A telegenic Democratic convention

Television producer Don Mischer has worked with the impossible (Barbra Streisand), the intractable (the International Olympic Committee), and the ineffable (Liza Minnelli). He may confront his toughest test yet on Monday, when he takes up the Democratic National Convention.

Convention organizers have hired the Emmy-winning Mischer to invigorate a proceeding that has grown so irrelevant to the TV networks that they are devoting a mere three hours total to both next week’s Democratic and next month’s Republican gatherings.

Although cable channels, particularly C-Span, will carry far more of the four-day convention from Boston, Mischer’s hurdles hardly are limited to brief broadcast windows. He also must energize the unavoidable catalog of speeches, bring new twists to tedious nominating rituals like balloon drops, and maintain some excitement to a proceeding with little actual suspense, all without facilitating a ruinous partisan faux pas.

“It’s a very different assignment for us,” says Mischer, who produced the opening and closing ceremonies at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and the 100th anniversary of Carnegie Hall. “It’s not your typical event or television show.”

Mischer’s executive producer job was complicated further by the backlash over Whoopi Goldberg’s raunchy rant against President Bush at a July 8 fundraiser for Sen. John F. Kerry. Mischer initially had wanted to inject more humor into the convention, but now his party bosses are nervous about being overly critical of the president. It’s a concern not limited to comedians. Convention organizers also have asked that prime-time speakers temper their administration criticism.

“There’s no question the campaign is very sensitive about what happened,” Mischer says of the July 8 event. “So we’re going to be very cautious.”

Last-minute indecision

In a high-rise production office once occupied by the talent agency International Creative Management, Mischer has filled a large blackboard with file cards representing the different speakers, entertainers and film packages for each day’s tentative lineup. In other years, Mischer’s roster would list names for the Kennedy Center Honors or the World Stunt Awards. So in place of Julie Andrews and Arnold Schwarzenegger are Bill Clinton and Teresa Heinz Kerry.

The show’s speakers, entertainers and short films are grouped around specific themes for each day’s seven-hour schedule, but the themes themselves have yet to be finalized by the DNC, even though on this day the convention is just a month away.

If Mischer is frustrated by the indecision and bureaucracy, he doesn’t show it.

“The DNC is truly collaborative, but we don’t have autonomy in making decisions,” says Mischer, whose producing counterpart is New York’s Ricky Kirshner. “And it’s not so much that we are determining the message but figuring out ‘How do we get it across? What are the creative elements in the show?’ In the next two weeks, that’s when the most progress will be made in terms of what effect we actually have. You reach a point where you have to lock things in.”

Even though the Democrats have closer ties with Hollywood, the Republicans also have turned to show business veterans to try to make their conventions more viewer friendly. David Nash, a producer who has staged Christmas and Easter shows with the Rockettes, has worked on every Republican convention since 1992 and is preparing that party’s New York get-together.

Keeping the delegates awake is no small challenge. At the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, delegates were led in the macarena dance, mostly to get their blood flowing and to keep them from nodding off during subsequent orations. Says television veteran Gary Smith, who produced the last four Democratic conventions: “Since TV would rather cut to a sleeping delegate, it’s up to us to try to create a stimulating convention.”

Mischer is a longtime Democrat who in 1968 used his then nascent filmmaking services to make Hubert Humphrey commercials. In recently looking over videotape of past conventions, he found that the events had become, well, conventional. There were not enough emotional moments, he says, or lasting surprises. Mischer counts as one of his greatest producer accomplishments Muhammad Ali’s Olympic caldron lighting at 1996’s Atlanta Summer Games; only five people, he says, not including the broadcasters, knew the former boxer would participate.

In search of a similar spark, the DNC chose Mischer for its convention. “Four days of speaker after speaker after speaker is an idea that has come and gone,” says Terry McAuliffe, the DNC chairman who hired Mischer. “We are going to try to relate to young people and make this convention exciting. We chose Don because he showed he was going to go out and make it different.”

Mischer’s most obvious departures are architectural. Instead of one podium there will be two, meaning that while a senator is speaking on one podium, the roadies can load a band on the other. And behind one of the podiums stands a 90-by-18-foot video screen, allowing for live feeds from satellite crews around the nation.

Unlike awards shows Mischer has produced, the convention has to have a credible reason to trot out every one of its dozen or so performers. Mischer has locked in Willie Nelson, Carole King and Wyclef Jean. Mavis Staples will sing “America the Beautiful” on the convention’s closing night.

“A lot of people view conventions today as more or less staged pep rallies,” he says. “But this is not an entertainment event. It’s a political event. And if we tried to make it a theatrical event, I think that would be a mistake. You can’t just introduce a musical act and have them go out there and perform something. That would feel like a variety show, and that would be completely wrong.”

Mischer says he cut his fee to produce the convention, but the event is still far from cheap. Budgeted at $6 million in late 2002, estimates for the convention’s production budget, including sets and lights, now exceed $9.1 million.

A production in flux

The convention is but a week away, and the Democratic Party has not released the names of all the entertainers, so Mischer still can’t talk about his entire lineup. The daily themes have been decided (every one includes the word “strength” or “strong”), but offers for some musical acts and entertainers are being contemplated.

“It’s overwhelming, but now that I’ve gotten here I’m feeling pretty good,” the producer says over the telephone from Boston. “I’m beginning to see things fall into place. I kind of knew it would be long and difficult. On shows of this type, you are always moving things around, and we are still working on who fits where, and how much of it is appropriate.”

Unlike most TV events Mischer puts together, TV crews can cover the convention any way they want: Mischer may stage the action, but he doesn’t control the cameras or pick the shots. That’s up to each network.

“I was very optimistic with my first meetings with everyone in Washington,” Mischer says of his initial encounters with network representatives. “Now that I’ve been in the process for four to five months, I am beginning to realize how hard it is. There is just a reluctance to take anything that we produce.”

Mischer’s hope is that even with the combined nine hours of planned coverage by ABC, CBS and NBC (down from 100 hours in 1976), the convention will be able to deliver enough memorable moments to boost Kerry’s chances in November.

“I hope I can bring a sense of energy to the people in the hall,” Mischer says, “and have them walk out feeling inspired and enthused.”