Laugh While You Can, Monkey Boy!
I worked in “Hollywood” for 28 years. Oddly enough I could have been a movie extra anytime I wanted. The first time I was approached was around ’82 for a Michael Keaton movie called “Night Shift”. I had a “look” that production designers liked…Sort of a “biker-look but not really dangerous” was what I was told. “Biker-types” were in constant demand as extras in L.A. in the 80’s- don’t ask me why.
Anyway, I was always too focused on becoming a big-time commercial photographer to bother with brushing up against the stars in that way… Besides I have a short attention span and there’s an awful lot of sitting around and waiting as an extra. The pay wasn’t bad but it was also wasn’t steady and I needed “steady”.
I only bring this up because, I just watched a documentary on The Making of “Buckaroo Banzai in the 8th Dimension”. And it reminded me of a time that I said, “yes” to being an extra.
I wasn’t in Hollywood for all that time in “Lost Angels”, instead for a while, I was working in Hermosa Beach…almost as “far” away from Sunset and Vine as you could get while staying in the same county.
I was production manager running four stages for a big catalog house that needed a ton of product shot. Remember “FedCo”?
I didn’t think so.
It was an interesting gig because we had, as I said four stages- and eight people working those stages and I was in charge of getting all the product on time and correct for each stage and making certain that there were no delays…Because delays cost money and give people reputational “black eyes”.
Just the same, often there were delays of product delivery and we had to do “shoot arounds” where we would shoot part of a given page and then part of another given page, because a toaster from Sunbeam, or some other company was delayed in transit.
These were (obviously) the days before lean shipping practices and internet tracking.
Everyone hated doing this, especially me. Because this caused multiple headaches making certain that a page was fully populated, when there were (often) 4-5 pages in partial completion.
So in short order, I learned to lie to all the supply houses, telling them that we were very far ahead of schedule, and FedCo was thrilled, so “if they wanted said toaster or popcorn popper or electric frying pan in the catalog, I’d better have it by next Monday, noon” (when I didn’t really need it until the following Monday or Tuesday). This allowed me a bit a “slush time”, and eliminated “shoot arounds”.
I did this out of an urgent sense of self-preservation.
I often went outside for a bit just to feel the sun and ocean breeze, when once, I was stopped by some wanna-be DP-types (director of photography). They looked around anxiously expecting to get “busted” by the ever-present Hermosa police (who, in reality were only interested in arriving at a parking meter EXACTLY when the timer ran down and writing a parking ticket- which funded at least 50% of Hermosa’s budget), but these folks were from Hollywood and didn’t know that that was all the Hermosa cops cared about.
There were three guys and a woman holding a camera, gobos and a reflector.
It was obvious to me that they were “stealing” the shot (no permits or police) telling me that this was a low budget movie, which then of course piqued my interest. They were also obviously a third (or fourth?) camera crew doing “pickups” that might be used in the movie.
They asked if they could shoot me for a new movie they were working on. I shrugged and said, “Sure”.
That’s what you do in L.A….a city where the “Lead Story” on the local News is often the box office numbers, “top five movies that week”. You say “OK”. It’s just “expected”.
My “job” was to walk from screen left to screen right in the alleys behind our shoot space…which looked every bit as disreputable as any alley in Hollywood, but it really wasn’t dangerous at all …The alleys in Hollywood, however were not to be trifled with.
“We need you to walk from “here” – He pointed…”To here”…
It seemed simple enough, and, luckily, walking in front of a camera was within my skillsets. It took all of ten minutes, to do three or four “takes”.
They thanked me profusely and gave me a t-shirt for my trouble.
“Ok this is totally confirmation that this is a loooow budget movie!” I thought.
I also thought that I’d need to see this movie.
And, I did. It was a demented and completely insane mash-up of genres that was very entertaining. There were a lot of stars in this movie- Peter Weller in the lead role (before RoboCop), Christopher Lloyd (before Back to the Future), Jeff Goldblum (before almost everything he did), and John Lithgow…John Lithgow’s performance was so over the top, he wasn’t even in the same zipcode as the rest of the cast. And the title of this piece? It was one of Lithgow’s famous lines from the movie- delivered with a ridiculously heavy Italian accent and a straight face of course!
I’d watch it again tomorrow even if it is dated and tacky and awful, because it was so much fun!
And, I even still have the T-shirt…Though, I’ve (ahem) “outgrown” it.
