Stefan Sargent

CENTRAL QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA. February 1968. I’m in a phone booth at sunset in a government farm and training facility for native aborigines. I get through to Dick Mason, my producer at Film Australia in Sydney, 1,000 miles south.

“Dick, this is a disaster. It’s a concentration camp for aborigines. I thought I was meant to be making a film called The Aboriginal in Industry.”

“Calm down.”

“And there’s a curfew. They can’t go out. The local townsfolk don’t want them. The aborigines’ windows have no glass. I interviewed the Little Hitler in charge and he said on camera, ‘You can’t trust an aboriginal with glass!’”

Dick catches a plane and drives for four hours. Discovers everything I have said is true. The shoot is aborted and we evacuate.

Plan B: Go to Darwin, find other “aboriginals in industry.” So, this is how documentaries are made.

DARWIN, NORTHERN TERRITORY. Three days of scouring Darwin and my PA has found an aborigine street cleaner and an aborigine garbage collector. I phone Dick in Sydney to tell him the bad news.

“Stay where you are. We’re working on it.”

For some time I’ve been wondering why, with so many directors on staff, they hired an outsider, lucky me. Now I know. This job is doomed.

The next day, Dick phones back. There’s an island between Australia and New Guinea where the local missionary did a deal that forces the BHP mining company to employ aborigines.

Plan C: Go there. And you thought we know what we’re doing.

We fly to Groote Eylandt, Gulf of Carpentaria. Land in the middle of the jungle. Wait three hours for the search party.

An aboriginal miner is drilling a hole for blasting. I’m “directing,” Keith is shooting and Rosemary is recording the sound.

GROOTE EYLANDT.
I meet the missionary. Years earlier, a government surveyor had confided to him that the island was rich in manganese. He flew to Darwin and secured the mining rights for the aboriginals and laid down terms: They must be hired one-for-one with “white” Australians and paid the same wage.

Keith Gow on the Eclair camera - I'm pretending to direct

The aborigines’ sanctuary is now a mine. Their reward is houses, schools, microwaves and motorcycles. This is going to be a tough. The film is being paid for by the Australian government. Make something critical; it will be junked. Go the other way — it’s a cop-out.

My solution is ART. Trick my government client into thinking this isn’t a run-of-the-mill documentary but something way more special: An artistic masterpiece.

I DID IT MY WAY. Difficult balance. Too arty and you lose the audience and message. Too conventional and the suits will climb all over it.

So: Contrived compositions, often with the background or foreground way out of focus. Shooting through something always works… rain, smoke, fire, dust, heat haze, magnesium flares.

lit by magnesium flares

Combinations are fantastic — out-of-focus plus fire, smoke and heat haze all together! Wow! No talking heads, no name captions, just unidentified voiceovers. Heard but unseen distant explosions.

I dread showing my rough cut to Dick, but when I do he’s ecstatic: “I love it, go over the top.” Try and stop me.

SUITS IN SHOCK. Sydney. We show it to the government men. The lights come up. Silence. Dick looks at them. More stunned silence.

“Unusual,” says one. “Very powerful,” says Dick. “Narrator?” asks a suit.

Dick turns to them, “I didn’t want to say this in front of Stefan, but it’s an artistic triumph. A tour-de-force. To change it would be like re-touching Picasso’s Guernica.”
That’s what a producer does. He sells your meager offering to the client.

It’s approved, as-is.

The project later wins top awards for direction, photography, editing

Best Editing Award

and — wait for it — Best Australian Film of The Year.

For me, it was just a means to an end, to get it approved, no changes.

See it here

I’ve landed the job, shot it, edited it. Now it’s time for the big client screening. Watch them watching. When the lights come up, will it be?

“Oh my God! It’s freaking awesome! Capital-A amazing! You rock!”

OR…

“It’s good.” He said the G word; polite speak for it sucks. He hated it.

“No, I thought was good. I really liked it. It was, well… good.”

PREMATURE REJECTION. LONDON, U.K. 1972. I’d made some conference films for Black & Decker. They recommend me to Ron Hickman as they have licensed from him an invention called the Workmate. A demo film is needed, and Ron is coming to London to meet and see some of my work.

We’re in a screening room in Soho. I’ve put together a reel of three recent productions: The Redifon AWACS Flight Simulator, a film I made for Margaret Thatcher on education in England and my own favorite, The Birdseye Pea Story.

The lights dim. For the next 20 minutes, I sit back, proudly watching my three babies. The lights come up. I’m pumped, ready for praise.

But Hickman is hopping mad. “Are you stupid or something? I want a demonstration film showing a unique workbench and you give me school children, high-tech simulators and, worst of all, a film about harvesting peas. Have you ever made a construction film? Houses going up, do-it-yourself gadgets, carpentry demonstrations… ?!”

