“We’re not the first people in the world to do observational documentaries,” says Steve Rosenbaum. “But in the past, you’d shoot your subjects, bring back a pile of film, and sit in the edit room for a year to digest the story before editing the themes that bubble up. Now we’re changing the tires while we’re driving down the highway.”

Rosenbaum, who is CEO and co-founder (with his wife, producer and editor Pamela Yoder) of the New York production company CameraPlanet, discovered a faster and more interactive way to make television as he developed “Staffers,” his new show for the cable channel Discovery/Times. The six episodes, which he calls “a weird hybrid of documentary and series TV,” follow the Democratic primary and the race for the White House — from the inside.

“Staffers” is deeply rooted in Apple technology, and Rosenbaum credits his ability to meet an insanely aggressive five-week production schedule (“I wouldn’t recommend it or necessarily do it again,” he admits) to the powerful trio of DV cameras, high-quality uncompressed output and Apple tools. “Whether we are looking at rough cuts on our PowerBooks, composing in Soundtrack or editing in Final Cut Pro,” he says, “Apple gives us a fundamental sense of creative exploration and freedom I’ve never experienced before.”

An Olympic Sport
“Staffers” is good television: smart, intimate and fast-paced. But the director sees it as much more than a TV show. “I blame the media for being cynical about politics,” he says, “with its attitude of ‘We’ve seen it all before.’ On a cable or network news show they only cover the horse race: who won, who lost, how many points.”

“I wanted to show what American politics is really about, how campaigns really work, and what kind of people the candidates really are,” he continues. “When you’re voting for president, you want to know how they treat the people around them. So I decided to focus on the staffers and the work they do: banging on doors, distributing flyers, working the rallies. Because these young people kill themselves — it comes close to an Olympic sport.”

Each episode follows three staff members as they work to help their candidates win the Democratic party nomination. (The original concept is credited to Susan McCue and Jon Eddy.) As the race tightens, the show shifts focus. Ideally, Rosenbaum will present both sides: If “Staffers” does well, and he can obtain White House consent, he hopes to create another six episodes including both the Bush and Kerry campaigns.

Revolutionizing TV Production
Television production has always demanded careful planning and long execution cycles. But the very nature of “Staffers” permitted neither. “Of course we couldn’t plan who to focus on, or even write a script,” relates Rosenbaum. “We were making a living, breathing documentary about a campaign as it evolved. So we needed to stay enormously flexible. When we went out in January, Kerry wasn’t in the top three. We didn’t even feature him in our first episode. And look where he is now.”

Time was an even bigger obstacle. “Initially people said we could never turn it around fast enough to keep it timely,” says Rosenbaum. “The question was, if we were in Iowa in January, could we have that episode on the air by February? With conventional TV there’s no way this would be possible. But we did it. The technology doesn’t magically make it easy, but it gives you the quality and the choices that make it possible.”

For Rosenbaum, it’s not just a matter of applying advanced technology to get the job done fast. “The real challenge,” he says, “is to tell the story in a way that is historically accurate and engaging for the audience, so that people who follow the campaign won’t think we are yesterday’s mashed potatoes.”

And for Rosenbaum, it’s not just a matter of applying on-the-fly production techniques to get the job done fast. “The real challenge,” he says, “is to tell the story in a way that is historically accurate and engaging for the audience, so that people who follow the campaign won’t think we are yesterday’s mashed potatoes.”

Do Ask, Do Tell
The Apple toolset lets Rosenbaum and his crew take a new approach to creating TV. “With the old style,” he explains, “you’d shoot the film then edit what you shot. Now we’re changing the way we observe the story. We can have a back-and-forth conversation between the editing room and the field.”

When footage raises a question, Rosenbaum now asks it. “We can say to our crew in the field, ‘Can you ask Marvin how he feels after he’s worked a 14-hour day and Kerry wants to talk for two more hours?’” Obtaining additional insights in the midst of production has never before been feasible. “Until about 2.5 seconds ago on the filmmaking timeline,” quips Rosenbaum, “it was cost- and process-prohibitive to do that.”

Rosenbaum says Final Cut Pro transforms the editor’s task. “It’s partly the technology,” he muses, “but it’s the underlying philosophy, too. People who work on Final Cut Pro have an extraordinary can-do spirit, because there’s this fun and positive feedback loop between the editor and the software. The technology lays out the possibilities in front of you. With as much material as we had, the editing could have been a grueling and unpleasant process, but instead it was exciting and invigorating.”

Rosenbaum says “Staffers” is “the first very high profile series to highlight the strengths of Final Cut Pro.” He adds firmly, “I don’t believe there has ever been anything like Final Cut Pro. It’s not just a better version of NLE [non-linear editing]. In its DNA, it’s a compositing and effects-comfortable platform that allows you to create stories. And it’s a tool I want all my storytellers equipped with.”

Next page: Storytellers With Gentle Footprints