Production Wrap: Hereford, Texas

I got into Amarillo on Sunday night (October 2) about 10:30 p.m. En route, I watched a couple of Wendy's employees at DFW talking on cell phones while customers waited, including an American Airlines pilot. He was not pleased. I watched another employee squirt cleanser all over a full coffee pot. I called Wendy's 1-800 number, but nobody ever answered.

I'll refrain from going off about the freak that sat next to me on the micro-jet from DFW to Amarillo. Believe it or not, the arm rest can be shared. Remember the "Idiot Magnet?" This guy was a prime example. And he smelled bad. Our paths crossed again in an Amarillo restaurant.

Making Medicine

I was recently on another RR job in California, and the client referred to any obligatory consensus-building meeting as "Making Medicine." As politically incorrect as that sounds, it's applicable. As a producer, your first job is often to make medicine with any power brokers who are critical to the success of your job. This entails explaining the scope of the work, expressing your "wish list" for shots, equipment, schedule, etc., and basically obtaining buy-in and necessary co-operation for all aspects of the production.

So Monday morning I rolled into the Amarillo rail yard at 7:30 to meet with the man who could either help or hurt my chances of success on this job. I'll call him "The Mighty." The Mighty struck me as a typical railroad Roadmaster: smarter than the average bear, experienced, no-nonsense, stuck in middle-management. A roadmaster is a man or woman who knows how to use both ends of a shovel. He continually assured me that anything I wanted--all I had to do was ask. Nothing was off-limits. If I needed to shut down the TransContinental railway, we could do it.

This all ran counter to many of my previous experiences producing shows in this series. Normally I'm told, "We can't do that. Sorry." So then I make-do. Improvise. Get creative. The Mighty was offering me the keys to the kingdom to re-create this fatal accident. I showed The Mighty my storyboards, showed him a pre-visualization animation, and tried to explain that this would be a long, tedious and involved shoot. He smiled and nodded, and kept saying that this video had to be great. It had to be the best. Before I left to scout the locations at Hereford, I gave him a copy of my last video in the series.

Location Scouting


I found the crossing where the accident happened. I found the old Santa Fe railway depot where the men were based. I immediately noticed that the old depot sits about 30 feet from the Main Line, on which about 70 trains a day move in either direction at 70 mph. And when they go by, they blast their horns. Aside from that, you get track men and train crews coming in and out all day. The depot would not be a good setting for an on-camera interview. I went about looking for a location that would work. This means driving and looking. It's becoming a location manager.

I drove around the square looking for a good locale. I didn't see anything that struck me as suitable. I was also looking for places to shoot the actor playing the dead man driving to work. I found a great grain elevator with a painted Hereford sign, but they faced North and would always be back-lit. Finally, I pulled into the local cable operator's building. I thought they might have a studio we could use for the interview. They didn't. But, the man helped me develop or eliminate ideas like the local High School theater, a museum, the Deaf Smith County courthouse, and City Council chambers at City Hall. He also gave me some good tips for lunch.

The City Council chambers looked like the best bet. Windowless. Early 1980s decor. Quiet. But sterile. Somehow, I learned that there was a new Holiday Inn Express in town. I drove down there and rented a small conference room for $50.00. Problem solved.

Later, I met up with The Mighty at the depot. He wanted more specifics on what I wanted and needed. I told him I'd need a welding truck, a track panel, a car for my actor to drive to work in, some personal protective equipment for my crew and the actor, a train, a little manual track dolly or cart, a 60-foot man-lift, and some time on the track. I also told him I wanted 2 4x8 sheets of plywood stocked on top of each other and built onto a frame that would span the rails. And I wanted it painted bright green. What I described was a field green screen . Its purpose would be to composite my actor working on the rail with the train running right up on him.

What I would do is first place the green screen and shoot the actor in front of it. Then, I'd remove the actor and the green screen, but leave the camera exactly where it was set-up. Then, I'd run a train down that same stretch of track. In Post-Production we'd composite the two separate shots into one, seamless scene. "Done," he said.

I had to have the green screen built because the wind constantly blows about 30 miles an hour in the Texas panhandle. There's no way to take out a portable cloth green screen. It would take off like a sail.

