Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1491103
You took them up on it? You visited South Florida that summer? That's right! I flew out to Miami and stayed in Miami Beach. I can remember sitting in that hotel room and I called the production office and said, "Hi, Mr. Mann has invited me to the set of Miami Vice." I got a taxi down to the set and I can remember being ushered through security and being told, "Whatever you do, don't talk to the actors." And I said, "I'm not interested in the actors. I want to see what the sound crew are doing." So, I was brought over and I was introduced to Joe Foglia CAS, who was the production mixer. I spent the time with Joe, his boom man was Jeff Blender, and his utility was Vince Nuccio. They were terrific. It just gave me a very different perspective of how crews work in the US. Just the size of the production. They're shooting multiple cameras, they're rigging the cars of Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas with the Ferrari. And it was just kind of, it was mind- blowing. It was absolutely mind-blowing. The technology, the equipment, and also the size of it. I went back to Belfast having been changed dramatically as to, "Okay, now I want to work in America. Now I've got to figure out how to do that." So, I'm working with this amazing corporation, the BBC, which is a job for life, but I wanted to go in another direction and wasn't quite sure how to do it. What a challenging position to be in! It was around November of '87 and I was trying to figure out how to make this move to working in the industry. I got a phone call from Joe Foglia, who knew that I had an interest in working in the industry. He was pretty direct and said, "Look, if you want to work in the US, my company does a lot of commercials, independent films, industrials, you know? I'll give you the opportunity to work for the company. I'll be on Miami Vice for nine months of the year." I talked it over with my mum and I decided to take Joe up on that offer. I left Belfast in Christmas of '87 to go to Miami to work for Southeast Audio with the idea that I'll give it three years and if it doesn't work out, I'll go back and maybe the BBC will give me a job back, you know? I had a suitcase, $1,000, said goodbye to my mum, and headed off to Miami in Christmas of '87. Wow. That's a leap of faith! It was a leap of faith, but it was also, you know, when you look back, it was the right thing to do. I was leaving a great job and a great organization. But I knew that I wanted to work in the film industry. I wanted to work in America. I wanted to work in movies and television. People have said to me, "Well, what was it that got Michael Mann to say yes to you?" You know, it was 1987, it piqued his interest. It didn't take much for him to say, "Sure, let him visit the set for a day or two." But it absolutely was the catalyst that changed the course of my life. You can focus it on that one thing. It's really amazing. When you came to the US, it was vastly different than being at the BBC, working for Southeast Audio. What were some of the productions and experiences you started having when you were in the US? Well, it conditioned me for working really long hours, which I was not accustomed to. I can remember working in bank commercials, I did golf videos. But I was really fortunate to work on a television series for Alexander and Ilya Salkind, who would have been known for doing the Superman movies. They did a Viacom series from 1988 until 1991 called The Adventures of Superboy. That's where I kind of cut my teeth, working on that series. We did a hundred episodes with a great group of people and it was a lot of fun. It was a 30-minute show. Being in Belfast, I used to watch American TV, and on Superboy, we'd have all these guest stars that would come through from old TV shows I'd have watched as a kid back in Belfast. Doug McClure from The Virginian, Ron Ely from Tarzan, Britt Ekland and Stuart Whitman, and I would be like, "This is so cool!" Do you recall working on your first feature? Having worked with Southeast Audio in 1990, 1991, I had the opportunity to work on what would be really my first big feature, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, which starred Marlon Brando and Tom Selleck. After that, I was working kind of independently and did my first TV series for a show called Key West. It was to be the southern answer to Northern Exposure. It was 13 episodes, and Barry Waldman was our producer. My boom operator then was David O'Dell and Kevin Cerchiai was my utility, who would go on to have a long career working alongside me. 22 S P R I N G 2 0 2 3 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y