It was the most money I had been paid to work in movies at that point…
I had a story in my head this morning, something from my days working on movies, except like many of these stories, it’s a weird edge case, a thing that happened once and never again.
I think I was filling in for a union grip on a pre-rig for some sort of movie out in Long Island. No memory of what it was called or who was in it, and I don’t think we saw the D.P. at all that day. And it could not have possibly been a union job, or I wouldn’t have been there.
But there I was, and I think the rate for the day might have been a hundred bucks. It was the most money I had been paid to work in movies at that point, so this was a big deal.
There was a ride in a 15-passenger van, as most of those days started, and a mansion of some sort out in Long Island somewhere nondescript, as I find most places in Long Island to be. For all I know it could have been West Egg.
And the important part of the job for the day was mostly just blacking out a bunch of windows. I suppose they had to shoot night scenes indoors in the daytime the next day.
Totally normal stuff. Duvateen. Black paper tape. Rinse. Repeat. We had way too many guys for this work.
Except for this one skylight. Above a chandelier. It was going to be tricky.
And they didn’t have the right lift. They had what we called a Genie Lift in those days, which might be some sort of brand name thing, and it went straight up and straight down.
It most definitely did not have an articulating arm that could be moved around a chandelier. And it did not fit two guys. And this was going to be a little dangerous.
And there was no way any of us was going up in that lift and letting someone push it around from the bottom.
As I mentioned, it was not the right lift.
I believe I was sent out for lunch, as there were no useful production assistants with us, and I was the closest thing available, probably younger than my coworkers by a solid eight to ten years.
We ate sandwiches.
We milled about outside the mansion. Someone must have been smoking a cigarette. We imagined how we might rig it from the outside. With a crossbow. And the right sort of line.
It seemed plausible.
But we had zero crossbows available between us.
We would figure something out. There were plenty of us.
And then we were all out of the room with the skylight, and suddenly a crash, and the key rigging grip who really was going to bear the brunt of this skylight not getting blacked out by the end of the day was halfway under the lift, which was now on its side, and he was
bleeding.
We removed the lift from him, someone called 911, and I was sent to the end of the (long) Long Island driveway to flag down the ambulance.
He’d be fine.
We all went home. We all got paid.
No idea if they ever were able to black out that skylight.