With that, Hickman leaves.

here's what he wanted to see

He’s gone. I blew it.

CREWS FOR CRUISE. MALAGA, SPAIN, 1994. It’s the start of a five-day Mediterranean cruise. Our client, John Kenning, has written a series of books on how to get glam jobs — i.e. how to become a model, an airline steward or work on a cruise ship.
Tricia and I are in port aboard the Fred Olsen cruise ship Black Prince. It looks like fun, but, knowing SARGENT’S LAW, we’re careful that we don’t enjoy ourselves too much.

The Black Prince - Fred Olsen Lines

John has a lively personality. I make him the linkman. Put him on camera. Shoot an opener, a closing and some bridges: “Start cruising, it’s a job and a holiday all in one!”
John flies back to London. We sail off to the Greek Isles.

For the next five days, I don’t stop shooting. I’m up at daybreak, shoot all day. Every time we arrive at a Mediterranean isle, I’m down the gangplank first. It’s hot, the Betacam is heavy and I’m walking backwards interviewing the ship’s tour guide.

I shoot long takes so I don’t miss the unexpected, such as the crew member who accidentally falls in the pool while dodging a drink-carrying waiter.

Back in London. John sees the edit. The lights come up. Now the payoff.

“You’ve got a lot of lucky shots.”

“The guy falling into the pool?”

“No, it’s all lucky shots.”

I hear this all the time. Only last week: the lights come up and the client says my shots are “lucky.” Is it just me, or do real cameramen hear this too?

Francis: “Nice work, Vittorio — you got some lucky shots.”

TEARS FOR CHEERS. SAN RAFAEL, CALIFORNIA. 1999. I’m making a pro bono for Peter Meyers, who teaches kids how to act at his Vector Theater Conservatory.

I use a cinéma vérité style of shooting; wiring up Peter and his teachers with radio mikes. Sit in for a few days with my PD150. I’m invisible; a neat trick.

the end of one of Peter's stage performances

I run the edit to Peter. He has no idea what I’ve shot (I was invisible). He’s watching intently, smiling… now his expression changes. A tear rolls down his cheek. He’s crying. The lights come up — he’s a mess. I’ve made hundreds of films but no one has ever cried before. What did I do wrong?

“It’s so beautiful. You’ve captured all my dreams, hopes and aspirations.”

“Come on, Peter. It’s good, but not that good.”

Now I’ve used the G word.

We all know Moore’s Law and Murphy’s Law, but how many of you know Sargent’s Law?
Hmmmm… I thought so. Time to put that to rights.

Sargent’s Law simply states, “The quality of a production is inversely proportional to the fun the filmmakers had while making it.”

Put another way: If everything goes wrong, the equipment breaks down, nobody is co-operative, the talent is a pain, the client is a terror; then the final production has a good chance of being amazingly wonderful.

Fun and games in Cannes. Hard times in Queensland.

The flip side? Take my French Riviera shoot. The location: a dream come true. The talent: my darling, Tricia. We ate like millionaires. Went to the Cannes Film Festival in a Rolls Royce. The Carlton Hotel gave us their private beach. Free use of Radar the Wonder Dog. Every day was sun and fun.

Sadly, the end product was crap. Don’t believe me? Here’s a job that was a constant nightmare, every day a different drama. Read on…

SYDNEY 1967. CUT TO MY OFFICE – CUE RINGING TELEPHONE
KIP (Head of Documentaries at ABC Australia): Got any ideas for a one-hour documentary? Can be about anything. Come up with 10 ideas.

SS: Ten?! How about three?

KIP: Bureaucracy. Give me 10 and there’s a good chance that one will do the trick with the powers that be.

A WEEK LATER: I’m stuck. Ideas one to four — a pushover. Five to eight — tough. Eight and nine — almost impossible. Number 10? Think of something silly. Something they won’t want.

My assistant Rosemary says, “Why not film my family in Longreach?” “Longreach?” “It’s in the middle of Queensland in the outback.”

Shock, horror — Kip and the Powers That Be bypass my really good ideas and chose the throwaway, number 10! I know nothing about country life and we haven’t asked Rosemary’s family if they’ll be in it!

Kip gives me a choice: Twenty rolls of 16mm color reversal stock or 40 rolls of black-and-white. I go for color, even though there’s no color TV in Australia. Problem is that with only 10 minutes per roll, I’ll have just 20×10 = 200 minutes to shoot a 60-minute film; about a 3:1 shooting ratio.

These days, imagine making a one-hour program with three and a half DV tapes! To make it harder, I decide to have no narration, no interviews and no mood music. Just live, unrehearsed dialogue.

A MONTH LATER. We fly to Longreach. Rosemary’s mother won’t to cooperate. We have to stay in town. It was meant to be a film about their 75,000-acre working sheep station in the magical outback and here I am in room 16, Lyceum Hotel, Eagle Street.

