That’s right suckas, I have my own IMDB entry. Weed it and reap!
Forget that I had to enter my own listing on half of those credits, including my only composer credit.
Forget that only two of the projects listed had any sort of commercial release and never in theaters.
The First Barbecue -what does a key grip do anyhow?
With my level of experience at the time—zero—there was only one way to make myself attractive enough to get any gig in film…
Work for free.
I answered ads for ‘intern’ crew positions on student films at AFI, USC and others. These films were not four or five kids running around with video cam-corders, they were master’s thesis films with crews of up to forty people, grip and lighting trucks, generators, and catered meals.
I started out as an electrician/grip. I learned something new every minute. I gained a reputation for learning fast, working extremely hard and most importantly in film, not being an asshole. As a result I was working as a best boy electric by my second film (a sort-of assistant manager of lighting).
On my fourth film, a rather large scale student film that was set in Auschwitz , I was asked to ‘best boy grip’. The key grip backed out at the last minute due to a paying gig so I was field promoted to key grip.
It was a stressful learn-as-you-go trial-by-fire experience. Many people wonder what the heck a “key grip” does exactly. During that shoot, though I was careful not to show it too much, I was one of those people.
“Key grip” is just a way of saying the chief grip. What the grip department does is in the simplest of terms is rigging of any lighting not on a stand, shading and treatment of light, (which is far more involved that you would ever think). They also lay track for, and operate the camera dolly (sometimes a sub department).
The key grip is also the production’s safety officer.
One memory I have from that film is that they were short on extras during a gas chamber scene. Even though it was around fifty degrees some of the crew doubled as extras, including the clapper/loader (the guy that claps the sign with the hinge when they say “take one” “clack”). They wore only a single flesh colored nylon sock, and not on their feet.
On that final day of filming we all endured a twenty-three hour, windy, rainy marathon that made me seriously reconsider pursuing film, on any level, as a career.
Fort MacArthur where we filmed
That’s What Insurance is For
I have had my share of killing film gear; even a truck!
Only an hour into my first day on my first film a Mole Mini (light) fell off the top of a cart I was loading onto a truck. I could hear the glass break.
Once, on top of an eighteen foot high parallel (platform) another electrician and I were changing the globe (bulb) in a six thousand watt HMI light. We had failed to notice the retaining clip on the $2,500 stipple lens was open. When we turned the light over the fourteen inch lens rolled out of the light, off the platform and smashed into a million pieces right in front of where the entire crew was eating dinner.
A 6K HMI
A gaffer and myself were changing lenses on the same sort of 6K light. It had a Chimera (a nylon ‘tent’ that creates soft light) mounted to it. The lens must have been blocking a lot of heat because as soon as he removed it the Chimera quickly melted into a pile of liquid plastic.
A couple Chimeras
After a long day’s shooting, I was driving a truck with a generator in-tow back to its overnight parking At CBS Radford Studios. At a light, a driver pulled along side and told me that I was dragging something and making sparks. The door on one of the ‘jockey boxes’ (storage bins mounted below the main truck ‘box’) it had not been properly latched and had swung down to drag on the pavement.
The door was badly damaged enough that it would no longer close, let alone latch. The particular box that had swung open contained a lot of thick power cable. I pulled out loops from the bottoms the piles of cable hooked them around the corners of the door which held it up till I got to my parking spot at CBS.
I felt bad about the damage to the truck until the next day when another driver got lost on the way to the Malibu
We thought the producer would flip out. She might have had it not been for the thousand other little--and not so little--things that had gone wrong during the shoot. Her skin had grown a little thicker each day. She took a look at the now convertible truck, smiled and said. “Oh well, that’s what the insurance is for.”
The Taiwanese Coffee Commercial –Second worst catered meal ever.
I would like to go to Las Vegas
One such time was shooting a commercial for a Taiwanese “American style” coffee commercial. The product was very sweet, very strong creamed coffee in a small soft drink can printed to look like denim.
We shot a series of American clichés which was an amusing illustration on how the Taiwanese view life in the US: a girl hitchhiking with a guitar on a desert highway, a bunch of bikers on Harley’s, an eighteen wheeler with flames painted on the engine cowling, city lights of Las Vegas, desert sunsets with young beautiful Asian people partying hearty—in the form of drinking little cans of sweetened coffee.
The star of this commercial was a miniscule pop star who was apparently quite a big deal in Taiwan
She seemed nice enough though. While she was sitting on a motorcycle behind a camera car I would use of a flag (a frame with black cloth stretched over it) to shade her from the sun between the takes. When we were done she patted me on the shoulder and said “Yuh suh kuhl” (you’re so cool).
The production team from Taiwan were not accustomed to shooting in the US
Did I mention we were in the desert?
For meals they purchased sandwiches at a local diner, got twice as many containers as there were meals, then divided up the meals into twos. Everyone got half a rather dry chicken sandwich and a tablespoon of coleslaw
The very worst catered meal I’ve ever been presented with was on a TV game show pilot called “Model Behavior” (about models, get it?). In a Styrofoam take-out container made several hours prior in some Mexican lady’s kitchen down the street, was a tiny unflavored chicken breast, a large mound of unflavored white rice on which sat one, I kid you not, one oven bake French fry.
