Author Ben Bryant’s Hollywood memoir: Three Stages – Neil Diamond celebrity story

This Neil Diamond

celebrity story

is about my virgin shoot in

film production

when I was not the “talent”.

In November of 1971 I had never worked on a shoot of any kind except as an actor. By that time I’d been involved with Hollywood’s Group One Productions for several months as the (highly ineffective) New York representative. I had gone to LA with a carnet for the bulk of the company’s trip for their Peggy Fleming: To Europe with Love shoot. Then something happened… Excerpt from my Hollywood memoir:

“Betsy and I were scheduled to return to NYC that weekend but late Wednesday afternoon Jack [Tellander, Group One producer and my mentor] got a call from an old friend who was Neil Diamond’s manager. Neil was doing a concert Friday night in Portland, Oregon and at the last minute they’d decided to film it. He wanted to know if Jack could put together a crew and handle the job. Of course the answer was yes. When Jack got off the phone he asked me if I wanted to be the production manager and of course my answer was yes. My cinema studies had proceeded to the next level.

“The first order of business was the crew. Jack gave me a list of names and phone numbers: cameramen, camera assistants, sound men, grips and gaffers. I at least knew what cameramen and sound men did but the rest was a mystery. But I got on the phone and in an hour or so we had a crew. I think Jack rounded up the equipment (all Group One’s stuff was in Austria or France), made the plane reservations and such.

“Betsy and I changed our return reservations and on Friday Morning Jack, the crew and I left for Portland.

“I didn’t meet any of them until we were at the airport. Including Jack, the PA I’d worked with and me there were about nine guys. The first thing I told all of them was that I was a total neophyte and knew nothing about production and would like them to teach me as we went along. They all accepted this and agreed, thanking me for my honesty.

“We got to the venue, a very large auditorium, in the early afternoon. Jack, acting as director as well as a cameraman, set the three camera positions and the gaffer (electrician) rigged a slating system that I was to operate. I learned that whenever a new film roll was loaded into each camera it needed to be slated with proper identification (in which I was given a crash course) and a clap stick for sound synchronization. This was all done in the calm and quiet of an empty auditorium and seemed simple enough.

“Neil Diamond came in for a sound and lighting check which took an hour or so and we practiced the slating technique, mainly for my benefit, and broke for dinner.

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“What a different scene it was when a raucous audience had filled the place and we were working in the dark. For me it was total confusion and chaos but somehow I got through the concert without screwing up. By the time it was over I was utterly exhausted. The nervous tension under which I’d been operating had drained my energy completely.

“I worked my way through the wrap, coiling cables, packing and loading equipment, like a zombie. The other guys wanted to go for beers and food and I went along but was somnambulistic. When we finally got to the motel I lay down on the bed for a moment to gather my strength to get undressed and take a shower. The next thing I knew was Jack waking me up five or six hours later to go to the plane. But I had survived my baptism of fire.

“After we had loaded everything back in at Group One Jack and I had lunch and did a post virgin production seminar and I went back to [my Mom] Lucy’s apartment a lot wiser than I was when I’d left.

“On Monday we screened the footage (which everyone liked) with Neil and his manager who had brought some of his homegrown. He grew the plants among his lemon trees and it was like smoking lemonade.”

Thus I survived my first outing as a member of a film crew. My next entertainment book, Circumstances Beyond My Control –book 2 of my Hollywood memoir  – contains scores of production adventures and celebrity stories.

Click here to get Three Stages 

Click here to get Circumstances Beyond My Control

 

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