The Metropolitan Block Building, 1012 N. Third Street, was
built in 1890. Next to Usingers, kitty corner to the
Milwaukee Journal Building, across the street from discount
shoes, a greasy spoon, derelict bars and Maders, this
massive five story office building had once housed many of
the cities offices and courts, until the building of city
Hall in 1896.
We bought film at Reimers Photo, its main tenant, and had
our processing done at Pro-Lab, a 35mm slide film processor
that had taken space on the "Metro Block"'s second floor.
We were looking or office space, but as often happens, fate
stepped in and pushed the envelope. Pro-Lab wanted out of
their space. On a sales call, Ric effused about the
possibilities. I wasn't convinced, until I saw what Pro-Lab
was leaving behind-- two unfinished film "changing booths,
constructed within their 400 or so square foot space, that
screamed "audio studio!" to me.
We took over the lease, for $200 bucks a month. We bought
white ceramic letters to pint to the door: "S-L-I
Multimedia". The "I" cracked as we pressed it on.
Our neighbors were the Ironworkers Local Union office, a
toy train importer, and beneath us, Roman's Bar, which had
cheap beer, the thinnest chili imaginable, and a good
jukebox. There was also the Wisconsin Cheese Mart, and
Black Forest Imports. No wonder, today, its called "Old
World Third Street".
We-- actually Ric-- went about decorating the office. He
went to K-Mart and found (for twenty bucks a roll) some
amazing striped carpet that best could be called
"Rainbow"-- it was like a large bath towel. We erected,
with his brother Dave's help. a wall helping break the
office into two sections, and finished off the changing
rooms into audio booths through the use of paneling,
leftover carpet, and a glassed in hole in the wall to make
one of the sections an announcer's booth.
We were in the office three years. And in retrospect, those
were probably the most amazing three years of our
existence. During that time we went from two or three
"jobs", to a spectrum of continuing relationships, borrowed
money from a bank, got our staff size to six, and became
the "hot shop" in town.
(Editor’s
Note: My high school friend and college roommate Mike
Krawczyk worked for the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. They
needed a “slide talk” for their speakers’ bureau. He asked
if we were interested. We were. That show can be viewed
below. Technologically it’s rough, and its a best guess
recreation of what it looked like as projected slides, but
it does give a hint of the style and creative techniques
that would be our hallmark throughout our
careers.
A
Company Feeling: The Milwaukee Rep from brienlee
on Vimeo.
In the previous chapter, we mentioned some of our selling
philosophies-- always having something to show the
potential client that seemed to relate. For that reason, we
quickly got work from all the major arts groups. The Rep
begat the symphony, begat the Art Museum, Begat UPAF, begat
the Library, etc. Industrial shows (how to make valves)
begat other industrial shows. And by volunteering to
produce the Milwaukee Advertising Club's Awards show, we
exposed our talents to a wide range of advertisers and
agencies.
Ric and I did all the hands on for the first 18 months or
so, Then, realizing we had more work than we could handle,
we first sought to find someone who had a combination of
both of our qualities-- i.e., could write, shoot, sell,
edit, and also bring an additional dimension to the firm.
That person was Rob Riordan. Son of a storied newspaper
writer and P.R. man, Rob was accomplished in his own right.
he was a shooter /writer for WBAY in Green Bay. he had been
the editor of the Newspaper at Marquette. He was into
politics and politicos. He had heard from the grapevine we
were hot. And he wanted in.
I thought this was cool. Rob was two years ahead of me at
Marquette, and had been one of the people, like myself,
that held title to the cherished "906 North 14th Street
party Apartment a block from the J-School. I knew he was
damn good, if a tad bit more serious about things than
either Ric or I. And he did film. We wanted to be fully
multimedia; videotape at the industrial level didn't yet
exist, and he was our ticket to motion.
Ric was less enthused, especially when Rob attached a
string-- if it worked out, in a year he'd be a partner.
"Yeah, sure", we said, looking only at the amount of labor
we could get for $125 a week (significantly less than his
market value, Rob would later remind us).
But a handshake deal was done, additional space was taken,
and Rob added new contacts, stature, and capability to the
combination. Soon he took over a great deal of the writing
from me, so that I could concentrate on the audio, and
general creative direction.
Soon we were working for Schlitz, First Wisconsin, and NML.
We even began doing filmed PSA's for our charity accounts,
some of which made major splashes. And then, for the second
Ad Club presentation we did, we were able to mix slides,
film, audio, and celebrity appearances into a cohesive
presentation that was surely a combination of the best of
all our talents.
