Our college, San Francisco State University (SFSU) had a prestigious BCA (Broadcast Communication Arts) department, that in the 1980’s-1990’s had a reputation for being the best for broadcasting, and more reputable by the industry than Cal Berkley and Stanford in the Bay Area and even better than USC and UCLA in So Cal as California’s best college for broadcast majors.

SFSU blended the logical yet theoretical book smarts education with the practical “hands on” real life experiences that allowed students to graduate as ready to hit the ground running applicants to get jobs.

My professor approached me with an opportunity to work on a little known performer’s music video, Oakland’s MC HAMMER and his latest album’s launch single for “U Can’t Touch This” as a production assistant, i.e., grunt worker. Our professor wanted us to witness and participate in a real life production and see all of the roles that makes it all happen.

I was i charge of escorting the models / dancers from the dressing room to the outdoor set on Minna Street in an alley of downtown San Francisco. Another friend was doing security type work locking down the area, then our other friend shined the dancer’s shoes and ran an errand to get a cake for Hammer’s birthday. It wasn’t skill building work at all, but put us in the middle of seeing all of the behind the scenes work over 2 days of filming for a video that would run less than 4 minutes long (and of course there as the post production editing time that took even longer than the filming)

So, this is a slideshow video of the “call sheet” or at least one side of it, the back side had my name (albeit misspelled) as a souvenir I kept.

It was folded in my back pocket back then and when the filming ended I asked Hammer to autograph it for me, which he graciously did.

From this, I went onto my career in Broadcasting that bridged to Publicity, Promotions, Publicity and eventually Advertising (and Marketing).