Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1491103
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y I S P R I N G 2 0 2 3 23 You've done your first major motion picture. You've done a major television show. You have the two things on your résumé that are essential to get further work, right? What was next on the horizon for Peter Devlin? When I think of going into Kinko's and trying to build that résumé, how do you expand it out? Now everybody is spoiled with IMDb. But I think I was using my experience at the BBC significantly to kind of pad that early résumé, along with Superboy and Christopher Columbus. But Barry Waldman was producing another TV series in LA called Dead at 21, which was to be MTV's first dramatic series. It was a nonunion show and very fast paced. It was interesting being out in Los Angeles for that series. Then I heard about a movie that was going to shoot in Miami called Bad Boys and tried to figure out how to get my résumé in front of the producers. I think I left a voicemail and basically said, "Yeah, I'm here in Los Angeles." And I pressed the fact I was in LA working on a television series at the moment but, "I live in Florida and I hear you're doing a production of Bad Boys." So, I think the fact that I was working in LA but could work in Miami may have piqued their interest. I got a phone call back and got offered the job. That approach and confidence sure paid off! Bad Boys was so hugely significant because it was working with Michael Bay and that was a film I can remember. And, again, Kevin Cerchiai was my utility and David O'Dell was my boom operator. But I was so impressed with Michael. He had come through the commercial world and here was a director that was working fast and had this energy. We just had to figure out how to produce what I felt were pretty good tracks. And this is in the days of two-track recorders. Oh, the days of two-track! I remember always trying to figure out, "Well, what's the next big thing?" And I remember asking Sony, "If I'm recording this on a timecode Nagra, can I have a DAT machine as well?" And they gave me a DAT machine. And there's a scene in Bad Boys where they start ad-libbing and it wasn't scripted. They start singing the old Bad Boys [TV show] theme and I just watched the quarter-inch tape roll out. And [that singing is in the movie] because I had the backup. That was on the DAT and not on the quarter-inch tape. Thank God I was running a backup! Oh my gosh! What a horror story—and on one of your first large productions! From the likes of this, I would consider Bad Boys being your sort of breakout, "move to the next level" kind of movie. Yes, it was definitely able to open a few more doors for me. Joel Silver came into Miami to do a movie called Fair Game which was an easy job to get on the back of Bad Boys. On Blood and Wine with BBC colleague David Kilpatrick With boom op Ricky Alvarez in Malta on Christopher Columbus: The Discovery Recording Jacques Cousteau