOTAPE STORAGE:
FBN had a library of hundreds of hours of programming. While we had a lot of space in the videotape room we needed a place to store archived material that would be saved for years to come. The person that worked this room managed the archive and also checked in and out the videotapes that were “bicycled” in for playing on KHOF-TV. Once a program from another distributor was received and played it would be shipped to the next station in line for playing, hence the name bicycle.
The FBN Production Center was located in Glendale, CA. This page tells the story of the acquisition and conversion of the Glendale Hardware store into the FBN Production Center. We have also included some other stories that took place at the studio we think you will find interesting.
To the right is an artist’s rendition of the front view of the Faith Center campus encompassing the church, school and radio and television studios. This is what the campus would look like from Glendale Avenue.
The church sanctuary is on the left side of the photo and the production studio is shown on the right side.
This picture is from a publication called Faith Center Outreach. The publication lays out the total vision for the Faith Center ministries. Click on the photo at the right and check it out.
The artist rendering was done by a Christian Architect, Joe Columbo.
OUTSIDE:
Pictured to the right is the west side of the production studio building. Note the large white arrow pointing to the rear of the building. The arrow, with black lettering, pointed towards the rear parking and entrance for Glendale Hardware. Of course, the letters were painted over in white when Faith Center acquired the building. However, some of the old lettering can be seen bleeding through the whitewash.
Also shown is a tall overhead style door. This was the entry to the large loading dock area. To the left of the loading dock door you can see a small white door. This was a heavy sliding fire door over the entrance to a small totally enclosed room. We assume Glendale Hardware may have used it for the storage of flammable materials. We used it for something else. Any production studio requires a lot of electrical power for electronic equipment, studio lighting and plenty of air conditioning. To meet this need we requested Southern California Edison (SCE) to provide new electrical service to the building. SCE needed a place to set new power transformers. This small room with only an outside entrance seemed to be an ideal room to become a power room. SCE agreed and the rest is history as they say and we had plenty of power.