Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1490686
34 I M PS E . O R G of the time, we become numb to the history, the magic and the power these movie studios have to civilians. It's a big deal to them to take a tour and an even bigger deal to be on the lot not on a tour. Invite a normal person to lunch on a lot and walk them around, they will love you, thank you, and have a day they will never forget. Introductions were made. Kiwi, this is my dad Jim Assells and my sister Maria, who all the fellows love. Dad, Maria, this is Kiwi, who does something important here that involves an office, people in suits and I think great sums of money. He also got us a cart to drive around. "Why do they call you Pee Wee? You don't seem so small." Aww, Christ, "No dad, it's Kiwi. You know, like from New Zealand?" And so it began... We hopped in the cart and I gave them the 10-cent tour. I explained it wasn't like the movie studios you see in the movies. This wasn't Blazing Saddles or Pee Wee's Big Adventure. You're probably not going to see a group of Centurions marching by or cowboys and saloon girls but LOOK! There's the gazebo from The Music Man! Look! The town from The Gilmore Girls (my dad asked, "From what?"). There's New York Street, there's the city street where all of those Warner Bros. gangster films were shot, over there's the Batman courthouse, there's the last standing set from Casablanca that Connie Kazmer, Brad and I had hunted down. This was Huell Howser's California Gold stuff and my dad and sister were eating it up. We arrived at the mix stage where we were finishing a reel that had an epic storm sequence which in this film wasn't unusual. All of the reels had epic storm sequences. We were welcomed by director Steve Quale, picture editor Eric Sears, supervisor Per, mixers Brad and Steve, music editor Kyle Clausen, dialogue editor wizard and master photographer from another country, Daniel Saxlid, stage tech Phil Lee hovering in the background and Darin Read, a post supervisor who was and is a well-liked good guy. Yeah, I know, all male crew. Sorry. While things 10 years ago had been changing, all male crews were and are still not uncommon, look at crew pictures even today. Embarrassing. No excuses. You cue up Helen Reddy's "I am Woman" and I'll cue up Brenda Lee's "I'm Sorry" because I honestly am. They all seemed genuinely happy to meet my dad and sister. My dad is from a more stoic generation and was quiet, polite and reserved. My sister Maria always seems to be immediately at home wherever she goes and has no trouble meeting new people being at once comfortable, charming and funny. We settled in and low and behold, I had sweeteners to cut. Woo-hoo! A chance to show my parking near the famous Warner Bros. Water Tower and could I meet them? I trotted over and there was my dad, my sister, and that sweetheart Kim Waugh. Kiwi had arranged a parking spot with my dad's name on it. No big deal to us, a printer, a piece of paper, a name, a parking spot. To my dad, it was a big deal. He was on the famous Warner Bros. lot where Bogie and Bacall had walked and he was parking in a spot with JAMES ASSELLS printed on it. This 90-year-old man who had lost his father at four years old, lived through the Great Depression, been a bombardier during World War II, worked on the Surveyor (the first thing we landed on the moon), lost a too-young wife to cancer, raised kids on his own, saw one of his sons off to Vietnam, lost a second wife to cancer and now here, this, a piece of paper with his name printed on it on a parking spot on a movie lot was a big, big deal to him. This was stepping behind the red velvet rope "right this way sir" stuff. He was excited. Just so adorable. I wanted to cry. The little things we take for granted. Being on these lots all Chris explaining to his dad how sweeteners are cut on the 2014 Warner Bros. film Into the Storm.