8/29/23
Newsletter #442
The Crack of Dawn
Since I was recently discussing the making of the five pilot Hercules movies back in 1994, I must bring up a single, truly unique, wonderful, almost magical, day of shooting. It exists all on its own. During the course of the first film, Hercules and the Amazon Women, many production problems were identified, then worked out. One of the problems was that as the 2nd unit director I was on a six-day week and was expected to be there on Saturday, whereas the rest of the 2nd unit crew was on a five-day week and didn’t show up on Saturday. There was one day a week that I was expected to show up for work without a crew, which I did, but it was stupid because I didn’t get anything done.
As we neared the end of the shoot, it was decided that there needed to be a lot more shots of the Amazons preparing for battle. Main unit had shot a big scene of many Amazons dancing in front of the fire, but you really didn’t understand that the reason they were dancing was because they were going to war. So now they asked 2nd unit for as many inserts as they could get that would indicate war: blades being sharpened, knives going into scabbards, oil being rubbed into skin, swords slashing through the air. That’s fine, but there was now no time to do it. 2nd unit had more and more to shoot as main unit was finishing and missing stuff. Big stuff with no time for inserts of knives into furry scabbards.
And alas, I had this stupid day each week where I showed up and got paid to do nothing. So, I said to Rob, the executive producer, “I can shoot the going into battle inserts by myself. Get me a couple of girls in outfits, a flame bar and a camera.” Rob rightly asked, “Have you ever loaded a 35mm camera?” I admitted that I hadn’t. However, since main unit was shooting on the stage at the office that Saturday, I said, “Let main unit load it and unload it, I’ll just operate.” Rob once again rightly asked, “Have you ever operated a 35mm camera?” I hadn’t, so I lied. “Yes.” Rob said, “OK, go ahead.”
It really was a magical day of shooting. I took possession of a corner of the soundstage while main unit shot on the rest of the stage. Having been a production assistant for nearly 20 years at that point in 1994 – dear God, I’m old – setting up equipment on a set was a perfectly natural thing for me to do. First, I set up a background of black duvatine, which is black velvet drapery. I then set up several lights, then flame bars – long metal bars connected to propane tanks that emit gas. You light them on fire, and you can tilt them any way you want. It was well-coordinated little shoot, and everybody did their jobs. Casting supplied three lovely, 18-year-old fashion models, a white, blonde girl; a dark, Maori girl; and an Asian girl. And they were dressed up like Amazons, in fur bikinis, with leather boots and black leather wrist bands. These three New Zealand girls had never been on a movie before, and they were having the time of their lives.
I also had a smoke machine for atmosphere, so I set up a pretty beam of light. The main unit camera department brought me a loaded 35mm Arriflex camera, like I was King Faruk or something, and I got all of these tight shots of these cute girls tying leather bootlaces, sticking knives into scabbards, swinging swords, or whatever it was, and it was wonderful. This was filmmaking at its rawest. It’s still not easy to do. Getting the scabbard in the right place in front of the out-of-focus flame bar, then shoving the knife in properly at the correct angle is a whole thing. But the girls wanted to do it right, and it all fell into place quickly and worked all day.
When I had shot off an entire roll of film, I had the camera department change magazines for me, then give me back the loaded camera and then skedaddle back to main unit. Directors are never behind cameras, and it felt great. A big Arriflex camera is awesome. With no goddamn crew getting in my hair, and these pretty, giddy, happy girls in furry Amazon wear, not even having to look pretty (but did anyway) because I was just shooting their hands and boots and knives against the fire background, so there was one hair and makeup person. We all felt unsupervised, and getting away with something, and we had fun. I assured them that there was no way to fuck this up. And there wasn’t. Therefore, we got 25 cool, usable shots that are all in the movie.
At the very end of this lovely day, a PA from the office came onto the set and said to me, “Rob Tapert’s office is on the phone.” I thought, “What time is it in L.A.? Seven hours ahead, but a day behind. And why on earth does Rob’s office want to talk to me right now?” I picked up the phone and it was the associate producer, Liz Friedman, who stated flatly, “Rob wants the girls to have orgasms.” I thought, I haven’t heard correctly, because Liz certainly wouldn’t have said “orgasms.” However, she repeated herself, “Rob wants the girls to have orgasms.” I said, “These aren’t actresses, Liz, they’re very young models and besides, I haven’t got a big enough background to show a whole person, I was just shooting inserts.” There was a 10,000-mile, transatlantic pause, then Liz repeated, “Orgasms.” I said, “Right. I’m on it.”
I told the girls, and they were truly befuddled. These were lovely young New Zealand girls, with those wonderful accents, asking, “Orgasms, mate? What does that mean?” And I certainly didn’t know what it meant. However, what I did know as a filmmaker was that I had no background to shoot a whole person, other than floating in black. Flame bars were terrific in close, but they wouldn’t light a background. So, I had to shoot these young ladies in front of black – which wasn’t possibly going to cut with anything else in the scene – and they had to do their interpretations of having an orgasm. On action, the blonde, white girl acted like she smelled something bad. Interesting, I thought, let’s move on. The Asian girl did a dance step. Also, interesting. Then, to everyone’s wonderment, on action the Maori girl jumped into the air, came down on one knee and crossed her arms over her head. Yes!
As good as this footage was, none of these shots made it into the film.
But every other insert shot near the flame bar with knives and furry scabbards was used in the film.
Have a lovely day.