The Mighty got me everything I would need. But, in the course of our meeting, it occurred to me that I needed to change my schedule. I needed to get the actress who served as my on-camera Hostess into Amarillo in time to shoot some of her on-camera on Tuesday. I called Sonya Van Sickle and her agent, Kim, at the Mary Collins Agency in Dallas, and we figured out a way to get her into Amarillo on Tuesday morning, in time to shoot on Tuesday afternoon.

On the way to the airport to pick up the talent, I stopped by Wal-Mart. There, I bought provisions for a three-day shoot: cookies, cheese and peanut butter crackers, water, Gatorade, ice, nuts, a cooler, and some additional wardrobe items for my actor. It was almost 4:00 p.m., and I hadn't eaten lunch. (Producing is so glamorous.) So I picked up a packet of nuts and a bottle of water. A video/film crew travels on its stomach. Based on past experiences, I knew that getting lunch this week might be a challenge. Some decent snacks and hydration would go a long way toward preventing terrible rioting. I also got my location scouting photos developed in an hour.

I picked up my crew at the airport. They had 7 cases and a magliner (cart) with them. We then picked up their rental car, the shoot's second. Over dinner, the sound man told me how he sometimes gets carried away and starts to direct. I assured him that I'd ignore him. Everyone laughed. Truth is, everybody on the set has some notion that they either know what you're doing, or they know a better way for you to accomplish what you are trying to accomplish. The big problems with this kind of unsolicited but usually well-intentioned input are many: the person doesn't know what they're talking about, you don't have the resources to execute their suggestion, they're not going to sit in the edit suite with you to 'make' it work. Soundmen and Techs are generally the worst about this. But don't go trying to tell them how to do sound or shade a camera. Noooo! (I try to be gracious in fielding these suggestions, but I seldom appreciate or use them. The caveat being that you don't want to ignore a good idea. And once in a while you get offered a good idea.)

My typical response to really hairbrained ideas is to ask the person offering such an idea if they are going to come sit with me in edit, and help me fix all the problems this idea will cause. It's a lighthearted approach, and it gets the job done. At least this sound man knew it was a potential problem and got it out there. (I will listen to good ideas, too.)



















I ended the day getting a cab for the actor, Julio Cedillo, from the airport, and making wardrobe selections with him in his hotel room at about 10:30 p.m.. Julio is from Dallas. He's been in about 40 films, but I think he's just hitting the big-time. He was in an industrial for me about 2 years ago. I was struck by his physical presence and professionalism. He actually succeeded in making a character in an industrial a real character--very hard to do. He recently starred as the title character in "Three Burials," a Cannes Film Festival Award winning film directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones. Check it out.

Shoot Day One:



















I hate 6:00 a.m. call-times. We grabbed a quick continental breakfast in the hotel lobby and drove :50 minutes to Hereford. At the depot The Mighty tossed me the DVD I had left with him yesterday. It was of the last "episode" in the series. I asked him what he thought. He just scowled and said, "Ours has to be better than this!" I don't even think he watched it.

We spent the morning shooting the "Dead Guy" character going to work and starting his day. Mid-morning we shot the interview of the surviving track-man. We got bounced out of our conference room at the hotel, and moved into a handicapped accessible room. It was fine. It might have taken longer to light because we literally had to crawl over furniture. The interview went very well. The guy was a Man about it--taking responsibility, living with the torment. Right at the good part, where he was getting just a little misty, a vacuum starts up in the hall outside. I went out and dispensed some currency to housekeeping to make them go away. It took me a while in my career to get to this point. This is strictly out-of-pocket producer money, but it's the best solution. Money does talk.

We ate a late lunch at a horrible place in Hereford. I won't further disgrace it by mentioning the name here. Slow service, bad food, overly familiar waitress. I spent most of the lunch hour and change on the phone co-ordinating other aspects of the shoot, going over some script issues with the corporate client, and getting word that the locomotive engineer who struck and killed the man agreed to an on-camera interview. Now, this guy was under no obligation to talk to us. He chose to talk to us. But I really needed this interview, and looked forward to talking to the man.

