Director breaks television mold 7/26/1984 (Gunshot, On Campus)

​Director breaks television mold
 
By Elenita Ravicz
 
Shari Cookson may never reach her goal of growing to be 5 foot 2, but the 25-year-old Director has achieved many of her other goals, including the winning of both a Los Angeles area Emmy Award, and a Television Academy Student Award.
 
Cookson recently won an Emmy in the Los Angeles area Emmy Awards competition for her work on “On Campus. “ In 1982, she received a $4,000 Television Academy Student Award while she was a student at USC.
 
“This is a special thing that has never happened before. For someone to win an Emmy only two years after winning our student award is a miracle. We are very impressed.“ Said Larry Stewart, chairman of the Student Activities Committee of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
 
Winning both awards so quickly is only one of the things that makes Cookson unusual, however.
 
As she says, “I just don’t fit the stereotype of a Hollywood TV Director. I think of a Director as somebody slick … Somebody, usually male, who is a life-in-the-fast-lane type.“
 
With her corduroys, casual shoes, slender, build, and a height of only 5 foot 1 1/2, Cookson looks more like a gymnast or a student than a director.  “I’m 25, but I look even younger,“ she commented. “If I dress casually, I look more like I’m 13.“
 
At times looking so young and being a woman can be a disadvantage. “This is a male – dominated industry,” she said matter-of-factly.  “The camera and sound crews I work with are usually male.  I have to be the boss and make decisions.  When you’re starting out, it’s not enough to be good, you have to be super good.“
 
Cookson, who originally wanted to be a newspaper reporter, won the TV Academy’s Student Academy Award for Ggunshot,” a 25–minute documentary about five people who were changed physically and mentally by being shot. 
 
After winning the award and graduating from USC, she was hired as an intern by Dave Bell Associates, which produces numerous television, shows, including “On Campus.“
 
When that series had an opening for someone who could produce, direct, write and edit segments for the show, Cookson got the job. She described the program as a half-hour, magazine-style format dealing with events, students, and organizations connected with the Independent Colleges of Southern California.
 
Cookson lately has been working on a sequence for the program titled “The Re-emergence of Richard Nixon,“ about former President Richard M Nixon‘s visit to Chapman College. It will air Saturday at 5 p.m., repeating Sunday at 10:30 a.m. on Channel 28.  Cookson said of the segment, “We interviewed students who saw Nixon, and most of them said they thought he was wonderful.
 
“They seem to have no memories of Watergate.  It was very strange, almost as if Nixon was campaigning again.  I think he is trying to make his place in history more complementary.“
 
It was also for “On Campus“ that Cookson made “Golden Graduation Day,“ a 10-minute sequence that won her a Los Angeles area Emmy.  Cookson was the field producer on the segment, and Bruce Johnson was the supervising producer.  Johnson too received an Emmy for “Golden Graduation Day,“ and Cookson is working with him again on the Nixon segment.
 
“Golden Graduation Day“ dealt with the class of 1933‘s returned to Chapman college 50 years after graduation. The college has a tradition that allows such classes to don caps and gowns and stage another graduation ceremony.
 
“These people hadn’t seen each other in a long time, and some of them never expected to make it back,“ she said. “They had a great time. This is the kind of show that makes you feel good.“
 
The “Golden Graduation Day” segment was nominated in the category of special events, competing against coverage of the Rose Parade on KTLA and the Foxfield Jumping Derby on KNBC.
 
Recalling the day of the Emmy ceremony, she said:  “While I was waiting to hear the results I was so nervous that I kept shaking and saying ‘I want to go home.’  Then, when I won, I was so excited that I got up and ran around my chair three times.  People must have thought I was crazy.“
 
In an impersonal business, one of the things that makes Cookson‘s work stand out is what she called her “willingness to get involved with a story.“
 
“What I like about television as a medium is that it allows me to introduce one person to other people in society, so that the audience can understand the essence of that person, his life and emotions,“ she explained.
 
It was this desire to convey the feelings and experiences of others that led Cookson to make “Gunshot“ as a student.  She said she chose the subject of how people’s lives were changed by being shot because she wanted to make a documentary on something she felt passionately about.
 
Now, even though she’s working as a television director, Cookson said, “I don’t watch much TV because a lot of it is impersonal and trite.“
 
“In college,” she added, “I didn’t have many classes which focused on TV.  I think that being naïve about TV helps to make my pieces different, less clichéd.“
 

 
 
Los Angeles Times
7/26/1984
Page 101
 
Dictated Transcription:  S Cookson