Jump Cut!

by Arthur Schneider

Who writes the rule book when the rules haven't been invented yet? In the television industry, it was mostly the early technicians, who made up their jobs as they went along. Art Schneider was among those pioneers. He entered the television field more or less by accident, taking a "temporary" job at NBC with only one semester left before his planned graduation from USC's Cinema Department. The degree went out the window, and the job lasted more than seventeen years. In that time, Schneider was instrumental in the development of techniques that became industry standards, including the first color instant replays (at the 1965 Rose Bowl). Perhaps his greatest claim to fame is the groundbreaking editing style he developed for Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, a show whose influence is still apparent in television today, particularly in the field of music video. Because his career extended into the late 1980s, he was continually present at the birth of new technologies, including CMX (a computer