Q: How do you make a really, really independent (and scary) movie that is audience-worthy and marketable? A: Create a great story and tell it well.
I’m planning my movie with an absolute minimum of equipment and logistical complication. It’s not just a budget thing – I want this movie to have material and logistic limitations because it will force creative story solutions in a mother-of-invention sort of way. That doesn’t mean I don’t like cool stuff (must have Stedicam). This is like a Dogma movie, but without being dogmatic. Aside from a camera and a microphone, the two things you gotta have to make a movie are, 1) C-stands, and, 2) Gaffer’s tape (at least, that’s what I would pick). This brings us to the Way of the Grip.
Grips are cool. They have lots of gadgets. (Note: Grips are fun on weekends.) If you don’t already know, the Key Grip is the boss of the Grips. The Grips on a film set are in charge of mounting and moving the camera, whether it’s flying, floating, rolling, on a dolly, crane, or standing still. They are engineers, the rigging technicians who also shape and control light with all manner of ingenious equipment. (Not to be confused with the Gaffer, in charge of lighting, the actual lights, and electricity.)
Most of the trucks you see at a movie location are filled with grip and electric stuff (we haven’t done our budget yet, but I think we will be able to afford a grip/electric golf cart). Your typical movie requires serious equipment, and that’s when you go to Serious Grip & Electric – which is the name of Stewart Stack’s company (check out Serious History at www.seriousgrip.com). Founded in 1983 by a consortium of the world’s greatest minds, Serious Grip & Electric continues to serve the motion picture arts in the Baltimore/ Washington . . .
So but anyway here’s how I met Stewart Stack. I was fresh out of college and flat broke when I came limping into Baltimore and looked at the want ads in the Sun Paper. There was a casting ad for a movie called Polyester. I sent in a Polaroid and got a meeting with Pat Moran (that’s another story). Obviously I can’t act, but I am perfect intern material, so I end up driving Devine (the star) around, guarding the location (sleeping on the floor in a suburban house), getting coffee and other stuff during pre-production. During shooting I did a lot of different jobs too, and actually I did get to act. I played a dead accident victim, hanging out of a smashed-up van. Vince Peranio covered me in pig blood & guts. I didn’t have any lines, but hey, it’s a visual medium.
But the best thing was that Stewart, the Key Grip on Polyester, trained me in the Way of the Grip. The Way of the Grip is a sacred code, sort of a mixture of Abstract Expressionist, Ronin, Third Baseman, and Plumber. And after Polyester he even paid me to work on film shoots. Later when I moved to L.A., I gripped my way through grad film school. The pinnacle of my grip career: I was Key Grip on a B-movie shot at a sketchy drive-in theater in the desert outside of L.A. Ultimately, I broke the sacred code of the Way of the Grip by going over to Production. But I have always been a person of low character.
– david warfield
