The Prelim Podcast I Episode 8— Art Martin

This week, The Prelim Podcast proudly welcomes seasoned industry veteran, friend, and colleague Art (Arthur) Martin!  Art stops by to take us inside his distinguished Hollywood career in the camera department and share the scoop on a some of his most iconic projects.  From his early days breaking into the industry to becoming a premier focus puller, he shares exclusive behind-the-scenes stories from some of cinema's most prolific sets. Tune in as he recalls collaborating with legendary director Woody Allen, working under master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro on multiple projects, navigating the massive transition from film to digital and surviving iconic productions like Warren Beatty’s Bulworth, Bryan Singer’s Apt Pupil, and the comedy classic Dodgeball. Art also talks candidly about his time on the hit television series Entourage and gives us a hilarious look at what it was really like working with our very own hosts, Tony and Pablo, on the set of Black-ish!  As a trusted friend, true leader, and mentor to generations of crew members throughout his illustrious career, Art Martin joins us to share his never-before-heard set-life experiences.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Today on the podcast, we have Art Martin. Famous Art Martin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Right there.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

So Art to start off with, um, yeah, thank you so much for coming on. You know, wouldn't that sit for a thing? Yeah, we all have history together, so this is great. Um, first question. Um, where do you come from?

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Uh born and raised in San Diego, California. I went to San Diego State University for cinema studies. Actually, I went to Grossmont Junior College before that for journalism, where I switched to cinema studies and then got my bachelor's degree at San Diego State and kind of started my career there.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Is that something you always wanted to do from a from a little kid on, work in film?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Or no. Um my family wasn't really into the arts, although my I have three sisters. My one of my sisters was a professional ballet dancer and went on to have a very good career in ballet. We weren't, I would say, not, we weren't a musical family, a cinema family, anything. Um I came to this because I used to, on my way to journalism class, walk by the television studio at Grossmont College with a little black and white television studio, and there was the little sound stage door window, and I used to like look through the window and think, wow, that's really cool. And I've never seen anything like this before. And after doing that for a whole semester, I switched majors. So it was television production at first, but then I was talked into going into film studies at San Diego State because that's where all the art kids were going. And that's kind of where you got your feet wet. Because yes, yeah. Um, San Diego State was kind of a it was a more theory-based film school than hands-on, which didn't help me once I entered the film business, though I would not not recommend anyone getting a film degree. I think it's very important. Some people don't, but that's for another day.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Yeah, because your story is interesting. You went from because in college you were bagging groceries. Yes. And then you evolved, you got on a film set. How did you get first onto a film set?

SPEAKER_00 2:43

I was working at Safeway as a bagger, and still, you know, at s in school at the time, and I saw an ad on the bulletin board at school. There was a low budget feature shooting in San Diego, and they came to the film school to get the dumb film kids, you know, who didn't know any better to crew up. And I wanted to be in the camera thing. I was always a camera guy. What I really wanted to do was direct, but yeah, we are. Yeah. Um, I ended up becoming um a film loader on a low-butch feature called Spiker in San Diego that was about the wasn't a slasher film. It was about the 84 men's Olympic volleyball team that won the gold medal. And uh yeah, I became a loader. I didn't even know really how to load a film magazine. They taught me everything.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Is that the story where you went from loader to first?

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Yes, the cinematographer got ill and had to leave the job. And it was such a low-budget film that they moved up the first assistant, focus puller, to DP. And then they looked at me and said, You, you're gonna follow focus. I lasted a half a day. I lasted like three shots. But you because I didn't know what I was doing.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, that's a funny story.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yeah, and uh they eventually replaced me with the gaffer, and I went back to loading film where I where I belonged for that job. Was that an what production comp? I mean, who was that? That would have been Roger Tilton Films. Um, made one movie and that was it. They were uh they were a um corporate film company, you know, down in San Diego with all the armed forces and stuff. That guy did all kinds of armed forces, films, training videos. That's what he did. But he had to have his shot at a feature, and I was involved.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

One more question. So, and then how did you evolve to Stu Siegel productions?

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Um, before I came to Stu Siegel, I got a job on first and ten up here in Los Angeles. And I came up here and stayed with a college friend who had an apartment up here, worked as a loader on that. Then when that season for that finished, I came back to San Diego in between. And I did that for a couple of seasons. Then when I felt like I was ready to start pulling focus, because I'd been doing documentaries and stuff on the side as a focus puller, which really isn't focus pulling, but um, I came back down and I got a job as a focus puller, mostly because I was a local in San Diego on um um Stu Siegel stuff, Renegade, first season of Renegade, Lorenzo Lamas. Lorenzo Lamas.

unknown 5:48

That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

He didn't ride that motorcycle as well as you think.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

No. What what was he like?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Oh, he was super cool. He was he was just happy to be there.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Happy to be working.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah, yeah. He was happy to be working. He was in all of those uh sort of beefcake features. Falconcrest? And Falconcrest, but this was the first time I think he was the leading guy. Oh I think.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Okay, nice.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

