Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/908245
Doing that newsmagazine work during that time, that's when you met her? Yeah. There was a pilot for a newsmagazine show that never aired that was shooting outside of Dallas. I was still living in Dallas at the time. And they needed an all-female crew and there was a DP in New York that I'd worked with a lot, Alicia Webber. She was fantastic. And so she came down and a mutual friend of Simone's had known Alicia and recommended Simone to come and gaff this thing. Oh wow! I love hearing these stories of the coincidental meeting of people who become such permanent fixtures in our lives. So anyway, we all met in Dallas. Doing this show. That is truly amazing. Yeah, it was, yeah. Congratulations on 22 years together! Yeah, it seems to have worked out! I sold my house nine months later and moved out here [Los Angeles]. I always wanted to work in the movies. I'd wanted to transition into doing that. And there were just no openings, really. I could have come out here not knowing anybody I guess. And when I first came out here, I continued to do some of the news stuff—also behind-the-scenes stuff, getting on a few movie sets. I knew Bob Wald. He helped me loads. He's great. I could call and ask him all the stupid questions that you're too embarrassed to ask anybody. Like you really don't know? Just dumb things. He was really, really great. Would you put Bob Wald in the mentor category? Absolutely. I would put him and I would put Bill Kaplan in that category. Bill has been so super good to me over the years. He calls and he says, "This is your agent calling." Yeah, he's been super, super sweet. I talk to Amanda Beggs often and I know he's pretty good buds with her and she says a lot of the same things about him. Such a good guy and a huge help. Yeah, he's been really good with her, too. And he's that way. He's just awesome. He'd always have me come do second units and just getting that exposure that's needed, you know. And I'll never forget this … It was many years ago. Somebody had called him about this movie in New Mexico and he wasn't able to do it and he said he was going to give them my name. So he called and asked me about my availability. And I said okay, great. I'd love to go out and do it. Twenty minutes go by. He calls me back and he says I had no idea you being a woman was such a big deal. Well, when Bill Kaplan recommends you for something, people tend to listen. But I never heard a peep, not a peep from them. Well, as I said to Bill, welcome to my world. I mean, welcome to our world. It's so much better now. So much better because so many women—Amanda [Beggs], great example. There are so many women coming up and doing it and doing great work. And in many cases, even better, more meticulous and because when I first started, the few women that were doing it, you couldn't say no to anything. Whatever you were doing, you had to wear that flak jacket and sneak up with the rest of everybody. You couldn't complain about anything. You just had to do it or you better, by God, be good at it because if you're not—I mean talk about the scrutiny. That was always in the back of your mind. We all had to step up. You had to really get it right. It's bad enough sitting there with Mike Wallace, but to screw up, no, no, no. It wasn't an option. It was an option, but you'd never ever be back. You'd never work again for those people, that company, because it was very easy for them not to want a girl. You have an impressive list of feature film credits. Do you have a favorite movie title that you mixed that sticks out in your memory that you want to talk about? There are two off the top of my head: Gods and Monsters way back when. It was such a great group of people and the acting was amazing and to be able to watch that happening with those actors was really amazing. And then Nightcrawler. You know, we busted our asses on that movie and it was not easy. It was probably one of the hardest I've ever done. But I was proud of what we got in the end. I was proud of our work and that really, it paid off. This movie I just finished, Hotel Artemis, I'm curious about how it's going to turn out. Sometimes you really Second unit additional photography for The Greatest Showman.