In those first few years, we quickly moved from emphasizing
the technology of slides to the brainpower behind them.
Evidence of this was the hire of Linda Duczman, a 1973
Marquette grad. Recommended to us by beloved J-School
office manager Ed Pepan, Linda met the qualifications. She
would work half a day as secretary receptionist, and half a
day as writer. She did our books, answered the phones,
improved our location interviewing style (many of our
charity shows consisted of interviews cut into continuity
in the classic documentary style of the '60's), and
eventually took on the writing of the "everyday" script.
But here's Linda's Story, in Linda's words:
25
YEARS IN A-V
Call it "luck."
After almost 25 years I am still involved in "multimedia,"
because, as luck would have it, the Appleton Post Crescent
called two weeks too late … the PR Director of the
Milwaukee Rep decided he needed a salary increase more than
a PR Assistant … Ed Pepan had a job "lead" … and, I had
only the vaguest idea of where I wanted to be
professionally in 25 years. So, when Brien Lee, Ric Sorgel
and Rob Riordan offered me the job of
Scriptwriter/Receptionist/Bookkeeper for Sorgel-Lee
Multimedia, I took it
After a few months, I asked why they hired me. I'd asked
the same question when I finished a PR internship the
previous summer and should have known better. Then I'd
found out I was one of 3 applicants -- the first never made
the interview, the other arrived, boyfriend in tow,
explaining that she hoped to pursue a career in hospitality
management. And there was me.
Ric, Rob and Brien agreed I was singularly unimpressive.
But lucky me, I was again outstanding in an exclusive field
of candidates. There may have been another applicant. Also,
I would work cheap, was not put off by the office's beach
blanket striped carpeting, and failed to notice their new
scriptwriter would lack a phone, desk or typewriter.
I knew Ric and Brien vaguely from Marquette. Ric had taken
a remarkable sequence of photos of a co-ed slipping and
falling in the mud near the Student Union. He'd rushed off
without helping her up; the photos appeared later in the
Marquette Tribune.
Brien was a stern faced journalism major who always walked
fast, with a newspaper tucked under one arm. As yearbook
editor, he'd produced a highly creative book whose
highlights included a photo of a toilet bowl and a "record"
review of the year in sound.
Rob came from a Milwaukee "journalism" family and had
graduated from Marquette just before my freshman year. A
news cameraman in Green Bay for a few years, he had just
joined Brien and Ric that Spring, bringing them his film
expertise.
My first script is buried deep in the paper trail of
clutter that documents my longevity. I strongly suspect it
is not the literary equivalent of an early Picasso, so it
will remain "lost." It may have been written for either
Lutheran Social Services or Cutler-Hammer -- two of
Sorgel-Lee's earliest clients.
LSS remains memorable, because the client insisted on
adding the phrase, "And so it goes …" to the wrap-up. That
was not the level of "brilliant" word play I wanted in my
script. In fact, we may have forgotten to record it when
the soundtrack was produced. And so it goes …
Cutler-Hammer was a better experience. Our program was
selling the services of their tool room to the company at
large. Howard, a retired gentleman who was script contact
told me I'd handled the subject so well, he wondered if I'd
like to be a tool and die apprentice. Now this was fun.
As prehistoric as "then" appears from "now" and a computer
age perspective, "technology" was one of the major
attractions of multi-media. Still images moved "like film",
dissolving one into another. You had a powerful, component
package of words, voices, music and images. Not unlike the
world of web pages and computer graphics today,
20-somethings in young companies worked on technology's
cutting edge.
In time for my first day on the job, they had acquired a
desk, chair, phone and a big blue, IBM Correcting Selectric
on which to type final script drafts. We consumed boxes and
boxes of correcting tape.
We also consumed vast quantities of audio and cassette
tape. I learned to wear big ear muff headphones and "cut"
tape using a straight edge razor and an old 1/4 inch deck
with exposed heads. I used my first professional microphone
and wind screen. I learned that a good audio person could
save an interview recorded with insufficient signal, or too
hot -- but he wouldn't be happy about it. We were always
rummaging for RCA's, phono plugs and adaptors and
eventually I learned the difference.
Gravely voiced Jerry Davis from Chicago was our own
personal, 3M Rep. 3M pioneered "convenient" slide
projector-tape recorder combinations. These single
suitcases weighing 50 plus pounds would pass no test for
ergonomic correctness. A physically small person, I tried
to make carrying them look effortless as we "proved" to
clients their bulk did not out weigh their convenience.
