:10 Seconds to Air: My Life in the Director's Chair

by Don Mischer

Enter the world of director and producer Don Mischer, who has notched a lifetime of history-making moments with Beyoncé and Baryshnikov, Willie Nelson and Muhammad Ali, Olympic flames, inaugurations, and Prince in the rain.  Don Mischer’s :10 Seconds to Air is a captivating look behind the curtain at the creation of some of television’s most celebrated live events. Mischer’s personal story is an unlikely journey, but a very American one. From a modest South Texas upbringing to directing Super Bowl halftime shows and Olympics opening ceremonies, :10 Seconds to Air is an homage to America’s vibrant, richly diverse culture, as reflected through television.  Equal parts anecdotal memoir and history in-the-making, :10 Seconds to Air anchors itself to Mischer’s formative experience as a college student in Austin, learning of JFK’s assassination as he awaits the arrival of the President from Dallas. Watching the diligence of the reporters who worked on that developing story convinces him to change course and pursue a career in television. This leads Mischer to New York City, and involvement in many historic moments, from joining Barbara Walter for her interview in Tehran with the Shah, to Prince’s epic, rain-soaked Super Bowl halftime performance.  :10 Seconds to Air brings us alongside Mischer to witness first-hand what it is like to collaborate with iconic talents like Mohammad Ali, Michael Jackson, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, among many others. The job? Navigating countless unknowns and logistical challenges in real time to orchestrate hundreds of people before the eyes of millions of viewers. The result is a fascinating portrait of an individual behind many, many cameras, striving to capture history.

Genres: Autobiography

192 pages, Hardcover

Published November 14, 2023

About the author

Donald Leo Mischer was an American producer and director of television and live events and president of Don Mischer Productions.

Reviews

[Mediaman · Rating 1 out of 5]

This extremely short book is a big disappointment, barely covering a handful of major productions the author directed, with very few interesting stories. It's essentially a brag book where Mischer tries to tell us how he swayed presidents, the Chinese government, Olympic officials, and rock stars to create giant TV moments. Devoid of much real content beyond mechanics, it reads more like a high school athlete boasting about his sports statistics and game highlights.

There are many things wrong with this book. Let's start with the page count. It is listed as 204 but in truth it's only about 160. Mischer counts the 15 photo pages in the middle of the book AND the 15 opening pages at the front of the book (copyright page, contents, title page, etc.) before he begins writing anything. That's not the way most books work! Then there are about ten blank pages between chapters of the book. So for your $28.00 you get 160 written pages with lots of white space on them.

In terms of content, there are 21 listed chapters but the material is incredibly repetitive and boils down to only a half dozen events: Super Bowl halftime shows; Olympics; rock stars performing; TV specials; political causes; and a tiny bit about his personal history. He states so little about his private background that I honestly can't figure out how he stumbled into television since he was totally unqualified. After starting his career in public TV (groan), he suddenly gets promoted to positions that are out of his league with no explanation.

Maybe it was due to his support for leftist Democratic politicians and causes. Instead of him changing the world with his variety show work as he claims, it comes across as propaganda. He even feels the need to slam religion in the very short chapter about his home life, where he writes that he rejected his Christian faith after his mother died when he was 18. The author concluded that he should toss aside moral boundaries and "Do what you want to do while you can. Don't worry so much about doing the right thing; just do what you are passionate about."

Wow, isn't it great to know that a leading Hollywood liberal influencer admits he doesn't want to do the right thing?

There are many factual and grammatical errors in the text. Barbara Walters, who he takes credit for starting her prime time career, was not "the first U.S. woman news anchor in history." She was the first regular female anchor of an American commercial broadcast network evening newscast, but many other women on many stations and in different dayparts had anchored TV news before her.

Most disturbing is his flagrant hyperbole about the audience and impact his work had on the world. He actually writes that his Michael Jackson halftime show had "1.3 billion viewers worldwide." Not only is that a lie, it's impossible to prove. There are various ways to report U.S. viewing data, but the average audience for the Jackson show was around 100 million, with about 138 million tuning in for at least a couple of minutes. The network carrying the Super Bowl has always bragged about worldwide viewership of the sports event as being "over one billion" but that has never been proven--as a matter of fact one study showed that the worldwide audience for the Super Bowl is only a couple hundred million and doesn't come close to the World Cup viewership of over one billion.

If that isn't enough, a few pages later Mischer states that his Olympic Opening Ceremony in 1996 was seen by "an estimated 80 percent of the entire world, reaching more than five billion people." Again, it's virtually impossible that 80% of the world watched it and there is no way for him to prove it. In 2021 only 75% of the home in the world had TV sets, so in 1996 it wasn't even close to 80%, and even then all of them wouldn't have been watching the Olympics!

He spends the rest of the book overstating his work and impact. Everything he does, he claims, is groundbreaking and life changing. Beyond a few interesting behind-the-scenes moments regarding negotiating with stars, this book is not worth reading and fails to give a proper overview to his career. Like most of the things he directed, it's a bloated spectacle with some razzle dazzle but little substance and mostly forgettable.

[June · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nonfiction book about behind-the-scenes of television. So many interesting stories from early television to Super Bowl extravaganzas. Had to frequently stop reading to check-out YouTube clips of the events described. The accounts of the opening ceremony of the Salt Lake Winter Olympics, 9/11 Ceremonies, and the recognition of the Tuskegee Airmen were so heartfelt and emotional. Great read, quick and entertaining. Highly recommended.