Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1525020
After three colleges, I ended up at UCLA, headed toward medicine, neurology. When Vietnam came along and without explaining my politics here, I went to Paris. I had signed up for a standby, UCLA film program. A Chinese production company accidentally got ahold of that student wait list. They needed a DP for their anamorphic, 35mm, color feature film. Not understanding what they had, I got a call to be their DP. Of course, I said yes. Hello showbiz! I studied the Mitchell Rack Over camera manual all night; how to thread the film and how to view in the rack over position. I practiced the wheels of a gear head, with my hands in the air, by trying to track a fly in my room. That was a wonderful, learning experience. That the producers could barely speak English helped. I soon went into a little company that did government contract documentaries and training films. I was given a plane ticket, a tripod, a 16mm sound camera, a Nagra 3, and then a Nagra 4L, a lavalier and a Mickey Mole Richardson, four-light combo kit. I got to capture hundreds of stories all over the United States. I even worked for the Deptartment of Defense and made political spots for President Nixon and The White House. At that point, Roger Corman was seeking out UCLA film graduates, to work on his super low-budget, super basic nonunion, super almost-no-pay feature films. We made features for one client who owned fifteen drive-in movie theaters; they were just for his drive- ins! I have a history of doing sound on some and camera on others. I recall doing a series of prison films with Jim Brown, the football star. The crew were mainly UCLA film students. We had studied the crafts of most departments … hair, makeup, wardrobe, grip, electric, camera, props, set decoration, etc. Most people knew little about sound, other than we used a boom. We would do something called "rotation" on the set. Every forty-five minutes, someone would blow a whistle and we would change job positions. We could do it all, we were young filmmakers! Earl Sampson and I were film students together at UCLA. Earl was my Boom Operator on one hundred nineteen films. Roger Corman's office called, asking me about an upcoming feature, and if I want to do sound or camera? I knew to ask what the positions paid, before I answered, "Sound $600 a week all in, DP $250!" I asked if they would please explain that crazy difference … "no prestige in sound, we just have to pay, for camera it's a stepping- stone position!" I chose sound, for the money! My career's future was defined, as I hung up the phone. I did dozens and dozens of nonunion films: disco, Westerns, race car films, some in 3D. I learned the craft of filmmaking. I made two feature films myself, only with one other person, Susumu Tokunow. We wrote, shot, recorded, edited, mixed, scored, had prints made, did lobby one-sheets for advertising, bought film reels and shipping containers. I hand-carried my films straight to projection booths, at several theaters. Susumu and I made a releasable, 35mm, sound feature film for $3,200, all in! We learned the entire process. Then, when the negatives and prints were stolen from the labs by underworld film distributors, we learned even more about the film business. Jeff Wexler CAS and I teamed up with an attorney and sued for a teeny, legal window, to join the sound Local. With the help of the late and great Haskell Wexler, we became Local 695 union members. Studio sound departments weren't keen on young, new, up-and- coming mixers, who hadn't put in their apprentice time. We both were harshly unsupported by our studios, at that time. Jeff's amazing Sound Starting as a DP Bill Kaplan on the set of The Morning Show