18 dga quarterly
PHOTOS:
(CLOCKWISE,
TOP
LEFT)
PHIL
BRAY;
NIKO
TAVERNISE;
BRIAN
DAVIS;
KRISTINE
LARSEN;
MARCIE
REVENS
ON THE JOB
|
ADs & UPMs
Xochi Blymyer
1ST AD
"
I learned that the crew will totally
support you [as a 1st AD] if you give
them information and ask for their help.
If you work as a team, when you don't
know something you can always figure
it out and get the job done.
"
Doug Torres
1ST AD
"[On Delivery Man] we had to maximize having
20,000 people inside Madison Square Garden
[for a Knicks game], so I broke it all down with the
announcer on the PA system. Each time I raised a
finger he would tell the crowd how to react, so they
became a character in the film."
NOW
Assistant directors and UPMs, past and present, reflect on doing their jobs.
David Webb
1ST AD
"[For Argo] we locked
down many blocks of
downtown Istanbul,
and had these massive
traffic jams. We had
thousands of extras to
portray this city on the
edge of anarchy. It was
incredible to re-create
this moment in history
that was so iconic and
yet so chaotic at the
same time."
Jeff Okabayashi
1ST AD
"I was a 2nd AD on
Armageddon, and in
one scene we were
shooting underneath
the NASA space shuttle
while engineers installed
the protective tiles to pre-
vent it from burning up
after re-entry. There are
times with this job when
I've literally pinched
myself knowing no one
else gets to see this."
Kathleen
McGill
UPM
[You make the
movie twice.]
"Once in prepro-
duction, where the
locations, budgets,
casting, etc., get all
the creative juices
flowing, and then
again for real, when
the machine takes
over and it's all about
deal-making and
staying on budget.
Those are two dis-
tinct phases and I
enjoy them both."
