Film Production – You Can’t Do That! (Part 1)


During my film production career as producer and/or 1st assistant director my specialty was location shooting, mostly on the greatest back lot in the world, New York City.

Everyone is familiar with the expression “the fog of war” meaning that no matter the well laid plan, once the shooting starts that plan goes out the window and the scramble begins. Much the same is true with location film production. I often explain this by referring to my job as crisis management. This is one of the many things that made the job challenging and therefore fun, hence the title Circumstances Beyond My Control.

One factor in this state of affairs is intervention by the “authorities” or by circumstances. On two occasions director brainstorms or interventions created insoluble problems and were no fun at all. I’ll tell you about them in part two of this blog.

Here are two interventions that we worked around (shortened and) excerpted from Circumstances Beyond My Control.

Author Ben Bryant's TV Commercial Production Book

Author Ben Bryant’s Film Production Book

Fava Shoes Commercial, Traffic Jam: Director Ed Libonati

Our first setup was at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and 81st Street, the north west corner of the Museum of Natural History locale. The camera was on a small crane and would move throughout the shot. The action was of three girls wearing Fava shoes, of course, emerging from a taxi in a traffic jam and getting to the curb by walking through the back seat of another stuck cab.

The barrier to getting this shot was the controlled traffic jam. The two regular movie cops who were with us could have been persuaded to allow us a little leeway but for some reason Sgt. Keene was more than normally interested in this shoot and these guys were wary of him and there was no way he was gonna let us jam up traffic. So we devised a scheme wherein one of our production assistants would cause his car to stall at just the right time and place thereby creating a jam just long enough.

Don Cerrone was our excellent Key Grip and his skill was critical to getting the shot. We rehearsed the camera crane move and the girls’ action until we were confident that we could get it on one take and then we did it.

Mike Garvey flooded his engine at the exact spot, the taxi right behind him, and traffic backed up, horns a-toot. I called “Action!” and everyone, including the shoe models hit their marks and their timing. Just as the dreaded Sgt. Keene appeared, Eddie said “Cut!” and Keene said, “I want to talk to you.” Moi?

This was as close as I ever came to being arrested and were Mike any less an actor I would have been. But Mike was convincing with his story and Keene couldn’t prove otherwise so we (I) got away with it and Ed got his shot. And we broke for lunch.

La Guerre des Insectes (French movie): Director Peter Kassovitz

This one really explains the title of my memoir Circumstances Beyond My Control.

On our next to last day in the City the scenes to be shot took place on Brooklyn’s Pier 3 which is directly across the East River from Lower Manhattan. Betsy [Reid, production manager] had been assured that there would be no ships docked and that we would have complete, unfettered access to an empty pier. During our prep Peter, the DP, Betsy and I had spent half a day there mapping out the complex choreography of the scenes which involved the bad guy and the authorities completing a ransom drop and pickup.

On the shoot day, as we approached from the elevated Brooklyn Queens Expressway, we looked down to the pier in shock. Not one but two large cargo vessels were being unloaded and the place was crawling with forklifts and stevedores. I told Mike to pull over at the next overlook so Peter and I could get out and have an overhead view while we re-planned the shoot. There was no alternative; we had to get it that day.

While the crew unloaded the gear and Betsy renegotiated with the pier boss Peter and I completely redrew the map of the shots. I was amazed at his flexibility and creativity in attacking a situation which, on its face, seemed well nigh impossible. By the time Mike returned to pick us up we had a completely new plan, and we and our game and excellent crew made it work. And in spite of (or maybe because of) the congested location the scenes had a lot more life and grittiness than they would have had on an empty pier. And we did it all in eight hours.

You’ll find many more tales of film production when you click here and get your copy of Circumstances Beyond My Control.

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