Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1011374
25 From top: Crew on his first multitrack gig, 14 ball players and two DA88's. Nike commercial for Joe Pytka in San Francisco; in the late '80s (from left) with Tom Stern by the arc, Jane Hampton, script, Roger Daniel, mixer, and Crew. ing interest of film within me. With parental pres- sure to go to college, the Vietnam War spinning out of control, and a very motivational mandatory draft, I discovered that there was a thing called "Film School." Not the ubiquitous film schools of today, at the time there were only three: NYU, UCLA, and USC. It took me a year at ASU to get my grades up, but with some hustle and a lot of luck, I got into the USC School of Cinema in 1971. I had found my calling. The USC Film School was a nerdy endeavor in the eyes of the student body back then, until the release of American Graffiti by fellow Cinema School alum George Lucas during my second year. All of a sudden, everyone knew and thought highly of our little dilapidated barn and stable complex on the corner of campus. What a deep dive I took. We lived, breathed, and endlessly dis- cussed cinema. I watched at least two films a day from every genre and era. A very talented group of professors like Mel Sloan, Ken Miura, and Drew Casper engaged and enlightened us. We had to make many films, write a screenplay, and learn the nuts and bolts of the gear. Film cameras! Sound recording on Nagras with microphones! History & criticism! Editing ... sweet editing. A filmmaker's last chance to make a story into something. That hands-on creativ- ity is what I loved the most. That was going to be my choice of career path after college. I would become an editor and of course, some day a director.... After USC, I landed a job at Wexler Films (not related to Haskell or Jeff) that made medical and health- related shorts for high school education departments. I was an 'assistant editor,' but really a PA. On shoot days, I did everything needed, including the sound recording for interviews on a Nagra 4L with a 415 or Sony ECM 50 lavs. I loved production shoot days and these interactions lead to other sound gigs. Soon I was sound recording on docs, interviews, and low-budget films. I also started booming for other mixers which seemed very natural to me as I had the coordination and enough sound knowledge to get it going. Looking back, the progression was a steady one. I went from working on drive-in-level Corman films, to a John Cassavetes movie (Opening Night), to Albert Brooks' first film (Real Life). For the first thirteen years of my career, I pursued films above all else and landed some good ones. I was fortunate to get better and better movies and experi- ence with some of the best mixers of the day, Jeff Wexler, Jim Webb, Art Rochester, and Keith Wester. Between all the films that I did, I boomed for many good commercial mixers, but mostly Roger Daniel. As much as I appreciated the work, I wasn't a fan of com- mercial shoots. No one whoever went to film school wanted to do commercials. Films were the goal and I did about as well as possible thanks to Jeff Wexler and Don Coufal mentoring me. Thankfully, Roger continued to hire me between films and showed me many of the valuable aspects to com- mercials that I had overlooked. Like the time/money ratio. It all came into focus for me in 1986. I was thirty-five years old with a wife and two kids under five years old that I loved and I wasn't able to be a full-time father and husband for. That year, I was on location for nine