We spent the balance of the beautiful, bright, sunny, very windy and warm afternoon shooting my on-camera host, Sonya Van Syckle. We finally wrapped out about 6:00 p.m. and drove back to the hotel. I was all for eating on the way back, but the DP wanted to shower first. I used to be that way, too. Mr. Clean. And believe me, after a day of wearing a hard hat and getting buffeted by the dirty, panhandle wind, I want to clean up as much as anyone. But this trip back to the hotel, and the wait for the shower, made for a late dinner, and an even later evening before another early call time. After dinner I returned the crew to the hotel and made another Wal-Mart run to pick up sweatshirts, gloves and caps. The weather was going to turn and I was determined to be prepared for anything.

I also spent a couple of hours going over my script, storyboards, and schedule. I had to plan the shoot almost down to the minute. The next day I would shut down half of the Transcontinental line for 11 hours, have use of a train and train crew, have a 60-foot man lift, use the portable green screen, get a couple of dolly shots, and try to keep everyone happy. Precise co-ordination of shots with sun position was critical. We needed to shoot the green-screen with flat light to avoid shadows on it. We needed to maintain some sense of light/time of day continuity throughout the shots of the actual accident. We needed to shoot the man-lift shots before it got dangerously windy. We had to co-ordinate with several layers of communication regarding train movments, and we had to work and communicate over a very large area.

The time spent and late hour proved to be well worth the effort. I hit the rack about 12:30 a.m.

Shoot Day Two

Another 6:00 a.m. call time, and the crew dragged out to the vans about 6:15 a.m. An old DP friend of mine always says if you're on-time, you're :15 minutes late. In other words, being on-time at call-time actually causes you to run :15 minutes late. It's true every time. I'm going to start rolling back my call times to compensate for late crews.

I decided to take Sonya with us to Hereford. This was a tough call. She's getting paid either way, whether she sits in the car, or sits at the hotel. Since I didn't know what would happen with the weather or the railroad, I chose to take her so that if I got shut down in one area, I could always drag her out and shoot her portion, or record her voice over.

This is the day where I had to be ultra-organized. I had to incorporate the man-lift shots, the green screen shots, and shots involving the train itself. Then I needed to shoot other parts of the re-enactment. All the weather channels had predicted rain and about 55 degrees. When we arrived, the horizon featured a wall of menacing clouds. "We should have shot this yesterday!" the Mighty snarled. I can't afford to second-guess myself, so I ignored him.
Instead, the first half of the day proved to be sunny and bright, with relatively light winds. The temperature climbed to the low 80s.

We shot a couple of shots of the affected crew arriving for work, planning their work, and heading toward the tracks. We were also waiting for the locomotives to get there. I couldn't do much without them, but I shifted my schedule and got shots checked off my shot-sheet.

The train arrived about 9:30 a.m., and we immediately set up the man-lift. This would allow us to create a match-frame composite shot. Here's a link to a previsualization animation (hopefully). We had to shoot the men on the tracks first. Then, without moving the lift or the camera, we'd take the men out of the shot, and run the train through. We'd then composite these shots together and it would look as if the train rain over the actor. But I wanted to get these shots before it got real windy, both for crew safety, and to minimize camera movements between shots.

We shot the men on the track without a hitch. But, in backing up the train, they blew through a signal, which for some reason forced them to have to back this huge train about 6 miles West of town. It took almost an hour to get that train back, and in the meantime, my crew was stuck up on the man-lift. This was totally out of my control, but its impact would ripple throughout my day.

Finally, the train blew through and we got the shot. Moving on, we shot the green screen shots at the perfect time, and with the perfect light. And the green-screen was beautifully made. The clients even rigged up stabilizing wires that hooked to the railroad ties to keep it from blowing over. The also cut notches in it so it would fit over the rails. Incredible.

About this time, 1:30 p.m., lunch showed up. It was Dairy Queen cheeseburgers in a cardboard box. Again, it's a glamorous business. But, it was good and we were hungry. I'll also mention that there were no restroom facilities in this location. Every once in a while, a man would slip off to the windbreak for a few minutes. Sonya drove into town to find a restroom. I didn't get the chance to go between 6:00 a.m., and 8:30 p.m. that night. I was just too busy.

