The Crack of Dawn

Volume #154

11/10/22

Newletter154

The Crack of Dawn

Although Jack of All Trades (2000) only lasted one season – half of one season and half of another – it was a fun, clever show and very enjoyable to work on.  I directed the pilot episode, and the second episode.  It was a half-hour show, and what was particularly interesting to me is that we shot both episodes at the same time, which is called “block-shooting.”  I thought this would be a mind-fuck, but it wasn’t.  Since the main characters wear the same outfits every episode, and there were a couple of main sets that would be used and reused in every episode, it didn’t really change anything.  When you shoot a movie or a TV show, you go location by location, scene by scene.  When we finished shooting a scene in the palace dining room for ep. #1, we then shot the palace dining room scene for ep. #2.  When you’re shooting a scene, what episode it goes into doesn’t mean anything.  The old expression in Hollywood, which I like, was, “Let’s make this scene.”  You make that specific scene as good as you can make it, and where it ends up is not your business.  As it turned out, one episode came out a little short, and the other came out a little long.  There was one good, funny scene that didn’t specifically have anything to do with either plot, so it was just moved from one episode to the other, then they were both the right length.

My buddy Craig, whom I’ve known since we were seven, and for whom I directed reenactment segments on Real Stories of the Highway Patrol in 1992, has produced many, many shows.  Survivor, American Chopper, every MMA show, all did great.  He’s enormously successful.  One of Craig’s stinkers was Worst Case Scenario that ran for one season in 2002.  There was a bestselling novelty book called Worst Case Scenario that explained what to do in bad situations, like being attacked by a mountain lion (wave your arms; look big).  Anyway, as I safely look back at it now, 20 years later, I realize that Craig already knew it was a disaster, but I didn’t know that then.  He called me one day and said, “Hey, how would you like to work on my new show?”  As fate would have it, his offices were four blocks from my apartment in Santa Monica.

Worst Case Scenario had taken over a whole building and it was a flurry of activity.  I don’t know the deal, but Sony had ordered a season’s worth of episodes – 22 – and they needed them yesterday.  Craig had possibly six crews out shooting, and maybe ten editors cutting their brains out in offices in this building.  Craig is a tall handsome fellow and he quickly showed me around and introduced me to ever everybody, who was either an editor or some kind of producer.  All of them asked the same question, “And what is Josh doing?”  Craig didn’t have an answer for anybody.  “He’s going to be, like, supervising editorial consultant, or something like that.”  And since Craig was the executive producer and boss, they all went with it.

Eventually I got Craig alone and said, “I’m a director.  I’m in the DGA.  There is no such position of ‘supervising editorial consultant.’ They won’t allow it.”  And I can clearly see now the desperation that I didn’t see then.  Craig said very evenly, “See what you can do.  Go into every editing room and watch what we’ve got – ten episodes cutting at the same time – then corral me and all of the other producers and give us your suggestions.”

What they had done was this: a page in the book said that if you’re in a three-story building and it’s on fire and you come out on the roof, what do you do?  You look for garbage dumpsters and jump into the fullest one, hoping for the best (like it’s not full of bricks and broken glass).

What the show had become was attractive stunt men and women in yellow jumpsuits that said, “Worst Case Scenario” walking on a rooftop saying, “What if you get caught up here and there’s a fire?  You look for the fullest garbage dumpster, and now I, a stunt person who is properly trained, and wearing a yellow jump suit, will jump into that dumpster.  But for God’s sake don’t try this at home.”  Then the stunt guy or gal jumps eighteen feet into a dumpster full of pillows, and this is covered in 172 angles, including slo-mo and aerial.

I met with the six or seven late-20s, early-30s TV producers – both male and female – in a conference room.  Craig popped his head in, pleasantly but firmly told the producers to pay attention to what I had to say, then he left.  In a sentence, I said, “You’ve got it entirely wrong.  I don’t care about stunt men jumping into dumpsters.  I care about me having to jump into a dumpster.  This is a reenactment show, like Craig and I did on Real Stories of the Highway Patrol.”  The head young producer said, “We sold this show to Sony and said it wasn’t a reenactment show.  It can’t be a reenactment show.”

I swear to God, I said, “I’ve got to put money in the parking meter, I’ll be right back.”  I saw Craig in a meeting in another room and he didn’t see me.  I got in my car and drove away, never to return.  I brought it up to Craig years later and he said that he bailed soon after me.

A new day dawns.