George Lucas
Up to this point, 1994 for those of you playing along, except for the year on The Nightmare Before Christmas, my work in California with anyone of consequence limited itself to a couple weeks as the 2nd Unit AD on Junior, and a conversation with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I also had a brief encounter with Cesar Chavez.
First, my day on Junior.
Me: “Mr. Schwarzenegger. I’m George Young. I’ll be the 2nd AD for the crowd scenes today.”
Arnold: “Nice to meet you.”
He shook my hand. The highlight of that job.
Regarding Mr. Cesar Chavez. In 1989, I escorted the immigrant advocate upstairs to meet with a couple members of the top-heavy management cabal at KQED. The suits asked me to stall Mister Chavez while they extracted one of the 49 cameramen at the station from a six hour coffee break to shoot a last minute interview.
I’ve never understood his contributions to whatever he was contributing, but he was kind enough to schlep down to the station when the request for the interview came in. NABET’s (The technician union at KQED) membership rose to the occasion like a whale carcass dropping into the Marianas Trench. The President of the station had to personally confront the shop steward and berate him regarding the union’s lack of enthusiasm.
But now to the HIGHLIGHT OF MY CAREER TO DATE.
George Lucas.
Star Wars guy. Seminal movie moment of the late 20th century. Icon of all that is pop culture.
Like most people about my age, I sat in the proverbial darkened theater in 1977 and watched as someone achieved the visual ability to show a rocket ship flying through the vacuum of space and have it look like a rocket ship flying through the vacuum of space, not some cheap prop from the art department tossed across a black backdrop.
Okay, in fairness to Stanley Kubrick, his traveling mattes in 2001: An Incomprehensible Storyline, were just as good.
Stanley’s mistake was forgetting to put a beginning, middle, and end in his movie. Particularly an end.
So, George gets the credit and Stan is left with the kudos from a collection of Star Trek autograph hounds.
I’ll defend Stanley’s visionary use of effects, nearly a decade before George, but I seem to recall lines down the block for Star Wars.
2001: An Incomprehensible Storyline? No. Had the theater to myself.
****
How did I get into Lucasfilm?
Prior to signing on for, ahem, two weeks on The Nightmare Before Christmas, I worked on a videogame as a consultant. The game, Solar Eclipse, a futuristic combination of space travel, aliens, and laser guns might convince people that I’d be the perfect candidate to work for a man who invented the futuristic combination of space travel, aliens, and laser guns.
And those people would be right.
After ten years in the industry, I’d perfected both the work personality that qualified me to do anything in production and the discipline to do it. Those qualities are listed below.
1. I knew how to say the word, “Yes.”
2. I understood the importance of jargon.
3. I had experience.
4. I was willing to screw things up, because I knew I could fix them . . . okay, most of the time I could fix them.
5. I was very good about researching how to do anything I hadn’t already done, which as I got older became more and more infrequent.
6. I could find the bathroom and a parking spot. Once other folks arrived on set, they became blind and their IQ dropped 50 points. A phenomenon/syndrome for which I still search for a killer name.
The way I breached the walls of Lucasfilm (of which LucasArts, George’s game division was a part) was through a colleague, Anne Sandkuhler, a fab producer in her own right. Anne had just completed a video game (uh, futuristic combination of etcetera) starring Tia Carrere. It took weeks of shooting and the constant running of cold showers for the crew who got to see Tia in tight clothing.
Steve Dauterman of LucasArts, still on my list of top clients, contacted Anne to see if she would produce Rebel Assault II. Anne informed me that staff employees produced Rebel Assault I which led to a zillion dollar talent overage; footage that approximated the quality of Buck Rogers in the 21st Century, the 1930’s version with Buster Crabbe; and 100 psychotherapy sessions.
Dauterman decided not to go through that again, and he contacted Anne.
Who demurred and called me.
Me: “Why don’t you want to do it?”
Anne: “It’s for George Lucas.”
Me: “So?”
Anne: “I’m not sure I can work for him. I’d be afraid of screwing up.”
Me: “Have you seen Willow? The Radioland Murders?”
Anne: “No.”
Me: “You’re not alone in not having seen them. Think about that.”
But Anne passed on the gig and that’s how I ended up driving 101 North and pulling into a parking lot with a sign outside of it which advertised a Real Estate company. Makes sense. If it said “LucasArts: The Games Division of Lucasfilm,” there would be several thousand people a day standing outside (or inside if they got there early enough) the front doors waiting for a glimpse of Darth Vader.
The reception area, a bland curved desk the color of pancake batter, offered protection for the two Jawas that greeted me.
Jawa 1: “Sha! Gewesh dwar mec?
Me: “Steve Dauterman.”
Jawa 2: “Ifnok stestux!”
Jawa 2 stood during our exchange, though I couldn’t tell that from behind the desk. It came out and hit a TV remote, which opened the double doors to the offices of LucasArts. Jawa 2 motioned me to follow it inside with a wave of a claw.
Once I crossed the threshold, perspiration broke out on my forehead. A case of (B)PTSD. B-Personality Type Sociopathic Disorder. The layout of the bullpen looked exactly like the one from The Nightmare Before Christmas I left two years ago.
But this time, as opposed to Star Wars and Indiana Jones toys, action figures, and creatures, this new land of Type B personalities associated with creating video imagery at the speed of the Neolithic Age covered its work spaces with toys, action figures, and creatures from . . . The Nightmare Before Christmas.
This labor and artist pool for animation contained no more than 50 people, or maybe 50 humanoids. This cannot be a coincidence. I’m sure I recognized a few Skellington escapees.
Jawa 2: “Pstic dwarsa Steve Dauterman fitmoq.”
Jawa 2 led me to one of the perimeter offices that ringed the bullpen. Inside this Lucas version of the corporate terrarium sat a perfectly normal looking person. Light brown hair, requisite mustache and goatee, Gap shirt and pants. His desk had a notepad, some yellow Post-It notes, a couple pens, and a computer.
No toys. No action figures. No creatures.
Me: “I have to be in the wrong place.”
The person inside watched Jawa 2 depart. He smiled.
Steve Dauterman: “You’re George, yes? If so, you’re in the right place. I’m Steve Dauterman. Thanks for coming up to meet.”
Me: “Oh, you speak English!”
He laughed and got out of his chair to shake my hand.
Steve: “Let’s show you around.”
And that was that. Steve ensconced me in a couple of cubicles to call my own, which I could use on a daily basis. My coordinator, Joyce Quan, the world’s most intense person and a Star Wars maniac, plunked herself down at one of the desks and didn’t move until the job ended.
Rebel Assault II did not go off without problems. LucasArts was in a contract dispute with AFTRA, the talent union. In order to avoid controversy, we opted to shoot the live action components at a Marin county stage and avoided the city of San Francisco.
We used non-union talent, which I hated to do, but Joyce brilliantly pointed out that everyone in the game would be stuffed into a Storm Trooper uniform, a Darth Vader costume, or a land speeder with tinted cockpit glass. The pilots would all be wearing blast shields as well. Most of the game play ran from the POV of a blaster or looking out the window of an X-Wing.
Me: “There may be lines. Non-union talent and lines. It’s like root canal flavored ice cream.”
Joyce: “Loop them in after the contract dispute is settled.”
Me: “How’d you get so smart?”
Joyce: “I need the money. Don’t want the job cancelled.”
All my producer angst went for nothing. The contract dispute settled and we re-cast union talent, which made everyone happy.
Except for my Director of Photography, Rick Wise.
TOMORROW: JIMMY HOFFA AND NORMA RAE
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