Why Grow Up?

(Note: Another that didn’t make the cut, this one from 2013)

Indeed

Making movies and television is hard work, involving long days and nights of seemingly endless toil, often in miserable conditions. Still, if there are plenty of bad days — and every show puts its crew through the wringer one way or another — we usually manage to have a pretty good time. Otherwise, I’m not sure there’d be a compelling reason to do this kind of work.

Although it can be a serious business involving tons of equipment, complicated logistics, and the relentless heat of top-down pressure, it’s all essentially make-believe. While cops, firemen, soldiers, and medical workers deal with very real danger and people in desperate trouble every day, we create elaborate illusions to portray a dramatically enhanced illusion of real-world life on screen. We can even make the work days of a lawyer appear sexy and dynamic — and from what I’ve been told by the lawyers I know, that’s a huge stretch of the truth. But for all the body-wracking effort, stress and sweat that it takes to create these illusions, working on set can be fun.

I was reminded of this by a co-worker who sent me a copy of a memo and response saved from her time working on the feature Charlie's Angels back in 2000. You’ll appreciate it more knowing that the term “L&D” stands for “Loss and Damages,” and that one of the film’s stars, Lucy Liu, apparently experienced a moment of confusion at the wheel of an expensive picture car during the filming.

The unofficial statute of limitations has probably long since expired, but I’m taking no chances: names have been redacted or shortened to protect innocent and guilty alike.

Here’s a little glimpse of life on a big, expensive movie.


“Charlies’ Angels”

To: All Crew Date: 3/23/00

Re: L&D

FYI: Loss and damage to date. We will occasionally update this list as necessary. Read it and weep.

Construction: $ 2,446.00
Set Operations: $ 238.00
Special Effects: $ 1,870.00
Set Dressing: $ 799.00
Props: $ 1,838.00
Wardrobe: $ 1,916.00
Electric: $ 6,769.00
Camera $ 1,786.00
Sound: 0
Transportation: $ 12,044.00
Picture Cars: $ 36,365.00
2nd Unit Camera: $ 396.00
2nd Unit Sound $ 1,407.00

Total: $ 67,874.00


You can imagine the bemused derision with which this memo was greeted by the crew. Some of the more creative among them wrote and distributed the following unofficial response.

Charlies’s Angels Semi-Annual Loss and Damages Tournament

To: All Below the Liners

Dear Foot Soldiers of BTL;

With the publishing of yesterday’s halftime results in the“CHARLIE’S ANGELS LOSS AND DAMAGES TOURNAMENT,” I would like to take a moment to warn our “Below the Line” teammates against fostering some false sense of security.

Although a midway total of $67,874.00 might sound impressive, you have to be one hamburger short of a Happy Meal to think we have a chance of matching our “Above the Liners” in the Total Funds Wasted Tourney. Facts are, we are being toasted by TEAM ATL. In order to avoid a complete rout, I offer a few simple observations.

First of all, Picture Cars and Transportation... you’ve put more points on the board than anyone else combined, but this is no time for gloating and showing off. By my loose calculations, Lucy “Where’s the Brake” Liu would have to ram at least 20 more Gullwing Mercedes into at least 20 more collector Ferraris to match the $2,000,000 in overruns due to scheduling difficulties incurred by hiring her in the first place. “Above the Liners” have outscored you 40 to 1, so wipe that silly grin off your face!!! Word around the TEAM ATL water cooler is that you guys are strictly bush league.

To the slackers in the Sound Department. What gives? Looking past the big game to the Oscars???? Willie, Marv, Bob... where’s your enthusiasm!!!!! My suggestion... by merely pouring one measly cappuccino over the sound equipment you can up your L&D contributions to $23,000. I know this pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of dollars we will willingly spend next week shooting scenes at the Gala that will never even be in the movie, but hey, what the hell. You guys have coughed up nothin’ but goose eggs. I want to see some points on the board... Now, Dammit!!!!!

To the rest of you... what can I say? The truth is never easy, but we may not have the gray matter or guts to start a multi-million dollar production that has no viable third act, thus paying millions of dollars to a small army of “$800,000 a pop” writers to “fix it” while the production paints itself into a corner and stalls daily as scenes get made up “on the fly.” Fact is, we’ve been routed from the field. The 68,000 points we’ve managed to muster is a drop in the ocean to the TEAM ATL juggernaut. We must have been dreaming to take the field against a team whose motto is “GO BIG OR GO HOME.”

Remember, the winners move onto face an imposing opponent in the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2 production team.

That crew knew how to have some fun while sticking a retaliatory shiv between the ribs of a UPM who saw fit to point out the relatively minor financial damages incurred by the below-the-line crew, while conveniently ignoring the truckloads of money squandered by those higher up the food chain.

Well played, ladies and gentlemen: it makes me wish I’d been on that crew.

***********************************************

PS: A brief 2026 addendum here, underlining the current reality of working in Hollywood. I’d have thought being a successful writer with several shows under one’s belt might be enough to keep a guy working, but — like Bogey’s “Rick Blaine” in Casablanca — I was misinformed.