THE WORLD OF DONALD HYATT

As Producer-Director of Project 20 Shows a 1950 Graduate of the College Has Pioneered New Techniques and Raised the Quality of TV

You sit there in the control booth watching the monitor where in one minute the project you've spent six months working on will start rolling through. You think about the thirty million people who will be watching: people in Manhattan apartments, people in thousands of suburban developments, the farm folk, those who live along lonely stretches of mountain road or on the vast ranches of the West and along the sunny Pacific coast. You wonder if the program will hold them - if the opening sequence which you sweated over so hard is the right one, the one which will interest them in what you're trying to say. Or will they turn to another channel, switch off the set or go to the kitchen for a beer? The minute is over. The light flashes and your program is on the air. But this minute has been the most tense and thrilling of all."

Donald B. Hyatt '50 has known many such minutes in his dual role as Director of Special Projects for NBC-TV and as Producer-Director of NBC's renowned Project 20 series. During the past eleven years he has been working in the awesome and often terrifying world of television - a world that has grown from infancy to some degree of adulthood in little more than a decade; a world of tension, a world caught between the insatiable demands of its millions of viewers, the high-pressure freneticism of the advertising agencies and sponsors which nourish it, and the judgments imposed by the rating system as guidelines for the competing networks.

Hyatt's world at NBC is further complicated by the particular area toward which his talents are directed. "We're exploring and trying to mature in the 'gray area' - the area between the straight-news, informational type of programming and the sheer entertainment type of program," Hyatt explains. "Too many people draw an iron curtain between these two areas. We hope to bridge the two, and by combining the best ingredients of both to create a marriage of elements and a new type of television program. In brief, we're in the business of entertainment programming for broad public interest. I believe that good entertainment and good education are one and the same. You can't have one without the other."

Bringing about this merger has not been easy. Television programs of this type are still struggling to live down the old public service days of radio the long and usually dreary type of Sunday afternoon program known in network jargon as "the intellectual ghetto." Networks have been reluctant to venture into this area, sponsors and agencies afraid to risk dollars there, and in a still growing industry there have been few men capable of melding the complicated elements of the news and entertainment programs. Yet, after ten years of struggle it appears that the merger has been effected successfully, at least on the NBC-TV network.

A photographic portrait of the man who pioneered this field - the man who taught Hyatt the philosophy and the techniques necessary to explore this world - the late Henry "Pete" Salomon, is the first sight that greets you as you push open the steel, green door marked "Special Projects" on a fourth-floor corridor of the RCA Building of Rockefeller Plaza in New York.

On adjoining walls in the reception area are a few of the plaques and framed citations which have been awarded the NBC's Special Projects and Project 20 programs. You find out later that these are television's most honored shows, winners of such coveted prizes as the Peabody Award, Freedom Foundations Award, the Robert E. Sherwood Television Award, and similar testimonials from such diverse groups as Look Magazine, Variety, the Academy of Television and Sciences, The American Weekly, ScholasticTeacher, and the U.S. Navy's Distinguished Service award, a total of 33 awards in all, including eight international awards.

Behind the reception area is a large working office with desks and file cabinets and mountains of research ma- terial. Thirty people are working here and you walk past them to Hyatt's office, in the far corner. It is a modestsized room, nicely laid out with desk, couch, chairs, some additional awards hanging on the walls along with portraits and photographs from some of the Project 20 programs.

Hyatt looks almost the same as when we knew him at Dartmouth, perhaps a trifle heavier. He is stockily built, with a round, almost boyish face, alert blue eyes and neatly groomed sandy hair with just a tinge of dark red to it. His is a serious face but when he grins it breaks into a thousand crinkles. Wearing a sports jacket and fondling a pipe, he relaxes at his desk seeming much more like a youthful Dartmouth professor than a television executive and producer.

