7/18/2025
Newsletter #782
The Crack of Dawn
Part II:
I had just finished working all night on a cool ‘50s musical commercial shoot. I had been up the whole night before checkerboarding the floor. I’d been working nonstop for 48 hours. At dawn, I drove straight from the ‘50s diner location directly to Producer’s Color soundstage. This was my third day of work with no sleep. I was bleary-eyed and weary as I walked into the big soundstage.
That’s when I saw that this Canadian Tire paint commercial was a dreaded tabletop shoot. A tabletop shoot is when you spend the entire day looking down at something on a table. Tabletop shoots are death. In this case it was a miniature of six houses on a street, but the houses were actually Canadian Tire paint cans, each one painted in a different color. The paint can houses had doors and windows and lawns and little people coming and going, and dogs and cats, and miniature cars on the street, and all kinds of shit. It was a 90% art department show and 10% production. 90% setting up; 10% shooting. I was a production P.A.; I wasn’t in the art department. Nevertheless, I was given a hot glue gun, and I began sticking all of these little things down.
I was pleased to see that my old pal, Kurt Rauf, was on the art crew. Kurt would later become a director of photography and shoot two of my films, Running Time and If I Had a Hammer. Kurt just shot Bruce Campbell’s new movie. Kurt and the whole art crew had been up for days constructing this beautiful miniature paint can world, and they were slaphappy too. At one point Kurt and I were laughing and goofing, and he comically squirted a dab of hot glue on my right arm. Hot glue is like napalm. As it burned its way down through my skin, I began screaming. I reflexively grabbed the glob of hot glue with the fingers of my other hand. Now my fingers were covered in burning hot glue too. Kurt looked horrified, as he rightfully should, since he was the slaphappy knucklehead who had just squirted hot glue on my arm, that was now on my fingers, too. As I sit here 45 years later, there on my right arm is an inch-long, cigarette-butt-sized scar commemorating that hot glue incident.
The day went by in a miasma of hot glue, tiny people and props, and the outrageous pain of still having the hardened glob of hot glue stuck on my arm. To get it off, skin would have to come off. I didn’t have time to deal with it.
Bill Dear and Bob Dyke and the camera crew showed up. For this tabletop shoot, just like every other tabletop shoot, a variety of exacting camera angles and moves were executed on the thing on the table—Paint Can Town, in this case. Each camera move was accompanied by relighting. It’s deathly slow. Between each camera setup, the tiny cars and people were moved around. Kurt and the art department had this under control and didn’t need my help. I was entirely irrelevant to the proceedings. This went on for hours and hours and hours.
I set up a plastic folding chair in a dark spot across the stage from where they were shooting. I was nearby, but out of the way. If they needed me, they’d find me. I happily floated off into the fluffy clouds of sleep. Finally, thank God, some relief. All was well with the world.
I opened my eyes to find Bill Dear and the entire crew looking at me. Bill leaned down and whispered sweetly in my ear, “If you’d like me to get rid of all of these cameras and lights and things I will. Would you like that?”
Everyone burst out laughing. I was utterly mortified. It remains the worst embarrassment in my life.
Everyone went back to work. I just sat there. I was too tired to pretend to work. I still had a hardened glob of hot glue on my arm.
The circus parade with elephants comes through town. Following behind the parade is an old man frantically pushing a wheelbarrow and carrying a shovel. He shoveled up one big pile of elephant shit, then ran over and began shoveling the next one. A person in the crowd said, “Old man, you’ve got to be able to find a better job than that.” The old man said, “What, and leave show business?”
Ouch, this must have been very painful. Kurt left a souvenir engraved on your skin. But I guess you would have gladly done without it. Have a good day Josh.