That's great. Um, all right, I'd like to ask you about your first union gig here in Los Angeles, which was if you if I'm The Larry Sanders Show.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Fantastic. Yeah. Um, I I mentioned I did a lot of documentary stuff, and one of the documentary uh filmmakers that I worked with was a guy named Peter Palafian, who was this sort of eccentric camera operator, DP. He was good at what he did. Um he had a friend who was the DP on the um Larry Sanders show, and he would come in as a C camera operator. They shot two cameras, but they would bring in C camera two, three days a week. And he pulled me in there. I was just this like this non-union sort of new focus puller, and I got kind of involved with those guys. I did a couple days, and they were like, so you're in the union, right? I'm like, no. Oh no, no, no, you if you want to stay with us, you have to join the union. I had previously tried to join the union through the internship program and gotten very close and then got eliminated in the last 100 applicants from thousands of people. I'm I almost made it, and then I didn't. That led to another five years of non-union stuff, probably. So uh yeah, the Larry Sanders show was a big thing for me, and Peter Smokler, the DP on that, was a big thing for me too. Did somebody write you a uh a letter to for the union to get in or not? I you know, I suppose I don't remember. It just seemed so easy then. Oh at that point, it was very easy. I had my hundred days, you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Late 80s? What is that?

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Larry Sanders was uh yeah, late 80s, early early 90s. Gary Chandling. That was like the Larry David show back then. It's just a fantastic show. It's such a good show that people nowadays haven't seen, but you know, great cutting-edge musical acts, um, Rip Torn, Gary Chandling was great. It was a blast. There was um a lot of hallways because it was supposed to be a television production company with a stage attached, and instead of using steady cam, the the DP was a former semi-pro hockey player, and he would wear rollerblades.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Oh, way back when.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Yeah, and the first assistant would back him up and pull him, and then he would skate circles around him. It was just crazy stuff.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Here's a technical question. Do you remember what cameras you guys were using?

SPEAKER_00 8:55

ARE 16 SR. Okay, so it was all 16 millimeter. Yeah, it was all 16. And they wanted it to be. They wanted that look. Yeah, I remember that show. That was great. That was a great show. That's funny.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

A funny show.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Was it now, was it kind of after Carson or like kind of it was loosely that was yeah, they based it on Carson.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

I think Carson maybe was still on MMA.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Oh, yeah, because Gary he used to kind of sub in occasionally.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yes, that's right. He did it. He used to sub in for him, and yeah, it was really based on on Johnny Carson, except for Rip, who was like a character unto himself. And I did a movie with him too.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Uh-huh. Yeah, that's funny.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

So Art, I wanted to ask you because I know after Larry Sanders, it was you did non-union stuff as well. But then after the Larry Sanders non-union, you got a chance to do um Bullworth.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Yes. Well, just because I got into the union didn't mean I was going to just all of a sudden start working union like some of our colleagues have done.

SPEAKER_03 10:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

That was not that was not me. I had a very difficult time getting into the union flow and actually resented that for a really long time.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Um, I did Larry Sanders, and then nothing happened union-wise. So I went back to my old non-union connections. Those days, as we were saying earlier, um, there were good budget non-union shows. It wasn't all schlock crap stuff. There were good movies that were made and a little bit bigger budget movies. But so but Bulworth now, I mean, that was probably the height, right? That uh big budget, big budget. Big budget-wise for me at the time, yeah, because of the way Warren did the movie, you couldn't not spend a lot of money because a lot of times you just wouldn't show up for work. Um, but we can we can get into that when we talk about Bulworth. I was on a non-union um Robin Hood series in Vilnius, Lithuania, with the traveling DP, as I call him, Geza Sinkovic. Bless his heart. Took me all over the world shooting non-union low budget stuff. It was a great time in my life. Um, my future wife called me, and uh uh Jonathan Brown was the camera operator, and I had done a non-union picture with him a year before something. We got we hit it off and got along, and he asked for me and insisted on me. And she called and said, Well, I don't know why we're calling you. You're in Europe and you have a job, and I was hating this job, by the way. And I said, When do you need me? I'll be there. She mentioned the V-word, Vittorio, and I'm like, I'm there. She was no coordinator on that? She was like a production supervisor. Okay, she was really the producer's assistant, but he liked her and he was grooming her, and still to this day thinks he's doing that. I mean, he's he's a great mentor for her. Um, and I went back, and that's that was how I got on Bullworth.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Um, it was um it was like a whirlwind thing. Where'd they shoot it? Fox. Fox, okay. Yeah. And uh I had never been on something with a pace like that before, like it was such a deliberate, slow pace. Everything moved so slowly. Um, and Warren, if he felt like the script wasn't where he needed it for the next day's shooting, we didn't shoot. We just took a journey off. And the studio a day. Yeah, we were yeah, I mean, yeah, maybe some days we would shoot four pages. At the most, no. You you couldn't because he it just took a long time to get what he wanted. And I felt like I didn't know any better. And I was just I had stars in my eyes the whole time being around Vittorio and Bill, the first AC that I just rolled with it. And you were B camera on that. I was B camera on that. B camera steady camera. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Now, here's uh, you know, another question. What the cameras, where do they come from? What's the uh for Bulworth? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Uh Vittorio owned these cameras, they were Aerie 535 Bs. Um, I think we had an A and a B, which were what's kind of different, but not that different. Um but he brought them because he had special gates made for him and we shot two to one format, and he brought his lenses. He brought his 220 volt lights with him. We didn't shoot 120. We shot 220 here. Wow. That's yeah. That's he didn't use HMIs, he used like brutes, which I don't do do you know what a brute is? No, it's like you know what a nine light was? These square tungsten thing? Yeah, well the brutes were like that, but they were double the size.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

