Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1532010
C I N E M A A U D I O S O C I E T Y. O R G 21 C I N E M A A U D I O S O C I E T Y. O R G 21 So now you are booming for Dennis Maitland? I think I boomed less than a handful of movies with my father, and I was lucky to experience that you also sometimes go on location. At my age at the time, I thought that was dynamite! I'm making money, and the company is paying for me to travel. One of the highlights was going on location to Greece with John Cassavetes on Tempest [1982]. By that point, I was completely sold on going into the family business. But like I said earlier, I really only boomed about a handful of films with my father until he, essentially, gave me the boot and said that I needed to go work with other mixers to learn how they work. So, I had to go out and make some calls to find work. I floated around NYC working for different people, one of those notably was Les Lazarowitz. Do you have any memorable moments booming on those early jobs? I remember working on a movie called The Bell Jar [1979, directed by Larry Peerce]. The director had set up a five-page sunset walk and talk at a mental institution with two actors. We knew that we would only have maybe three chances to film it, so there was a lot of pressure all around. On take two, the camera operator said that my boom was in the shot and the director ran up to me and dressed me down in front of everyone. He was screaming and flailing his arms. I was mortified but felt that I didn't break the frame line during the take. You know how it feels after they say you were in the shot; you want to play it super safe, but you have a job to do. Somehow, I got through it and, thank goodness, we wrapped after that third take. The next day, I really had to force my way into the dailies screening room to see for myself as it was only for department heads, but I just had to be there. Eventually, we got to watching that take and to everyone's surprise, there was no boom in the shot. The director got up in front of everyone and apologized to me. That was quite a scene. Another fun experience was a movie called Nighthawks [1981, directed by Bruce Malmuth, et al.] where terrorists take United Nations employees hostage on the Roosevelt Island Tram. For two weeks, we would load into the tram and the city would let us film for three hours only. You had to bring everything you needed that day. The tram was only going out once. It was just the actors, director, camera operator, focus puller, sound mixer, and me. We would be up there dangling over the East River, grinding out these action scenes until we used up our time. At one point, Sylvester Stallone is in a helicopter that comes 50 feet away from us. I'm always awed by the things that we were able to do at work in NYC that nowadays would be considered illegal or impossible. The city itself has changed so much. I remember when I started working on films, during a night walk and talk, let's say, residents would pull out a chair and watch the process. I think people really marveled at the process back then. Nowadays, it's so every day, so common to see filming in the city, it's almost considered a nuisance. On A Bronx Tale [1993, directed by Robert DeNiro], we filmed in Astoria [Queens] for a few months. The first month we started filming, everyone loved us, and it was a great treat to have the circus in town, so to speak. By the second month, people were starting to get annoyed by all of it, with the production taking up parking spaces and shooting at night. One night, we might have been On a Fisher Boom on Tootsie With Paul Rothchild and Kyle MacLachlan on The Doors. Early days booming on the film The Bell Jar. The analog cable mess on one of our early music- based films. Mixing with my son Matthew on Private Parts.