The Prelim Podcast I Episode 18 — Lou Demarco

0:09 Back to the prelim. Pablo and I are bringing our very good friend, someone in the industry who has uh he has 40 years of Ayahty experience, which is that's a that's as they say, that's an old timer. That's yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:23 We have an I'll be part of the old time crew.

0:25 Almost almost uh old time goat, as you would say, in it in our in our world. Uh this gentleman has been in the camera department for 35 years.

0:37 35 years, yes. No, no, you're not supposed to speak yet. Sorry, sorry, sorry. No, no. I feel like I'm on the camera truck with you guys.

0:44 Well, that's good, but yeah. He obviously hasn't seen our show. Yeah or listened to us. So this is okay. Whoa. Exactly. All right, here we go. Uh, first day se to the stars, done movies, many, many, many big action productions, second unit units, all types of stuff, all types of dumb music videos, commercials.

1:05 He's done it all.

1:05 He's done it all, yeah, yeah. You know, whatever it takes.

1:09 Who do we have today on the prelim?

1:12 Well, guys, today we have Lewis DeMarco. Lewis Joseph.

1:17 Thank you. Thank you, Lucas. It's great to be here. It's great to be here with my two wonderful friends that I've known for many, many years. So thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, yeah, of course, of course.

1:28 This hour might turn into two hours or part three or four. Sure. Because your story is kind of long. It's very long. Yeah, 40 years. So, so uh here we go. You are one of the rare born and raised in Los Angeles.

1:44 That's right.

1:44 Talk about your childhood growing up.

1:46 Yes. So uh let me take it back a little bit before being born in Burbank in North Hollywood area. Um, my mom and dad got married in New Jersey in 1963, and they were looking for like a new beginning. Like, we've got to get out of New Jersey. We're tired of our jobs here. Where are we gonna go? So they decided on their honeymoon to pack everything that they owned and throw it into the trunk of a 1960 white Cadillac with the big wings, and they threw everything in the trunk and said, Let's we've heard good things about Los Angeles, let's go to LA.

2:26 Move out west. Move out west. You know, and they love movies. And so they packed everything up and drove out, and then along the way, you know, Grand Canyon and all this, all the tourist spots to hit, and then they they get into the Los Angeles area, and they see a sign on the freeway on the 10 freeway, and there's literally like two signs, and it says, uh, if you go south, you're going to Long Beach, and if you're going north, you're going to Hollywood.

2:59 So they were like, you know, it's a toss-up. Like, we've got a couple miles to decide which way we're going. And they're like, well, the beach sounds great. Long beach. Can hang out on the beach. We've never been, you know, on the ocean before or near, you know, near water. Or we can go Hollywood. That sounds really cool too.

3:17 Like, so they decide literally to go north and go to Hollywood. It's like, okay, here we go. So they land um in they get off at North Hollywood uh or Hollywood Way in Burbank. That's the exit that they get off at, and they're like, let's stay in a motel the first couple nights. Like, we don't know what we're doing.

3:41 And so they literally like stayed in a uh motel on Hollywood Way in Burbank. And then they said, Oh, you know, hey, it's great. The weather's awesome, it's summer, we got a pool, we're swimming. My mom had already put in orders to transfer. Like she said, I'm gonna be going to California and more specifically Los Angeles.

4:06 She was a secretary at Allstate Insurance. So they said, Wherever you land, there's All States all over the place, you can work. My dad, on the other hand, had no, he didn't have a job. He he did a bunch of stuff in New Jersey. Uh he was in the he was in the Navy, but he was uh, you know, he came from a family of butchers and bookmakers.

4:26 So, you know, he was like uh odd jobs in New Jersey. His uncles were butchers and he was a bookie and he had some jobs back there, and he he really wanted to be a draftsman, but he he never got hired to do any drafting. So when they land, my mom starts to go to work, right? And he meets a couple of guys like at the local bar.

4:48 Like he's hanging out at the local bar, blah, blah, blah. Uh the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Anyway, anyway, uh, he meets these guys and they're like, hey, we have a dry cleaning and a tailor shop that we're trying to sell. Would you be interested in running that? And he's like, Yeah, I have no job, I'll do it.

5:08 Uh and he he took the job at the uh dry cleaning and and tailor shop. And at the time, my grandmother was on the outs with her husband. And he she was a seamstress and a tailor. He said, I'm gonna bring my mom out and we're gonna you can help me run the place and you know, do uh tailor some suits and do some dry cleaning.

5:36 And then at that time, all the studio people started to come to that place because it was in Burbank. So here comes wardrobe, transpot, they start dropping off clothes and all and from the set, from the set, right? Uh and all these guys worked at Universal and Warner Brothers, start talking to my dad about, oh, we're working on Lassie, we're working on this show, that show.

5:59 My dad's like, man, I I gotta get out of this. This is too boring. Like, you know, uh I'd I'd like to do something like that. And one of the guys he met said, Why don't you just they're hiring permits? It's like a hiring frenzy at the studios right now in 1963. It's going, gangbusters, why don't you come down, have your mom stay here, run the place, come down to Universal and you can start in general labor.

6:24 Right? Like you don't need to be in the union. You don't need to. So he um he says, okay. They said report tomorrow till Universal Studios, 7 a.m. He reports, he gets there and they take him straight to wardrobe and they say, you know, we're gonna fit you for a wetsuit. He's like, wetsuit? What do I need a wetsuit for?

6:44 They're like, Well, you're gonna be working in the big water tank on this Lassie show. Remember Lassie? Do you guys remember Lassie?

6:53 Some of us, yeah.

6:54 Yeah, yeah. You were you guys were a little young for that. But anyway, they size him up for a wetsuit and they say, You're going into that tank and you're gonna make waves all day because Lassie is rescuing someone in a storm. The writing You're gonna make waves with like this paddle. So he's like, and I get paid to do this?

7:13 Like, this is crazy. So he got the wetsuit on, went in the in the B tank at Universal. They had that big water tank that's I don't know if it's still there, but it was there for many, many years. The outside? Uh yeah, outside on the back, you know, of course. And so he gets in there and they like two or three days in a row, he's in there.

7:31 He's like, I'm hooked. This is great. Like they're paying me. And you know, back then, money at the studios was good. Like whatever minimum wage was for a studio worker was way better than working at, say, yeah, whatever, some retail job. It was a couple dollars an hour or more. He's like, they're paying me five bucks an hour to just make some waves.

7:50 And uh, I'm having fun with the crew. And he met the crew guys. And as you know, you meet the guys and then, hey, we uh we got something over at Paramount next week. Why don't you come over there? And uh he started working on the gang at Paramount, which was moving sets around to uh you would strike the sets on on the westerns.

8:12 He there was a western town at Paramount. They did like um High Chaparral, Bonanza, any movies that were Westerns that came out of Paramount, they had their own little Western town on the back lot back in the day. So he would go there and work with the general laborers. And then after 30 days, he got his card.

8:32 He was in the union. And and in those days, the studio system had cards. Like if you got in the union, you started off as a one card, then a two-card, then a three. Once you got your seniority after five to seven years, the you know, and you had a three-card, then you got to kind of choose like where you're gonna go work and what shows.

8:53 So he started traveling on all these westerns. Uh, I was probably two years old at the time, 1966, but he was traveling to Moab and Tucson and doing all these westerns with uh Ricardo Monteban, uh Carl Malden, all the uh movie called Blue, a movie called Chucka. You guys can look them up, but they're old 60s westerns.

9:17 TV. No, these were uh movies. Oh, yeah. And then when they when they were done on location, they would come back to the studio and shoot on the stage, and then they would shoot on the western streets. That's when I was a little kid. I was two, three, and he would bring me on set to see uh cowboys and you know, cowboys and Indians.

9:36 Like, oh, this is great. Like, I'm three years old and I'm looking at this make-believe. I thought it was real, you know. It's like here's these cowboys running around, Indians, and right? So now uh he works on those for a bunch of years. Then 1968, he he gets a call to work on a pilot. Big one, big pilot, uh, with a director that we all know the name, Gary Marshall.

10:02 So Gary Marshall has this TV pilot called The Odd Couple, 19 I think it was 67, 68. And at that time, my dad had been there a couple years, and they said, Would you like to be he was in the craft service union then? So would you like to come and work on the odd couple? Yes, that would be invented. So he takes the job.

10:24 The show goes like three years. And uh in those days, that was a four-camera show. So in front of a live audience, four cameras, blah, blah, blah. And you know, it would go for four or five months. And then in between um the pilots, then he would just jump on different shows. And Gary Marshall always had something going, right?

10:46 After that show was over, yes, go.

10:49 Well, before we get going more, yes, talk a little bit about the craft service, because craft service when you're down to the city.

10:55 Craft service was a lot different, yes. So back then, the craft service guys uh were the only guys that could kind of cross over into all the different unions. Back then the union the unions were very strict, like if if you're in props, if you're in camera, if you're in wardrobe, like you can't cross over and do other jobs.

11:15 But the craft service serviced the crafts. So when you got done doing your normal duties, like your main duty was onset janitor, like you were responsible for trash, water. There was no food back then. Like if you were a crew member, you went to catering for breakfast and then you broke for lunch. There was no snacks, donuts, bagels, any of that stuff.

11:40 But but on location, when he was doing the westerns, you had to provide water for the crew, which was like gigantic five-gallon jugs of water with a dispenser. There were no bottled water. So it was a kind of a hard job. And then you would clean up the horse shit. You know, they called it an uh get your nine iron out and clean up the horse poop and then help drag stuff around.

12:02 But then he started to do things. Yes. But then he, yeah. So when you weren't doing that, you could go and help the props department or help the grips, help the stunt guys. And in the Western days, they didn't have pads back then. So when the guys were falling off of horses, the effects guys would dig um the spot out where the guy was gonna fall off the horse, and it would be soft dirt.

