There have been times when friends and family ask me what type of people work in the film business and over the years I've speculated that they are people somewhat like me, but to what degree I hadn't, at least up until then, been able to fully answer.
While working on sets I've wondered how it came to be that everyone there, all of us, somehow ended up at this spot. A Cameraman from Georgia, a Gaffer from Israel, a Costumer from Ohio, a soundman from Germany, all kinds of people, from all walks of life, and every so often I'd ask myself where I fit into the picture. Was I in this half of the crowd, or was I in that half? Occasionally those thoughts would flash through my mind until one day I was working on a movie and the truth was revealed.
The Rigging Key walked onto one of our stages at Hollywood Center where we were filming Tim Burton's Planet of Apes. It was a huge budget movie and our daily rigging crew was relatively large, averaging ten guys on any given day. But on this early morning at least fifty extra grips had been called in to give us a hand, as in front of us sat endless piles of box truss and massive rolling crates filled with hardware.
"Listen up, everybody," shouted the Key. "Here's what we're going to do."
He then proceeded to tell everyone, step by step, how we were going to build a giant rig that would be attached to the stage perms (beams) twenty-five feet above us to create an overhead bungee-pulley system that would allow running stuntmen wearing ape costumes to take giant leaps and strides across a desert battle field set. Then, the following day we would surround the battlefield with a massive 360 degree blue screen, and at the end of the week the first unit would shoot the big scene.
"Everybody got it?" he said. "Okay then, let's get to work." He walked off the stage and headed out the door. Chatter started immediately as everyone quickly went to work.
We laid out the box truss in five rows, each run approximately sixty yards long, and began bolting them together. Most of our extra guys that day were hall calls, having brought them in by calling our union hall in order to find that many bodies for a single day.
While we were working I looked around at all the people I had never seen before, even after many years in the business, and I wondered where all these unfamiliar faces had come from. The film business can sometimes be very small as you are constantly running into people you worked with just a few shows ago, but this group was so unfamiliar I realized how big it can be. I looked to my left where a guy wearing black framed glasses was bolting truss together.
I smiled and said, "How awesome is this? I mean, can you think of anything you'd rather be doing at six in the morning?"
He looked at me skeptically, "Yeah, sleeping."
I grabbed another bolt from my bag. "So what happened? Wait, don't tell me; let me guess. Tim Burton saved your life and now you owe him a huge favor?"
He laughed. "No, right now I'm finishing up my Doctorate in Engineering and I thought it was a chance to make some good money working only one day." His eyes and hands stayed on his work while he went on to tell me about his particular field of engineering and where it could lead him, but today what he needed was money.
He smiled. "So when I got the call I took it."
I was impressed. "Glad you could make it," I said while wrenching a nut. This guy's pretty smart I thought, working and going to school to earn his Doctorate, how great is that! It sounds like he has other plans for the future and right now the film business is, in some way, financing his education. Invariably some people you meet seemingly have it completely together, and for a moment I wondered if that category could apply to me, but after a few seconds I decided probably not as I love flying by the seat of my pants too much.
I then turned to my right where a guy wearing a plaid shirt and jeans was hard at work. "How 'bout you," I said. "Been busy lately?"
Spinning a nut onto a bolt he said, "Nope. As a matter of fact today's my first day back in quite a while."
"Why? What have you been up to?"
He looked over. "I just got out of jail."
It was at that moment when it became clear to me on where I fit in, as I was metaphorically and literally positioned directly between the two.
For many years Vince Onken has worked on Hollywood film productions both big and small. Most recently he has written a handbook called "Zen and the Art of Creating a Career in Film" for anyone interested in working in Hollywood. It can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Creating-Career-Film/dp/1478717580
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