Frank Weeks is used to being out ahead of the pack.
"My first editing job was for Broadside Television in 1977," says Weeks, "so I got my start in video production the year that Elvis died. In fact, a rep walked in to our office to show us a cutting-edge technology called 3/4" inch tape, and said 'did you hear The King died?'"
Weeks first editing project an hour-long video of the Bill Monroe-Ralph Stanley Bluegrass Festival, which Broadside was hired to produce, and since then he's not looked back, working Who's Who of regional players in the communications arena, and: from his early work at WJHL as assistant sport director to his more recent work launching High School Football Weekly and So You Think You Know Sports for Charter, Weeks has seen it all.
"When Broadside moved to Nashville, I decided to stay in Tri Cities," says Weeks, "and I took something closer to my marketing degree from ETSU: I went to work as a manager at K-Mart, in charge of the Ladies Apparel section. It was their biggest section at the time, but after a year, I really wanted to get back into video."
Weeks' friends told him about a new set of equipment that was being delivered to WCYB-TV but no one knew how to run it. So Weeks approached Bob Smith, News director of the station, who told Weeks he'd have to take a pay cut to come to work at the station.
"I wanted that job," says Weeks, "since it let me get into shooting and editing nightly news stories with first rate equipment."
Within another year, Weeks found his spiritual home at WJHL-TV in Johnson City. He became a sports anchor and assistant sports director at the station, working with Sports Director Tony Treadway, Anchorman Claude Wood (Co-founder of Masters Entertainment), and Dr. Carrie Swanay, who is now a professor of Communications at Milligan College, training many students who go on to work at WJHL.
"I remember Carrie Beth's first day on the job," says Weeks, laughing at the thought that the group of them have gone on to pioneer public relations and marketing throughout the region. "Besides the local television work at WJHL, though, I also enjoyed the freelance work we did for ESPN, CNN and CBS Sports, back when they would accept local submissions to fill airtime slots. John Madden even did a promo for Tony [Treadway] and I that aired locally."
Weeks stayed with WJHL until 1984 when he left broadcast television to to start World Class Productions, the Tri-Cities first independent production company.
"When we started WCP, we were housed in a studio in downtown Johnson City," says Weeks. "During the nearly 25 years since we started WCP, we produced marketing and sales videos for many of the regions most progressive companies as well as television programs for local and regional broadcast."
Weeks has maintained World Class Productions, in its varying forms, since those early days, where the company set a number of firsts for the region: first independent production company with component (3-chip) equipment, in-house film production, computer animation and digital non-linear editing.
"My hat's off to those who grew the computer animation base in the region," says Weeks, who returned to graduate school in 1997 at the ETSU Advanced Visualization Lab. "I saw the value of computer graphics and animation, within the video and film field and was fortunate to have some first rate instructors and training at ETSU. The things I learned there a decade ago, are of dally use to me today. I remember having to work on Silicon Graphics machines to obtain my Level 2 Certification in Alias/Wavefront (creators of Maya). Things sure have come a long way."
Weeks continues to learn - and to mentor. Besides pursuing training in graphics, computer animation, desktop publishing and digital imaging while at ETSU - under the teaching of Dr. Keith Johnson, Jeff Morris and Neil Owen - he's also trained several shooters (as video and film camera operators are called) in the region, including the likes of Sean Harris and others.
Weeks has also spent several months studying his new equipment, a 4K digital cinema camera and 2K digital cinema editing package.
"We have the region's first RED camera," says Weeks, referring to a new camera manufactured by RED that shoots in 4K - 4.5 megapixel - images, at about eight times the quality of HD. "The waiting list for RED was over a year long, and I've had it now for several months. Like anything that's very specialized, though, I believe in spending time working through all the options before I use it at a customer job."
Weeks has won over 20 awards for excellence in marketing and advertising, including Addys and a region-wide Charter award for the Kingsport Chamber's ChamberZone 100th episode. But he says his best work is ahead of him.
"This camera is the closest thing to film production that we've had in the Tri-Cities market," says Weeks, who has changed WCP's name to Digital Cinema South, adding "we can now produce motion picture quality content at a fraction of the price. I look forward to introducing the new digital cinema technology to clients, as well as training a few others in the region on how to take advantage of a technology that has now been embraced by Academy award winning directors like Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) and Steven Soderbergh (Traffic). It's an exciting time."