Around Hyatt's office are the books, records, photographs, and files from the memorable programs produced by the Project 20 series. You recall vividly the famed Victory at Sea documentary and the many other programs which include, in rough chronological order: Meet Mr. Lincoln, Mark Twain's America, The Innocent Years (1900-1917), The Great War (1917-1920), The JazzAge (1920-1929), Life in the Thirties (1929-1939), Not So Long Ago (19451950), and such historical programs as Nightmare in Red (the rise of communism inside Russia), and The TwistedCross (the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler). All these shows received Neilsen ratings of between 23.9 and 35.2, the type of rating usually accorded only to the so-called spectaculars.

To create such smash hits required a merger of talents on the part of the late Henry Salomon, the guiding genius behind the early Project 20 programs; the concise yet almost poetical writing of Richard Hanser, the superb musical scores of Robert Russell Bennett, the research wizardry of Daniel W. Jones, and the production know-how of Robert Garthwaite, associate producer. "You can't buy the human experience, the compatibility, the talent of this wonderful Project 20 team," Hyatt said. "Television is such a highly complex and demanding medium that no one person can be the 'God.' You must call upon genuinely talented men who work together with spirit and great artistry to create something in which all have a significant part. It may sound corny but in a very real sense it is a family relationship, a working together to give birth to something of which you hope you can be proud."

HYATT is well schooled in the close family relationship of a television producing team. He went with NBC immediately following graduation from Dartmouth and after a year under NBC's management training program (including a term as producer for the much-lamented and never-seen UncleMiltie's Fairy Tales for Children, starring Milton Berle) — he joined the staff of Victory at Sea as assistant to its producer, Henry Salomon. This naval history of World War II, a series of 26 half-hour films for TV, went on the NBC network in the fall of 1952 and was an immediate success. It captured every major honor in the industry. It has been seen throughout the world and by more people than any other motion picture or TV series. Photographs from the film footage and the narration were combined to create a best-selling book. Since its debut eight years ago it has never stopped running on television and still it is receiving the same high ratings as when it first appeared. Just this past month (December 29) Project 20 presented a special hour-and-onehalf version of it on the network' in prime time.

For five years after the Victory atSea production, Henry Salomon and Don Hyatt were directors of the Project 20 team, with Salomon as producer and Hyatt as assistant producer. Their early programs, such as The Jazz Age, were largely documentaries but with a distinct flavor and quality which set them apart from other network programs of this kind.

Then in early 1958 Pete Salomon died suddenly of a heart attack, his death coinciding almost exactly with that period when all television networks were facing their first real financial crisis. It seemed only logical that the Project 20 Unit be disbanded.

"It was no time to sit around and look at each other," recalled Hyatt. "In 24 hours things can turn upside down in television. Over the years the network had put a tremendous investment into our work. Now it was time to prove ourselves all over again, to prove that we could make that investment continue to pay off." So Hyatt walked the NBC labyrinth of halls, talking with anyone he could, urging that the unit and its staff be retained. He talked figures, ratings, and battled it out to the very upper echelons. When the dust had settled, more than half of the department had been let go, but the Project 20 team remained and so did the problem - "where do we go from here?"

"We needed a fresh idea, a new concept, another element for our productions," Hyatt mused, "so we came up with the idea of utilizing still materials - photographs, sketches, paintings, posters, in a new way, giving them a motion and life that would appeal to popular tastes. There's a rich historical heritage in these frozen moments of the past. Whether it's a painting or photograph there is a dimension to this moment beyond which the motion picture can't reach. When all these authentic flashes of history are treated with respect something uncanny happens - the dead come alive. 'Respect' is the secret. The scene, the photograph, the painting you choose must be looked at as a director looks at an ordinary scene with live actors and movable scenery and props. The usual tendency with the still-in-motion technique is to continually move the camera in and out and all around Robin's barn, trying to excuse the fact you are dealing with immovable pictures. I move the camera only when there is a reason for it - to motivate action, not to cover up inaction. I move the camera to motivate the story, not to create the usual Mickey Mouse effect."

Meet Mr. Lincoln is perhaps the best example of the new technique. Shown on the evening of February 11, 1959 (on the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birthday) over the NBC network, this half-hour program fused authentic photographs, prints, and drawings of Lincoln's time into a show which the NewYork Herald Tribune hailed as "a television masterpiece." The material used was selected from 25,000 photographs, daguerreotypes and prints gathered by Daniel Jones and his research staff from archives and private collections throughout the country.