Working on student projects was fun. After I worked on a few professional projects, commercials etc… the difference in atmosphere was palpable. As soon as there was money on the table, it was in someone’s best interest if the other guy looked bad.
I had a general bad taste in my mouth whenever I worked and was beginning to dread it.
When I agreed to go to Mississippi
I’m here to tell you: Mississippi
I felt clean dry and comfortable for about thirty seconds every day when I left my bungalow hotel room freshly showered. When I stepped into the ninety degree, one hundred percent humidity, I instantly felt as though I’d run the hundred yard dash.
Imagine, if you will, what might happen if you were to take a twelve foot by twelve foot white cloth stretched in a frame on a small hill, in the middle of a cotton field in Mississippi
Bugs came from miles away, I am certain of it; bugs so big they show up on radar; crazy looking prehistoric bugs that I’ve never seen the like of before or since. It was like a scene in an Indiana Jones movie, the kind designed to make women bury their heads in the chests and arms of their dates.
The 10K was beginning to smoke from being turned into a industrial strength bug zapper. This entomological orgy was swarming around the light and the white cloth like lobbyists around a senator.
"Oh, and by the way, we need you to get up on a ladder and drop a single (a screen that makes the light less bright) in that 10K."
A Mole 10K fresnel
Halfway up the ladder, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I could feel insects bouncing off me like there was a hale storm of living projectiles. I felt my way around the big light trying not to burn myself. At that point a burn itself was not my main concern, rather the gasp of bug filled air I might take and shortly choke to death on.
The next day the entire porch where the light had been was crunchy to walk on.
The locals working on the crew were great entertainment as all newbies are.
An apple box is a ubiquitous tool in film that gets used for anything from supporting dolly track to having a short actor stand on to match height with his leading lady. Tom Cruise has spent the better part of his career standing on ‘apples’. Apples come in different sizes from a ‘full’ at eight inches high, to an “1/8th apple” or “pancake” (basically a one inch thick piece of plywood) and several sizes in between.
I was working on something up on a hill while most of the crew was filming at a share cropper’s shack down the hill in the middle of the cotton fields. We heard over the radio the key grip ask for a ‘half apple’. Soon after that, a local kid came running up the hill and asked us where the craft table was located. We pointed to the porch of the plantation house and he disappeared. He reemerged moments later and ran back down the hill with a granny smith apple he had carefully sliced in half with a knife.
We probably should have stopped him but why should we be the only ones to get a good laugh.
Near the end of the shoot, I was exhausted, sunburned and getting a little miffed at some of the New York-based crew that always seemed to give me the crappiest work to do.
Just two more days, just two more days.
In Mississippi
When the local guy switched on his light, he looked down and casually noted: “yup... snake.”
It was at that moment, while trying not to run and squeal like a little girl, I decided my film career was officially over.
The next morning a few of the crew were waiting for our van to take us to the cotton plantation an hour away. It was all indoor shooting that day, thank God! One of the guys said he had found a stray calico kitten. It was running around and was hard to catch. I asked the guy if he was going to keep it. “No way,” he said.
No one else was interested.
I was faced with a dilemma. If I adopted this stray kitten what would I do with her all day while I was working on the film?
But what if I didn’t?
If I took this kitten home, where I already had two cats, how would I get her there?
But what if I didn’t?
The van pulled up. I had to make my decision. I snatched up the kitten and took her to work with me. I could always leave her where we found her at the end of the day if I decided I couldn’t take her home. She squirmed around a lot during the drive but finally went to sleep in my arms about a half hour into the trip.
The more immediate concern was what I was to going to do with this tiny fur ball for the rest of the day while I was working. At first, I put her in the basement of the plantation house where she readily hid under a pile of boards.
Perfect! “Behave, I’ll check back when I can.”
An hour or so later I had a chance to visit my new friend with a bowl of water. I wondered if I had made a mistake. If she was hard to catch before how was I going to get her out of this cluttered basement?
I called out, “Baby kitten!”
She came running from somewhere in the darkness, affectionate and overjoyed to see me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it, but she was definitely coming home with me.
Still I needed a better plan for how to take care of this tiny kitten though this long day of shooting. When I learned that Whitney, a young cat-loving actress in the film, was working that day I knew my troubles were over.
“Oh Whitney,” I said with one fur filled hand behind my back. Guess what I have?
She was very happy to play with my kitten for the rest of the day. The hair and makeup people helped out when Whitney was on the set and even the local craft service lady went into town to buy kitten chow.
I didn’t have to think too hard about a name. Whitney was playing the part of “Young Delilah”
My Southern Belle/Little Redneck Delilah
Nine years later, save for a deleted Jeopardy scene in “The Bucket List”, I haven’t worked a day in film but Delilah is still my “baby kitten”.
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