by Nick Cole
The Great Director paused and took a deep breath.
“I don’t even notice the cold. That’s the amazing thing. I am oblivious to the cold and the dark and the possibility that some sleepy security guard, running out the last hours of the night watch, might come blundering along in a golf cart and run me down. I am thinking about coffee. No, I am seething about coffee. I, unlike the average guy who goes to work and pours himself a cup from the company pot, do not have that luxury. Average guys are still asleep and won’t be getting company pot coffee for close to another four hours. I on the other hand am attempting to mobilize a small army to create a piece of art at four thirty in the morning. I should be thinking about something like shot design or how I’m going to convince the Lead Actress to give me everything she ever learned in acting school, or wherever it is that actors learn their craft, during today’s scenes. If I was really on the ball though, I should be thinking about her lunch. I really should be thinking about her special lunch. If I was smart, I would be thinking about her Specifically Designed Juice Empowerment Muscle Confusion Specific lunch.”
Seriously.
But I’m not. At four thirty in the morning I’m thinking about coffee.
Why?
Yesterday I was a little late getting to the set. The reason: I stopped at a coffeehouse. I had to wait for the store to open and for the sleepy barista to make my drink. I got to the set late and everyone knew it. So I immediately found something, other than my lateness, for them to be concerned about.
Such as, when will the Transportation Coordinator get the parking situation straightened out?
I make the comment loud enough to send everyone back to their cars to make sure they’re parked in the right spot. This is one of the essential elements of survival on a film set: get the blame off yourself. It’s a hot potato, kids. Get it and give it away as fast as possible. The sadness of the charade is this: everyone knows I’m throwing this temper tantrum because I know they know I’m late. In essence, I am wrong so I make them wrong even though they know that I know I am wrong. In turn they are wrong for allowing me to get away with this. Finally, I am wrong again for recognizing all this and doing nothing to stop myself.
There has to be an easier way.
I try to ignore the tightness in my chest and back radiating out into my shoulders and arms.
Shame abounds. No one wins. Let’s make art.
So later that day, the day of the Great Parking Lot Identity Massacre as I like to call it, I casually mention a request to the First Assistant Director.
It would be nice if the Production Assistant—which we of the business have shortened to PA so we are not forced to waste valuable time or extra syllables on communicating to or about such loathsome creatures—could have a coffee waiting for me when I’m picked up in the morning.
This would save me some time on the way to the set and prevent me from being late. I do not add the obvious—that this would also save me from having to shift blame and expose the weaknesses of others, which in turn would save everybody a lot of needless humiliation and effort.
“Sure thing,” he says to me.
Great.
Later at the production meeting, I am reviewing the call sheet for the next day when I notice something.
4:00 a.m. Pick up Director from Residence. SPECIAL NOTE: Have coffee “already” at 4:00.
That chaps my hide. Forget the failed attempt at grammar as it should read: Have coffee “ready.” This note really bites deep into my soul and blinds me from thinking about anything artistic or creative. I just asked if I could get a cup of coffee. Not make a big deal. Now the entire crew knows that I am a complete jerk for demanding a cup of coffee on my way to the set.
Who do I think I am? That is what every PA, grip, camera operator, make-up artist, hairstylist, prop master, construction foreman, and gaffer who got the exact same copy of the call sheet with SPECIAL NOTE included, is thinking right now. They’re saying: I saw this guy’s last film, and it certainly doesn’t warrant him acting like a spoiled child and demanding a cup of coffee before he even gets to the set. The rest of us have to wait to get to the set and for the craft service table to be up and running before even thinking about a cup of coffee. And the final epitaph is always, “I knew him when he used to be cool.”
“I am still cool,” I mutter between clenched teeth as I wad the call sheet into a Freudian ball of rage.
I am seething when I am driven off the lot that afternoon, for the remainder of the evening, at dinner, tinkering in the garage. Lying in bed next to my Perfect Robot Wife, I am still seething. All this time, I am planning courses of action on how to deal with the coffee issue, and they successively trend toward the irate. I imagine the PA ringing my doorbell only to have me heave open the front door, grab the cup of coffee, and fling it right back into his stunned face. Another scenario involves me downing it in one gulp and demanding he run out and get me another, immediately. Suffice it to say, I do not think about the business of directing cinema. I think about coffee. I seethe. I toss. I turn. My back aches.