12:28 So my dad would help them, like, let's break up the dirt, make it soft for the fall, and then okay, you're done with that. Now go help the prop guys get saddles for the horses. So you could help out in all these other departments where if you were in the camera department, you couldn't do that. So you were servicing the crafts.

12:47 And I wanted to ask a question of craft. Craft together. I remember you you told us one time, if I can remember how craft service was only a coffee cart.

12:57 Yes. Uh so when when um they would move to the stage, right? Because a lot of those shows you'd start off in Moab or Tucson, then go to the back lot, and then you would do stage work. Well, as the craft service guy, you were the one that opened up the stage doors in the morning, right? And there were no trailers back then, actor trailers, none of that stuff.

13:19 Like they all had little um cubbies or small little dressing rooms on the stage. Not even the size of this room. Like an actor had just had a little like you know, six by six by six whatever closet. So his job was to open up the stage, and very early in the morning, he was always the first one, and then the drivers, right?

13:42 So it's like, oh, it's five in the morning, we should have some coffee. So he would he would make coffee, and the other craft service guys on the lot would make coffee. Then they would charge the crew like a nickel or a dime for a cup of coffee, right? Yeah. Because it's early, like we need to wake up, like we worked 14 hours.

13:59 And that was the only crafty they had. That was that coffee and water. And then right, and then so now here comes, oh, it'd be nice to have some food with this coffee. What should we get? Oh, donuts. Right? It kind of makes sense. Coffee and donuts. So as a kid, I'd go with my dad and pick up like let's get twelve dozen donuts at Winchell's, pick them up, and I'd go with him and put it on the stage, and he would charge for donuts and coffee.

14:26 And then production would reimburse them because everybody paid cash. Yeah. And then at some point production just put it into the budget and said, you know, just we'll we'll take care of it. You go pick it up. So it became a budgeted item. And now uh, you know, a few years later, uh it wasn't just donuts.

14:45 It's like, oh, shouldn't how about something a little healthier like bagels or sandwiches or yeah, or or um carrots, and you know. So now you're starting to put out, you could see the the progression. Now we've got donuts, now we've got bagels, now we got some veggies, we got all these plates out, right?

15:04 And then people started demanding, oh, it'd be nice to have a little snack here or some smoothies, you know, that kind of thing. So when I would go um see my dad, uh after after the odd couple, he transitioned into happy days. He did the pilot for Happy Days with Gary Marshall. And back in those days, if you were hooked in with a producer and you did a good job, like they would just take you from show to show.

15:29 So he was very lucky that he he went to Happy Days Pilot. And we all know what happened with that show. Yeah.

15:38 Well, maybe the audience doesn't.

15:40 Yeah. So Happy Days started in 1973, the pilot, and then um 74, uh went eleven years. Wow. 74 to 84, 85, you know. And all the spin-offs. Yeah, so he did that, and as a kid, uh 1974, I was like 10 years old. Hanging out with the fonz. I was hanging out with the fonz. Oh, yeah, I was hanging out with the fonz, Ron Howard, Richie, and Ralph Mouth and all these guys.

16:07 You had a good story about Al, right?

16:09 Yeah, Al Mul so Al Molinero. Remember, there was a couple of Arnolds, remember? Yeah. There's Pat Merida, and then there was Al Molnero. They kind of went through two Arnolds. So um I would go hang out and help my dad, like you said, with the coffee. He just kind of had like a small little closet, push the coffee around, and then he would wander around and do stuff on the set.

16:31 And then he was also the bookie, you know, like back then bookie horses. This is where the new jersey was. Yes, because back then there was no online, there was no online anything, obviously. So it was like, Who am I gonna bet with? Like, I gotta the craft service guys were generally the bookies on the lot because they had more time than anybody.

16:50 Like the camera guys are on the cameras and they don't have time to take money and bets. And craft service guys had more time to chill. I see we're all hey, yeah. You want you want who do you want at Santa Anita in the third race? Okay, cool. So my dad and his buddies would take all the bets, and then either my dad would run out to Santa Nita Hollywood Park, or uh one of his guys would go out there with all the money and put the bets down.

17:13 And he has he tells a great story of um uh Jack Klugman, who was in in um The Odd Couple. He's a famous actor over the years. Uh uh Felix or Oscar uh Oscar and he he he did a lot of movies and a lot of TV shows, and he was a big horse owner and a big gambler. In real life. In real life. So uh he always relied on my dad to put the bets in, and you know, they would have like little signs on set because uh he would be acting and and doing stuff and the race would be going off, right?

17:47 Yeah. My dad was listening on the radio, and he'd give him like, you know, a little sign, like, oh yeah, first place or second while they were, you know, rehearsing or whatever. Like the catcher and then he would he would know that oh my horse won. Because he owned a couple horses and anyway. So you were the lot bookie, and then for football, for uh horse racing, whatever.

18:06 And if you couldn't handle the action, like my dad was kind of small time, he wasn't taking big money, but he was taking, you know, maybe up to 500 or a grand uh for a game or and you know, fifty dollars on a horse. But if the action got too heavy, he would push it off to this guy named Big T. This guy named Tony.

18:25 Uh this guy was probably 350 pounds, a lot of muscle. Breaking it. Yeah, but yeah, big T. You better pay big T. So if they if the action got too heavy, uh five, oh, this guy wants to bet five grand. And my dad would be like, Don't bet your whole paycheck. Like, that's two weeks of pay. You're crazy. Like And many many crew, right?

18:46 Many crew guys would bet their whole paychecks and be broke for weeks and avoid a work. Yeah, because work next week for free. Yeah, like my dad's like, You sure you guys want to do this? Like, you don't want to cut big T chasing after you, you know, like it's gonna it's not gonna be pretty. So these guys would blow my dad.

19:02 Never got that way. He was always in control. Like, I'm only doing a $50 bet here and there, $25. Like, I got a family to raise, uh, you know, mortgage payments, very responsible gambling. So, but some of these guys were crazy, right? Anyway, uh Klugman was one of his guys, and uh, and then that's just what you did.

19:22 Yeah, but check it out from from from the the odd couple, happy days for the did happy days for 10 years.

19:28 I would like Marshall Indy, I would Morgan Loverne and Shirley. Yes, Joni loves Chachi. I mean we all spin-offs. Yeah, we won't talk. But anyway, um as a kid, uh those four camera shows would shoot on a Friday. Happy Days would shoot Friday. They'd have a run through at four o'clock in the afternoon on a Friday where they didn't roll the cameras.

19:50 Seven o'clock is when they rolled the cameras and they'd roll through 40,000 feet of film. But they have a run through like a rehearsal. Do everything, but just not roll the cameras. So I was able to take my class. My dad would get tickets for my whole sixth grade class, and I'd bring everybody down there on the bus.

20:09 Oh, you're gonna meet the Fonz and do all so I was like rock star, you know, sixth grade. I was like being big man on campus, right? I yeah. Happy days, like and uh, how could you not love hanging out with the Fonz and Ron Howard and all those guys? Living it up. I was living it up. It was great.

20:26 I'm like not only my dad was my hero, like he's working, but before we get it.

20:30 And my mom, yeah, my mom was working also, and then you know, it was just kind of a great like leave it to beaver growing up, really. Like, he's the beaver, yeah. You know, it was like, yeah, what could be better? My mom, my mom, you know, I come home, she's she she has her job, my dad's got a great job and working on movies and happy days and all this.

20:49 And here I am, a kid just loving it, you know, like living in scraping living all let's push up a little bit.

20:54 Wait, yeah, so sorry, go ahead. Because of that, I do want to say this before we get to your part of the story of the industry. Sorry, the 40 years that we have to cover in amount of 10 minutes. Sorry, sorry, sorry. No, no, no. Please explain the story about being a kid in Hollywood. Yes, your neighbor, uh emergency Julie London.

21:16 Will you tell that story? Julie London. Right?

21:20 Yes. Uh not an emergency. Oh, well, oh yeah, the mercy, not there wasn't an emergency situation by me. Yes. So one of my jobs was a camp counselor when I was I was a camp counselor in a place called the Buccaneer Club. Oh, Buccaneer Club, right? So I'm 16, 17. One of the girls that's a counselor with me, her name was Stacy Webb.

21:41 If you know the last name Webb, Webb was Jack Webb was the star of Dragnet. It's a famous TV show, cop show in the 60s. She was the daughter of Jack Webb and and this other woman, and I was uh working with her. Jack Webb got remarried. Married to Julie London. Julie London was the star nurse of the show Emergency.

22:06 Okay. And the doctor was Bobby Troop. Bobby Troop was the famous uh actor. He also wrote wrote some music, a famous song, uh Route welcome Route 66. Get your kicks on Route 66. That was the song. Anyway, they sh um uh she would invite me up to parties on the weekend, uh Stacy would, at their house. And their house was up in Sherman Oaks, this beautiful, like seven-bedroom house, and they always throw in pool parties, and you know, it was going off on the weekends.

22:41 It was like Hollywood. Oh, like here I am, a 16-year-old kid turning up. Like I'm partying with Julie London and and and her family and Bobby Troop and blah, blah, blah. We go swimming up there, and it would be like one in the afternoon, I'd be up there. Here comes Julie London coming down the stairs.

22:59 You know, she's like, Louie, you make me a screwdriver. Like, because I was the bartender too for the party. So I'd make a screwdriver, and then we, you know, whatever, hang out there all day and do all these. Yeah, it was like almost every weekend I was doing it. He's living in it. But I just kind of got lucky that like here I am working with this um Stacy Webb, and she's part of the whole Hollywood thing.

23:19 And then they got a kick out of all my happy days stories. And so it was kind of like, oh yeah, welcome because of the Buccaneer Club. Yeah, Buccaneer Club. Welcome to the welcome to Hollywood. Partying it out. Yeah. So and so and then um, you know, I really didn't I I I kind of had at that point, I was like, do I really want to get into Hollywood and work in this business?