"There are some limitations to the technique," Hyatt candidly admits, "but there is also unlimited opportunity. We continually strive for simplicity on television, and often still photographs, particularly good portraits, are the simplest and most effective means of communicating, of expressing an emotion, and for creating a mood. The creation of the right mood, or feeling, in television hangs on a very delicate thread. An expression on a man's face before a TV camera or in movies is gone in an instant - and with it the emphasis, the emotion and the mood of that instant. Because this technique is less mobile it is often more effective."

Hyatt insists on using only original source material in all his productions. He personally examines each item to be used, studying it closely from all angles, and spends countless hours (many of them well into the morning) poring over photographs and sketches, and plotting each camera movement, editing each frame of film. He speaks eloquently about his reasons for this:

"You must climb inside each picture and meet the people and live with them. The people of fifty, of one hundred years ago were not the same as we are today. They lived differently, dressed differently, thought differently, and even walked and acted differently. We can never really recreate the past - no matter how authentically the ac- tors are dressed or the scenery built. The mood, history, feeling of the past can only be captured by going to original source materials - the photographs, sketches, music, words of an era - and weaving them together in a dramatic form, attempting to capture the real flavor of those bygone times."

More challenging in many ways than the Meet Mr. Lincoln project was TheComing of Christ, projected in color this past month (8:30-9 p.m., December 21). The program recreated the world that Christ was born into and the early years of his ministry through use of the world's great paintings, photographs of masterpieces hanging in galleries all over the world. Hyatt says of it, "The element of color, the individual style of each artist, the over-all beauty of the paintings, and the magnificence of the theme made it Project 20's greatest challenge to date."

The current 1960-61 program year is laden with entries created and produced by the Project 20 Unit and the NBC Special Projects Division. And this year has also marked a major breakthrough on the financial side, with all the Project 20 programs under commercial sponsorship as well as most of the Special Projects offerings.

With sponsorship assured this year, the Project 20 Unit introduced still another new technique last November 22 when they offered the unforgettable Those Ragtime Years. In this musical narrative of America's turn-of-the-century ragtime craze, with Hoagy Carmichael as the storyteller, Hyatt as producer-director distilled three elements. - the still-picture technique, historical (documentary) film footage, and the use of live actors and personages cast against authentic settings, using original words and music.

"We believe the ragtime show is something new to television," wrote Hyatt last summer, "that its form opens up fresh opportunities, opportunities that preserve the intent of Project 20, and give us an unlimited diversification of treatment and subject matter."

In the same report (Variety, August 24, 1960) he succinctly described the concept behind all the Project 20 productions:

"Project 20 is a look at 20th century man and what makes him what he is. And what makes us what we are is the past, the present and the future - it is sociological, political, economic, psychological, musical, religious. We are endeavoring to capture the spirit of living, the guts of living, if you will."

HYATT'S philosophy of programming and the approach he brings to the medium undoubtedly reflects his Dartmouth background. A sociology major, Hyatt confesses, "I can't remember more than two or three courses by name, but the background and philosophy which were developed at Dartmouth are guideposts and something upon which I draw daily in my work here at NBC."

When Hyatt came to Dartmouth in the fall of 1946 he was a veteran of World War II (Army Air Force Pilot), had produced several musical variety shows over the Air Force network, and had edited several air base newspapers.

Hyatt learned in the Air Force a cardinal lesson that has stood by him during his years in. television. It is simply that if you produce successful results and keep on producing, you have a full and exciting life, and more fun . . . never mind the 23-hour days.

"I started up a newspaper at an air base where I was in training, and soon discovered that despite my lowly cadet rank I had the run of the base. Just as long as the newspaper won some awards the Colonel was happy and I was ecstatic. The thrill of watching your barracks respond to 5 o'clock reveille as you enjoyed a warm and privileged lunch is not to be missed. So I kept on producing."