So hot, and they oh my god, very hot on set.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Yeah. If you turn one on in here, we'd all have to leave in like five minutes. Cooking. Um yeah, and in fact, on another Sturraro film I did, Cheech Meren used to call it Vittorio's Pizza Kitchen when he came off the set because it was always so hot. But uh yeah, there were his cameras.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Now, is that the job you were mentioning earlier where they had to pencil in the ground glass?

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Yes, yeah, because uh they didn't have two to one ground glasses. Nobody here used it. It was kind of an experimental format at the time. Um, he really believed in it, which makes sense. He was like, why would you not use a perfectly balanced two to one? Why does it have to be one to one seven eight? Why does it have to be one to one eight five? Two to one, easier, better, more towards anamorphic.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

And you were mentioning that uh on the Warren sets, he did multiple takes.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Yeah, the only director I ever worked with that did over 35 takes on stuff, um, not as much as you like you were saying, Fincher, who does, I guess, up to 60 takes. He he didn't do that. But Warren, oftentimes, we would say he knows your job. And there's a good chance that Warren knows your job better than you do. Okay, one more question, P, and then I'll let you ask.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Now, you were before we started, you were mentioning the story how you there was a lot of car work in that story, and some of the times you felt you didn't get the focus.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Yes, because I we were in a limousine. If anyone's ever seen this movie, a lot of stuff happens in a limousine with several people in a limo. Halle Berry, Warren, and usually two other guys were in the then there was the camera operator and the camera, myself and Vittorio in there with a little small mixing board. Light dimming board. Sorry, not a mixing board. Um, and you know, I was kind of a new focus puller, and I was scared out of my mind being in there with him and Warren Beatty. I couldn't screw up because Warren knew my job better than I did, allegedly. Um, so we'd do close-ups, and Warren would lean in and he'd do stuff differently every single take. At, you know, we would cut, and I'd Vittorio would be like right next to me, and I'd say, Vittorio, I I don't think I got the lean. I don't think I got it. And he was speaking, and he would say, Art, don't worry, don't worry, worry too much. We do it again, don't worry. No, no, no, no, no. We do it again. And then he would laugh at me, but like laugh nicely, not mocking, you know. He was such a great guy.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

No, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

And they had a good uh they would collab really well on Warren and Vittorio. Yeah, Warren would make fun out of him, you know, kind of. Because, you know, Vittorio was just sort of in a good way head in the clouds guy. But that's what you hired him for. If you hired him to do a straight cop show, equivalent of the pit or something now, not your guy. Not your guy. You don't want colored light, wrong guy. Yeah, he's he's a painter, as we say. He was.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

So um the next question for you, Art, is in your career you did at Pupil with Brian Singer. Yes. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Um, about the movie or about Brian? Uh the movie. Uh that DP was Newton Thomas Siegel, which I never ever called him Newton. He was Tom Siegel to everyone except for the credit. Um, and it was with a giant in our industry, focus puller-wise, Jimmy Jensen, who I'd never met before this movie, because again, I wasn't really a union guy then. And you were the B guy. And I was the B guy because uh was that that was Jonathan again, got me on that show. I owe a lot to him. Um, yeah, Brian was uh he was uh he wasn't Warren Beatty. Quite quite a different he was uh quite different. Um much younger, of course. Much younger. Um I don't really care about his alternate lifestyle, but it got into the way in the way of the filmmaking sometimes. Um, there were a lot of people on the set that didn't really need to be there. And um there's a famous thing that happened on that movie that was in a locker room in a shower room with underage kids. And I was there, I saw we were filming the whole thing. Yeah, I I I think some people, you know, that drunk with power thing, that's a real thing. That's all I'll say about that.

unknown 20:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

So our last one of our last guests, Lisa Guerrero, was with you on that movie as well. Love Lisa. Yeah. So um technically, technical-wise, what cameras did you guys use on that?

