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I should have known I was lost when I saw the cow. On paper, the assignment sure seemed simple enough: rendezvous at the ultra top-secret location, aka "Wes Thompson's Rifle Range," at the appointed time, approximately 11:00:00am PST. Yet, the maze of canyons and back roads that prevented your intrepid report from reaching his destination would prove a tougher adversary than I ever have dared thought. Since the closest I get to "roughing it' is backpacking to Wal-Mart, the low growl of the wind that tumbled over the hills and through the valleys hissed at me like a rattlesnake, raising the hairs on the back of my neck at least a foot off my skin. No friendly Mobil oasis, no Burger Kings, not even a dilapidated gas station with a fruit cart nearby. All there was was me, the barren landscape...and a cow.
I thought again of turning back, but no, I had to press onward. I mustered my courage and stared down the cow, and my poker face must have worked because he eventually backed away. Dammit, I would soldier on; a story is a story, and this one must be told! And whether it be by luck or fate, my sense of direction got back on course, and I eventually spied my destination. I soon arrived at the covert location, albeit over 3 hours late. Having survived the cow, I felt I could surmount anything, but the best was yet to come. The life of a DVDFILE reporter can be a dangerous one, and this is my story, my brush with guns, explosives...and massive firepower! WES THOMPSON'S RIFLE RANGE - 12:57:43pm PST By the time I arrived at the assigned destination, the location was already buzzing with activity, the day nearly halfway finished. From afar, the scene looked like something out of a disaster flick. Gun shells littered the ground, with glass, wood and other shards strewn all around, victims of multiple gunshot wounds. And this was even before the next day's shooting, when a car would be brought out only to be blown up! The sound of gunfire had greeted my drive up to the parking lot, and if I didn't know this was a movie shoot, I'd have called the police myself. But this wasn't the scene of some bloody carnage or mindless criminal rampage, but just a days work on Columbia-TriStar and Organa Productions' Damage Control. Designed to be a digital multi-angle demonstration of the firepower as seen in the 1995 Michael Bay hit BAD BOYS (soon to be reissued as a new special edition from Columbia-TriStar Home Video, of course) I had been invited down by Organa for this on-set visit to get a behind-the-scenes peek at the making of a real-live DVD featurette.
And as one would think with a title like Damage Control, any production featuring gunshots, explosions and shattered glass requires a strong director, someone to guide the production from start to finish (as well as make sure no one gets hurt!) At the helm of Damage Control was Morgan Holly, who also just so happens to be of the foremost producers of DVD and Laserdisc supplementary content since the birth of The Criterion Collection in the late 80's. With 12 years of experience in interactive content development, video production, and post-production, Holly would begin his career in 1988 at the tender age of 19, making him perhaps the one and only true "wunderkid" of the laserdisc and DVD industry. Starting as Technical Director of the Voyager Company, he worked on the first consumer entertainment CD-ROM and directed production for numerous Criterion Collection special edition Laserdiscs. His experience in all facets of interactive production and collaborations with filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Terry Gilliam, and Martin Scorcese on dozens of award winning laserdiscs would lead to the foundation of Organa, an electronic publisher specializing in interactive fiction and pioneering work with Apple QuickTime VR (Virtual Reality) technology for web-based productions. In 1997 he joined the Cinram/POP DVD Center as Director of Operations, and has supervised the production of 300 DVD titles for clients including Columbia-TriStar, MGM, New Line, Pioneer, Alliance, Criterion, Artisan, Bandai, and Trimark. Not a bad little resume, eh? After making my way up to the set, introductions were in order with Holly and the crew, and time to discuss the focus of the project and what the demonstration would entail. Guns, Michael Bay and BAD BOYS are an obvious match, but why this particular production for this particular DVD? "Damage Control was the name of a project I was trying to get off the ground about five years ago before DVD was hot," Holly explained. "The plan was to use QuickTime VR object movies of spectacular events filmed with multiple high-speed cameras." This QuickTime VR "object architecture" was cutting-edge at the time (and very expensive), but could allow users to control such events not only in a linear fashion, but through time and space as well. But laserdisc technology of the time couldn't quite keep up, and the web wasn't really up to speed either. With costs remaining prohibitive, Holly's pet project would have to lie dormant... But with the incredible success of DVD and rapid advances in technology, flash forward five years and Damage Control would become a reality. Working with Holly's sister/wife team of Alita Holly and Julia Jones, they found the perfect vehicle in BAD BOYS and an eager Columbia-TriStar took on the project. Since BAD BOYS is a movie about big guns and even bigger explosions, "it was a perfect opportunity to illustrate the difference between stage guns used with squibs and guns firing real ammo." With Alita and Jones producing and Morgan directing, Columbia head of production Michael Stradford greenlighted the project, and now here I was standing amid scores of bullet shells and broken glass. Damage control, indeed! FUN, GAMES...and GUNS - 1:13:28pm PST With introductions done, it was time to go back to work. Perhaps my most vivid memory of the day was my introduction to the "weapons van," a full stocked array of metallic monstrosities. Quite simply, the variety of weaponry and amount of ammunition on display was rather staggering. Small guns, big guns, short guns, long guns, guns that you can hold comfortably in the palm of your hand or those that even Rambo might need a hand with, they were all there. About the only type of gun missing was a squirt gun! And the poor victims of all this carnage? Innocent fish tanks, water bottles and fruit. Shouldn't the Society For Prevention Of Cruelty To Vegetables been on the set to monitor the activity? The "semiautomatics" were perhaps the scariest weapons, firing off so many rounds in just a few short seconds that I have to admit I wanted to run and cower behind the outhouse in terror. As I had never been around guns nor explosives in my life (well, outside of that lame "Backdraft" ride at Universal), I was surprised that you can feel their formidable power even from tens of feet away. You don't want to get too close to a semiautomatic machine gun when it is in use, let me tell you!
But any kidding aside, guns are no laughing matter. When producing any type of film or video project involving dangerous firearms, safety is the number one priority. Safety goggles are to be worn at all times, and no one gets anywhere the sides nor in front of any weapon being fired. The minute a shot is lined up and and the shot is about to go off, watch everyone run for cover! Talking with leading armourer, ammunition and weapons expert Michael Papac, I learned a great deal about basic gun safety. Having served as armourer and property master on over 20 major Hollywood productions, including the LETHAL WEAPON and DIE HARD series, JOHN CARPENTER'S VAMPIRES, CON AIR and ENEMY OF THE STATE, Papac was on the set at all times to supervise the accurate and proper usage, of all weaponry. "You don't want to misuse a gun," Papac said to me, almost paternally (and while loading a semiautomatic!) I'll trust him on that one... |
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As
the sweat began to drip from my palms that clutched
the steering wheel, I thought about giving up and turning
back. The evil cow continued to taunt me, and for a
second I wondered. "Is this all just a cruel joke?
Was I sent here under false pretenses by some irate
studio head, angry over one of my bad reviews? Would
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence suddenly jump out with
guns blazing, the cow merely a Trojan Horse in disguise?
Or worse, would this future Sunday night special at
Sizzler suddenly bellow 'I see dead people'!?"
Like
any film set, there always seems to be four or five
more people than would seem to be required, yet at the
same time there is never quite enough hands available
when you need them. Lights, equipment and cables snaked
everywhere, and on the surface like all movie shoots
it seems like the best description one can make is that
it is "organized chaos." Since my years as
a USC film school grad had only recently past, it was
like old home week, though luckily this time I wasn't
forced to be a PA (Production Assistant). Thank god
no one asked me to fetch them coffee!
