By Antony Teofilo
The idea of trust is implicit in the life of any film professional. Trust in the process, trust in the production, trust in the director's vision, trust in the writer's motives...these are all concepts that are understood in the mind of someone who works in the movies.
There's a different kind of trust that is more fascinating to observe first hand than all of these. Like Las Vegas, the idea that 'what happens here, stays here' is an unspoken rule that is implicit in the life of a production. Certainly, gossip and petty squabbles erupt over artistic differences. Exhausting days, and tight quarters, can flare tempers into explosive screaming matches that would burn even Andrew Dice Clay's ears. Everyone's got their war stories. These surface either during the inescapable down-time that occurs between takes, or, at the end of a day's shooting...usually in the hotel bar.
The strange thing is that names are never named. Enough information is given that the listener can always be sure exactly which petulant actress brought her flatulent dog to a tiny enclosed set, having fed him Hormel chili a half an hour before, steeping the crew in a day's worth of smelly dog poots pungent enough to peel crusty barnacles off an ocean steamer's hull. Or the eminent and well-respected (but a little too elderly actor) who, during an interview, fell asleep mid-sentence so soundly and still, the interviewer was afraid he may have just witnessed the quiet death of one of America's greatest icons. Not being able to talk about these things isn't just a matter of staying out of libel court, although that's probably got a little to do with it. Lord knows there's money in it. This writer was approached and offered a sum of money I could easily have paid my student loans off with for inside gossip on the Jersey Girl set. So why does everyone keep so tight lipped about the most interesting moments of the movie making process?
The truth is, the juicy moments are the ones that make it worth the long days, the meager pay, and a level of stress so intense it can cause a rash serious enough to send a crewmember to the hospital. Getting to see a world famous actor and two of his best friends goofing off and making bawdy jokes between takes...or watching a child-star playing with an educational toy, and for a rare moment, actually acting like a kid and not the miniature adult they're expected to be...witnessing first-hand a revelatory breakthrough in an actor's performance that's touching enough to move salty Union stagehands to tears...this is why it's so fun to hang out on film sets. This is why it's worth it to keep your mouth shut.
There is one guy, one member of a film's crew that has the goods on everyone, though not intentionally. Really, it's his job to be there catching every take, and the moments between them. He's called the Video Assist Operator.
Mounted in the film camera, there's an additional feed that is linked to a bank of computers that digitally record each take instantly. The Video Assist categorizes each take, and makes notes. If a director wants to see a replay of the scene he's just been watching before moving on to the next shot setup, all he need do is ask, and the video is played back immediately on the director's monitor. It's quite a timesaver, considering that directors used to have to wait a full day (or longer) for film to get developed so they could see what they'd captured, if it had worked, and if it needed to be re-shot. As you might expect, as well as the best moments of a film's making, he also gets the funniest, the most touching, and the worst.
What you see on the gag reel ain't half of it, son.
I spoke with JERSEY GIRL's Video Assist Chris Murphy about his job, and what it's like to be in a position to compile...
The World's Greatest Unseen Gag Reel
An Interview with Chris Murhpy, Jersey Girl Video Assist
By Antony Teofilo
Antony Teofilo: Tell me about your responsibilities to a production.
Chris Murphy: I record all the takes that we're filming for instant replay, on-set editing, and on-set reference. For instance if we're filming the first scene of the movie on the last day, we have to go back to the beginning of the movie to see what happened in the second scene to make sure that the actors' clothing and the way they look are similar to each other. It's also important for continuity. Let's say from the first scene to the second scene, an actor is walking with a bag. You need to make sure the bag's being held the same way, it's the same color, and all that other good stuff.
AT: I see a lot of blinking lights and heavy looking computer equipment here. What am I looking at?
CM: Essentially, we no longer record to tape. I back up on tape just in case, but I record all the video to a hard drive. I have two external firewire hard drives, and three internal IDE hard drives that I record to. We can also burn takes onto a DVD in case they need to be watched for reference in another location.
AT: Video is eats tons of space on a computer's hard drive. How many gigs of space do you have to record on?
CM: On the internal hard drives we have 320 gigs, externally we have another 240 for a little over five hundred gigs to record on.
AT: How many minutes of footage can you store in that amount of space?
CM: Each 80 gig drive can do about 1500 minutes. A lot of that depends on the compression ratio. Basically, you can fit the whole movie onto these hard drives.
Monitoring the...monitors - Chris Murphy hard at work on the set of Jersey Girl in downtown Philadelphia.
AT: Generally, do you work at a lesser compression ratio than you would for standard production, to save space?
CM: The quality of the video assist's tap, which is the camera inside the film camera that allows you to see what's happening, isn't all that good. That camera looks down the lens to give everybody else the same picture that the operator is seeing when he looks down his lens. You don't need to capture at a high resolution because you're going to get a bad picture either way. The taps have come a long way in the past several years but you're still not getting broadcast quality images.
AT: Did you build this system yourself?
CM: Yes.
AT: I've done a little work with getting a homemade computer to broadcast decent video, and it's not easy. How long did it take you to get all the components working together at a point you felt comfortable with the system's output?
CM: It's an ongoing process. Whenever something new comes out, you pretty much have to buy it to keep up with the technology. I didn't buy it all at once.
AT: How much money am I looking at sitting on this little cart?
CM: There's about fifty thousand dollars sitting there, and another fifty invested into my company.
AT: How did you get your start doing this kind of work?
CM: A friend of mine got called to do video assist on a movie, and he couldn't do it, and he told them to give me a call. I had never done it. I went to school for video, for TV, so I did know the equipment, but I hadn't used it in this application before. It was a trial by fire, but everything worked out very well, and all of a sudden I started getting all kinds of calls for work.
In The Big Boy Chair The Renaissance Man gets the rare privilege of sitting in the director's chair, watching live footage of JERSEY GIRL as it's shot and recorded on Chris Murphy's video rig.
AT: What advice would you have for someone who wants to get started in your line of work?
CM: Uh...eat your vegetables [laughs]. For anybody that wants to get into the film industry, you should always remember you can do anything you want in this industry if you put your mind to it. It helps if you go to college to have a foundation. Intern anywhere you can...not at an MTV-type place where you're not going to get hands-on experience. Intern at a production company where you're going get real experience. And networking. How you get into the business is all about contacts.
AT: What is the worst part about your job?
CM: The anonymity. As long as things are going fine, people don't realize what goes into it. As soon as they don't see a picture, people panic. So you're not noticed until something bad happens [laughs].
AT: What's the best thing about your job?
CM: You have all the outtakes from a movie. You get to work with every department. You work very closely with the director, the producers, and the camera operator.
AT: So, somewhere, deep down in your archives, you've got gag reels from some pretty big movies we on the outside could only dream of seeing?
CM: Yes. I've got a lot of people in a lot of [smiles]...situations...on this hard drive that are quite funny. I have actually been told by some people that they don't want any of that material to be seen somewhere else.
AT: Could any of that stuff from JERSEY GIRL end up as DVD extra footage?
CM: Absolutely.
You can check out Mr. Murphy's set-up at VideoVillage.com.
