Tiny Elves and Big Trucks: Packing Heat on Twilight

The Long, Strange Road to Working with a Bunch of Vampires on the Set of TwilightPart III:  Tiny Elves and Big Trucks: Packing Heat on Twilight 

Twilight became the number one movie in America during its first weekend, which made most of the Oregon film community as happy as a little girl—as happy, in fact, as the little girls and bigger girls who poured into the theaters that first week to see their vampires come to undead life on the silver screen.  Two film sequels based on Stephenie Meyer’s bestseller book series are already in the works, and we of the Pacific Northwest who worked on location hope that our famous overcast skies, eternal rain and moss-infested forests will be on display for at least two more big shows.  But that is now, and my blog is then.

Back in this blog’s timeline, I have just joined the film crew, and Twilight was just a glimmer in my resume’s future and I knew nothing about the film or the book, so I did what I always do.  I went to IMDb, which stands for Internet Movie Database.  This has become an important website for the Business as it contains crew and production information for all kinds of films, past, present, and future.  I looked up what I could find on the show—which was not much.  Sometimes just before (or even long before) a film goes into “production” (shooting the script with a camera, crew, actors, and lights and everything) the film will have a site on IMDb with everyone from the “above the line” crew(director, producer(s), director of photography, casting director, production designer, perhaps costume designer and a very few others) all the way down to the lower-level crew (me, of course, and those above and out to the side of me, such as propmaster, wardrobe, first and second assistant directors, and the like).  Sometimes a film won’t have jack, even after it has gone into production.  At this point, Twilight didn’t have jack.

By the time a movie has been filmed and edited, the entire crew may be on IMDb, including even the production assistants, or PA’s, those much put-upon and much-maligned crew persons who are generally not treated like a person, but rather like a highly intelligent dog, who is not your own dog, and therefore is not regarded with any great affection, but is presumed to be obedient both as a requirement of its species and the reason for being in your workplace orbit.

Even though PA’s may be very happy to get on their first show, nobody wants to be a PA for more than one show, and most are scheming to move upward and onward from the hideous fealty of PA servitude.  PA’s can be likened to tiny elves, always working, working, even into the night, and rarely seen consciously, but more “believed in” than believable as a real entity. Being a PA is worse than being a drone, even, because drones get paid much better than PA’s.  In fact, even though shooting days as listed on the call sheet usually last a minimum of twelve hours, with at least two pre- and post- hours tacked on to each end of that day, PA’s rarely get overtime, but are often required to be the first ones on the set and the last ones to leave.

Perhaps you’re getting an idea of why crewmembers, as I mentioned in a previous blog entry, are never seen on the set with a big smile, happy just to be there.

So back to me searching the IMDb.  What am I looking for?  Usually I begin by checking the other films my bosses have worked on before this one, which gives me an idea of: how experienced they are; what kind of work they do; their ideas about lighting (if a DP or director); their taste in the illustration and look of their films (director and production designer), and what they expect from their people.  It’s safest to assume they expect miracles, by the way.

Before the days of IMDb, it was often a mystery as to what some of your other crew members had done before this film.  In the early days of my work in film in Los Angeles, a lot of people had never done anything on a film before, which made the production journey on some independents like a wild and scary, bumpy and humiliating bus trip through real ugly country.  This came about because some people had it together from the beginning, and others were attempting the impossible for their abilities and/or training, which, while you might applaud their gumption, might also put your entire experience on a film into the CAUTION: DO NOT OPEN THIS BOX of bad memories for all time.  And later, even when one of the latter people had learned how to do their job extremely well, you would have a vile taste in your mouth at the sight of them on the IMDb, a visceral reaction to remembrance of things past like fear and failure and “all-nighters” (not using the fun sense of that term) to keep going on something that was doomed to deformity and financial deadfall no matter how hard everybody worked at their own job.

More than a few people may have the same kind of negative gut reaction at seeing my name on the IMDb based on some of my earlier film experiences (especially that Roger Corman thing about the mutated cockroaches, which I will always feel sorry about and guilty for in so many ways).  But I am not the same person as I was then; having gained much in job skills and life lessons, and lost much in arrogance and rebel-with-an-illusory-cause ethics.  So I try to squelch the unpleasantness of a knee-jerk reaction and approach the previously repellant fellow crew member with a heart not filled with hate and fear.  Because I would hope they would do the same for me.

