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Show by Joey Sasso REPORT: Viewers should come an extraordinary experience of raw animal vitality in Etosha: Place of Dry Water, the brilliant wildlife film which premieres the 1981 season of National Geographic Specials on Public Television on January 7. Etosha launches the Societys sixth year on Public with WQEDPitt-sburgTelevision. The specials are under a continuing grant from Gulf Oil Corporation. Enduring months of torrid heat followed by a period of drenching rains which mark the seasons in the Etosha Pan, David and Carol Hughes spent close to two years pf backbreaking and painstaking observation to shoot this film, an incredibly intense experience of nature. Cheetahs, wildbeasts, lions, zebras, bullfrogs, turtles, pelicans, ground squirrels, kudu and springbuck are among the panoply of wild life they filmed. Their cameras recorded extraordinary animal behavior, in some cases unknown even to zoologists or ethologists. CONFIDENTIAL prepared for h I BACKSTAGE: 'CHiPs' idol Erik Estrada may be heading to the altar again once his wife's spectacular $1.7 million divorce suit is out of the way. And the gal touted as the next Mrs. Estrada is Beverly Sassoon, who until last May was the wife of hairdressing tycoon Vidal Sassoon. "Erik is over the moon about Beverly," confides a close friend of 31 year old Estrada. "He talks about her on the set all the time and phones her between shooting. And Beverly admits: "Yes, we've talked about marriage." The couple met this summer at a party and exchanged phone numbers. Now, Erik is spending every spare moment with his new love and her four children. "Erik and have been dating for about four months," Beverly says. It is a very nice, pleasant, fun, exciting relationship. We do all kinds of things together. Erik adores my kids and takes them out horseback riding. But think that people who have been married before are reluctant to rush straight into another one. Weve both just come out of marriages. My divorce is final and Erik still has to go through his. We will bide our time and see how things work out." . 'Eight Is Enough star Joan Texas brunette Prather has had enough. The is quitting the hit TV series at the end of this season. Prather, whose latest movie is called Take This Job and Shove It, says: "My contract is up and I'm anxious to move onto other things. Id like to do more films. We have 12 people on our show. There is no way you can be on camera all the time. There are days when youre not needed at all, or you might have one or two lines to do. That can be frustrating. It gets lonely sitting in your little dressing room waiting to be called. really love to work every day. When you are producing a lot, you feel good. It gets you down when you're not working as much as youd like to." TV by Chuck Bins only cut two albums in 17 years (he's working on a but you won't find them at your local record stores or on the top-10- 0 list. Bob Israel is a modern-da- y Beethoven who composes musical themes and signatures (musical logos) for a plethora of TV programs. He owns his own production company, fittingly titled Score Productions, Inc., and the albums are not for mass consumption, but for the ears of his potential clients. Vouve probably heard some of his music. His work spans the entire spectrum, from soap operas (Another World,' 'The Doctors,' 'Texas) to game shows ('Family Feud,' The Match Game,' 'Card Sharks) to sports ('The 1980 Winter Olympics,' 'ABC Monday Night Football, NCAA College Football') to news ('NBC Magazine with David Brinkley, 'ABC World News s Tonight). He's also scored a generous sprinkling of and specials and a small handful of prime-tim- e series (He Hes Scoring a signature for ABC Monday Night Football 30-secon- d Seconds Visual or Dialogue Oto 5 5 to 10 10 to 1 7. 17 to 27 27 to 30 ABC logo M.N.F.Iogo team vs, team voice-ove- r production credits M.N.F. logo and She, East SideWest Side' and 'On Our Own to name a few). Admittedly, what Bob Israel produces from his modest office on Manhattans East Side is not the kind of music you might whistle down the sidewalk on the way to the parkits not meant to be. But his pieces are effective in setting a mood, perking your ears, and heightening the emotional impact of a program. Respect The introductory signatures are rarely more than a few minutes long, and, as Rodney Dangerfield might say, 'they don't get much respect. Its rare that youll hear an entire signature. They are usually truncated by the voice of an announcer, anchorperson or host. Fortunately, even in the case of a game show like 'The Price is Right' there is much more to walk-offwrite main themes, end themes, walks-ons- , background music and prize music. For soap operas, Israel might score five or six hours of music which then has to be d as to orchestral meticulously catalogued and size, timing of the cues and the way the cues are constructed. Israels $1 million-a-yea- r business is frequently hectic. (Much of the money Score Productions accrues through residuals, ASCAP or BMI fees paid each time his copyrighted music airs.) Israel recently got a call from Roger Goodman, who works under Roone Arledge, ABC's NewsSports programming chief, asking Bob to come up with a new, introductory signature for 'ABC Monday Night Football. Goodman needed it that Friday. (See box.) . In approaching a project, Israel says, "I try to find out where their heads are, musically speaking, and once get this clear, Ill try to develop a separate aesthetic approach to that one project so the hours of music that are created can have a cohesiveness and the producers can feel that this show has a sound of its own." s For 'Texas,' "the producer wanted a very melodic score. So what created 25 basic melodies. did, Then, out of these melodies, all the background music developed. The melodies were very folk oriented, The above denotes specific visual or dialogue highlights which must be matched with 'hits pulsations in the music. Although the person at home is usually only aware of this sublimmally, the hits lepresent places in the music where Israel has to add some oomph a crescendo, a change of pitch, a special beat or rhythm, etc. Israel starts by sitting down at the piano (he has one in his office) and writing a short melody straight through, just to get a cohesive piece. Next, he goes back and makes sure his music is accented to coincide with the visual elements. He then taps out five or six versions to give the producer a selection. Multimillionaire bandleader Lawrence Welk says hes never worked for money and doesn't know how much hes worth. For 20 years he's owned his own corporation, Teleklew short for television plus Welk TV CLOSEUP: NBC-TV'- folk-roc- . other business interests which mean backwards-a- nd I "we are millionaires several times over. But have no idea how much money the businesses have amassed," said Welk. "I could only guess. Ted Lennon (an uncle of the singing Lennon Sisters) is my business man. He handles the money. Its hard telling what youre worth because you may be worth a millon dollars here and the debt that you have to pay off is worth maybe $800,000." I would say. "You see, its a very ticklish situation, because I always have to second guess what the producers mean by 'I want a contemporary piece, want a young sound, 'I want a serious contemporary sound.' ROSE BOWL Washington Huskies QB Tom Flick (upper left) and FB Toussaint Tyler (upper right) will lead their teammates into action against the Michigan Wolverines dangerous and SUGAR BOWL their ABC passing combina- tion of WR Anthony Carter (lower left) and QB John Wangler (lower right) in the 67th annual Rose Bowl football classic. The Rose Bowl airs New Year's Day, THURSDAY, JANUARY 1, on NBC-TThe Orange Bowl clash bet- Florida State and Oklahoma will immediately follow this game. ween CHECK LISTINGS FOR TV COMVUIOO HKVICII, INC. EXACT Sportscaster Keith Jackson, who for the seventh straight year has been the principal 'voice of college football,' will be calling the of the 47th annual Sugar Bowl, which airs on ABC-TTHURSDAY, JANUARY 1, when Georgia, the nations No. 1 ranked team, takes on No. 2 ranked Notre Dame in the New Orleans Superdome. Jackson is the only man to ever win five straight (1972-76- ) Sportscaster of the Year' awards as voted by his peers. TIME CHECK LISTINGS FOR TV COMVUIM MKVICII. INC EXACT TIME |