Nathan E Adam
Project · RFD Network

Presleys’ Country Jubilee

More than 140 episodes cut and delivered for a weekly country variety show that went out to thirteen countries and roughly half a million viewers a week.

  • 140+ episodes post-produced
  • 13 countries broadcast
  • ~500,000 weekly audience
Rhonda Vincent and The Rage performing on the Presleys' Country Jubilee stage
Rhonda Vincent & The Rage on the Jubilee stage. Frame from a broadcast segment.

What it was

The Presleys’ Country Jubilee is a live country and comedy variety show, staged by the Presley family in their own theatre in Branson, Missouri. The stage show became a television show, and the television show went out on the RFD Network to a weekly audience of about half a million people across thirteen countries.

I was the post producer and editor. More than 140 episodes.

What the job actually was

A weekly variety show is not a prestige assignment and it is not supposed to be. It is a delivery problem. Music, comedy, multiple cameras, a full band, an audience, and a date on the calendar that does not move. Every week the show has to be assembled, the music has to sit right against the picture, and the whole thing has to be handed off finished.

What that number really represents is repetition. A hundred and forty times through the same process teaches you things that one carefully-made film never will — mostly about what you can stop doing. Half of editing at that volume is learning which decisions do not matter.

Related

The other television credit from this period is Tonight with Deborah Norville on MSNBC. The credits page has the full list.