Author Ben Bryant’s first big film production job: Carole King Concert
- Posted on 9th January 2014
- in celebrity story, Entertainment, entertainment books, Film Production, Hollywood memoirs
- by Ben
Excerpt from my
film production book,
Circumstances Beyond My Control
This was my first big film production job, a true “baptism of fire”.
“In April of ‘73 Bob Collins was hired by Lou Adler, Carole King’s manager, to produce and direct the filming of Carole’s Central Park concert in May. He offered me the job of production manager and I, of course, accepted – having no idea of what I was getting myself into….
“It was time to learn about New York’s unions. The … “IA”, was the biggie covering all the film and stage crafts. BC was a member of the Hollywood local for cameramen and he told me to call the New York film local. … I told them what we were up to and that a specialist camera crew was coming in from LA. They assigned us a Gaffer (chief lighting technician) Milty Moshlack and a Key Grip (I didn’t know what he did), Hugo Dominic.
“Milty, Hugo and I went to the site in Central Park’s Great Lawn, just north of the Delacorte Theatre. The stage would be at the south end, facing north.
“… I told them that … I was in way over my head. I was relying on them to keep me out of trouble. When I look back on this after thirty plus years of working with IA crews, it was a big risk. There are many guys I’ve worked with that would have taken advantage of my inexperience and screwed me royally but I got lucky with these two men. They were both honorable gentlemen and became my “Dutch Uncles”. They taught me every step of the way and are largely responsible for my being able to manage the production without making a fool of myself.
“… We had been keeping in touch with Mr. Hill [in Hollywood] about his camera/video system and every time we talked the price went up. Even though we had an unlimited budget this didn’t feel right to us. Bob now wanted several more cameras and the deal began to go south. So two days before the gig BC canned him. I remember that night vividly. I had Tony Tamberelli’s home phone number and we called him at ten or eleven o’clock and asked if he could round up twelve 16mm cameras for the shoot in two days. He told us Camera Service Center didn’t have that many available on such short notice. We hired him as our equipment manager and he managed to get us a dozen assorted Eclairs (the cameras, not the goodies) and Arris (Arriflex, another brand of camera) and practically every 16mm camera lens and magazine in NYC. The next morning we called the IA Local 644 and hired eleven camera operators and twelve camera assistants (one assistant was for [BC’s Partner, DP] Flemming Olson).
“This job was getting bigger by leaps and bounds. We rented a Winnebago, got the City to allow us to park it next to where the stage was being built as our on site production office and somehow managed to get the phone company to install two lines.
“The stage construction began the day before the concert and it was done by members of IA Local 1, the theatre stagehands Yet another union to deal with.
“Then there was the special equipment: We brought in the rarely seen and long gone Tyler Moxie Mount, which was designed to hang a camera and operator from a construction crane. It’s most famous appearance was carrying Peter O’Toole around the movie set-within-a-movie in The Stunt Man. …
“By the day before the concert I was in a state of near panic. … production management wasn’t rocket science but I was quickly learning that it was crisis management. I tried mightily just to handle one thing at a time but sometimes three or four things were blowing up at once and I felt almost as though I were in a war. I was dealing with a union crew of approximately 100 people made up of members of three different locals. The whole thing was nearly overwhelming.
“… Both our phones were constantly busy on the shoot day. Late in the morning a telephone operator interrupted a conversation and put through an emergency call from Betsy. The Teamsters’ union was trying to reach me. She said that they had told her that if I didn’t get in touch with them immediately they would shut down our entire operation. I’d never heard of them but I called. I was told in a somewhat hostile and intimidating way that I should have called them days ago and that I “needed”, I’ve forgotten exactly how many but maybe a dozen of their men. I apologized for my ignorance explaining that I was new at this and that they should send as many men as necessary. (I’ve had great relations with the Teamsters ever since that day.)
“By four o’clock the Great Lawn was overflowing. Our Local 52 crew had erected several sets of risers (scaffolding) for both lights and camera positions. The lighting ones were eighteen feet high and those for cameras were six and twelve feet. Cops were guarding the risers but the crush of the crowd swamped the police and people, mostly kids, began to climb the towers. …
“The official estimate of the crowd was 100,000 but some newspapers reported that it was in excess of 300,000. Whomever was right, it was a hell of a lot of people. Except for the unruliness of the tower climbers it was a very polite group of folks. Plastic bags were passed out and by the time the park had emptied at around 9:00 PM it was absolutely clean with great piles of garbage bags in the designated areas. New Yorkers love this city and especially Central Park.”
There’s a lot more to this story (and many others) in the Circumstances Beyond My Control:
Tags: Bob Collins, Carole King, Central Park, IATSE, Lou Adler, Teamsters
Recent Comments