Production Diary: Day 7

Jesus Christ, was this a bad week.

Looking back, I think my biggest mistake was giving up my day off. We only get one a week, and I volunteered to spend mine taking equipment back to Jersey in a poorly-planned run we didn't even really need to take a truck for. I'm sure this is what led to the three horrendous low points that defined this week.

NYC DMV? SIAS.
E.B. White said wars never happen for just one reason, but for a whole mess of reasons. And my driving instructor at the JCC said car accidents never have just one cause, but result from a series of mistakes any one of which, if prevented, could have prevented the accident. Managing to get my car towed was like that.

I am charged with driving the lead car for an actor the next morning. The first problem is that the production office has left a message changing his call time from 8:00 to 9:00, but the actor hasn't called back to say he's gotten the message, so I have to show up an hour early in case he's ready to go then.

I pick up the rented car from the production office, I get to the area early, and I park legally a few blocks away for coffee and breakfast. Before 8:00, I pull the car around to Washington Square Park, and it is here that I make my fatal mistake.

I don't park directly in front of the actor's brownstone, I park around the corner because I didn't take the right approach to WSP and I didn't want to pull the car around in case the actor emerges from his building and I'm not there, and because I'm not parked in the right spot, I don't stay in the car. Aspiring PAs: STAY IN THE DAMN CAR. Man, do I wish I'd stayed in that goddamn car.


Now that we're all clear that this whole thing is my fault, we can finally get to the part that isn't my fault. My phone suddenly switches to something called "car kit". I can no longer receive or make phone calls, although I can see the calls coming in, so now I'm scrambling to find quarters and a pay phone and sending text messages to find out what's happening with picking up this actor. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I am still finishing my coffee.

Then I see an NYPD tow truck putting a hook on my car.

This is when I panic.

There is a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach. I start running towards the truck (throwing out my coffee on the way). Not for the first nor the last time, I contemplate the end of my young career in the film business. What am I going to do? Go back to writing for Bay Currents, Sheepshead's Bay's free semi-bi-weekly paper?

As soon as I reach the car, it becomes clear that I am already far, far too late. I make a pathetic display of trying to persuade the tow truck driver that there is some way for me to escape my horrible fate. If this scene were in a movie, it would be dismissed by critics as pointless, cliched, extraneous to the plot and too sad to be funny.

ME: I thought I was only going to get a ticket!
TOW TRUCK DRIVER: Oh, you got a ticket all right.

Soon the car is gone, leaving me with only the location of the tow pound, the car's registration, and a very few options. Arthur Miller said that a lot of playwrights make the mistake of not explaining why their main characters don't just run away. Personally, whenever I'm considering running away as an option, I always picture myself hopping the PATH train to Hoboken, N.J. Instead, I called the 2nd AD.

If you don't know much about the film business, the job of the 2nd AD is to have her patience tried. That's all she does, all day long. On paper, the 2nd AD is responsible for most of the paperwork that's required on set: actors' release forms, call sheets, stuff like that.

When a film shoots on location, that means the 2nd AD is working out of an office that is near the location, and by "office" I mean whatever the location department can dig up at the last minute. Basements, churches, a table at a Greek restaurant, the back of a pizza place. Our 2nd AD told me about one shoot where she'd worked mostly out of a car.

2ND AD: Richard, how are you?
ME: Bad. The car got towed.
2ND AD: What do you mean the car got towed?

I know we had a good 2nd AD because this phone call was as close as she ever came to losing her cool.

After this, it was "oh, these things happen," and my phone spontaneously started working again, and I got to ride to the set with the actor and it took two days and several hundred dollars of production money to get the damn car back, but I wasn't fired. Still, definitely a low point - and I sure as hell wasn't asked to drive a lead car again.