23:40 Because I've I've seen a lot already. Like I said, but everything you had seen is of interest. It was very interesting. Yeah, but I'm like, you know, I really want to be a pro baseball player. Like I oh, here we go. I was in high school. I want sorry, uh Pete Rose's favorite player. I wanted to be a pro baseball player.

23:57 I was really good when I was 15, like best player in the league, blah, blah, blah. But I peaked. Like, that was it. I never grew past when I was 15. Like after that, it kind of went down to like we did for mention.

24:08 I did forget to mention in the intro that we also have a another collegiate NCAA.

24:13 Yes, I ended up playing some college baseball on a low-level Division III. But that's when I realized like I'm not gonna be a pro. Like uh I probably realized when I was 16 I'm not gonna.

24:24 No, no, you realized when the ball hit you in the face.

24:27 Uh multiple times. I used my I used my face. No, no, no. I use my face more than my gloves.

24:32 Because you know, I cut you going to China and Louis was like, Well, this could this was my second opportunity to go to China. I'm like, what do you mean? You've already been to China before. He's like, No, my baseball team in college went to China, but I couldn't make the trip. I'm like, why not?

24:45 He's like, You got face and blew up my blew up my lip and my nose, and they're like, You're not going. Oh my god. Yeah, but I I realized shortly realized uh that I'm not gonna be a pro baseball player. So now I was on academic probation, I was about to get kicked out of UCSD. Like my dad and mom are like, you gotta get it together.

25:05 Because he was gotta drop something.

25:06 He was living it up like Animal House.

25:08 I was, yeah, I was partying and uh at the beach. Whatever. I was it was I'm at the beach, uh San Diego. This is great. Jun, judge, judge. Do you want to do you want to do um baseball, the beach, go to Mexico, study? You know, study was the way now.

25:23 You did it in that order.

25:24 Yeah, I did it in that order. But that, you know, I basically you're gonna get kicked out of school. So I had like, you know, at some point I'm like, I better get a degree. Well, you also picked a tough major, not a five. I did, yeah. It was management science, which was kind of econ math. I didn't have an easy major, but I didn't do very well.

25:42 So what did you what did you do right after it? So after that. Well, right after that. He partied. No, no, so I right after that, you know, I got my degree barely. Like I got a 2.2 or 2.3. You got it, yeah. I got it. You know, I got the diploma. I didn't think I was gonna get it, but you know, I passed the finals and uh I I I was going through graduation ceremony, not knowing if I passed, but you know, I was kind of faking it.

26:06 Like, yeah, I got my diploma. And then a week later, like, oh, you barely made it.

26:09 Yeah.

26:09 Okay, so I make it. And then at that point, my dad says, Hey, listen, I know you got this finance degree. They are moving the entire motion picture marketing division of Paramount Pictures, because he was still working there. He was on Webster, I think, at the time, that TV series. Yeah. He says, Hey, we're we're they're moving this whole division from New York City to Paramount.

26:34 They just finished building this six-story building on the lot. They're gonna hire a bunch of people. You better get down here with your resume, put it into human resources, and see what happens. Because you've got the finance degree or he's like, they're gonna hire a bunch of people. So I got interviewed, passed, did a couple of two, three interviews.

26:56 And um, but you I mean, after graduation, you had done you before doing that, you did other frivolous.

27:07 No, no, no, I didn't do the real estate yet. Oh, oh. I did more uh counselor, you know, my final year. I was like I had a degree. I worked in the butcher shop. That was back yeah, I was a deli boy. Delhi boy. Oh, uh I didn't have a butcher's license, but that was summer job and school job back when I was in high school.

27:26 Uh so I did those odd jobs. But literally I graduate in June, and then come September, that's when this job opportunity comes up. And I I interviewed two or three times. I get the job.

27:37 But wasn't it through a softball game?

27:39 No, no, that's this hold on. That's later. My research is the job, and you're an accountant now. Uh auditor, yes. Auditor. So they say I said, well, what's the dress code to come to work for the first day? And they're like, Well, you've got to wear a shirt and tie. Back then you carried a briefcase, so if you can bleed that, or briefcases, and they this is 1986.

28:01 So I show up for the training at Paramount, and it's like a two-week training thing, and I'm auditing basically like marketing ads, print ads, billboards, radio spots, newspaper ads. I'm st I'm stuffed in the corner uh on the fifth floor of this building, no windows, I'm in a cubicle, no windows, no nothing, and just crunching numbers all day long.

28:26 It was exciting for the first maybe five months because I got a new job and it's I'm at Paramount. I get to go see my dad hang out with his friends because on Friday nights at Webster, I'd get off. I was nine to five, right? Yeah. He was shooting Webster on Friday. I'd go over there and go to the grip room before they would shoot.

28:45 Go to the grip room, and the grips were like playing poker and drinking and getting ready for the show. I'm like, man, this is great. You know, I'm fun doing all this. I'm like, these guys are having a blast and they're making a TV show. Like, here I am crunching numbers and putting together Excel spreadsheets.

29:01 I'm like, this is so boring. All you did all day long was look at your watch, like, when's launch? Where are we going? Oh, the con hasn't changed. It hasn't changed, but it's a little consistent. Yeah, but but uh after about three years of that, I had enough. I was like, but at the same time, I was playing uh softball in the Paramount Softball League with all of my dad's buddies, all the backlot guys, camera, grip, electric, props, because the accounting team did not have a softball team, right?

29:32 Uh but all my dad's buddies had uh a team, and they're like, why don't you just come play for us? You're part of the family, you know everybody here. So I start playing softball with those guys. And um, I need to make a change. Uh so I made a sh uh a relatively like quick change, and I'm like, I'm going to San Diego, I'm gonna be a real estate uh appraiser.

29:55 I got a real estate, I wasn't quite ready to get into production yet. So I I I get my real estate. Can you imagine this? I get my real estate appraising lice, I go to San Diego, I work with my buddies, and then the the real estate market crashes like in '87. So I'm I was last guy hired for this company, first guy fired.

30:13 Like, you're out. So now I have no money. I have burnt through all my money that I saved. I'm hanging out in Del Mar, partying with my bros, and you know, playing tennis and golfing and whatever, body surfing. Now I have no money left, right? What am I gonna do? So I call up my all my softball buddies.

30:33 I'm like, down here in San Diego, I have like a hundred bucks to my name. Like, I need a job. Like, the the fund's over down here. So they're like, hey, we have there's a PA spot open in the camera department. And these are guys I played softball with. Uh uh Rudy Pajoyo and Steve Gaynor. Uh Rick Nilsen was my dad's friend from the back lot.

30:56 He was uh, you know, high up in the in the back lot. Joel Kirshner was head of the camera department. So they're like, we're opening a photo lab for uh like weekend warriors that want to just do snapshots and bring their stuff in so they can show their families. We're opening a photo lab and we run the camera department.

31:16 We know you're good with numbers because you just came from a county. You can help us do film inventory, all that stuff, and learn. And I had uh I had a, you know, photography was a hobby. When I was in San Diego, I would do um surf underwater stuff for my buddies. I wasn't a surfer, but I was a body surfer, and I would uh get little underwater housings.

31:38 So it was just a hobby, but I never thought of it as a profession. So then these guys say, well, come on up, man. Leave your place in San Diego. We got a PA job for you. Doesn't pay much. Maybe 19, I'm talking 1991. Back then, maybe 10 bucks an hour. Uh I'm guessing. So I start with those guys, day one, you know, and they're like, okay, your your first job is you're gonna start scraping these cans.

32:06 We had thousand-foot cans and four hundred-foot cans, gonna scrape all the labels off of these with a hairdryer and a putty knife. Right? Keep them fresh. Because they were testing me, like, here comes this guy from the corporate world, blah, blah, blah. Uh, let's see if he complains. Like, we'll give him the worst job possible for eight hours for three or four days in a row.

32:27 If he complains, like he's out of here. So it literally was like stacks and stacks of thousand-foot cans because they would they would shoot the four camera shows. Right? And um we'd have to scrape all the labels off, and then uh you'd had the cans to do all the exposed stuff. So they I passed the test, and then I they started showing me how to load, how to count inventory, and the we had a big cooler full of film.

32:53 And back then you were loading for movies, TV, uh signals.

32:57 Well, that then they got me in the union after about a year and a half. I got in the union and I was loading for four camera shows. And you do 40,000 feet in a night because there were four cameras and they'd each roll probably go through 10 rolls. So you were speed loading for a couple hours, and then uh yes.

33:15 So go back to your PA days, yes, you PA'd you just scraped your version of PA ing with scraping.

33:23 Well, that was I my reward for scraping was the next weekend they go, Hey, we have a we're doing a shoot at the Playboy headquarters. Do you want to come and be a PA at the Playboy headquarters? We're doing a video shoot. Careful. Rudy. Rudy and uh yeah, Rudy and um and Steve, who are my mentor, early mentors, and Joel.

33:41 These guys taught me every Rudy trained me. Steve, they were very inspirational in getting me into camera. So they're like, we're gonna go shoot this thing. You wanna be a PA on it uh and help us drag cameras around at cables. Yeah. So my job literally was to get in the elevator and be the I was queuing the playmates.

34:00 I was with them in the elevator and I was queuing them from the second floor up to the fifth floor and down. I'm like, man, okay, oh yeah.

34:07 I'm like, I'm hooked. I'm not a I'm ready to go into job.

34:10 Not a normal job, not a normal PA job. I'm like, wow, I okay, I've landed back in Hollywood again. This is great. Wow. So then those guys started shooting uh on the weekends, Gaynor and and Rudy, Brent Hirschman, rest in peace. Brent Hirschman was also a loader. We'd go out and do all these B horror movies, and they would make me the loader on the weekends.