SPEAKER_00 20:25

We used uh Panavision on that. Tom Siegel was a big Panavision guy, and Jemmy was a big Panavision guy. I was like back then, the non-union camera was the Aero Flex, the Union camera was Panavision. So, of course, I did like tons of airy stuff, and I knew them inside out, and they're great cameras. PanaVision, I wasn't as comfortable with, but it, you know, I got through it.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

You got through it, yeah. You were the B guy on that.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

I was a B guy, yeah. Um Jimmy Jensen was very good to me. Yeah, and uh runs a tight department. Man, I was just gonna say that. That guy ran a tight department. Thank God I was B camera because his guys, you know, the A guy, the A second, and um the loader and stuff, he was he was not easy on them. One thing I never really cared for in the film business was, and I used to say, you know, if I wanted to be in the military, I would have joined the Air Force. I never really understood the whole militaristic um sort of attraction to some department heads. I didn't like it, you know. It just it to me, the military militaristic thing and the fact that you're trying to make some kind of art, those two things don't come together for me.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Yeah. Well, everybody knows their place. I mean, the structure of the thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

I mean, in a way, you You have to do it because of the crazy schedules and what you have to do in one day. That if it were completely laissez-faire, it would never happen. So here, this is another.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

So you go from that then to dodgeball? So that's an another even bigger change. What was that set like? There have to be some good stories from that movie.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Uh how did I get on that? Oh, my wife's best friend was one of the producers. So that was not the most comfortable job for me ever because I had an in and it was with somebody in production. So I was immediately branded as a spy, even though I was just a guy that wanted a job. They call it a must-tire as well. I was kind of a must-hire. It was the only time ever in my career that that happened. And I was glad it never happened again because it wasn't comfortable. I like the camera guys, kind of. Um, the DP Yerzy Zielinski was an interesting guy. Uh, he then got replaced by uh, okay, I gotta go to my paper. Okay. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

We have paper too.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Lloyd Ahern. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of Lloyd Ahern. He was an interesting older guy, um who was very no-nonsense, kind of like a Sergeant Carter guy from Gomer Pyle. I'm dating myself, but he was he was very, you know, Lloyd spoke, and that was it. And my question to him, because I was always so concerned that I wanted my best work to be on the screen. I didn't want anything that you yeah, and that was our job. And again, one time I said to him, you know, they're like print moving on, and I'd I said to him, Lloyd, we don't have the part from where you know he comes from there to here. I didn't get that. Was he talking? No, I don't think so. Well, Jesus Christ, kid, don't worry about it. That part's not even gonna be in the fucking movie.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

But as a as a first, I mean, back back then, well, even today, but you had to say something because if you didn't, you were gonna see it in dailies the next day.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yeah, well, those guys at the monitor didn't see it in real time. And so that was the hell of going to dailies in those days, and why I would sit in the last row often oftentimes, except with Vittorio, who wanted me to sit right next to him.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Now, what was uh the the directing style like on that one?

SPEAKER_00 24:39

On um On Dodgeball. On Dodgeball? Yeah. Well, the guy that directed it, I think, was a first-time director. He was a writer.

unknown 24:47

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

And then you had Ben Stiller, who was kind of like God's gift to everything. Um yeah, it was uh it was a little bit complicated because you also had the other guy whose name is escaping me, the other actor. Vince. Vince Vaughn, thank you, who was also kind of a handful.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Yeah, difficult set.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Uh it was kind of a difficult set. Yeah. It was. I saw a printer get thrown out of one of the actors' trailers at a PA that came to tell them it was time to go to the set. And that's when I was like, this is not gonna be like some other movies I've worked on. You know, sometimes the funniest movies are not the funniest when you're making them. Right, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

Yeah. So let's let's skip up a little bit and let's talk about one of my favorite shows that you got a chance to work on, which was Entourage and one of our uh close friends, associates, Rob Sweeney as well. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Um last 13 years of my career, I did with Rob Sweeney. He was literally the guy, we didn't even have to speak to each other. There was unspoken communication. Yeah, and he doesn't he doesn't talk much, which is probably why you guys maybe won't have him here, but you should, but you should try to.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Um yeah, that was uh why did I get that interview? Ah my wife was doing a show with the gaffer from Entourage, and uh he was buddying up to her and used to talk about Entourage like it was the second coming, which it kind of was then, I think. Um the first assistant was moving up to camera operator to be camera operator, and they were looking for somebody. And she said, Oh, my husband, because I appropriately was unemployed at that point, my husband is uh an assistant cameraman. And he said, Well, he's never done anything like this before. There's no rehearsals, the camera's always moving. She said, Well, I think he's probably capable of doing it, you know. And he kind of let the DP know about me. For whatever reason, Rob decided he wanted to interview me. Oh, I'll tell you the reason. He looked at my my resume, and here's another thing I have to thank Vittorio for. He saw Vittorio Serraro's name. He's like, I gotta interview this guy. He turns out Serraro was one of his heroes as well.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

