The Crack of Dawn

Volume #242

2/9/23

Newsletter #242

The Crack of Dawn

I had dinner last night with one of my oldest Hollywood buddies, Sheldon Lettich.  We went to Canter’s Deli on Fairfax, where we’ve both been hundreds of times over the years.  Like the two old Jewish men we are, we both ate chicken soup.

Back in 1988 Sheldon wrote the movie Bloodsport which has become a beloved, enduring, international cult classic, and happens to be Donald Trump’s favorite movie.  I’ve seen news clips of Trump in Air Force One with Bloodsport playing in the background.  Millions of people around the world love that movie.  And it’s the movie that launched the career of Jean Claude Van Damme.  But Sheldon only wrote the film (only?) and didn’t direct.  Bloodsport was directed by Newt Arnold, who was a director sometimes, but was really one of the top Hollywood 1st Assistant Directors for years and years, and worked on innumerable movies, from The Godfather Part II to Goonies (1985) where me and the guys met him.  Newt was missing an eye and wore a patch.  As we left the set, Sam Raimi said, “What happened to the eye of Newt?”

I’m slowly getting to my point.  When I first met Sheldon in 1977 he was attending the American Film Institute taking courses in cinematography.  He was also an architectural photographer, and was doing quite well.  Several of his photographs had been on the covers of the big architectural magazines.  Sheldon is a visually oriented guy who understands lighting extremely well.  

When Sheldon took over directing (while still writing) Jean Claude’s movies, like Lionheart and Double Impact, the difference in the look and lighting with Bloodsport is night and day.  As popular as it may be, Bloodsport is an ugly movie (Newt Arnold just didn’t have an eye for good lighting).  The cinematographer on Double Impact was Richard Kline, one of the great DPs in Hollywood, having shot such films as: Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Camelot.

Dissolve to 1979 in the cabin in the Tennessee woods making Evil Dead.  The entire cast and crew had signed six-week contracts.  Even though Sam, Bruce and Rob asked them all to stay (even though they didn’t have the money to pay them and everybody knew it), at the end of six weeks everybody left, including Tim Philo, the cameraman.  For the previous six weeks Tim and I had been the entire camera department.  I loaded the magazines and fetched and cleaned the lenses.  However, Tim had borrowed both 16mm Arriflex cameras from Wayne State University and said that he had to return them.  Well, that was only going to happen over Sam’s dead body.  Sam just flatly stated, “You’re leaving the Arri-S” (the cheaper, smaller, non-sound camera).  Tim quickly folded on this because obviously we needed some kind of camera to keep shooting.  Then Sam said, “And you have to leave the Arri-BL, too.”  Even back then an Arri-BL was a $10,000 camera.  Time flatly refused.  Nobody refuses Sam, he’s the great and powerful Oz, no way, no how.  Sam kept repeating, “We won’t use it, but I have to have it as backup.  I have to have it.”  Finally, Tim relented and said, “OK, but you won’t use it.”  Sam said, “I swear to God.”  Tim left both cameras.  Sam, Bruce, Rob and I stood silently in the cabin watching through the window as Tim drove away up the long rutted driveway.  The second he was out of sight, Sam turned to me and said, “Load the BL.”

OK, suddenly I was now the entire camera department (Sam took over operating), as well as the entire lighting department, and the entire sound department.

I loaded the BL. I just knew that Sam would call for the 16mm lens (he liked it), so I looked at the lens and I saw that instead of being calibrated in the normal form of f-stops, it was calibrated in a completely alien form I’d never seen before called T-stops.  What the fuck was a T-stop?  And here I was just starting out as the new camera department and I immediately didn’t know what the hell I’m doing.

Ah ha! There was an American Cinematographer’s Manual in the prop box.  Meanwhile, Sam, Bruce and Rob were in the living room setting up the scene, while I was in the back bedroom tearing through the goddamn American Cinematographer’s Manual, sweating, trying to figure out what the fuck a T-stop was.  Of course, there isn’t a mention of it in 500 pages.

We had one telephone in the cabin.  It was a yellow rotary model and it was located in the back bedroom.  Back in the days when we used to remember people’s phone numbers, I called my cinematographer/photographer buddy, Sheldon, in Los Angeles, and thank all the gods, he answered.  I said, “Sheldon, what the fuck is a T-stop?”  He said, “It’s the same thing as an f-stop.  An f-stop is how much light is hitting the front of the lens; a T-stop is how much light is coming out the back of the lens.  The loss of light between the front of the lens and the back of the lens is infintesimal.  Just use the f-stop reading on the light meter.”

And thus I was saved.  The guys had no idea I had just called Sheldon.  Of course Sam called for the 16mm lens – the motherfucker calibrated in T-stops – and I put it on the camera that he was operating.  I lit the room, took a light reading – in f-stops; which I now knew were same thing as T-stops – set the exposure, and it was correct.

I brought this up to Sheldon last night, over chicken soup, and he remembered it and laughed.

I really like Buzz Lightyear’s motto: To infinity, and beyond!