34:30 And then during the week, we'd do our normal job at Paramount, rent out cameras, do the counting. Uh, you know, this was 19. 1992, 93. And you'd always take film to the other shows. The shows on the line at that time were Deep Space Nine, uh Star Trek, um Frasier, Cheers, all those shows. So I started, I got in the union and then I started loading for Frasier.

34:55 I don't think I ever did Cheers, but I would uh go help out Deep Space Nine, uh, because they didn't really have a full-time loader, but you'd help if they got buried. Hey, I got four mags down. Can you run over here and help download mags? Lot loader. And then we would provide film for them because we had a huge cooler with millions of feet of film.

35:15 They didn't have to go to Kodak and do the dog and pony show with them. Like, I need 10,000 feet right now or running low. I'll be there in 10 minutes. Put it on a golf cart, run over there. So that's how I kind of got my training. And then um you could either stay there and work on the four camera shows as a second, that was your next move.

35:35 But that was kind of for the older guys, you know, like it was I was young. The four camera shows, uh, seconds and firsts, and operators, that's kind of like I wouldn't say retirement ground, but those guys were sitcom world was big and you know, going off back then, a lot of shows. And if you weren't in with them, you know, it wasn't really happening.

35:55 I'm like, I want to go out and work on movies. Like, I'm having fun on the weekends going to Catalina and doing the this low budget stuff. So here comes a guy. Oh god. Here comes a guy, John Boccaccio, who's like a really well-known focus puller. Uh, and he says, uh, you know, looking for somebody to come out of the camera department to load for this movie called Black Sheep.

36:18 Do you guys remember Black Sheep? Of course. Chris Farley, David Spade. Like, he so he interviews me and he says, Okay, uh, you know, you know the routine here. Because back then, if you were a Paramount show, you had to go through the camera department for a film, expendables, extra orders. And he says, You're hired.

36:38 So Marcus Lopez was the second, uh, John Bacaccio was the A first, Bob Hall was the B first, Paul Hewen, B operator, which is Casey Hotchkiss, Darren Okada was the DP. And I didn't really know any of these guys. I knew a couple of the names here and there, but once I told Rudy, like, hey, he just offered me the job, he's like, You know who you're gonna be working for?

37:02 I'm like, no, no, like kind of know the names. But he's like, look these guys up. And I was like, wow, this is kind of this is a bigger show. Like back then it was 25 million for a comedy in 1992, and I had I hadn't done anything but these weekend schlocky horror movies.

37:21 Now, now bringing this up, like one question we always ask that was obviously Chris Farley. Did you know that was gonna be a cult classic later on? I didn't.

37:31 I didn't know no, but I knew just from Saturday Night Live, those two guys, but this is gonna be a fun one to work on because those guys are funny. We'd all been watching Saturday Night Live.

37:42 This is gonna be a funny Were you able to hang out much on the set, or were you constantly looking constantly right?

37:48 So here's a funny story. The very first day, it's day one. Of course, the night before, like I'm totally nervous. Like I'm green, I'm nervous, like I'm going to work with all these guys. It's day one. We're gonna be in Griffith Park, running all over the place up in the hills in Griffith Park. I get there, and John, I learned so much from John Boccaccio, who's a great mentor.

38:10 And I get there in the morning, he goes, I got some good news for you and some bad news. And I go, you know, I always like the, as I tell you guys, I always like the bad news first, followed by good. Like, let me know the bad news and I can process it and give me the good news. He goes, the bad news is that the B camera second is not gonna be here today.

38:29 He's still on a construction job in San Diego. And I'm like, at that point, I'm like, oh, I don't know. Like, maybe that's the way it rolls. Like, maybe he's just not gonna show. Obviously, later I've realized like he's you're not supposed to do that. Yeah. He goes, the the that's the bad news. He's not gonna be the good news is you're gonna be the B second and the loader today.

38:50 You're gonna bump up already. I'm like, oh man, it's day one, right? First day, I'm like already nervous. I got three or four different stocks, right? Because he said Darren Okado likes to go progressively, you know, from the 50 D to the 100D to the two, you know, like all the way up during the day as it gets later or whatever the condition lighting conditions are.

39:12 So here I am, day one, Griffith Park. I'm trying to be second. Paul Hume was the operator. I don't even know barely what I know what a slate is, but I don't know where to put it in front of the lens. And now I'm running back and forth from the truck. And I think later on in the day they finally got a second to come in.

39:29 Now it's day two. We go to Pasadena. We're in Old Town, Pasadena, and the second shows up. A great guy named John, I won't say the nast name, but uh, he shows up and he knows nothing. He's a producer hire, he's a political hire and he knows nothing. And Piccadio says, You gotta train this guy. Like, he doesn't even know that what the colors are for the film, you know, the tape on the mags.

39:54 He doesn't know, he really is brand new. He doesn't even know what a slate is, but you know, he's a nice guy. Try and help him out. Like, help him out. Like, I barely know what I'm doing. Right. So uh we go through the day, and then at the end of the night, he's like, Hey, you guys want to come to my bar?

40:10 We're like, Bar? You have a bar? He goes, Yeah, I own this bar in in Old Town. It's called like the Pablo's Cantina or whatever. Let's go over there. We all go over there and we're like, what are you doing as a second AC owns a bar? And you don't know what you're doing, and you own a bar and a restaurant.

40:24 He's like, so we go in there and he's like, you know, the mayor of the Pasadena. Hey, gay guys, this is the crew. And we all go in. He's slinging margaritas all over the place and you know, nachos. And we're like, John, what are you doing? Like, why don't you just stick to this? But anyway, he ended up he was a great guy, ended up learning, and and uh and and on that job, kind of towards the end, I met John Waldo, who was also a really meaningful mentor to me.

40:50 He came in and I would bump up and and uh second for him because I was doing a good job as a loader, and and Boccaccio's like, You've seconded in a few days on this anyway. You you move up with Waldo.

41:04 And but though back then, too. I mean, it wasn't the kind, kinder, gentler sets.

41:10 No, no, it was like pretty, yeah, pretty rough and tough. But you know, I luckily I had Bob Hall was there. Paul Hewen was great, you know, these guys were really good teachers. Darren Okada was a sweetheart. Yeah, there they are. Um Marcus was great, you know, he was the second. So I I wasn't getting yelled at, you know, but I I was expected to or do a really good job because Boccaccio was very professional, as he should be.

41:36 And he's like, you know, you just you need to learn to be prepared for this. And he says, I have four rules of filmmaking that I want all my guys to to follow. And I follow them to this day and try and teach. He's like, be on time, pay attention, keep your mouth shut, and do your job. He's like, if you do those four things, you're gonna be golden.

41:58 And then we we added a fifth one later in the show. We became friends. He's like, No, he's like, take instruction with grace. That was the fifth one. So we had the five rules of filmmaking. He goes, if you follow those, and I never forgot those. So I start working with Waldo. He's great. He'd just come from Chicago, and he he had just done two or three movies with Tony Rivetti, so I knew the name.

42:22 Yeah.

42:22 And and early on before that, Tony Rivetti and his crew came to Paramount when I was loading, and they did a couple weeks for Waterworld. So I met Tony and Frank Parrish and Chad and all those guys. So I was like, wow, these guys are big time doing Waterworld is the biggest movie in Hollywood. And we're giving them film and expendables.

42:42 So I knew John had like the proper, you know, he was with Tony. I'm like, I'm gonna, Waldo's gonna train me, you know, like I'm gonna learn a lot. So I started working with after that job was over. Now what do you do? Three you just did three months. You're like, what now? Like, I don't have a job. For the next job.

43:01 Right? Like as we all know, what are you gonna do next?

43:05 Now let's bring something up, because we always talk about first. So that was my that's the beginnings. That's the beginnings. But the one thing that you know we always talk about is how he didn't really PA.

43:16 Right. Well, he he I did PA. He did. His PA was pushing the elevator button at the playbook mansion, which is uh Hey, it's commendable, right? I mean yeah, that's pretty good. I don't know how you put that on the resume, but uh I think I did put it on a resume.

43:31 Yeah, well it wasn't the mansion, it was the head, it was the headquarters, which was Beverly Hills. There was the mansion, but there was that office.

43:40 Okay, now what about uh going back, continuing your career? Will you tell the you have a very funny story of uh the Farley Brother movie? What was it? Uh Black Sheet. No, no, the other one. Um Farley Brother?

43:55 Not oh yeah Peter Peter huh with the um Taking a picture. So let's go back a little bit. So I had you know, I I had met Waldo and Paul Hewen and all those guys. And I didn't know it at the time, but you know, Bob Hall, these guys were all great kind of mentors and teachers. Like I got very lucky that I'm on a movie with these guys that had been around, right?

44:22 So after that show, uh maybe three weeks goes by and Waldo calls me and he says, Hey, I got this non-union show. It's called Warrior on Waverly Street. It's like four weeks. And back then, you know, it was either union, one contract basically for movies and a couple for TV. He's like, this thing's non-union, but it's like five million dollars.

44:45 We start doing it, and then the unions come in and they go, We're gonna, we're gonna boycott. We're gonna walk off the show because the producers don't want to um flip it, organize. They don't want to organize, they don't want to flip it. So all the union guys come down, and we were union guys. They're like, today, today at noon at lunch, we're gonna basically, if the producers haven't signed at lunch, we're walk, we're all walking.

45:08 Literally, we walked off the truck at Griffith Park, I remember. Walking off the truck with Waldo and a couple other guys. And um we just bailed off the show and they hired scabs. They had scab guys lined up to finish the show. So then the union calls us that Monday and says, they say, we'd like you to walk on the picket line at Disney Ranch at night with picket signs because these scabs are crossing the line.

45:33 We you and Waldo and a couple other guys walk. Literally, I'm on uh Placerita Canyon out there at Disney Ranch at night on the road, walking with the picket sign at night. And they're like, we'll waive your union dues for like three quarters. Okay, cool. Because we're we're walking the line. Now it's three or four nights go by.