So we met at a coffee shop, we talked. He said, It it is not like anything you've ever done before. And you'll be okay because you worked with Serraro. I'm like, thank God. Um, and anyway, the second AC pretty much runs everything on this show. All you'll have to do is think about focus. And who was the second AC. He became one of my very good friends, Dan Squires. Bless his heart. He got me in there and he showed me how they did that show and took a very took care of everything. And I could have only been responsible for focus, but I wasn't that guy. As you guys know, I like to have my hands in everything in the department because that's what the key assistant does or should do. He should run the department. So that first half of the first season, Dan and I kind of, you know, I'd be like, Why are you doing stuff without checking on me? But he was actually doing things the right he was doing it right.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

And that was a difficult show because it was multiple locations every day. Man, you were spending half the time in the truck, half the time on set, and it was quick pace.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

You guys want to tell you we would start a scene in Culver City. We had a little studio, it was really a warehouse down there. We would go to Santa Clarita and shoot a scene, then move back to the studio because someone wasn't available, Jeremy Piven or someone couldn't couldn't come in. And we'd get it done in less than 12 hours. It was very minimal lighting, um, as much a documentary, um, purposely. You know, people that have seen the show know it's kind of presented almost as a documentary purposefully, but I've never shot scenes, like whole scenes, so fast. Like a half hour. We've done the whole scene. On film. On film. Today they do it all the time. Uh second only to Bulworth in amount of film shot. All 400-foot mags, because the whole thing was handheld. The loader took an absolute beating on that show, just like the loader on Dodgeball. Um, I will say the difference in Bullworth and that is that Warren knew exactly how much film was left in the mag.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

I made that mistake by saying to him, I'm sorry, I'm going backwards on.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

No, no, that's great. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

One time before I, you know, had been sufficiently beaten down. We're rolling, and Warren's going, okay, we're going to go back, we're going to go back. We're on thousand-foot mags because we're on dollies. And I'm freaking out. You know, I see the the counter counting down, and I know how long the scene is going to take. So we get to this point, and I said, We have to cut. And he stayed. He used to be at Video Village all the time. Of course, this time he's standing next to my camera and he whips around that giant head of his. Why? Everybody cuts, you know. And he looks at me and he's why are you calling cut? And I said, Sir, we weren't gonna make it through the scene. We were gonna roll out on this camera. And the A camera first is like, oh no, you just and he said, How much film is left in that mag right now? And I said, 120 feet. And he just looks at me and he goes, Okay, we're going back to this line. We went back to this line, roll camera, shot that. The guy said the last line, and the mag rolled out. And I was like, I'm never gonna question this guy again. Because he literally did know. He knew. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Anyway, back going to the well, as we're as we're going back to film real quick, you also work with Woody Allen. What was that experience like? Because we can't uh skip Woody Allen.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

He um he was an interesting guy, he was very quiet, kind of withdrawn, at least, you know, to us. Uh he he directed well, but he was very quiet in his directing. And uh he pretty much, I I don't think he was unhealthy, but he sort of appeared that way to me. Like he didn't move too much. He would uh take a town car from his trailer, which could be 200 feet away to video village. They literally would pull the car right up to video village and he'd get out. But it was I don't think it was because he had an ego or craziness. It just was just something that, yeah, he was pretty shy. I think he was socially awkward kind of guy. But that, you know, a genius in his own right, not smart in others.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

So he he wouldn't stay on set very often. Just for the when the actors are there, he's there, and then when they're gone, he was pretty much gone.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

I see. Yeah. Yeah, he was pretty much gone. He would tell Vittorio, this is the next setup, and this is the direction, and then we're gonna do coverage, and then he would go back to the trail.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

And you guys shot that here in LA, which is different for him because he's always shooting in new.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Yeah, he hates LA.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Yeah, and then I had a chance to work on another one of his movies in New York. That was when Blackish was starting. Vittorio was shooting it. I called, I didn't tell you guys this. I called Vittorio just to say hello. Because every once in a while I would email him or I would try to call him just to see if he would answer. And he always answered the emails. And he actually answered the phone. And I was like, Are you here? As in the United States? Yes, I'm in New York. He goes, and of course I want you to do the movie. He thought I was calling him about this movie, and I'm like, What? I'm doing this movie with Woody, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, uh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, uh, let me call you back. Because Blackish was starting. Season one. Season one, I had a young daughter, and I was in a happy marriage. And I knew, for some reason, I had a feeling Blackish was going to go more than one season. And I agonized about it. And I called his longtime producer. I can't remember her name. She was very understanding. She said, you know, we're having a really hard time getting Vittorio's crew because everybody has gone into television and gone in different directions because Vittorio hasn't been here in a long time.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