After lunch the weather started to change. The sky grew overcast. The winds really picked up. A few raindrops fell. I decided to push on and shoot all we could. I really worried about the continuity of the daylight throughout the edited video.
The temperature probably dropped 20-25 degrees in about an hour. We pulled out the sweatshirts and gloves I bought the night before, and shot until about 6:30 p.m.

Sonya stayed in the van all day--almost 13 hours. I felt really bad, but that's the nature of the business.
That night, dinner at the Big Texan Steak Ranch. Touristy, but fun. I'll write more about it later.
Again, I stayed up until about 12:30 a.m. planning the day's shoot, and every possible contingency.

Shoot Day Three

No question the weather had turned. The morning radar showed showers over Hereford. Luckily, I had succeeded in changing our schedule in order to permit us to shoot the Locomotive Engineer's interview at our hotel at 9:00 a.m., and meet The Mighty and the other employees at the accident crossing at 11:00 a.m. We had a 7:30 a.m. call time, and I think everyone really benefitted from the extra sleep.



We built the interview set in my hotel room. I called the engineer at 8:00 a.m., and he was there at the hotel at 9:00 a.m. It was one of the best interviews I've ever conducted. Very powerful.

We wrapped out and made it to the crossing by about 10:50 a.m., which wasn't bad. The weather had cleared, and we got to work. First, my actor, Julio, was supposed to cut a piece of steel rail with a hydraulic saw. He got a quick primer from the other employee, and then got to work.

The Mighty stopped him immediately and chewed him out for doing it wrong. He also told him that those blades were known to explode, sending shrapnel flying. This caused Julio to be a little tentative in his approach to making the cut. Remember, he'd never done this before.

What I think happened was that Julio quickly picked-up the technique, and was cutting like a pro in no-time. This made the railroaders look bad.

It sent the message that "Anybody Can Do This Job." But not just anybody could act. These men were visibly terrified by the fact that somebody off the street, with no training or skills, could do their job. That's why The Mighty jumped in and "showed him how it's done." To his credit, Julio handled the situation with tact and grace. If he had bristled, which he would have been right to, it would have created a really tense situation.

We picked up a number of miscellaneous shots, recorded all of Sonya's voice-over next to a very noisy highway, and dined on Subway sandwiches out of a box.

Now it was time to again take the tracks. The Mighty didn't like this idea. He approached me and said something like, "I'm not attacking you, and I don't mean to insult you, but you really got to get your s***t together. This can't be like yesterday. We can't shut this railroad track down for 11 more hours."

I wanted nothing more than to rip this guy's head off. I had my act together more than it's ever been before, and it's usually pretty tightly knit. But I just accepted his admonition and went about my business. It didn't matter what he said. I knew and my crew knew that we had accomplished a tremendous feat the day before through good communication, team work, and flat-out hard work.

I had :30 minutes to get about three shots on the track, including a very complicated, heavily choreographed dolly move.

Somehow we got them all done. We wrapped about 5:00 p.m., which was early. Just then, the rain started. "That's a Wrap!" I called.

We wrapped our gear and hit the road. The crew had a 7:40 p.m. flight and a :50 minute drive. Not to mention check-in and security with all of those cases. We had to stop at FedEx on the way. I didn't have room in my bags for 10 tapes, nor did I want to carry them through two airports. Sadly, I lost my project notes at the FedEx station.

But, we made the airport with time to spare, and the crew and I parted ways.

When you spend 12, 15, 18 hours a day with a crew and actors, you become like brothers and sisters, or even family. Upon leaving them at the airport, I felt lonely for the first time in a week. I'd worked so hard, and been so busy from morning until night, that I'd hardly had time to miss my family, even. I did in the moments between responsibilities, and certainly as I drifted off to sleep and upon waking.

But to be utterly alone after so much closeness...it wasn't a good feeling. I couldn't wait to get out of Amarillo. Even more, though, I couldn't wait to start editing this show. I felt like it was going to be great.