45:52 Uh the next morning, um, this guy named Paul Jabelisco calls me and says, Hey, I got this show. Do you want to load? It's a union show, Space Above and Beyond. I'm like, Yeah, I'm not walking this line anymore. I've been doing it.

46:06 No, no.

46:07 So then I started working with Gordon Lonsdale, Greg Collier, Dave Richard, and those guys were mentors as well. And we started now I'm the loader and the B second on a big TV show, Space Above and Beyond, which went 10 months, which was great. So that's where I hooked up with Dave, Greg Collier, Gordon, and those guys taught me a lot as well.

46:28 And what were you asking me before that? When did I you said what happened? Oh, Farley. So then I met a guy named Gary Ashino, who's also a great mentor. Gary, we also very technical guy, a very nice guy. He was with the DP Mark Irwin, and he was working with the Farley brothers. And uh it was the first time I got to go like on location across the country.

46:49 And work with one of an actor that Bill Murray that I really I love, Bill Murray, you know, growing up and I loved watching all his movies. So we go and work on this movie called Osmosis Jones in Plymouth, Massachusetts. You remember that movie?

47:04 Well, I remember it, I think wasn't that weren't you with Jason Garcia on that?

47:07 No, not on that. This was Gary Yoshino, um Jeff Siva, uh Buzz Moyer, Dave Richard. Okay. Uh Mark Arom was a DP. So that movie has a quite a few stories. Yeah. You have the river story. Uh well, that was the river story, it was me, myself, and I mean. But the Osmosis Jones story is that we're in Plymouth, Massachusetts, which I don't think they ever shot a movie there.

47:32 Small town, you know, uh in a seaport village. And, you know, Bill Murray was like the toast of the town. Like everybody came out. Whoa, it's Bill Murray and Chris Elliott, who's a big-time actor. And these guys just had a lot of fun. The Farley brothers, they they like to gamble, they like to just only work 10 hours a day, let's have fun.

47:52 It was a fun, fun set. Like, we're making a comedy here, let's have some fun. And so all the townspeople come out to see Bill Murray and Chris Elliott in this at this house on a small little street, right? And the people that own the house were this old couple in their 80s, and woman's got a dress on, right?

48:14 And and she's lining up for photos with Bill Murray, and everybody's taking snapshots, and Bill Murray just like grabs her dress and goes, hikes it up over her head, you know. And the whole town's like, ah, like gasping. But only Bill Murray could get away with something like that. Oh yeah. Right? Like if it was anybody else, it was like, oh, this is just his stick, you know.

48:34 So that was, I mean, had the whole town cracking up. So then every time he would go to take a picture with anybody else, all the women were like this, like covering their dress, making sure he wouldn't lift. But he would uh if you could gamble on something, whether it was pitching quarters, whether it was hitting golf balls into a trash can, whether it was a game, that's what was going on on that show.

48:55 So that was super fun. And Gary took me as like a a second. In those days, I was like an extra second AC in charge of like this Will Cam thing. And back then, going across the country as a second was pretty rare. What that means they did travel pretty. But I was like the third guy. He he brought the first, uh, the uh A second, the B second.

49:17 I was like the C camera guy. Like, wow, C camera second, I get to go out all the way across the country.

49:23 So now now I was gonna say now we're talking about late 90s.

49:27 Yes, this is not yeah, this is 98, 99. And now we're getting a lot of things. This is way before this is before I've met Potter and the guy.

49:37 Okay, so I wanted to bring up somebody I think he's important. Yes, and that's Jonathan Taylor.

49:42 Yes, Jonathan Taylor, rest in peace. So I um uh shortly after those two movies with Dave Richard and that crew, Gordon and Greg and Gary. Um, I'm doing a commercial with uh AC we all know, Al Cohen. He took he was on sliders with me. Uh he was my focus puller. I was his second. He was great to me. And he used to bring me on a bunch of commercials, right?

50:08 At that time. And then we get this back then, you know, the commercials were 10 days long. 10-day car commercial, like a four-car truck. Like, wow, this is great. And um as a second, you made good money. Like making more money. Back then, you're like $500 for 10? This is 1998. Like, this is great. You you made at least $10 an hour more than you made on a TV show.

50:32 Or, you know, back then the commercial rates were great. So uh uh we do we start this car commercial with a DP named Ward Russell. Halfway through it, Alco goes, I got a movie, I gotta leave. I want you to stay, and I'm gonna bring in my friend Kevin Potter to finish this show. Because we had some tricky stuff where we had like a Mitchell, an old Mitchell camera for high speed stuff and a couple other rigs.

50:56 He's like, you know, Potter's just gonna show up and he's not gonna really know all this stuff. You're you're you've been here for a few days, so just let him poke us, show him the the gear, stay with these guys. So we meet Potter, we we hit it off, we do the five days, blah, blah, blah. And then Kevin starts hiring me for some commercials.

51:16 We we do a like a Verizon spot or whatever in in Toluca Lake, and we finish rapping one night. I'm like, hey, we want to go get a beer, let's let's go over to Timmy Nolans. He's like, Yeah, I love Timmy Nolans. Let's go. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna love this. Matchmade in here. Yeah, let's go to Timmy's, have a couple beers, talk about the next day, but you know, whatever.

51:33 So that's when I met Kevin. Right? So how many movies have you done with Potter?

51:40 Probably almost as many uh as you. Because Potter was always the A guy.

51:46 He was A. So he uh yes, he was A, I was B. So he he says to me, going forward with Jonathan Taylor, he says, Listen, we finished one a couple of these commercials, and he says, This DP friend of mine that I haven't worked with in four years, Jonathan Taylor. He's from England. He's coming over here to do this uh second unit on a show called Charlie's Angels.

52:11 Right. With a a famous second unit director, Vic Armstrong. Uh he goes, I haven't worked with Jonathan three years since Independence Day and Stargate before that. So he knew Jonathan three or four years. Yeah, five years before that. He says, I know you've been pulling focus on some TV shows. Because I w Waldo had moved me up to Paul Maybom moved me up.

52:34 I was pulling focus on some TV shows at that time. Kevin's like, uh because I was doing action with Waldo. And he says, I uh do you want to get back into movies? He goes, I got a spot for you if you want to be the key second. I'm like, Yes, I want to go kind of go back to movies. Uh I think I had the most fun on those, and it sounds second unit sounds fun.

52:55 Red stunts, explosions. Let's do it. So I I I said, let's I'll take the job. So that was 1999, and we start doing Charlie's Angels for whatever it was. Back then, the second units were big. Yeah, big stunts. 15 weeks, whatever. You know, it wasn't just a three-week deal. It's like we're gonna be here's our schedule, and we'll go.

53:18 So then I brought Scotty on board. So it was me, Kevin, and Scotty. Uh-oh. Mike Walker was the operator, Chris Harhoff, Jonathan Taylor, like, you know, yeah, some good guys.

53:28 Yeah.

53:29 Where'd you where'd you meet Scotty? Scotty I met on Pacific Palisades, which was a TV series, Aaron Spelling TV series. That do you remember Joan Collins, that actress? She she was in that, and then it was like Dave Frederick, Greg Collier, Dave Richard. Oh. Scotty was their loader, and they brought me in as a second.

53:49 So uh I met him there, and then I did a TV series with Scotty. So Scotty became your second? Uh well, he was on sliders, he was the second and the loader. Back then you had to do on the TV series, a lot of time you had to be the B second and the loader. You know, there weren't two separate positions.

54:07 So then when the show came up with Kevin, um, I was like, hey, I got a good loader. Who wants to come with the Scotty? You like him. So that's how we started working on Charlie's Angels.

54:18 So Jonathan Taylor came in because of Potter. You met him at the end of the year.

54:21 Uh I met I met Jonathan Taylor from from Potter, and Potter was a great mentor too, and I learned a lot. Because I he was new, he was a three or four year experienced focus puller. I was very new. Yeah. So I, you know, I'm like, man, I'm watching him work and I'm learning some stuff. So here's another question.

54:39 You know, we always have that discussion.

54:42 Lou did second. Well, he did second for a while.

54:48 Yeah, if he wants to see the resume of my secondation, yeah. He always gives me crap about that. But yeah, I seconded for Potter on that, and then here comes. So this is a good story. It's the end of Charlie's Angels. Jonathan Taylor gets um the very first Fast and Furious number one. It was originally called Red Line, not many people know that, but Red Line was taken, so they had to change the name.

55:13 So they start they called it Fast and Furious. Jonathan Taylor gets the second unit. Kevin Potter was on the main unit with Erickson Core on B camera. He recommends Jonathan to Erickson. Jonathan gets the job. Jonathan says to um John Waldo, hey, do you want to be the A first? Jon's like, no, I already got a TV show.

55:36 Uh then he offers it to Dave Richard. Dave Richard takes it. Dave asked me to do it. I said, no, I'm going with Waldo to pull focus. B camera on the show called Action. They do their six weeks, they're done. Now here comes Planet of the Apes. Vic Armstrong's brother, Andy Armstrong, gets Planet of the Apes, which is Tim, the Tim Burton one, 2001.

55:58 And they're like, it's gonna be big. 20 weeks, we're traveling up to Trona or on the stages, it's gonna be big. And Kevin's like, Do you want to second for me again? I'm like, yes. So I second for him. It's and then I meet Joey Sissio on that, David Diano, Dave Richards on it, you know. So now it's 20 weeks of that out in the desert, blah, blah, blah, long one.

56:20 So that's how we kind of got on the run with Jonathan Taylor, and then he just kept hiring us. On that one, didn't you say that was the largest uh largest base camp I've ever seen in my life? Like we were up in stayed in Ridgecrest, California. It's like four hours out in the desert. And then you would drive to Trona, which have you ever been out there?