So they had to move on.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

And she goes, I totally understand. I completely understand. Of course, she didn't want to fly me out to New York. They were going to finish the job here. But they half of it was New York. What was the name of that movie? Um, you recall? I don't. I mean, it was what, 12 years? Okay. 12 years ago. I want to say George Clooney was in it, but I'm not sure. But it turned out you made the right choice. You can put like a little tongue right here and post-productions to say the name of the movie. Yeah. Um, but I turned it down. I always regret it. I still regret it, but I don't. It's one of those regret, not regret moments in your career where I wish I could have done it, but it was his first time shooting digital video, which I'm sure would have been pretty interesting. Yeah. Oh, yeah, and the pace.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Oh, because I mean, the pace is much different from digital to film.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Yeah. And we, as in the three of us, are lucky that our career happened when it did, because we all three went through the film to video change, of which I was very resistant to that. I never thought video was going to be anything close to film photography. And I was very resistant. Um, when it happened, it was hard to make the switch, but it was harder to deal with the change in set procedure and the way we shot, as you guys well know. Right. We know, but but many people don't know. Top, yeah, I well for I mean, the biggest thing for me and you guys too is we would roll the camera, sort of Warren style, but Warren had to stop when the mag ran up. You don't really have to stop when you're shooting digital video. You have how much does a card run these days, you guys? Now, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

Yeah, hour to hours.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Yeah. Even when I was doing it 40 minutes. And that sort of um movement towards not cutting is really bad if you're a focus puller, a camera operator, a dolly grip, a boom operator, a lighting guy. Because one of the things that we were trained to do was make adjustments. As you go, you get better and better and better. You you said you weren't gonna do that. I said I wasn't gonna do that. That's okay. So I'm gonna hold it from now on. Um well, that's all right. You guys will cut the you're retired now, so it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Uh yeah. No, you can put that up there, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

So there was no chance to really improve on your performance because there was no in-between. You're just constantly on the go. You're constantly on the go, and it and it's fatiguing because even staying quiet for that long is fatiguing to me. Another thing, too, is because I talked so much. You don't have any more rehearsals. There's no rehearsals.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Take one is the rehearsal.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

What you're doing. Yeah, because they don't care, because they're not wasting film. You know, the studio is not like you guys are going way over on your film budget. And man, let me tell you, on Bullworth, the studio called every day and wanted to know why we were using so much film, but in video, no more. That didn't have to happen. Um, things sea stand arms in the background. Well, we'll just take those out.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

That has to be hard though, because you come from the structure of film where you knew precise measurements at this location, this mark is eight feet, this mark is six feet, or whatever. Yeah. Now you have none of that and you're going on the fly.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

Yeah, and I didn't know I also didn't switch to um uh remote focusing for a really long time. As you guys remember, I was the old guy who would stand at the camera because that's how I knew to do my job, and I was having a hard time making the switch. I was kind of a stubborn mule. Um, I learned a lot of things, you know, after the fact. Had I known some things, the end of my career would have been a lot easier. For for maybe us as well.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

So just just to hop back again, what you brought up, you know, the Preston, you know, you're using the Preston and whatnot. On Entourage, I only imagine were you weren't you on Preston most of the time? Always. Because you were doing steady campaigns held.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

We would we had a thing on Entourage, and maybe you know because you watched seems like all of them. I don't know how much you watched it, Tony. But but the wide shots, which we would usually open the scene with, were always on a dolly or on sticks. That was a style thing for them. It was uh they insisted on having a rock solid wide shot, and then we'd go immediately into handheld. So when I was on the wide shot, I'd put the studio Fall of Focus on. That was it. That was it once every two days, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Now, do you mind talking about the one story?

SPEAKER_00 40:24

I don't know if you do or not, uh um getting called out in dailies, and that would um there was a story where I got called out in dailies by a pretty well-known actor, not in dailies, but afterwards. And then there was a story with another known actor where he called me out on set. Um, look, you could you can't go this many years doing this stuff. I mean, I don't think Louie's ever missed a shot before, but I have. And uh on this particular movie, the first day of shooting, we were doing a panning and dolling shot of two people at uh sitting across from each other at a diner. And every time we panned over to one of the characters, it was just a little out of focus. It's in the movie, it's a little out of focus. So, of course, the first day of dailies, this actor, I'll say I'll say his name, Dennis Hopper.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Briston Peter.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Um, R.I.P.