Of course, if they continue to disappoint me, I’ll remember that, too, and add the latest experience with that person to a grudge list somewhere deep in my subconscious where it will no doubt fester and poison my happiness in life and prevent me from achieving enlightenment and complete inner peace, which serves me right for continuing to judge and condemn.  Let’s look at the preceding worlds of wisdom and remember, judge not lest ye be looked up on IMDb yourself and have judgment all come back to you in karmic reciprocity.  Word up, Bitter Renee.

So IMDb was of only minor help for Twilight information. Catherine, of course, I knew, and almost all of the local crew I would know as well.  The more people you know, the easier it is to find that great working rhythm once filming starts.  This is one major wondrous difference about living and working in Oregon compared to living and working in LA.  As much as I long for and love LA, with its beaches (and dolphins who surf those beaches), and its beautiful, hot weather so suited to people like me who are half reptilian, and honor their lizard half which loves the baking, broiling sun—working in Oregon allows you to know just about everybody in the lower echelons of the technical crew.  It really is almost like a family, and when you have faith in the people you often have to follow behind, or even work over and around, you can just relax and sometimes possibly even have fun as you toil during the endless hours of repetitive hard labor.  I said ’sometimes’.  Not often enough to wear a smile plastered on your face, though.  Also, repeatedly getting up at 3:30 or 4:00 am to begin your workday that ends around 7:00 to 9:00 pm somehow exhausts the supposedly few facial muscles it takes to smile.  Yep, those muscles are the first to go.

The next question I would need to answer involved big trucks.  My “kit”, for which I would be getting a sizable rental, and would be depending upon to save my job and defuse a film crisis at least once a day, was a giant, wheeled, two-level rubber cart stacked six feet high with things best not mentioned at this juncture.  Besides the cart I would also bring various pieces of large, unwieldy equipment.  I would need to find a big truck from some department willing to take my kit aboard with them so it would always find a place close to set.  As individual crew members, we would often be asked to take shuttles to and from the set in distant locations, and only the big trucks would be allowed within cart-wheeling distance of the set.

Usually the prop truck takes the stand by painter’s kit, and it nearly always takes the on set dresser’s kit, which is almost as big as mine.  Usually.  Sometimes, on really small films that can still afford a stand by painter, I have to use my own truck, which makes it much more difficult to be prepared for anything and everything.  Especially if the only way you can get to the set/location is a two-mile van ride with six other crew members who don’t want to share their space with paint-spattered tubs filled with God-knows-what.

However, I realized the prop woman was avoiding me entirely during the first week we were at the warehouse, before we would all be sent out to locations and would be working out of our trucks.  She didn’t even introduce herself, but scurried away whenever I came near, which was noticeably odd, until I realized she didn’t want me asking for space aboard her world.  And she really didn’t have any space to spare, as I could see from where I skulked around the tailgate.  She had a really big truck, but she, like me, had to be prepared for any and everything.

I sidled up to the Unit Production Manager just to let him know I was alive and on the crew and would need at least part of a big truck.  He sent me to the Transportation Coordinator, who came up with:  (WOW!) my own truck, with its own driver.  Various other crew members, mostly of the painter species, made envious remarks about my good fortune.  Stand by painters and stand by carpenters and the like rarely, if ever, got their own company trucks.  Even if mine was just a little half-size truck, I still had lots of space to spread out and even a little table inside to do graphics work on the fly, a lift gate to get all of my crap (technical term) in and out and down to the set in a hurry; even power would be supplied for lights, power tools, and (thank you, Great Spirit) life-enhancing, soul-affirming space heaters for the cold rain, ice, rain, snow, and rain to come.

Yee-hah!  We would be working in a lot of exterior locations out and around the real Oregon Trail (or where it petered out) for a good part of the shoot.  Now the wagon train was ready to roll, and I had my own little prairie schooner.

Next week: Part IV: House of Mirrors, Radio Hell, and the Little Piece of Plywood That Could: Dancing at Twilight