In the end, the bell rings at four in the morning. I am dressed and ready for a showdown. I must be patient though. I get in the backseat of the car and the PA begins the drive to the set. I am waiting for my coffee. Every scenario I have constructed requires the PA to hand me a cup of coffee. Moments later, as we drive through quiet, dimly lit streets where no one moves, the PA reaches into the center console and lifts a Styrofoam cup to his lips. He sips with a cautious slurp. A slight “ahhh” barely noticeable in the gloom of the car indicates his enjoyment of my coffee. He has interpreted the poorly written call sheet note, Have Coffee “already,” in the correct manner, meaning that he should have had his coffee already. We drive in a darkness deeper than just the lack of light in the pre-dawn sky.
“I really liked your last film, though my favorite is still The Unrepentant.” He looks at me in the rearview mirror, thinking we have somehow bonded because he knows the name of my first film. He sips his hot, steaming, aromatic, black cup of coffee.
I envision strangling him from the back seat as a cacophony of violins screeches in stringed horror.
So, at four thirty in the morning, I am thinking about coffee and its many ramifications when the practically useless First Assistant Director shows up with his usual list of things I should be aware of. Impending problems, daily worst-case scenarios, and things I cannot and will never be allowed to do on film. I listen and nod. I have vowed, inwardly, never to work with him again.
In the dark and off to my right, the Boys’ Club, or the A Camera Crew, whatever you prefer to call them, is setting up, and for some strange reason I want to be there with them. I just want to be some guy, setting up a camera in the frosty morning darkness with other guys.
I just want the luxury of being able to talk to someone.
The most arduous task I face today will be going over to the Second Unit Production crew and listening to the stuntman preen and attempt to direct my scene. Tomorrow I will blow him up, and until I do, especially on the day before I do, he is allowed a certain amount of star power. Today is his day and tomorrow will be even more so. He will swagger and posture, talk loudly and generally demand everything in the candy store. That’s fine. I can take it. After all, I am going to blow him up tomorrow.
Why do I always smile when I say that?
Craft service finally sets up, and I fail to get to the coffeepot before the generator guys promptly empty it. They feel that the best place to maintain a vigilant watch over the operation, maintenance, and (might I add ominously) the fueling of said generator, is in and around the craft service table where we provide free snacks and drinks for the crew. Yes, the fuel in the generator keeps the lights going on a set. A lot depends on that loud, smoke-spitting, fuel-swilling, thankless dragon. I sure do hope someone keeps it fueled, because believe me, we need that generator, yes we do.
Don’t worry, I say to myself. We have generator guys. Go in peace and fight your battles, the generator guys are paid quite well to feed the dragon.
I am still waiting for the camera crew to get set up before I go and talk with them about what I want. But just before I do, I hear one side of a conversation—it’s the Unit Production Manager on one of his many cell phones. The conversation is definitely headed toward me. Valiantly, the Unit Production Manger scrambles to handle the problem, but alas, this problem will undo us both in more ways than we can imagine.
The problem revolves around a chair. A bucket seat, to be specific. In practice, the seat is mounted to a crane and the crane is lifted high into the air. On the seat I will place a Steadicam operator. The crane will start out high above the trees and swiftly lower down through the leaves, over the yard and right up to the front door of the house that is our shooting location. Without pause, the Steadicam operator will step off the seat and walk straight through the front door and right up to the Lead Actress and point the camera right down her throat as she screams. I need this shot. I have wanted this shot. And unlike my coffee, I will get this shot.
Seconds from now the Production Manager is going to ask me if I can live without this shot.
A little back story. Every morning, worker bees spread out all over Hollywood to track down and retrieve equipment. Generally they are successful. Occasionally they fail to accomplish their task, in which case they will be labeled “incompetent.” The sole criterion defining success or failure is this: Did you “do” or “get” what you were sent to “do” or “get” on time? If you did not, then you are incompetent. If you did, then, for the moment, you have dodged a public declaration of incompetency, though given time a general consensus exists that you will eventually fail everyone and receive the label you so richly deserve. Most PAs feel, rightly, that no matter what the outcome of the task, they will always be treated as incompetent. Alas, this is the price of the ticket we charge them for being a part of the big show some call Hollywood.
Being a skilled PA is a thing of beauty, and when done right it is poetry in motion. In this instance, a PA was sent out to pick up the bucket seat from the rental house so that we could complete the shot. Without the seat, no shot. The PA showed up at the equipment rental warehouse, was told his paperwork was wrong, that said seat was gone, and that in no uncertain terms would he be getting said seat from previously aforementioned warehouse.
Disaster.
Wait! A good PA will confront the situation with a timely phone call to his supervisor. That should straighten out the mess, and if not, at least allow the Production Manager to redirect the PA to another rental location to obtain the needed seat. Instead, this PA, who is not a good PA, jumps back into his car, gets stuck in morning traffic, probably stops to get coffee, arrives at the production office, and relates that he has not completed his mission through no incompetence of his own.
