Artist W. Robinson
There’s above the line and below the line and then there’s the 1st AD, who is the line.” So says Artist Wynn Robinson, a longtime practitioner of the craft. “We balance the needs of the crew with the director, actors, and department heads and walk a political tightrope every single day.”
Robinson, who has worked for directors such as John Carpenter, John Woo and Ang Lee in his 25-year career, says that “line” was never more stretched than on HBO’s 8-hour period epic John Adams.
“I came on after having just done three features in a row,” recalls Robinson. “My very first night I was charged with the Boston Massacre and running a crew of 700. When we left Richmond and moved to Hungary, all the other department heads except me had already scouted each location and I was leading the production.”
Ensuring that 2,000 extras got through period make-up and were camera-ready by 7 a.m. was just one of the many logistical challenges on John Adams. Keeping out the “alien forms” (i.e. voltage lines, airplanes), as Robinson calls them, was also tough. “Even in a town like Colonial Williamsburg, where everything is period correct, you can have light kicking off a stop sign 200 yards away. Everything in John Adams’ time was lit by candlelight, so hard light coming in from a streetlamp had to be taken out.”
Safety was another key concern. Robinson held meetings before many large scenes, which called for moving cannons in the rain with children and animals, and numerous battlefield explosions. “Even after each safety meeting, I would do a walkthrough with the stunt and VFX coordinators without the director and DP present,” he explains. “We had to establish clear visuals about exactly what was happening because it can get very dangerous out there.”
Robinson learned about taking precautions shooting Rambo III in the Arizona desert, where mortar explosions were buried deep in the sand. Blue flags were raised for dirt bombs and red flags for gasoline bombs. “We had to pull the flags out of the ground right before we rolled camera, and all you could see was desert,” he remembers. “People are screaming to keep things going, and as an AD you have to fight for your ‘final moment’ to make sure the set is truly safe.”
Juggling safety and high-pressure situations is a skill Robinson picked up in his first career in restaurant management. His first movie job was as a PA on Perfect in 1985. “I served breakfast and lunch to Gordon Willis for 109 days, and thought, ‘Wow, I got out of restaurant management to become a waiter in the movie business.’”
But the easygoing Texan didn’t hang around craft services long, transitioning to a Key 2nd and 1st AD within a few years. Even with success, though, he didn’t change his unusual first name. “As a kid growing up in Texas, I could not understand why my mother did that to me,” he drawls. “Then I came out to Hollywood and it actually was a good thing. Everybody remembers me by one name, like Madonna.”
Jimmie Hollingsworth
How do you make sure you’re not late for one of the biggest parties in American history, aka the inauguration of the nation’s 44th president, Barack Obama? Sleeping in your car, RV, or microvan the night before is a good start.
“All six bridges crossing the Potomac River into Virginia and the arteries leading up to those bridges were closed prior to the inauguration,” recalls veteran news director Jimmie Hollingsworth, who coordinated coverage of the swearing in, parade, and the four major inaugural balls for WJLA ABC-7 in Washington, D.C. “Our station is in Rosslyn, Virginia, on the other side of the river going into D.C.,” Hollingsworth says, “so a lot of our people brought sleeping bags and slept in their cars.”
A story that is both local and global in scope requires a unique touch, explains Hollingsworth. He notes that several local bands in the inauguration parade made good “sidebar fodder” during the coverage. “But the overriding theme,” he insists, “was by far the sheer number of people—reportedly 1.8 million—that came to witness the event. Our biggest challenge was traffic. We had five cameras covering the parade, and the pool feed, which we picked up, probably had about a dozen cameras. I’ve directed Redskin [football] games for 25 years and there were definitely similarities. Neither event is scripted, and you’re looking for small dramatic moments that will tell the larger story.”
Many of Hollingsworth’s most memorable experiences have been presidential. “The year after I arrived [at a local station] in Lynchburg,” he recalls, “JFK was assassinated. My job was to get the bulletin on the air. This was before videotape, so we had no footage from Dallas. All I could do was film the anchorperson reading the story, edit and put it up. I was punching the cameras in the studio myself, and basically learning how to be a director on the air.”
Hollingsworth later went to New York to cover David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon’s wedding. “The night before the ceremony, I was staring up at this massive cake, probably 6 feet tall, and I heard a voice behind me say, ‘Boy, that is a huge cake.’ And when I turned around, I saw Richard Nixon standing there. I introduced myself and he said, ‘Oh, yeah, I know that morning talk show of yours. I really like it.”
Alton Walpole
Where is Mountainair, New Mexico?” veteran UPM Alton Walpole laughs by way of fixing his tiny Southwestern hometown on a mental map. “If you drew an ‘X’ it would be where the two lines meet, in the middle of the state,” he explains. “We hung out at the old movie theater until it snowed so hard one winter the roof caved in and it became a drive-in. It was a lot like The Last Picture Show.”
Walpole’s background in architecture and photography and experience as a grip, editor, camera assistant and actor made him a natural for helping visiting filmmakers get the most out of New Mexico’s famous vistas. Local crews, he says, are made up of experienced industry veterans from Los Angeles and Texas who have moved to New Mexico, brand new trainees, and longtime natives. “It’s a diverse group to draw from and they are incredibly loyal because they love living and working in New Mexico,” he says.
Talking from the Albuquerque soundstage of the Hughes Brothers’ latest film, The Book of Eli, Walpole has no need to hard-sell the artistic virtues of shooting in his state, given the many shows eager to capitalize on New Mexico’s generous film incentives. Locations for the $75 million Eli include Cochiti Pueblo, 55 miles north of Albuquerque, and the tiny town of Carrizozo, 200 miles to the south. “We’re taking over four blocks of the main street, which is meant to be an abandoned, apocalyptic town,” explains Walpole.
Walpole says his most challenging shoot, Passion in the Desert, took place in another iconic Western location, Moab, Utah. “It was about a leopard, so I hired a cat containment crew to build a 10-foot chain link fence outside of camera range. We’d light the scene and lock ourselves in trucks while the trainers brought out the leopard and the actor. We were basically working in a state of panic and fear the entire shoot.”
A far more common sight in the UPM’s universe are rattlesnakes. “There’s quite a few rattlers in the lower desert areas, and they’re considered sacred by the Indian tribes. You never kill a rattlesnake, you simply remove them.”
Walpole’s favorite spot is Bonanza Creek Ranch, just north of Santa Fe. He has brought shows such as The Far Side of Jericho and Undead or Alive to the location, where not a single phone line or high-voltage wire can be seen for miles. “It used to be all about the landscapes and Western scenery,” he notes, “but now we’re seeing more urban stories coming into Albuquerque.”
By David Geffner
By David Geffner
Photos by Brian Davis, Bob Rives, Lewis Jacobs