And back at Dartmouth after the war he kept on producing. He wrote, produced and directed the first commercial programs for the College ra- dio station WDBS (now WDCR), taught skiing under Walter Prager, wrote columns on the sport for Ski magazine, launched and operated a company called Home Service employing twenty people in landscaping and light construction work, and continued to run the Plymouth Slopes Ski School a project he initiated in the months between his discharge from the Air Force and the time he entered Dartmouth. With all this he managed to graduate cum laude with an honors major in sociology.

This burning ambition and drive to produce successfully will bring some outstanding productions to the NBC network in the immediate months ahead. Under the Project 20 aegis will appear in March The Story of Will Rogers a warm, humorous and intimate portrait of the man, as told in his own words and by those who knew him best, with Bob Hope as narrator. This will be followed by The Real West, an honest look at the American West from 1840 to 1900, with Gary Cooper as storyteller. Old daguerreotypes and photographs, new location film, diaries and letters of those who went West will be used to dramatize the true spirit of the West - the West which thus far has notably eluded the TV cameras! In the late spring an hour-long Project 20 special on the Korean War is also scheduled. For these programs Hyatt serves as both producer and director.

Wearing his other hat, as Director of Special Projects, Hyatt has executive responsibility for a large number of productions coming out this spring through the Special Projects Division. Most exciting is the debut of a new series of hour specials called The Worldof ... The series will present, according to Hyatt, "in-depth closeups of famous living personalities, presented against the background of their respective 'Worlds' within which they achieve eminence. The series will open with The World of Bob Hope and other specials will deal with Marlene Dietrich, Casey Stengel, Jimmie Doolittle and Jawaharlal Nehru."

The renowned Wisdom series, featuring such notables as Somerset Maugham, Picasso, Howard Lindsay, Carl Sandburg, Norman Thomas and Clement Attlee discussing world issues, continues in its eighth year.

Other programs to watch for include Lincoln's Strange Journey (February 11), a special program commemorating the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's inaugural trip to Washington; In Memoriam, a dramatic essay on the Civil War, scheduled for an April telecast; and sometime in March an hour special entitled The Beauty of Woman.

BUT is Hyatt's a voice crying in the wilderness? Can these "specials" - impressive though the list be - make any sort of real impact on a television industry so heavily committed to mediocrity, so closely dominated by Nielsen and Trendex ratings, so restricted by the dollar diplomacy of advertising agencies and sponsors?

Hyatt's answer is quick and vehement. "I'm tired of hearing so many complaints that there's nothing on television worth watching. There's a sort of 'snobbism' toward TV by our intellectuals. People should apply the same selective process in television viewing that they do when they select a book, magazine or painting. Remember - television at its best is a form of art. Selectivity is important and the program listings to select from are readily available. Maybe we shouldn't talk so much about what's wrong with TV as we should about what's wrong with the society that's looking at it. If they'd write in and start talking about some of the poorer programs, the distasteful commercials, you'd be surprised at what might happen. An intelligent, thoughtful letter is always read, whether it's criticism or praise, and you'd be amazed at how fast some of these letters are routed along, from the program, to the network, to the agency and sponsor. Let's concentrate on the good of TV, not on the bad. Let's build where there are signs of life, not wallow in the mud of mediocrity. If people respond to one good program they'll get two more. Just complaining about bad programming doesn't insure good programming."

Public criticism of television, as Hyatt indicates, has not been strong or vociferous. And it is true that the major networks have been making an effort to improve programming. Such efforts cost money, and it is readily apparent that in the past most of the public service type programs shown by the networks have been unsponsored. This year progress is being made, however, and certainly Hyatt's experiences in the growth of quality entertainment is encouraging.

Somewhat later in our interview Hyatt admitted, however, that many of the problems besetting television are due to the frenetic development of the industry.

"Television is a fearsome, mobile and insecure medium into which many people have moved rapidly without real experience or knowledge. Too many people in the business are amateur doers and professional talkers. Real honest 'pros' are hard to find. The industry is in short supply of people who think about the functions and responsibilities of TV. There are a few oases in this desert - a handful of people in the networks, in the advertising world, in sponsoring companies who are willing to risk a 'trip to the moon' - a few with the courage to create or to recognize creation. The conformity to security is frightening."

