Film Production at Six Degrees


On my first film production job for a NYC company (Wakeford/Orloff) in the fall of 1973 I met director Bob Santos and director/cameraman Gary Young. These two men would become friends (Santos, for life) and, briefly, business partners. But those are other stories you’ll find in my film production book, Circumstances Beyond My Control.

I didn’t know it at the time but the last job I would do as Gary’s first AD was a commercial for Pioneer headphones. It must have been 1983 because Gary had married his second (or third?) wife, Frances the summer of ’82 and I was his best man.

Director/Cameraman Gary Young

Director/Cameraman Gary Young

We shot in lower Manhattan and on the Brooklyn Bridge – in February.

The storyboard depicted a young man wearing a pair of Pioneer headphones plugged into a Walkman. Carrying a pair of drumsticks as he walked along the streets and onto the bridge, he was using objects in his path on which to beat out his rhythms. The spot was to be aired in spring and summer so he was dressed in light clothes with no jacket. The temperatures that day were frigid and the poor actor, though wearing two layers of thermal underwear, was freezing his ass off.

We started at sunrise on the bridge. There was a digital thermometer on the Lighthouse building in Brooklyn and as the sun came up it read 6˚. I was wearing serious boots, heavy-duty long johns, flannel lined corduroy pants, a thermal turtleneck and a thick wool shirt. Over all this was my full-length shearling coat. Like “Linus” in Peanuts, had I fallen over I wouldn’t have been able to get back on my feet unaided. And I was still cold.

The actor not only had to look comfortable and happy but, while the camera rolled, he had to hold his breath so that clouds of vapor would not issue from his orifices. Immediately after each take two production assistants would pounce upon him with blankets and shove his hands into wooly mittens yet the lad was, indeed, suffering for his art.

I also felt for the camera assistant. Threading a motion picture camera is well nigh impossible while wearing gloves. But at least he could put his hands in his pockets while not actively engaged.

Gary and I had (seemingly) been the best of friends for seven or eight years, I was always his first call AD and, abruptly, with no explanation whatsoever our relationship ended after this job.

The way I found out was disturbing in and of itself.

I was on a shoot with another director a few weeks later when key grip Jim Cooper asked me why I wasn’t on Gary’s job the previous week. I was shocked, having not gotten a call for the gig.

That night I left a message for Gary. When I hadn’t heard from him in a couple of days I called Churchill Films, the company that produced his jobs. Gary wasn’t in and so I spoke to the staff producer with whom I had a cordial, professional relationship. He was vague. Said Gary wanted to work with some other AD and that was it. I didn’t hear from Gary and never worked with him again.

I was mystified and more than somewhat upset for weeks: not just for the loss of a client but the loss of a man I thought was a close friend.

Churchill hired me a few times to work with their other directors and nothing was ever said about Gary’s dropping me as his AD or leaving the company. It was all very strange, indeed.

There are many stories about film production – almost all of which are more fun that this one –in Circumstances Beyond My Control.

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