56:40 Trona, California looks like you're on another planet. There's a reason they shot it out there. It's all these spires coming out of the ground. They look like big sand castles. So hot, hot, dusty, dirty, yeah, rain, blah, blah, blah. Heavy workloads. But there were must have been a hundred trucks in the base camp.

56:55 It was incredible. Like between first unit and second unit, it was and and you were mentioning like the makeup department was Oh, yeah. I've never seen anything like this. Like we were kind of the last ones to go up there in a second unit. The main unit went up there first. They got all the nice hotels.

57:10 We had to stay in some crappy, like, vagabond motel in the parking lot, right? And um the hair and makeup people were also there. They'd have to get up at one in the morning for their call times to drive to Ridgecrest because some of the prosthetic makeup took three, four hours to put on uh some of the apes and the actors, right?

57:30 And then our call times weren't till say 5 30 in the morning. Those guys would work uh uh just along a day as we would, and then they'd go back. They'd have two, three-hour turnarounds. The call sheet, I've never seen a call sheet like that in my life. It was four pages front to back. They had like um also uh I might be exaggerating, but it could be 80 wardrobe people, 80 makeup people, um, camera department, you know, 40 people in the camera department between main unit, second unit, effects.

58:01 I mean, it was four-page call sheet, and back then they printed them out. You weren't getting emails like here's your call sheet. Like, okay, I got it's four pages front to back. This is nuts.

58:11 Now, this is almost the point of the story where our paths collide because I was like, Yeah, so that was 2002. A great career going, moving in an upward direction with a uh uh Timmy Kane.

58:25 Your good friend Timmy Cain.

58:27 Good friends. This is Navarre, everything was all well for me.

58:31 Everything was going great for him. So now it's probably 2005. I had just worked with his friend Mike Vehar, who I had met back in the day at the camera. Deep Space Nine. Deep Space Nine, he was the second, we became friends. He says, Listen, I've got this, uh I'm working on CSI, you want to come? Prior to that.

58:52 Oh, prior, go ahead. Pause.

58:53 Yes, pause to prior to that. Because my first job I did with him, I uh Timmy Kane and I, we were doing double ups on a HBO show called Big Loves.

59:01 Oh, very good. Yes, you're right. You're all right.

59:03 So um double ups. You you don't you know you're working with so you're working, you don't know who you're working with, first unit cruise it all up. Yeah, but I'm with my main guy Timmy Kane, who who was great, who is great to me. And um the B guy, Louis DeMarco and Lemark. Yeah, we come in with the B.

59:21 These guys come in and like he brings like 30 cases of stuff that's gear.

59:27 I got a lot of rentals going. I was only starting to you know, just like back then it was DiWali DiWali cameras.

59:32 Yeah, no, of course before the Dilat. So you know, he brought in like back in those days with the monitoring high combo eight decks, you know, monitoring. Prestons going and everything. Yeah, Prestons and this. I had the whole kid except for bodies and lenses. All this crap he brings this. So day one, uh between A camera and B camera as A, we did like 25 shots, B camera did four shots throughout the whole day.

59:56 They did absolutely nothing watch single camera day, yeah, day one. However, uh, there was an issue with the camera operator that I was working with and the dolly grip, that's right, and the main actress. We were doing this scene in a can we say her name? We can say her name. Well, you can say uh Jean Triplehorn, yeah.

1:00:16 She was the lead actress, doing a scene, a very intimate scene with this off mirrors in a bedroom dolly moves to get to this music. Yeah, it was a complicated dolly move. You know, and on the double up units, you know, like you, you know, all right, the the third doll, the third grip gets to bump up to be the dolly guy.

1:00:32 Or by you know, so let's just say it didn't go very well in the first scene of the day, and the operator and the dolly grip were getting into it, and while we're rolling, and the actress it was disturbing her in the scene. So she's they cut, she goes, bails off the set, and goes, tells the director, hey, have these two guys shut up.

1:00:53 They're bugging me. Blah blah blah. Cut two, take two, take three, take four. The guy doesn't he keeps talking, yeah. Like, oh god. So the whole day is like this. We got an X on our chest. At the end of the day, the DP goes up to Louie, shakes his hand, and goes up to Timmy K and I looks at us and exits the door.

1:01:12 I'm like, oh that's weird. Okay, whatever. Cut two, you're driving home.

1:01:16 Yeah, I get a call from the loader. Uh what was the kid's name? Trip. Trip Mori. Yeah. He's like, hey, sorry, man. They're they're not inviting you guys back tomorrow. Like the actress didn't like you guys and blah-blah. So you're not coming back, but you gotta come pick up your gear. Like, come we did four shots, and like I thought everything was great.

1:01:36 So um Yeah, he did four shots. Then the ADs basically had it backwards. They let go of the wrong crew. They were supposed to let go of the A camera guys, not the B camera guys. So then these guys show up the next day, and the DP's like, What are you guys doing here? It was very you're supposed to be fired.

1:01:56 Like, not the best.

1:01:57 Where's Lou? Where are Louie and uh and Marcus? But that was my first day working with this guy. It gets fired. I get fired inadvertently. So then our good friend Timmy Kane at this time, as he was talking about CSI, New York, we were doing insert unit. And on that, you know, you're just doing the tight little beakers and all this stupid stuff.

1:02:17 Yeah, but it was three or four days, three days a week, 15 hours a day. Great, it was excellent, you know. A crew of seven, it was easy. So uh Timmy Kane was still, we had more days on Big Love. So he's like, hey, listen, I'm gonna send you over to NCIS next week or CSI New York next week. You work with Louie.

1:02:37 Um oh god, not that guy.

1:02:38 Yeah, yeah. Work with Louie account going. So we could do both. These guys were doing two accounts. Imagine that. You got two shows going.

1:02:46 Well, they're trying to keep both outs. So then the next time I work with him, day number two, here we are at Griffith Park. Now, NCIS insert unit never left the stage. Never ever left the stage, maybe outside the stage door for something. That's right, but never went off location. So this particular day, second insert unit, was this huge location.

1:03:06 We're doing stunts, car chase at Griffith Park, a whole bunch of action. And all we've really been doing was assignments. Inserts, really inserts, yeah. And that was a show where it was very heavy camera math technical, where you're going, you know, 45 degree shutter, push one stop, 96 degrees, this, that, yeah.

1:03:28 48 frames a second. So I said to the DP, I go, you know, do you want to give me the shooting stop, or do you want to give me the base stop and I'll do the calculations? Because some DPs just gave you the base stop, and then you had to do all the calculations based off shutter angle, frame rate, ND. Some guys would want to do it themselves.

1:03:50 I'll give you the shooting stop. I'll do the math in my head. So this guy wanted to do the math on it on his own and said, I'll just whatever I uh whatever stop I tell you, that's the shooting stop. So, all right, five, six, boom. And then he and I'd be looking at each other like scratching our heads, like, five, six, that doesn't sound right.

1:04:08 Like he's got all this stuff going, really. But he was very confident what he was doing is, you know. And um, so at the end of the day, he comes up to Tony, because I think he now he's questioning himself. He's like, Do you have good notes? And Tony's like, Yeah, I got great notes, all on the camera report.

1:04:24 Uh got all the filters, the frame rates, and he starts looking at him. He's like, Chris cracked me. And I think I went the wrong way with the stops. Like, you know, instead of closing down, he was opening up, yeah. Vice versa. So we're like, I don't know what to tell you, man. Like, you gave me the shooting stop, that's what I put it at.

1:04:43 And so he walked away. I knew he was like kind of stressing hard. Next morning I get a call from Vehar. It was a good friend. He's like, What the hell is going on out there, Louis? He's like, I'm looking at dailies. Half of these shots are four stops overexposed, half are four stops under. This is a mess.

1:05:01 Who is who is in charge of the stops? I'm like, Mike, you know, you and I are good friends. I said, he gave me the shooting stop. He was doing all the calculations. I said I was happy to do it for him, but he insisted on here's your shooting stop, I'll do all the cal. He's like, huh, this is a mess. He's like, a lot of this footage is unusable.

1:05:20 I can't use this stuff. You know, because if it's way under, you can't, you know, four stops under. Maybe you can salvage it if it's four stops over and print it down.

1:05:29 Back then, I mean, still the fraction of a mistake was uh on the negative, you're screwed.

1:05:34 Yeah. So he's like, I'm never hiring that guy again. But then we kept working. But he kind of knew the deal. Second day, I'm like, What is this gonna be Tony?

1:05:44 Yeah, he's got I'm like, This guy's a jinx. Like, first time he gets fired, second time, like we almost greatly for Timmy Kane.

1:05:50 We never had these problems with Timmy Kane. What is going on? Next thing you know. Now, now let me bring this up.

1:05:56 Okay, you you meant Tony. Yes. But when does the poach happen? The witch? Right afterward. Yeah.

1:06:01 Right afterward. I should have knew better.

1:06:03 This is leaving Timmy Kane.

1:06:05 Yeah, he's like, hey, I've got my second's leaving Spider-Man for Yeah, you want to come work.

1:06:10 Marcus is leaving to go pull focus on some movie in Tijuana. He wanted to come back.

1:06:14 See, that was a good indicator of no warning, warning, warning. Do you want to Yeah?

1:06:19 He's like, I'm going to do Tremors to pull focus on Tijuana. I'm like, You sure you want to go down there? Yeah, I need to move up. I'm going to go down there. So then we had been working together. I go, I got a great guy. I'm going to introduce you to Tony. So I bring him in. It's like halfway through Spider-Man 3.

1:06:34 He comes in and then we start doing second, you know, and then I take him on the road prior to that.

1:06:39 Doing, you know, commercials, Coke, Pepsi, like that. Yeah, but you had done a big movie. You had done Zathura, which was pretty big. I had not been on a Spider-Man level level set before. That was like no joke. You know, now will you talk about the speech you gave Tony?

