Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1061972
30 CINEMONTAGE / Q4 2018 MY MOST MEMORABLE FILM into the industry. "A producer walked into the boutique and instead of saying, 'Can I help you?,' I said to him, 'I want to work in the film business,'" she confesses. "Luckily, he was a producer who introduced me to Dino Conti, Dino De Laurentiis' right-hand man." Parker learned that De Laurentiis would soon be producing a remake of John Ford's The Hurricane (1937) in Bora Bora. "My parents happened to be going to Tahiti on their 25th wedding anniversary," she says. "I explained to them that I must join them on their trip because I was determined to get a job on the film." As soon as she arrived, she managed to secure a meeting with De Laurentiis. "He said, 'I have a lot of problems,'" Parker recounts. "I said, 'Well, if you have a lot of problems, you need me.'" She joined the film, eventually titled simply Hurricane (1979), as a costumer. Upon returning to Southern California, Parker began working with Sound Trax, a post-production house run by Jeremy Hoenack. As an account executive, her job was to steer projects to the company, but in the process she received an education in filmmaking. "I was introduced to post-production sound — the sound effects, cut effects, Foley and ADR — in his little studio," she relates. "He said, 'This is what we provide on films after principal photography.'" Parker brought in Mel Damski's Yellowbeard (1983), a comedy starring Graham Chapman, Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman, and began to learn to do Foley on the swashbuckling film. "I'd have to find props, so I went in my parents' garage and found a golf ball retriever in my dad's golf bag, and I used that to help with the telescope," Parker says. The experience proved revelatory. Now, when Parker visits a dentist's office, she listens for the sounds generated by the tools. If she hears the rustling of jewelry on someone nearby, she wonders what kind of bracelet the person is wearing. "I'm always listening," she comments. "It kind of made it cool for my whole life." After leaving that job, Parker ran a casting company in Santa Barbara, and also produced corporate communication films and commercials in San Francisco, but longed to return to the creativity she had found on Foley stages. "I was fortunate to find two Foley artists, Alyson Dee Moore and Patsy Nedd-Doski, who were looking to train someone they could work with," she explains. "It was just like I struck gold at that point." In 1987, she teamed with Moore and Nedd- Doski to work on episodic television and miniseries, including the Western Lonesome Dove (1989) and David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks (1990-91). "We would go to all the great Foley stages all over town — Ryder, Disney, Directors Sound — which we need more of now," Parker reflects. "We brought our bags of shoes and specialty props. Alyson and Patsy made room for me in the Foley world, for which I am so grateful." Yet Van Damme also had a part to play in Parker's career evolution. After meeting Fisher at Glen Glenn Sound (later Todd-AO), where she, Moore and Nedd-Doski were then working, the Foley artist received the assignment to work on Kickboxer. "I was just a year or two in," Parker comments. "I was lucky to have the opportunity to work on an action film like Kickboxer." During the Foley session on the film, she collaborated for the first time with Foley editor Karola Storr. "We clicked," Parker recalls. "It was extremely significant to work on that show with her. She was just a champion of Foley in sound." As Storr sat with the re-recording mixer in a booth, she would use the talkback button to communicate with Parker about the meaning behind a particular cue. CONTINUED ON PAGE 33 Nancy Parker in 1989 on the Disney Foley stage for A Mother's Courage: The Mary Thomas Story.