unknown 41:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:32

Uh he goes to Dailies the first day because he he doesn't like the DP immediately. Phil Parmett, another guy who helped me along in my career. I did a bunch of low budget movies with him. Uh, so he didn't like Phil right from the gate. So he went to the first day of Dailies because he didn't trust Phil. And I'm sitting in the last row because I'm scared, as usual, on the first day. I had no confidence in myself every time. And this shot comes off, and it was a long scene, and it just kept going back to that one actor, and she was a little bit out of focus. I got up and left. I get home hour later. Phil calls me. I'm like, oh, this is it. He said, uh, yeah, they wanted to fire you. And I said, Yeah, I know that shot was out of focus. He goes, uh, went too bad for you. And they're gonna let you come back in for the rest of the week and see how you do. Fine. I go back in, never another problem. It was just that was just one of those things. But at about the fifth or sixth week of shooting, it's the night before we break for Christmas. And Dennis was in kind of a mood, and it was late in the evening. We were on our third to last shot, probably. I ran the tape measure out to him, which for the young people watching this, that's how you used to do focus was with measuring stuff. And I walk up to him and he looks at me and he goes, I don't know what the hell you're doing with that thing. I said, What are you talking about, Dennis? I'm I'm measuring you. He goes, You haven't been able to keep a thing in focus on this show, kid. And I go, What are you talking about? I went to dailies. I said, You went to one day of dailies, the first day. I said, Have you heard about any problems since then? You guys can't do anything, you can't keep anything in focus. I'm like, okay. Rolled up my tape, went back to the camera. I said to the camera operator, I quit. Not coming back after Christmas. That's it. I don't have to listen to that guy. I don't care who he is. And I didn't like him because he didn't like our department and he over. Used to curse at Phil and he was a he was a personality, I'll tell you that. Um so that's the actor that called me out.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

So let's move on to a little ahead now. Let's talk about blackish. And let's talk about, you know, Rob Sweeney, our good friend. And you know, like you said earlier, you you did you kind of know we were gonna go so many seasons?

SPEAKER_00 44:31

I you know, I felt like I saw the pilot, you know, I think he showed it to me or something, and I thought this is this could be a good show, it's good for the times. Um, it's a show about the black community, which when was the time before that that you had a sort of comedy about the black community? Oh, it's good times, pretty much. The Cosby show. Cosby show, but that was a long time in between. And uh I just thought it was gonna go. Um, so I did everything to that I could to work with them and assure that there would be a second season. There's not much I can do as a focus pool. Yeah, well, he ran a top department.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Yeah, you remember we're gonna know that, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

No, and well, luckily I knew you guys, and I knew you guys knew what you were doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

So yeah, so we thought. Oh no, it was tough, but but it the cast was great. I mean, season one, it was every week the episodes were funny. It was hard not to laugh on set.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Yeah, yeah, you couldn't have better actors, they interacted with the crew, and it was a pretty it was pretty yeah, it was a pretty nice working environment almost all the time. I was um scared out of my mind um of Lawrence Fishburne. Sure. I thought we were in the beginning. Yeah, but turned out Lawrence Fishburne is a great guy. Yeah, just quiet. He was there to do his job, yeah, yeah, and he wanted you to do yours. I mean, if that happened, why do we need another take?

SPEAKER_02 46:12

Yeah, good cat. Yeah, yeah. But we definitely had good times on there for the time we were there.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

Yes, we did, and uh became very close with the cast, all of us. Yeah, uh Anthony Anderson couldn't have been a nicer guy.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Tracy was great, yeah, yeah. They are the kids.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

We watched them grow up. Yeah, saw the kids grow up. I mean, it was you know, you guys can agree with me with what we do to be able to work that many years on one project, and for me in particular, to do two jobs that lasted 13 years was incredible, and with the same guy, and that's why we had unspoken communication. I always knew pretty much what he wanted, and he he was kind of spoiled by me. He would probably tell you that.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

Yeah, what a great show to retire on. Yeah, what a great time to also get out of the business.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

Yes. Um I oftentimes say there, you know, I was never a good businessman. The only smart business decisions I ever made in my life is I bought my house in '98 and I retired when I did. But that was luck of the jaw, you know, in my age. I'm older than most all of my colleagues because I started in the film business later. And I kind of had to do such a part-time film business thing at the beginning of my career that I was in my late 20s and early 30s when I really started to become full-time with this stuff. So then I was, hence the nickname Old Dad. I was the older guy a lot of times. But in the end, that helped me because I was able to move on as the film business takes a turn now.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

And where do you see the film business moving in five years? Five to five years with technology.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

You know, I thought I knew where it was going when we switched from film to video, and I was wrong on that, because I never thought that would happen. Um and I sadly I think it's gonna be more automated and AI, which doesn't bode well for film technicians, I think. Um I do though think that there'll still be boutique y kind of film projects made sort of old school, what you know, this now will be old school. Um everybody seems to be so enamored with shooting film and IMAX and stuff now. There'll still be that, which I mean, even me, an old film guy, why are you shooting IMAX features? I don't I still don't really get it. But to answer your question, really, is I think that it's gonna be become a much smaller human-based industry. Um the studios will still be around, it'll be even more about the profit margin because you'll have machines that don't care about the hours. Um, I do believe I I don't want to get too negative here.

SPEAKER_01 49:57

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 49:57

I think the unions are gonna go away. And despite what I've said about non-union and union stuff, I'm a union supporter. And the union uh brought me health and a pension that I have now and insurance, union is a very good thing. Yeah, I don't think they're gonna win this battle. You can't unionize machines.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Yeah. Now, um, as we're getting close to wrapping it up, in your many years working on big movies to little movies, big shows to many shows, best rap parties. Best rap parties, best rap.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

Shall we bring up the one where you had an encounter with the uh backdrop?

