Excerpt 6 / Part 3 Teamsters on the Slouch!
Here’s how this works. Each morning, a PA, who would not be me, drove a fifteen-passenger van loaded with . . . Teamsters!
The contractual obligation invoked a portal-to-portal on-the-clock day for the drivers at a remote location. Therefore, whenever the first Teamster heaved himself into the van, the clock started on their day. It ended when the last of the Teamsters managed to extricate themselves from the van and waddle to the hotel bar.
The PA tasked with this responsibility, Graydon Pijlaja, might have been the funniest production assistant on the planet, except for Yours truly. Graydon had a grin that would’ve given Stan Laurel a go at a Stan Laurel look-alike contest. On the first day, as the last Teamster lowered the tires on the van, he quipped: “This is kinda funny, don’t you think? I’ve got an entire van of Teamsters and I’m driving!” He survived the encounter by driving so badly that none of the Teamsters risked injury by getting out of their seat to pummel him.
In general, the shoot went as well as most commercial shoots go when the agency is spending most of their time at craft services and the director is obsessed with magic hour. So, by day three we were several shots behind and already into tons of unbudgeted overtime. There were a couple solutions to avoid going into a “forced call,” which would put the entire crew, and not just the Teamsters, automatically into double-time.
1. The crew waved forced call. Hah!
or
2. The director didn’t insist on starting before sunrise. Hah!
Full disclosure, Eddie Bianchi, the director, had his sunrise shots before production arrived at this juncture. He just played a game with the agency. If they were going to trust Bianchi Films with their commercial, they were going to get a perfectionist as slavishly devoted to the money shot as they were to the catering. Starting any shoot day, except the first, at four AM was window dressing.
A meeting of all department heads commenced reached the following outcome:
1. The Teamsters agreed to a straight-time day, provided they only needed to be driven to set to pick up the trucks and drive to southern New Jersey for our next location.
2. Eddie would settle for only the camera department at sunrise. While this might sound like a huge savings, that group included the DP, the AC, the second AC, the loader, the focus puller, and the PAID camera intern. It also required TWO TEAMSTERS be driven to set, by Graydon, in case the camera truck had to be moved three feet.
3. The key grip insisted on being there in case someone had to build a motion-control rig in order to track the sunrise.
Okay, he insisted because he wanted the double-time and knew, at most, he’d have to hold a flag. Production agreed, but the compromise was that they wouldn’t have to send two more Teamsters to drive the grip truck in case it had to be moved closer to the key grip so he could access the flag that he’d never end up holding anyway.
In the end, we dodged a major financial bullet. Eddie got several more shots he’d ever use. The camera department and the key grip took the lead in payroll. And Graydon had one more stab at mocking the Teamsters.
So we packed the vans and trucks and prepared to drive away from the Land of Ichabod Crane and onto South Jersey and the Blackwood Diner. But the brilliant production coordinator, who ran around for two weeks with a clipboard and a notebook glued to her side, had one more assignment for the PAs. It was another gem, even better than several other of her displays of disorganization.
The day started with me missing breakfast, and having to settle for a Hobbit’s second breakfast. Every time I lifted a fork or a piece of fruit or a bagel to my mouth, Cindy Blount, the coordinator, would bark out some instruction.
Cindy: “You can’t eat yet! The MoHo needs toilet paper!”
I pointed out that one of the other PAs had stocked the motorhome with a gross of toilet paper that morning, conveniently tucking it under the bathroom sink. Didn’t matter. Someone other than the effete vanities department would have to change the roll.
So, I tossed an uneaten apple into my jacket pocket and walked over to the motorhome; as I arrived, a cardboard box flew out. It was half-filled with a few empty toilet paper rolls, a handful of Styrofoam cups, several napkins, an uneaten apple (I checked my pocket), and countless wet-naps. An Elaine Stritch look- and sound-alike stood astride the MoHo steps like Elektra, and pointed at the box.
Dame Stritch: “Throw that out!”
Me: “Looks like you just did!”
Dame Stritch: “We need toilet paper!”
Me: “In addition to the hundred forty-one rolls still under the sink?”
[SLAM!]
I wonder if she ever got any toilet paper.
The shoot did come to an end, and as I stood watching the sun set, I took in a breath of the cool evening air. I lifted my fork of baked ziti, and—
Cindy: “You can’t eat yet! We need to pick up all the
cigarette butts in the cornfield.”
Michael Lengsfeld, one of the other PAs pointed out a chronological flaw in Cindy’s request.
Michael: “You do know the sun has set?”
Even so, George Pinto, always the good soldier, quickly stubbed out a butt and headed to the cornfield.
Cindy: “I don’t care! We have a deal with the landowner not to
smoke on the premises and I’ve been finding cigarette butts everywhere!”
Me: “Perhaps letting the crew know not to smoke on the premises before we started shooting might’ve helped?”
Cindy: “Too late for that now.”
Six hours later, as midnight approached, the landowner called a halt to the apparition of ten ghostly flashlight beams searching his cornfield for the back ends of Lucky Strikes, Salems, Marlboros, Pall Malls, and Camel Non-Filters.
Cindy and the producer, Robin Campbell, had left hours earlier. I’m sure so they could grab dinner and not be seen by any of the PAs as they ate.
As for the production assistants? We collected all the cigarette butts in one garbage bag and volunteered me to find someplace to throw them out. We got into our respective vehicles and prayed for an all-night diner.
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