Steve Kahn
"As a kid, I remember singing onstage and being fixated on the cameras. Even at that young age, I remember thinking to myself, now that's really what I want to do - something to do with cameras."
In the same year that President Kennedy tried overthrowing the Cuban regime, Steve decided on a career at sea. After growing up in Brooklyn and singing to everyone his Mother could think of, Steve finally figured it was time to try the US Navy.
"After Steve left the Navy in 1965, he decided a DJ was what he really wanted to be. "After I got home, I went straight off to announcing school. My first job was at a Kentucky radio station, called WCYN Cynthiana. Later while working at Long Island, Steve's career was to change dramatically when Liberty Record's offered him a new job. "What a job that was! I was promoting huge groups in the early seventies; groups like the The 5th Dimension and Canned Heat."
"After Liberty sold out to United Artists, Steve found his way into RCA as one of their records promotion guys. I was doing some really interesting things back then, but I always seemed to be in trouble with management."
"One day my boss called me and said, 'Do you want to be a product manager?' I asked him, 'What does a product manager do?' and he answered, 'I don't know… but when I find out, I will let you know!'"
“And that's how I became a product manager at RCA, marketing some of the biggest named artists in the music business. I did their album covers, ad campaigns, billboards on the Sunset Strip and the wildest launch parties you can imagine."
"I also had to produce monthly sales presentations for all the new album releases. As part of my presentation, I would hire these really great radio announcers and come up with a theme. With my engineer Pat Martin, we would then cut together all of these presentations with various artists and the latest music. Then our photographer, Nick Sangiano would shoot me a bunch of shots that I would load into carousels for every sales office in the country."
"One of the promotion guys, Billy Bass, had an idea that we should buy all this video equipment and shoot the artists at local clubs. So RCA bought this incredibly expensive Sony camera, a 3 1/4 inch deck and a RM400 controller, which then promptly sat in a cardboard box doing nothing! No one knew how to use it you see. So I went to Mel Ilberman, one of the VPs at RCA and said, 'Hey, do you think I can use all of this equipment to do my monthly sale presentations?'"
"To begin with, I was only doing machine to machine editing and shooting slides off the screen. With the TK76 RCA camera in my hands, I am really starting to shoot some interesting stuff. We were shooting bands like Vicki Sue Robinson and The New York Community Choir,and artists like Don Imus, Helen Schneider, Robert Ellis Oral and Carlene Carter.”
"I remember in 1975, we shot The Kinks first film clip at their concert called 'School Boys in Disguise' at the Beacon Theatre. It was my first major band. Later we were shooting video clips all over the place, with artists like Stephanie Mills, Teddy Pendagrass, Dynasty, The Village People and Hall & Oats, The Whispers, The Jefferson Airplane and many others."
"As music clips became more popular, I started shooting, editing and directing as well. I was freelancing at night, directing most of the top disco acts for a TV show called Soap Factory Disco in Palisades Park in NJ. By the early eighties, Steve was working with the next generation of artists, including BOW WOW WOW and Run D.M.C."
"As my editing became more complex, I started to edit with outside facilities. About this time, Howard Goldsmith of Panavideo asked me to run his company. We did some great stuff, including music videos for CBS Record's Bad Manners, Isley Jasper Isley and Third World's video in Jamaica."
"Howard locked in a deal to build and run one of the first reality TV shows in the US, called Court TV. It was a mad house. We broadcast The OJ Simpson trial and the Kennedy Smith trial for Court TV. We turnkeyed it all for Turner Broadcasting until it finally became Tru TV. Then on a Thursday, after 2 ½ years, Court TV advised us that they were leaving the next day to go on air with their own facility!”
“With Court TV gone, I wanted to upgrade the facility and rebuild the studio business. But in the end, we decided to merge with Rhinoceros Editorial in New York."
"After leaving Rhinoceros in 1995, I started editing out of my home in Sleepy Hollow NY on the banks of the Hudson River. That's where I got the new name for my business, Edit on Hudson; because we were right there on the Hudson River!”
“After nearly six years, I broke the news to my wife, Judy, that we were moving to Charlotte, NC near the Catawba River. I built a new studio with HD edit suites, green screen stage and a voice over booth, which we still call Edit on Hudson. When people asked me why Edit on Hudson, I told them that Edit on the Catawba just didnt have a ring to it.”
"After having the studio for 9 years, a good client of mine asked me if I had ever considered selling the studio. It gave me a bit of a shock. You see, I never had an exit plan. I just figured I would do what I do until I couldn't do it any more. After 6 months of moderately tough negotiations, I decided to sell him the studio. This was an assets based sale only, which means, I get to keep my name and keep doing what I do as an independent. The good news is I don't need to purchase any equipment. When I need to do a shoot, I rent my old equipment. When I need a stage, I rent my old stage. If I need to bring clients into an edit room, I just rent my old room. All I really took with me was one editing platform to keep in my home studio."
"As it works out, I now have an exit plan! I keep producing, directing, shooting and editing until I don't feel like doing it any more. I am still having loads of fun, without the burden of owning the facility. Life is good."