1:06:54 Which one? The one where you said if you join me, you will be able in the world. No, that wasn't me. That was Jimmy Jensen. One.

1:07:00 Yeah, that was number one.

1:07:02 He was number one. Jimmy said, I'll take you off.

1:07:04 He did go around the world. He just left.

1:07:05 But I I just uh yeah.

1:07:08 Just had a different Yeah, but yeah, Spider-Man 3. Here go to Cleveland. You know, I meet Potter for the first time, Scotty Whitney. I Joey. I had already known Joey. Ken Harvey was there. No, no, no, no. He wasn't there yet? No, no, no, no. So we met all these great people and big stunts. Everything was in-camera practical.

1:07:28 It was telling the story of the one of the first days you were there with the mirror. Oh guy getting thrown through the mirror.

1:07:34 He'll tell you. It's a great well we did kind of mention this before, but uh you know, that was the that was the eye-opening experience of seeing the stunt man just get pommeled and scraped up thrown out without any care if they're alive yet. Suit up the next guy. All right, we're shooting in ten minutes.

1:07:52 Bring the next guy in. So they literally had a mirror that this guy was getting smashed against, right? And they're like, oh, we got like five or six backup mirrors, breakaway.

1:08:02 Well, because the stunt didn't go well on a Friday night. So now they have to redo the set, and now we have to come back Saturday on a sixth day, and they have all these two-way mirror glasses that they have to put up. But they're not gonna put it up yet because for whatever reason we're shooting the whatever.

1:08:20 So they had all this mirrored glass, tempered glass on set. Yeah, but they they had it in between the two sets, and it was on the ground with just cardboard, and the whole crew had been walking throughout the day over it on top of it. So now it gets time to do the glass.

1:08:36 It's breakaway glass. So everybody trampled on it. There's nothing left. They're like, what happened to the breakaway glass? They were losing their minds. Yeah, that was bad.

1:08:46 So then we go to Cleveland and we go up there, Cleveland. Cleveland, you had one as we talk about uh dangerous crazy accident in Cleveland. That was a dangerous insert car.

1:08:58 Me and Potter were up top on the insert car. Pull in focus, there was a crane, and then there was like a remote lambda head down below. Those were the two cameras going. And uh in that movie, I don't know if you remember, there's a chase, it's an armored car chase with Sandman and Spider-Man fighting in the back.

1:09:16 So we're doing the practical stuff, you know. We're leading this armored car, and in the meantime, all these other cars are ratcheted tight along the side of the street, and they're gonna get thrown right in front of the armored car, in between our insert car and the armored car. You know, some CG but basically practical car growing and the stunt, the first take, the stunt goes bad.

1:09:41 The guy hit the trigger too soon. The car hits us on the back end of the insert car. Potter and I collide into each other, the insert car goes up on like almost two wheels, but it was like, oh my god. Yeah, they're holding on through day. The grips are holding on to the crane, and you know, it was like this could have gone really ugly, really bad.

1:10:00 But everything back then was set on timing.

1:10:02unknown Yeah.

1:10:03 I mean, in the split second stuff, like if you didn't hit the button, if you hit the button too early, that thing's smashing into the insert car, and that's what happened. So that was kind of a scary time, you know. And back then it was insert cars. I don't think the ultimate the edge armor.

1:10:18 Well, you had we had the bay bomber.

1:10:20 Yeah, we had the bay bomber. Michael Bay had this car that was looked like an El Camino with speed rail and all kinds of car mount stuff, and that thing could smash into things. We put crash housings on that, and that could ram into cars. So, yeah, we and we had cables breaking. Oh back then, they had like the hard steel right cables, and the thing would snap and take out all these cars.

1:10:40 Yeah, they're a lot of dangerous cables. Luckily, they moved the extras at the last second, they said we can't have these. Because they placed all the extras near the cars, it's like yeah, we better not do that in case the cable snaps. Fair enough, cable snapped and took out all these cars, ripped them open.

1:10:55 Yeah, you know. So we had some, yeah, and those second units, you had a lot of uh danger, scary moments, blood dangerous stuff.

1:11:05 But with the danger, you also had some great moments because the craft service guy on that sh showy, he he came up to the threw up his dad's Tony Gomez. So every Friday night at Rap, this craft service guy, in homage to his dad, would set up two tables at the camera truck with white tablecloth and like twelve chafing dishes.

1:11:31 No joke. Escargot or yeah, just for the camera department at rap. I mean, I just and then at the end of the table, I know you don't drink, but they did nice bottles of wine huge unlimited amounts of wine and beverage.

1:11:45 This guy had an unlimited budget, and he my dad trained him. So he was very grateful to my dad. Like and he's like, I'm so grateful for your dad and how he brought me up, and I'm gonna treat you guys right.

1:11:57 And that's yeah, it was like a party at the camera trap.

1:12:00 Yeah, a different time, too. So it's more money to burn.

1:12:02 Oh, yeah. And and you talk about a movie back then, Spider-Man 3 was 250 million in 2005. That's a lot. That'd be 500 million now, right? And Cleveland, we brought back that because crews used to travel everywhere. We brought everybody. I mean Richie Massino, Ray Malazzo. We brought the whole crew. We didn't have one person from Cleveland, and we had seven, eight cameras.

1:12:25 We had on that job, Egan was our loader, um Tucker Cortez. We had two camera trucks, two loaders, I don't know how many cameras, crash housings, every camera. Five full crews. And he he tells a good story. He's like, remember they literally in Cleveland was supposed to be New York. It was supposed to be doubling New York.

1:12:45 All the businesses were out uh boarded up and out of business downtown Cleveland. So Sony could get um tape ten, twelve blocks for cheap, blocked off the whole time for weeks in downtown. So we would come out of our hotel and like where's the set? Oh, it's 10 blocks that way, and we'd walk 10 blocks, and then we could do these runs of the armored car chase for 10 blocks and not have you know a hundred PAs trying to lock up New York City.

1:13:15 Yeah, so yeah, you kind of had free reign of the city. Then we'd go to baseball games like that. Yeah, LeBron James was kind of what they uh Cavaliers at that time.

1:13:27 This is what they did mid to late 2006. 2004 five wait seven?

1:13:31 No, early. Early early. When did LeBron come into the league? Four, I think he was yeah. Well, I mean Spider-Man was four or five. Yeah. Because we could walk to the games after work. Yeah, because they they would work hard, this crew, but they would party even more. You were uh you were a part of the I agree.

1:13:49 So say these guys you know, when I was working with you know back in the day with Timmy Kane, it was business, not professional business. And it was nice, you know, it was very it was friendly and professional. We were these guys turn into different We were work hard, play hard, you know, like you said.

1:14:05 Work hard, play hard crew, good times. Because then we come back to LA, we finish the movie in LA, and then they're gonna go back and do some work in New York. So we had to load the camera package at wrap on into these containers. Yeah, yeah. And then the next day they or later on they're gonna so uh again a Friday night.

1:14:24 So there's all the food for us, all the wine. Where we we rap at like I don't know, 12 a.m. in the morning. By two o'clock in the morning, there's no more alcohol. We've run out of alcohol and we're still at the truck. And somehow there's more, and we're kind of working, but they're telling stories and part.

1:14:42 And then then somehow more alcohol comes, and then things happen. Next thing you know, it's like 5 30 in the morning, and we're ran out of the second round of alcohol, and they're like, Well, the bar opens up in a half an hour. 6 a.m.

1:14:55 cozy if we just washing to wait for our own.

1:14:59 Aaron York was with us. We by this time we've been drinking for well, we'd have no more alcohol, so good five hours or so and and things.

1:15:07 We're just hoping everything made it into the catators for Potter, because Potter's the only one going with the two Libra head techs, John Bonn and York and Aaron York. So they we just loaded everything in. I was not coming on that. Nobody. It was Joey and then the leap two Libra head techs, Jonathan and Kevin.

1:15:24 So we end up going to this bar right when they open six o'clock in the morning. We stayed there until noon.

1:15:30 Jesus.

1:15:31 This guy, 12-hour drinking special.

1:15:33 So that's how we were rolling back then.

1:15:34 That's how it was back then.

1:15:35 I mean, yeah. Dangerous, but yeah, we had or we had some fun.

1:15:39 So from there we had a uh, I think right around after that, you had a great phone call from JT, which prompted three jobs. Oh, yeah.

1:15:48 So then Jonathan calls and he says, Hey, uh, luckily enough, my agent says I have three movies in a row. Which are uh Die Hard, Iron Man, uh we have no uh like Die Hard we've heard of. Like there's been three of them. Yeah, this is Die Hard 4. Yeah, Iron Man, which what I'm like, who's it? What's Iron Man?

1:16:08 If you weren't in the comics, were you? Yeah, I knew what you knew Iron Man. I didn't know Iron Man wasn't Iron Man, I didn't even know he wasn't the comic guy. I don't know what Iron Man is, and then he says we have the mummy three after that, three in a row. He's like, We've got like a year and a half, two years of work, back to back.

1:16:24 I literally like pulled over because he called me and Kevin, and I pulled the car over and got on the phone with him. I'm like, you're not gonna believe this. Jonathan just booked three jobs in a row, second units, all like 20 weeks. Like we're gonna be working for almost two years straight. He he signed his contract.

1:16:42 It was like, wow, these are the these are the golden days. Yeah, that was 07, probably 06. Uh yeah, 06-07. We start doing Die Hard 4. And then also at that time, if we were in between jobs, Paul Hewen was also a second unit DP. He used to operate for Jonathan, and then um Jonathan would uh got him a few like jobs when Jonathan would get sick or something on Planet of the Apes, or Paul would fill in for him.