Tragedy.
The Production Manager scrambles, punching numbers on his phone while flipping through a large black binder that is never far from his person. This seat, this blunder, this delay of information is now costing an hour of time I desperately need.
It is at this moment I would like to explain how a director perceives the budget he is given to make a film. Take a large pile of money and light it on fire. Continue to feed that fire with more money. Do not let the fire go out before you have finished the film. Otherwise… well, that’s bad.
Fifteen minutes later, the Unit Production Manager finds an available bucket seat and launches another PA, who is “in the field,” or out and about on some other equally important errand, to procure the seat. This PA is launched because, up until now, he has proven himself to be a can-do kind of guy. He has accomplished missions past and been rewarded with the greatest gift a crew can give a PA: less contempt. In fact, before the Bucket Seat Catastrophe, as it will come to be known, he had been given a very important mission: to pick up the specially ordered, contract-specified, Specifically Designed Juice Empowerment Muscle Confusion Specific lunch, for the very expensive “It” Actress of the Day, who is one of the stars of this production.
More about that later.
Though we cannot see the gallant PA, we know he is racing through the congested morning streets of Los Angeles like some cloaked rider from a Dumas story. A solitary musketeer, astride a dark horse, thundering amid the throng and push of the medieval scape that is Los Angeles. He will get the seat, and we breathe easier for a moment.
Unknown to us, across town, an executive at the studio picks up his phone as his secretary transfers the call he placed to my Unit Production Manager. Yesterday, after watching the previous day’s footage (or dailies), he went home. He played tennis, dined out, and went to bed. And all the while something nagged at him. Something was wrong with the dailies. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but something was definitely amiss.
While he slept and dreamt Movie Studio Executive dreams, which I suspect might entail showing copies of the budget to moviegoers and having them hand over the price of a ticket to view the numbers, his mind finally connected the dots.
As soon as he got to his office, he placed a call to our production. He informed the Unit Production Manager, in an offhand, no-big-deal sort of way, of our error. The Unit Production Manager informed me of our error in the We-Just-Hit-An-Iceberg-We-Are-Doomed-I-Tell-You-Doomed sort of way.
“We broke the 180 rule,” he says in a graveyard whisper.
“What?” I ask.
“Yesterday,” he said. “The truck entered the scene left to right and blew up to the right.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“That’s bad.”
“It’s not good.”
For a moment, we are embarrassed to the point of death. Breaking the 180 rule is such a film school error.
“It gets worse,” offers the Unit Production Manager.
I want to reply, but I feel ill.
“He’s coming down here today.”
“Here? When?” I murmur weakly.
“I’m guessing whenever he feels like it.”
Did I mention it is only seven o’clock in the morning?
A few minutes later the PA calls from the rental warehouse to let us know that he’s obtained the chair and wants to know when he can be picked up.
Picked up?
Yes. He has to be picked up because he is driving a motorcycle.
Why is he on a motorcycle?
Never mind.
He cannot carry the chair on the back of his motorcycle. That would be dangerous. A man on a motorcycle weaving in and out of the streets of Hollywood through rush hour traffic, carrying a valuable piece of equipment to save a group of people in trouble—that only happens in the movies. For a moment I notice the Unit Production Manager pausing to consider whether such a feat is plausible. I know he is doing this, because I’m doing the same thing.
No, we can’t do that.
The Production Manager launches another PA to pick-up the motorcycle Knight-Errant PA, who has not rescued our production. An hour later, the rescue PA cannot find the Knight-Errant PA, who has rented a luxury SUV at the Enterprise rental agency across the street from the equipment rental warehouse and disappeared with the bucket seat and our hopes.
“Enough!”
Everyone braces for my expected tantrum. I point to the camera guys and then an unused camera chair, my finger shaking with rage.
“Grab that! You, Stunt Guy, strap that chair to that crane with your safety ropes.” The Stunt Guy is always looking to get in on the action.
Twenty minutes later, the chair is safely strapped to the crane and I am trying to convince the Steadicam Operator to get me the shot. I am probably breaking several occupational and safety hazard rules, not to mention a variety of union regulations. But I need this shot. The Steadicam Operato
r is balking and so I turn to the Stunt Guy and ask him if he will do it.
The deal with stunt people is, they exist in Hollywood because no other person in their right mind is willing to do what they do. It is their ticket for being allowed in, and I have learned how to make them pay their dues. I have given Stunt Guy the opportunity to do something heroic. To save my butt in a public forum and look like a hero, with the added bonus of getting to fly through the air while doing it. The only thing I am not offering him is a cape and the giant letter “S” emblazoned on his chest, which, I happen to know, he so desperately, and secretly, craves.