Reinforcing Hyatt's arguments on this type of television programming are some solid financial facts. Over the entire ten-year span the NBC network has made money on the Project 20 operation. A great deal of this profit has come from the sale of these programs to overseas television outlets in some forty countries. In addition many of the films from these shows have been distributed to schools throughout this country by the Encyclopaedia Britannica Film Service and McGraw-Hill Films. Books and records derived from the programs have also been important and profitable by-products. Among the books already published are Victory atSea, Meet Mr. Lincoln, The Jazz Age, and two volumes of Wisdom. More books and records, based on current season offerings, are scheduled this year.

Understandably this record is fine ammunition for Hyatt when he meets with the NBC Executive Program Board who control all productions and must approve any project which Hyatt and his staff propose. Also helping is the fact that for the past year most of the Project 20 programs have been sold to sponsors in the "idea" stage. "All we generally need is a one paragraph idea. But the idea is nothing - the execution is everything."

The success of his program in terras of ratings and sponsorship also assures good scheduling for future Project 20 shows and provides Hyatt with the prestige so necessary to maintain a position in his world of television.

"The only power I really want," Hyatt said, "is the power and respect to continue our work. We've never had a failure and this makes it easier to present our case to the top brass if there are any problems."

But it is obvious that success also brings increased pressure and worries. "We just can't afford a failure," Hyatt was saying only moments later. "You lose much of your independence - which is so necessary in any creative work."

How does Hyatt meet these pressures? How can he maintain a schedule of fifty to sixty hours each week without any real vacation for some years? There are a number of factors which help.

Don Hyatt, his wife Jeanne and their baby daughter Wendy live in a lovely old Colonial home fronting on Long Island Sound at Indian Neck, Connecticut (just outside New Haven). While it's a two-hour commuting trip each way, Hyatt finds the relaxed atmosphere, the chance to sail in the summer, and to putter around the house year round is well worth it. He talked enthusiastically about some of the refinishing work he is doing on the house, confiding that it's been going on for five years now. And the long train ride provides him with an opportunity to work or, oftentimes what is more important, to just think.

Equally important is the stimulation offered by travel and the people Hyatt comes in contact with through his work. Recently he has been going to the West Coast to line up Hollywood personages for The World of . . . series and other NBC productions. Hyatt thinks highly of these personages and finds no great difference between their basic philosophy and that of the great men who have appeared on the Wisdom series.

Stemming from this comes a personal credo which guides Hyatt in his everyday activities and which he put to us in this manner:

"If you have something to say and you believe in it with all your heart you'll always find an audience - and the higher the belief the larger and more lasting your audience. If in the process you find yourself beset with the pinheads of conformity and frustrating moments when the battle seems to be going against you, an old Hanoverian proverb will put you back on the track - 'Never get in a smelling contest with a skunk!' "

Hyatt is packing his brief case for an all-night stint in the cutting room as we leave him. It is 10 p.m. The lights of New York gleam through the office window and two stories below, just across the street, you can see into the RCA show room. The tourists are there, watching the current programs on monitors or stepping into a lighted booth where a TV camera will project their picture onto a screen. In the street below a crowd has just emerged from the taping session of another Jack Paar show. For them the world of television is as sharply defined as the black and white images flickering across the TV screens.

For Donald Hyatt television has been a world which he has helped to create. And through this process of creation he has found his own world, a world as limitless as the rolling ocean in front of his doorstep, a world where a man finds it possible to have one foot on the ground and still "take a trip to the moon."

Hyatt selecting art masterpieces for "The Coming of Christ," shown on the NBC-TV network on December 21.

Some popular books and records which resulted from outstanding Project 20 telecasts.

Members of the Project 20 team, grouped around Narrator Alexander Scourby (seated), are, from left to right, Don Hyatt '50, producer-director; Richard Hanser, writer; Robert Russell Bennett, composer, arranger and conductor; and Robert Garthwaite, associate producer.

"The Real West," truly depicted in old, original photographs such as this one obtained from the Oklahoma Historical Society, will be the subject of a Project 20 telecast in March.