Memoirs of a Movie Stand-in 021

In January 1997, when the Promised Land crew returned to work after our Christmas break, we shot episode 115, an episode about a homeless, runaway teenager. Our special guest was Thora Birch, who later became somewhat of a movie icon for her role in American Beauty.

Please Note: After I recorded the podcast, I realized that I was wrong about Thora Birch being featured in the ads for American Beauty. What can I say? I never saw the movie.

It was a new year and we were shooting with a new film format (or, at least, it was new to us). We had been filming the series in 16mm but, starting in 1997, we switched to a format called Super 16.

So, please join me for some memoirs about this episode, which was shot on location in Salt Lake City's Pioneer Park.
Follow this link in Google Maps. Also in this episode, I tell you why you'll often see rooms with closed curtains when you're watching movies. Plus, what's "dulling spray" all about?


Download the podcast episode here
StandinPodcast021.mp3
(Running Time 24:21)

Memoirs of a Movie Stand-in 020

For this episode, I'm going to take a break from talking about the Promised Land television series and, instead, I'll talk about something which happened more recently. Perhaps you heard a lot about actor Christian Bale's bad day on the set of an upcoming Terminator movie. This happened in the summer of 2008. He got upset with the Director of Photography and verbally tore him apart for several minutes. The whole thing was recorded and, just a little while ago, the recording was leaked to the public.

Well, I've witnessed similar incidents on movie sets in the past. No, there wasn't anything quite that intense, but the basic elements of the problem were there. So I decided to comment a little bit and analyze that situation, so that we can all better understand how to avoid such ugly situations in the future. So... it's a practical analysis and some worthwhile advice, if I do say so myself.

Download my podcast episode here...
StandinPodcast020.mp3
(Running time 30:38)

Memoirs of a Movie Stand-in 019

It's time to talk about Episode 114 of Promised Land, an episode about "a very important health issue." It was the last episode we did before our Christmas break at the end of 1996. We also had a cast and crew Christmas party at the time at a restaurant called Log Haven, in a canyon east of Salt Lake City.

Download this podcast episode here.
StandinPodcast019.mp3
(Running Time 25:23)

Apologies for a rough week

I'm afraid my hectic schedule has caught up with me this week. I'm going to skip producing a new podcast until next week. Until then, please enjoy a "rerun" with the podcast archives as you scroll down the page.

Memoirs of a Movie Stand-in 018

This time around, I'm talking about Episode 113 of Promised Land, the title of which was "Independence Day." Our special guests included Chris Burke and Jason Beghe. Also, find out what happened when crew members used foul language around the set of Promised Land.

Download Episode 18 Here
(Running time 26:39)

Memoirs of a Movie Stand-in 017

In this episode, I'll tell you about the production of episode 112 of Promised Land in late November 1996. This was a "socially relevant episode" about a "very important topic." But, above that, it was a chance to see Russell Greene behaving so tough it made me wonder if Chuck Norris could even withstand him!

Highlights of working on this episode included working with Stuart Margolin as director and John Finn as a guest.

Download the episode here...

StandinPodcast017.mp3

Running time 17:47

Memoirs of a Movie Stand-in 016

In this podcast, I'll talk about working on the Christmas episode of Promised Land in November 1996. We did a lot of the work at the Gallivan Center in Salt Lake City. And I have my own behind-the-scenes photos from the episode at this web page here.

Download the podcast here...
StandinPodcast016.mp3
(Running time 31:41)