You would be surprised at how people end up in the film business. The only thing that counts is that you know how to get things done. That goes for crew members and the positions higher up the food chain.
Examples I’ve seen: A set decorator who was originally a race car driver.
A scenic artist who had been a lawyer. One foreman I worked with had been a heavy metal drummer in Los Angeles.
Many former rock musicians (where have I heard that before?) somehow wind up on film crews, or even producers and department heads.
And the actors? Harrison Ford was a carpenter and handyman. Etc., etc.
This business is result driven. Going to film school, while not a bad thing, will have absolutely no bearing on you being able to work. You can have five doctorate degrees and have watched a bunch of art films, but for the most part only experience matters.
You will only find people like that in the position of “P.A.,” production assistant. And that’d be only if their uncle was one of the producers.
That job consists of making sure the coffee pot in the office is full, making copies and occasionally hand washing the producer’s Ferrari.
Anyway, that’s why I wasn’t really concerned about the special effects guy, “Fast Eddie.” His original field was motorcycle mechanic, but it sounded like the typical story to me.
Now why would anyone be worried about the special effects person? Part of what they do for a living is BLOW THINGS UP.
Cars, boats, buildings and occasionally planes. No matter what your job is on the show, you can easily find yourself nearby while he’s doing that.
I still had confidence in Fast Eddie (never knew his real name), even though there was a rumor that he had blown up the wrong building on his last job.
This was a Burt Reynolds TV episode, and the last one of that season.
My instructions were to go down south to Ft. Lauderdale International Airport to put lettering on the tail of a fairly large but defunct private jet. I arrived at a huge empty hanger on the far outskirts of the flight line to take a look at the plane.
My knees turned to Jello when I saw it.
They had set up a step ladder for me, if you can call a 20-something foot, shaky looking metal thing a step ladder. And the tail was even higher.
Oh, did I mention? I’m “acrophobic”. Severe fear of heights. Our kitchen step stool gives me a panic attack. But only on the second rung.
I gritted my teeth and grabbed my kit in my left hand. Then the ladder with my right. Each and every step upward felt like jumping onto the beach on D-Day.
The only thing that got me through was concentrating on who would play me in the movie of my life if I splattered on the concrete hanger floor.
In those days, I smoked. As I balanced on that tail assembly trying to get this job done, I must have smoked a pack and a half, throwing ashes and sparks wherever, trying to calm my nerves. I leaned against what seemed to be mighty thin metal on the top of the fuselage as I took my “mini breaks.”
When I finished this nightmare job, I headed home glad to be on solid ground again. Jim Beam where are you?
The next day Eddie blew the plane to smithereens and they got it on film.
Then all hell broke loose.
After the blast had settled down, they wanted an end of season PR photograph.
Burt Reynolds and all the actors stood in the still smoking ruins of the plane.
Turns out Eddie was a bit TOO fast.
Only half of the very real explosives had gone off. The other unexploded half was only a couple of feet from the clueless actors.
Rita Moreno had someone lift her to stand onto a piece of debris that had C4 or whatever attached to it. Being short and a publicity hound, she wanted to make sure she was seen.
What suddenly came to me like a bolt of lightning was that I had spent several hours on the top of that plane the day before with lit cigarettes showering the metal with sparks of fire.
Did “Fast Eddie” get fired? Does a bear defecate in the forest?
Thom Caraccio ([email protected]) is a retired musician and retired motion picture scenic artist living in West Palm Beach, Florida who hails from Columbus. He graduated from S.D. Lee High in 1968 and still considers Columbus his real hometown.
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