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earnestly engrossed in the Message, and the audience's NEED of it,
and the words just automatically pour out! But on this TV set
there was no audience---just the most blinding lights I ever faced,
and behind them inky blackness, and the awareness of totally
uninterested technicians who cared nothing about my message!
I don't know whether you can imagine such circumstances---
but if you can, vaguely, try to imagine pouring out a vital Gospel
Message for millions to hear, when those millions are not there---
but only this new, strange, bewildering world of blinding lights.
Could YOU do it? They told me later that no one does, at first.
The announcer, who used to announce our program on radio and has
been one of the very top network radio announcers for some 12
years, said it took him TWENTY tries before he could even say his
first TV commercial!
Our producer-director told me it was like a jet pilot
breaking thru the sound barrier---over 600 miles an hour. It is
AGONY until you finally break thru, then all goes smoothly. Well,
this was agony!
I'm accustomed as you know, to speaking with confidence,
knowing God has revealed His TRUTH which my hearers NEED---so that
I habitually speak with full assurance, ease, earnestness and
authority. But now suddenly all confidence had fled---there was
only a strange bewilderment, a mingled feeling of guilt over
wasting God's money you Co-Workers had sacrificed to give, and
appearing ridiculous before these technical people and thus casting
discredit on GOD, and HIS TRUTH in their eyes.
The producer had kept me up until midnight the night before,
and I had to arise at 5:AM that morning for the shooting of the
program, and I was utterly devoid of physical strength. Never had
I felt so physically weak---utterly depleted. Again and again I
tried, beginning the program all over---but only to ruin the TV
film. I would only say the wrong words---my mind went blank. I
couldn't think of anything to say. I had to quit---time after
time, and try starting over.
I went into a dressing room and tried to lie down and take
a short nap to regain some strength, but it was no use! I knew how
a whipped dog must feel, with his tail between his legs!
Now let me explain right here that we are having to put the
TV programs on film. To do it live, the program would have to go
out on only ONE station, or else a whole Network---and the time
alone for a Network Telecast would cost from $35,000 to $50,000 for
the one program. The only way we can select just the 15, 20, or 30
stations we need at the start, in the areas where most of our radio
listeners live, is to put the programs on film. It is by far the
least costly way. So of course all we were trying to do now was to
get the program on film and sound-track.
I learned, later, that our producers had engaged for us the
very TOP Movie-TV crew of all Hollywood, who are accustomed to
taking pictures of all the top Hollywood movie and TV stars. But
this top-flight crew cost no more. The union sets the wage scale,