SPEAKER_01 50:42

Yeah, well, there's gotta be many others. Bullworth must have been great, Entourage, uh Hodgeball must have been great.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

I have to say, some of a couple of the blackish rap parties were really good because those guys like to party. Right. However, uh, and this this uh also pertains to the Entourage crew, was a very young crew, and they were big-time party people because we traveled around so much, and you know, we went to Mexico, we went to Joshua Tree, and when we would go out on those things, it would be like party first, making a show second kind of thing. Um, they were some really, really good rap parties, entourage ones, and it was such a hot show then that there were all these celebrities, and you know, it was kind of crazy. Uh I don't know. Maybe the one of the best rap parties I ever went to was the the blackish one where Kenya and Anthony were blowing fire standing on the bar. Were you that was the one? I remember that was the one.

SPEAKER_02 51:48

That was at the Hollywood Athletic Club. I don't remember most of the things that I think.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

Yeah, I know you don't remember that uh well that's a problem I have too. You know, now that I don't drink as much anymore, I kind of wish I could go back to some of those. And uh yeah, they might be more fun. Yeah, they were fun, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_02 52:04

Yeah, before before we wrap it up, I'd just like to say that one the one the one crew grift that you got from Entourage, which I think is kind of it goes under the radar, was the sneakers that they released only for the crew. And I remember Dan Squires, he had a pair and it had a had a slate, and it was a pair of Nike Dunks that were that had a slate inside of them, and you know, it was just really cool. It's just something per me. I don't even know if he remembers that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Well, I'll tell you right now, and this is a first, ladies and gentlemen, whoever's watching, I didn't get him. Did you get him? I didn't work on it.

SPEAKER_02 52:43

So did you get him? No, Dan Squires told me about it. Now we'll have to call him.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

So oh, so it was for it was for the above the liners.

SPEAKER_02 52:52

I think it was either above the liners or kind of maybe for the crew, but that was just you know, something okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

Here we go as we are winding it down. Favorite word on set.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

Um, I think probably. And I have to thank Louie for this because Louis may have been the first one to say this. Yes. Louis DeMarco, who may make it a later appearance. I have three. Nim is my favorite one, though. Not in movie. My wife had never heard that until just the other day when I was talking about this. It's one of the best because we shoot so much stuff that we know is not going to be in the movie. And Lou and I invariably would look across the set at each other and say, Num, nem. What's your least favorite word? Um, well, sometimes it was moving on if I felt like I didn't get the shot. That that is enough to, you know, your blood runs cold. No, we can't move on. And then you have to say something. As an old school focus puller, you have to say something. Because if you don't, you're gonna be gone.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Right, they're gonna see it the next time.

SPEAKER_00 54:03

So moving on was a bad one. And we're on the abbey was the other one that I was like, no, we're not.

SPEAKER_01 54:12

You mean not the abbey sequence?

SPEAKER_00 54:14

Yeah, the abbey sequence.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

Yeah, Abbey. What does that mean? Abbey sequence.

SPEAKER_00 54:18

And I had to look up when I retired too, Tony, because I worked 350 hours in 2022, and that was it for me.

SPEAKER_01 54:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

So I've been retired almost three years. I'm a dinosaur, you guys. Verticals, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

Vertical from horizontal to well, also the last question, if uh if you don't mind, what advice do you give to young crew members? Is the etiquette, things that are kind of not really happening the way you were taught?

SPEAKER_00 54:53

I would say don't do what I did and be resistant toward anything that you think because you've done it for 10, 15 years, doesn't mean that's the only way to do it. And that's the other thing that I kind of clashed with my dislike of the militaristic environment. There is not only one way to do things. Even though the film business likes you, the technical crew likes you to think there's only one way to do things, you don't have to pick that tripod up by extending one leg and pushing it forward and doing the union carry. And you really have to be ready for change because it's coming faster now than it has ever has been. And you better keep an open mind about how things go. Uh, you better be able to pivot is the other thing. That's my advice.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

That's very good advice. Be ready to pivot.

SPEAKER_00 55:55

Maybe within the general industry, but things are changing.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

Well, we usually end it with uh we'll see you on set, but in this case, you're retired, so the luck. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:11

Art, thank you so much. Thank you guys. It was a pleasure. Please like and subscribe and uh share with your friends. Uh it's a and these guys know it all, so please watch this. Well, hopefully, this will be the first podcast you watch and listen to. Uh it will be. And uh yeah, we can't thank you enough, Art. You've been a big help in our career, a big teacher. We've had many, many hours of fun, many hours of pain.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

You guys made parts of my career much better. And a few and a few worse.

SPEAKER_03 56:37

All right.