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Guest Speaker - Peter More Sr Craft Talk
Our long-time member, Peter More,
shared a senior craft talk with the Club,
with special emphasis on his time working
with Francis Ford Coppola during the
making of The Godfather and Godfather II.
Peter’s Grandfather moved the whole family from Canton to a seaport up north in China, in the import business. His German business partner wanted a name he could pronounce So, he renamed Peter’s grandfather’s last name to “More.” His mother’s family moved to Japan and two sisters married two of former member Henry Seng’s sisters. That’s Peter’s connection to Henry.
Business did very well, and his grandfather opened an Amusement Park about 1910. It included silent movies, and Peter’s father ran the projector. His father also became a radio operator on an ice breaker and did all of the communications. He later worked with Western Electric and Bell Systems, branching out into cinema sound systems and recordings. Finally, he got involved in the first talkie cinema theater in Shanghai (first in China).
Peter was born in Shanghai in the Republic before the communists came. As the communists approached, his father cabled the NYC office to ask whether they should move out or stay. NYC advised to stay because they didn’t believe the communists would make it through the mainland. Nevertheless, Peter’s father bought tickets on a transport plane and sent his mother and the family to Hong Kong to stay with an uncle and father. Peter’s father joined them a year later. He worked with all the local film studios in Hong Kong, including with Harold Lloyd and his studio.
His father was into sound and motion pictures, but Peter’s interests were in avionics and radio. This is his 60th year in this country and decided “this was the beginning of the Americanization of Peter More.” Peter got involved with a ham radio group, film processing group and a rocket club in college. The famous Tex Thorton called Peter and set him up in a business division located on Woodley, built around developing Litton Systems avionics guidance systems. All this at the youthful age of 18 at the end of his junior year in high school. Peter remarked that he followed his father around and joked “I like following old people which is why I’m perfect for Rotary” getting a reaction from a room full of admirers. In his Senior year in high school, Peter was voted the top scientist.
After graduation, Peter went to Loyola University in the electro-mechanical dept. He still ended up in a
radio station in college. Peter noticed Shirley at the
student union under a radio antenna in 1967 (she did not notice Peter though, so more on that story to come),
Peter worked in the studio on campus, full of incredibly old equipment. But his videotaping recorded KXLU radio, as a volunteer job.
In the late 1960s, he moved to San Francisco, in the
middle of the hippy movement. He started working
for a recording studio in San Francisco, at United
Record, which later became CBS Records.
He started working American Zoetrope Studio in a
beautiful studio, with a lobby designed by Eleanor Coppola. A lot of fancy equipment came in from
Germany, and one piece was only one of two in U.S.A.
Peter was in heaven with a complete audio board including the mixing console. Still, Peter made some other modifications that were on the cutting edge of technology.
In his mid 20s Peter became the chief engineer.
Francis Ford Coppola collaborated with George Lucas
(Director) on THX-1138 which was his first film, with
a $777,000 budget and box office gross of $2,437,000.
The second film was American Graffiti {Peter worked
on soundtracks for both). That film’s budget was
$750,000 and it grossed $115M, and then came the
movie Patton. Afterwards came Godfather, produced
by Paramount. The studio wanted a stronger screenplay
and wanted an Italian director, so they chose Francis
Ford Coppola, who worked with author Mario Puzo.
Peter started working with CMX, which was a joint venture with CBS and built a computerized mixing system. He didn’t care for the modern technology and so he went back to the old way of doing things. Peter also worked on over 200 televisions commercials for American Zoetrope Studio, through the commercial division, to keep the company profitable. Peter Did all the commercial mixing.
We ran out of time. The Club was disheartened, demanding a sequel be scheduled instead of continuing further. Peter stopped his craft talk at about 1972 and will do the sequel on the technical part at a future meeting. He needs about 30 more minutes.
New Membership
PPx2 Diane Good Inducted our newest member, Christine Clayburg. Diane was her sponsor. Christine is a member of the Writer’s Guild, living in Westwood.
Superbowl Pool
Nanci Cohen won last year by picking the Kansas City
Chiefs. This year, four teams are eligible at $10.00 per
ticket. Within seconds, the pool was sold out to Diane Good, Teya McCockran, PPx2 Nancy McCready, PE Ben Fisher, PPx2 Chris Gaynor, David Stover, PP Steve Scherer, PPx2 Steve Day, PP Aly Shoji, Bill Roen, John O’Keefe, Phil Gabriel, PP Michael Newman, and Nanci Cohen.
The auctioned book was purchased by new member
Christine Clayburg for $10.00, the Godfather, in honor
of our guest speaker today.
Our weekly gathering of the friendly Westwood Village Rotary Club started with a Membership continuing education event. New members, and some regular members, gathered at 11:45 to listen to PP Chris Gaynor talk about Club Governance. The next event is scheduled for February 15th with Club Treasurer Terry White talking about Club finances.
The regular Club meeting started at 12:29 with a big bang of the Rotary bell by PPx2 Steve Day.
On January 11th National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, Our representative for the district focus is PPx2 Chris Gaynor. Chris offered comments on the current state of human trafficking. Three of the top 10 cities in the US experiencing human trafficking
are in California; San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles. He urged everyone to call the Human Trafficking hotline if you believe it may be taking place.
Sharod Hansen recited the Rotary Four-Way Test.
Our newbie greeter today was new member Sean McMillan. PP Michael Newman brought us his thoughts for the day. Sharod also led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Regrettably, we were without our song meister Ed Gauld, so, we missed our song. ☹
But PP Ed Jackson made remarks that 54 years ago
this week, he received a plaque from our Club honoring
his role as student body president of University High
School. He also added that Melissa Schwartz of Rotary
is now in her second presidential cabinet.
Rotarians from other Clubs
- Pres Steve welcomed Albania Durres Rotary Club member Ing. Vasil Martopulio (Past President 2006-2007), an Albanian electronic engineer in Durres near Iran. His Rotary movement started after the fall of the wall. Albania started with three small Clubs and then after the fall of the Soviet Union, Rotary Clubs started increasing with District 2485 being established.
Guests of Rotarians
- Curt and Gail Smith are transferring their membership to the Incline Village Rotary Club, where they live most of the time. They joined us today with their granddaughter,
- PP Gordon Fell brought his wife, Vacheree,
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Nanci Cohen introduced three representatives from the UCL Government and Community Relations Office; Julia Brown, Director and Duane Muller, Senior Deputy director, and Jennifer Poulakidas, Associate Vice Chancellor,
- Marsha Day, wife of President Steve Day,
- Joel Melton, CPA at Cohn Reznick, guest of President Steve Day.
President Steve announced next week’s program, entitled “Everything you wanted to Know about The Rotary Foundation But, Were Afraid to Ask”, led by District chairs Lee Stacy and Glenn Gomez.
Our President closed our meeting with a quote from founding father Alexander Hamilton born on this day in 1755; “We are now forming a Republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.”
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