From Set Shop Hell to Malibu Creek

That first job on the set of a real feature film was an adventure, the likes of which I will never know again. That’s because I will never again be so full of wonderment and fear, and pure desperation to get out of where I had been working, which was at a set shop I’ll call Cinnabangs.  Every day at Cinnebangs was a hardworking, kick-ass experiment in boredom and/or terror, with a healthy dose of toxic materials handling and a puzzling lack of employee morale.  Maybe it wasn’t so puzzling.  We never knew when exactly we would be off work each day.  We always started at 6:30 am, but we were allowed to leave at 5:00 pm or maybe 7:00 pm, or possible 12:00 am. You just never knew, because it apparently was an ongoing secret, one kept from you for obscure reasons.

As everybody kept working, drilling holes in plywood, mixing resin for some mold filling, spraying glue onto felt squares, apparently oblivious to the need for dinner as the clock crept past 5:00 pm, then left 6:30 pm behind and headed towards 8:00 pm, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Why don’t they just tell us what time they want us to work to?” I’d come up with possible reasons: maybe they didn’t know what time we should work to; or maybe it was just the competitiveness of the workers there (not me—I had a boyfriend and wanted to get home); maybe nobody working there wanted to be the first to cave in, exposing themselves as a detestable weakling and a coward by asking if they could go home.  Anyway, whatever the reason, it was an eternal mystery as to what time you would be leaving work that day, and I learned not to make any plans with my boyfriend on weeknights.  Whether someone in authority would remember to break you for dinner was a crap shoot, as well.

For some other unknown reason, even though there were at least ten to fifteen of us working in the set shop every day, and they only gave us a half hour for lunch, making it impossible to go out for anything, Cinnebangs had no break room, no lunch table, not even any chairs for their employees.  Each day at lunch time we’d glumly file out to the sidewalk in downtown Hollywood and sit there like beggars, pulling in our feet when people with better jobs walked through our sad, mopey little cluster.

Conversation was hard and mean, and usually consisted of a statement from person A followed by a comment from person B that would be something along the lines of: “I did that, too, but I did it better.” Or perhaps a disdainful, “So what?” I remember I once mentioned that I had just had dinner with Timothy Leary, something I was rather proud of—it was a wonderful and very interesting evening.  Person B replied (I’m not making this up), “Oh come on, everybody here has had dinner with Timothy Leary!”

So I was desperate to get out of the set shop, but didn’t know how to do it.  Then when some of us were sent out on a mysterious mission to paint and wallpaper a place out in Malibu Creek State Park, I was thrilled.  We didn’t learn until later that this was to be one of the sets for a movie that Cinnabangs had been hired to work on.  And that movie was Invaders from Mars.  For once we wouldn’t have to eat lunch on the sidewalk of the grimiest back streets of Hollywood.  We would be out in the beauty of nature, and maybe, since it was in a park, we might even be able to find a lunch table.

As it turned out, Malibu Creek State Park had many, many things, amazing, lovely, and unforgettable things.  It was also the place where I discovered the way out of the misery of the set shop and onto the set of a real movie.