The early days of A-V were filled with dust, cans of
compressed air, paper, plastic and glass (Wess) slide
mounts; ortho film, colored gels and thousands of gravity
feed slide trays -- 80 and 140's. I learned "photo" speak
-- bracketing a half stop up and down. We "push processed"
film.
We learned even simple technology can be fickle when the
trusty Kodak dissolve unit failed to advance slides in the
First Wisconsin Center program during a sales call. There
was the rag time music cue, but the flapper next to the RCA
Victrola did not appear on screen. In manual override mode,
Brien reached for the unit and pulsed us through to the end
of the show -- cut- cut- 2 second dissolve- cut- cut …
The Spindler and Sauppe Dynamic Que Dissolve became state
of the art, then AVL's Show Pro series of dedicated
multi-media computers. And in what now seems like over
night, there were more computers, 32 projector shows, video
and finally video projection …
One of my all time favorite pieces of music is the
"Eighteenth Variation on a Theme of Paganini." I think of
multi-media today, computer style, as the eighteenth
variation on a theme of communication. It is components
joined to tell a powerful, more exciting story. It is so
different from what A-V was 25 years ago. And, it is so
very much the same.
Linda Duczman
_________________________________________________
I think we're still paying off the IBM Slectric.
I know we're still paying off our screening room.
After producing a monster multimedia show in the round for
the Milwaukee Art Center ("The Urban River", one reason
Milwaukee is finally Riverwalk Crazy), we decided we needed
a showroom to show our stuff in. We were making money, so
we went after a loan. The M&I, and a decent guy by the
name of Dennis Finnegan, bit. They loaned us $20,000 to
build a "state of the art" multimedia projection room, in n
office space across the hall that looked like it had been
last occupied just prior to city hall opening.
We were able to build up our audio studio-- from a single
four track deck and a six dollar Olsen brand battery
operated mixer, to a couple of decks, a nice mixer, pro-
turntables, and an old "Roberts" tape deck Rob brought in.
We loved the Roberts; it didn't raise the tape off the
heads so you could edit (splice) tap easily. We ran cables
from the studio into the booth, and used the voice talents
of our friend and later employee Steve Lutomski. Usually at
night, though, when the traffic at Roman's was down. (We
had a deal where we could call them to pull the plug on the
jukebox so long as we stopped in after the session).
Our staff consisted of Ric, Rob Linda, Brien, Steve, Greg
Latsch (photography) and Dave Sorgel, Artist (and
carpenter). We were working for the Journal, all of the
Arts, TV6, Schlitz, Howard Johnson's, A&P, and a host
of others.
We would break the tension with occasional games of nerf
basketball in "El Robbo's Arena", a large open space where
Rob's desk would have been had we gotten him one (actually,
he was in another room next door.)
Linda mastered the art of fixing the Xerox machine (the one
where you fed the master into the machine and Xerox charged
you six cents a copy). We ate lunch at the Press Club.
Occasionally we (sometimes me) would get drunk and blow off
an afternoon. We had parties to celebrate anniversaries,
new jobs, birthdays, you name it. As far as we knew, we
were unique. We like that. Of course, this story was
happening all across he country with other misfits just
like us, and an industry was brewing.
We were learning to play with the big boys. We were doing
meetings for the Credit Union Executives Society (A former
employer of Linda's), Schlitz, and high profile PSA's for
everyone (the Rep, Library, Symphony).
My own personal watershed event was landing a big
multimedia show for the Milwaukee Journal, to tout their
"Availabilities" to local advertisers at the Performing
Arts Center. The result was a 45 minute piece of multimedia
that covered the history of Milwaukee, the history of the
Journal, and a laundry list of neat places in the Journal
you could advertise. I wrote a script that was ok. And the,
I went to the Journal's 3rd floor conference room for a
script review with what I thought might be two or three
people, including Jack Koller, our contact, and marketing
Director Newell Meyer.
I opened the door to see about 20 people seated around a
table! How I survived that review, I'll never know.
We were having our share of success, and handling it well.
For now, the balance of pressure, release, and success was
just right.
Then I got a phone call on the Saturday before Christmas,
1975, from Steve Lutomski. In his inimitable voice, he said
"Sorry to wake, you but the building's on fire.".
"No," he added, "I'm not kidding".