1:17:11 But anyway, Paul became second unit DP successful guy on his own. So if we weren't working, we were working with Paul's crew, which was Richie Messino, Mike Walker, well, uh Todd, and then then if they weren't working, we'd we'd bring them on our show. So it was kind of like these two crews mixing together, which was great because you couldn't always line them up one after the other.

1:17:35 But between Jonathan and Paul, there was always oh, you got uh Hancock, you've got uh Cowboys and Aliens, we've got Iron Man, this so between those two guys, Date Night, we would it was a great, you know, like family of of people.

1:17:54 What do you remember most about Die Hard? Is there a funny story or Die Hard? Let's see.

1:17:59 Oh, I have Oh, I have a good story about Die Hard. Okay. So um, you know, as you know, back in the day when you were pulling focus, your second AC on a long lens would always call out your marks for you. Right? So I I was always on the long lens on B camera, me and Diano, and he was my second, and we're doing a shot in the tunnel downtown, 600 millimeter of a uh trash truck coming through the tunnel, ramming all these cars.

1:18:24 And I'm like, you know, you got hours to set up all the other cameras. I'm like, Tony, okay, we're gonna call out some marks because he's coming from whatever it was, 400 yards away, and he's coming into I don't know, a hundred uh two hundred feet away. Louis was a long lens specialist back. So I said, Tony, we're just gonna get like four marks.

1:18:43 One, two, three, four. I said, get in the middle, you know, because uh if I miss something way deep, it's not that critical. But I need you to really be halfway and then call out those marks going forward because that's the more critical mark. So we do the rehearsal, everything's cool. Cut to now it's time to roll, and it's just mayhem.

1:19:03 This trash truck starts smashing all these cars, and I hear I'm on the radio. One and two, and then he goes three, and then it's like right, and uh now like he's running for his life. I could see it out of the corner of my eye. Cars are flying. He's trying to get back to the camera because shit's flying everywhere.

1:19:22 Because they had the hood on explosions.

1:19:24 Hoods are flying, parts of the car flying off on camera. He's like, I'm running for my life. Yeah, I almost killed him. One of one of many. He gets back to me and I go, What happened to four or five at six? Well, he cares about this is what happened. Yeah. He goes, I don't care about I'm running for my life right now.

1:19:39 What happened to four and five? Screw your four.

1:19:44 He's like, Oh man, you tried to kill me.

1:19:46 One of many times. Well, that was that was a crazy stunt. I I want to push on just a little bit because you were talking about what about that one time you left Tony on the side of a mountain.

1:19:54 You mean the cliff? That was side of the cliff. That was a that was a all by himself. Well, no, with two other people and a camera strapped to me. Oh, we're moving that far forward.

1:20:05 Just just he's jumping. Yeah, we're just jumping around, but that's yeah, yeah.

1:20:08 I did. I did. Uh I did leave him. He had to get he had to get the mountain gear on.

1:20:13 Well, dude, you're probably there was ticks also.

1:20:18 No, no, no, no. There was a bad situation. There were ticks.

1:20:20 The bad situation was you didn't go with your operator. I didn't go with my operator. I'm not gonna stay here with the director of the monitor. Because for the longest time, this gentleman was with your operator on second units, you're going from A camera to C camera to D to back to A. Stay with your operator.

1:20:34 So you gotta be mobile. So some people, I stick with my camera. He always grew up with the terminology.

1:20:39 You stick with the Yeah, because back then the cameras, you didn't have all your personal stuff on there. Yeah. Back then there was no monitor. It was like, here's the camera, here's the mag, here's the follow focus. You didn't have your personalized press to my. So, like I could you could jump around, stay with your operator.

1:20:54 Yeah, where the oscillator goes, you go.

1:20:55 It's a 435 with the follow focus on it. It's the same thing.

1:20:59 Except when later on it became like, I got all my personalized stuff, stay with your camera. Like I don't want to go work with stay with your camera enough with your directory. Because it's uh high fire.

1:21:10 Yes. You stay with the camera, not the director.

1:21:13 Yes, I stayed. Yes, I did not stay with the camera. I'm staying with the director, Tony. You go out, you're a better athlete, you're younger. You go out, you go out on the cliff. I don't like it so he goes out on the cliff and it's like this.

1:21:24 Horrible. It's horrible. I'm like, you're not a rock climber. He's on this freaking cliff with this guy. And it was cold, I heard.

1:21:31 He was freezing. It was well, that was the early part of the day. Then at night we had to work with rain and real wolves. No food. No food. They go, uh del Taco. Yeah. We go down there and then there's nothing left. Like the Del Taco is gone. Yeah, now it starts raining, and there's a bunch of there's live wolves.

1:21:49 This is the downward part of our career. See, you started going, yeah, yeah. No, this it is that yeah, it's important. It is. He's been doing that forever. Forever. Yes, I have yes. Since the beginning. Yeah, yeah. Because so we haven't even gotten to blackish and missions.

1:22:06 Yeah, yeah.

1:22:06 We should know.

1:22:10 We need to kick it out.

1:22:12 We can't, we can't brush through. No, we can't. Okay. So where are we now? We're at um Iron Man. Iron Man. Yeah. The first Iron Man.

1:22:19 Yeah, that was a crazy one. One of the first few days, right, we ended up hooking up with First Unit because we were always, well, kind of kind of near each other a lot.

1:22:29 And at that time, you know, Jonathan, you know, he had his crew guy, you know, it was like uh Joey and Kent and Joe Arena, me, Tony, Kevin, Scotty, right? And we would all go on the road together. Back then you could take everybody with you, or Dave Taylor, Mike Martino, yeah, go up into the mountains in Lone Pines.

1:22:47 So we uh we do that in one of the first, you know, not the first shot, but eventually first unit and second unit end up hooking up together to do the scene where Tony Stark comes out and in the beginning and he's in the desert, and you know, you Oh, you mean when he first has the yeah, it gets the shot.

1:23:03 Yeah. Before the suit he gets ambushed. He gets ambushed, yes. And it's a gigantic explosion.

1:23:09 It was a 360. Like every camera was looking at the next camera, like there's a camera that is.

1:23:14 With real bombs going, like real uh uh there was some CG to it, but it was real bombs.

1:23:19 It was crazy. I mean, one of the biggest stuff and well, firebombs we've done was on that show. Yeah. Remember? Oh, yeah. We went up into this canyon.

1:23:30 We had real mules carrying. We had a mule instead of human mules, like we usually are, or gators. They're like, we're gonna get some mules, you know, like yeah, like us to carry the steep in there. Carrying Libra all the way up this canyon. Yeah, and miles apart from each other, and noodles ended up.

1:23:47 Noodles rigged all these special Preston antennas for long range. We had a rehearsal, like they're gonna blow this thing up, but we're half a mile away, at least. You guys gotta be half a mile away from this explosion. We did a rehearsal to make sure all the cameras went off. We had fire housing. You still felt all this stuff.

1:24:03 Yeah, then when the next day is the day to do the big explosion. And then I think Richard Mole, the key grip, came up with an idea to put the uh a minima on a balloon and float it up above. Because it was pre-drone days, you know, and you couldn't have a helicopter. He's like, let's just put the put the A minima up on this balloon and float it up, and that got the overhead shot.

1:24:24 Who cares if we lost the balloon? It was like big deal, or the A minima. We ended up losing the A minima. Yeah, but uh that was a huge, that was a big explosion. And just before that, we did all the stuff with real fire. I had to wear uh operators in first had to put the suits on, fire suits with the gel.

1:24:41 Not walking through fire, but the fire is on the side of us. Or remember we were in the cave for whatever stupid reason that was.

1:24:48 You know, like and that's where the fire is coming from.

1:24:51 Like, wait, what? Crazy stuff, you know, and then the the gas started to leak out of the Iron Man suit, and that guy kind of caught on fire. He's in the suit, and they were like, okay, you know, run in there with all the fire extinguishers. Dealing with fire is no fun. Yeah, you know.

1:25:09 So we're gonna have to do a part two. We are well, yeah, we're running out of time because we got three minutes left on the cart. You talk so much about your Playboy days, you know. So we're we're gonna do a part two because we're only halfway.

1:25:21 This is just a yeah, I can't wait to get into the blackish in the mixes with Rob Sweeney and Art Martin and Troy, and we're gonna tell all those stories. You know, because that was eight years of our lives. About your pico de guayo, guys. Pico de Gaia with Billy, yeah, our favorite craft service.

1:25:37 But when we come back from part two, we will continue on some Iron Man stories. Yeah, we'll continue. I'm sorry, funny mummy stories, uh mummy stories. Oh, we don't have any Ninsa the Mummy story, and we've got some work to do. Yeah, we've got a lot more.

1:25:51 I took him you know to China for four months with drunk twice on a plane. No, no, yeah, it was great. Yeah, it was one ride, one plane ride. It was a 20-hour that was horrible. But we had some crazy accidents on that show, too. Guys on fire and yeah, so sets on fire. I'll save all that.

1:26:07 Yeah, stay tuned for some disaster stories.

1:26:10 Okay, so uh at this point, we're gonna say like and subscribe to all our uh all our followers. Please like and subscribe. You can hit us up at our email at the prelimpodcast at gmail.com. You know, um, we are definitely gonna have a part two. Part two out of Luke's coming back.

1:26:26 Yeah, the goat will be back again.

1:26:28 Yes, you know, you know, on the side of the cliff.

1:26:30 Yeah, you know, yeah, we better get him soon though, because he's close to uh no no no retired, he's semi-retired, but I'm still enjoying it. Uh yeah, I'm still working with this. We don't know what city you'll be in, so we'll have to we'll get in touch with you wherever it takes me.

1:26:44 I can come anywhere. We don't wanna I can go anywhere. Thank you guys. We don't want to roll out, so it's gonna be uh good making appearance.

1:26:57 Thank you guys. We will back here.

1:27:00 Very good. I didn't even need to tell the story to guys.