The auditorium was silent and dark. Two screens on either side of the room illuminated each face, watching as the Space Shuttle Challenger rose higher and higher. A news broadcaster was counting down, and behind his voice was the recording of the shuttle’s captain. After a few moments, the screens lit up in a bright orange – the Challenger had exploded on screen, on-air and during a national broadcast.

A few minutes later, the same screens at the front of the auditorium were filled with graffiti, and the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” opening credits. Students, familiar with the tune from the prime time TV lineups of their childhood, bobbed their heads along to the theme song.

Those same heads went still, everyone’s attention captured, with the image of two buildings – the World Trade Center – smoking, collapsing.

“It’s weird when time gets to where you are,” professor Bob Thompson interrupted the room’s silence underneath the broadcast coming from the newscaster on the screen to bring the class back to the present. He sat back down at the front of the room. The clips – television history – continued across the screen for the next 20 minutes.

This is TRF 530, or history of primetime TV from 1980 to the present. And it is the majority of these students who fill the Huntington Beard Crouse Hall auditorium each week and their professor – who will be the focus of a possible new television show being shot Thursday in Newhouse III.

The creators – Syracuse University alumni Matthew Miele and Chris Fetchko – are attempting to create a new genre with the show, which has been in the works for the past year. The set-up for the show is simple: every few weeks, depending on how many shows are ordered by prospective television networks, Miele, Fetchko and their crew will set up in a room in Newhouse III, fill it with Thompson’s students and film the lecture. It will be entirely unscripted – the show will solely consist of Thompson’s original lectures.

“We want to capture that moment when a student really understands and grasps what he (Thompson) is saying,” Miele said.

Miele took three of Thompson’s courses while at SU, before he graduated in 1996 along with Fetchko. The two founded their own film company in 1999, Fetchko managing the business side, Miele the creative. Their latest feature film “Eavesdrop,” starring Alan Ruck and Chris Parnell, was just picked up for distribution.

About a year ago, Miele saw an article about Thompson and recalled the professor’s “dynamic lectures” and how it made him “think outside the box.” Miele met up with Thompson to discuss ideas for the possible show in New York City.

‘Thompson was lukewarm at first,” Miele said. “He didn’t know if he wanted to become a product of what he teaches. He didn’t want any type of media spotlight outside of the classroom on himself and he wanted to make sure it stayed in a professional capacity.”

Thompson agreed though and left it up to SU and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Newhouse Dean David Rubin was excited to make this a part of his legacy at the school.

“If it actually gets on cable and becomes somewhat popular, this could be fantastic for Bob’s career and for the Newhouse school,” Rubin said. “If people saw this school on TV, the publicity could be unbelievably wonderful. That’s why it’s so amazing.”

But, Rubin said, any college class, no matter the teacher or the students, is a challenging to turn into a good TV show.

Marketing the show with that basic premise will fall to another SU graduate, Gary Lico. Lico will take over once the pilot has been filmed and in post-production for 60 to 90 days with Miele and Fetchko. Lico, a 1973 graduate of Newhouse, is famous for marketing “Inside the Actors Studio.” It will be up to him to get networks to buy the show as a possible series, a process which will occur in the fall.

Miele and Fetchko are careful to make sure that the show won’t be considered reality TV though but a new genre of television and entertainment instead. They think of it as “glorified DVD extras,” or commentary from an expert in an entirely new setting: the college classroom.

“I want to show professor Thompson doing what he does best: digging really deep into these programs that we all really love, like ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘Cheers’ and looking at these shows with a different set of eyes and ear than anyone else,” Miele said.

For Miele, Thompson’s lectures are unique enough to become the next hit genre – he fills a spot in media literacy yet to hit the small screen.

“He brings it out on a psychological level no average viewer would ever be patient enough to really learn or see,” Miele said. “After hearing what he has to say, they’ll enjoy it on a whole new level. They’ll understand why these shows are so popular.”

 

Published on April 30, 2008 at 12:00 pm