Can it get worse? Easy.

Suddenly, my only lens, an Angenieux zoom, goes out of focus. Now I have a 16mm Éclair NPR camera with no lens. Aarrrggghhh!

Rosemary finds a friend with a 1940 windup Bell & Howell Filmo and a cheap 25mm C-mount lens. I screw the lens on to the Éclair and keep shooting. Want a wide shot? Get way, way back. Need a closeup? Move in closer.

I shoot the visiting Governor-General and his icy lady at the Debutante’s Ball. The dancers knock over one light. Then a deb trips over another. There goes my lighting.

They’re playing “Dancing in the Dark.”

Good news. Rosemary’s brother, Stirling, will let us film his sheep and cattle ranch. We move out of the Lyceum. Stirling flies his boy to school in his Cessna and lands on the road. He spends the day herding sheep from a motorcycle. We go to the parent’s house where the evening meal is formal, complete with an aboriginal server in French maid costume.

Bad news. I shoot scenes with local cowgirl, Tottie. The scene with her boyfriend is a disaster: “Hello Tottie.” “Hello Bruce.” “I’ve got tickets to the ball.” “Oh, goodie.” Tottie’s dialogue with her horse is better. I blow 300 precious feet.
I am running out of stock. Good news. Tottie’s horse wins at the races. Bad news. My film runs out.
Worse. I leave an exposed roll of film in an Avis car. I phone Avis. “If you find it please don’t open the can!”

SAVED BY SARGENT’S LAW. No-fun shooting equals a good result.

The result: Edge of the Outback. Kip likes it. The ABC shows it.

Rave reviews. Aren’t I lucky that it went so badly?

Click here to see a short version of Stefan’s finished piece.

London, U.K. Winter, 1972, 4:30 a.m. The worst thing about filmmaking is getting up before dawn and driving through the slush to a distant, even colder, location.

My best client, Herb Kanzell, has landed a job for the Rank Organisation. In its day, Rank owned Pinewood Studios, Odeon cinemas, a movie production company, Rank Xerox and Wharfedale, a little company making loudspeakers just outside of Leeds. That’s where we’re headed.

Despite the drive, I am keen to do this. Wharfedale’s founder, G.A. Briggs, was a schoolboy hero of mine. I still have his book Loudspeakers: The Why and How of Good Reproduction. In it, he shows plans for a loudspeaker enclosure made of 48 bricks. My friend, Robert Parker, actually built one in his mother’s living room. No stereo in those days, so it was just the one large, brick enclosure, right on the carpet.

Gilbert Briggs' famous book

GAB himself

When the going gets tough… Nine o’clock, we made it. Stagger in to the Wharfedale reception.

“We’re here to film the factory, can I see Bob Brown?”

“Mr. Brown is tied up at the moment.”

We need coffee. “Sorry, no coffee.” Tea? “No tea. Sit down.”

Time passes. More time passes. We got up at 4:30 for this! Eventually, “Mr. Brown says it’s not convenient for you to film today. I’m sorry.”

“That is not acceptable. Your head office booked us for today and today it is.”

“Mr. Brown is adamant-no filming today. Please leave.”

…The tough keep shooting. We go out to the car. Get out the Éclair 16mm camera. Tricia has the Nagra tape recorder and a Sennheiser rifle mike. We find the door into the factory and wander around, shooting from the shoulder. Meet friendly people doing their job.

“Have you met Old Bill? He’s been here since Gilbert Briggs.”

They take us to meet Old Bill. He’s the man in charge of the wood veneers; been doing it for 23 years. Tricia runs the Nagra and I ask him to tell us about how the veneers are done.

Just then, with the camera still running, I hear what must be Bob Brown on the warpath. We keep shooting Old Bill. This is going to be very bad timing for ugly Bob.

“What the **** are you doing! I said no filming!”

I swing the Éclair around, still running. He stops dead in his tracks. “I’m glad you found Old Bill. He’s been here over 20 years. You’re doing a great job. Seem to have it all under control.”

Reversal of fortune. I switch off the camera. Suddenly he’s Mr. Nice Guy:

“I like you two. You’ve got the right attitude. Not like those stupid wimps in head office. You’re not Rank people, are you? Can I buy you lunch?”

We all go off to a cozy little restaurant. Get to know each other. I tell him my Radar the Wonder Dog story (DV, June 2007). We come back to shoot their anechoic chamber and new range of speakers.

“Joyce, they’re OK-not from Rank!” Now even his secretary likes us. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

We finish the job. Pack up, not looking forward to the long drive back. “Why don’t you stay the night? There’s a good hotel nearby. Dinner is on me.”

vintage catalogue

Over a glass of wine, I tell him about my G.A. Briggs book and Robert’s brick loudspeaker enclosure. “Well you must film Gilbert Briggs. He lives in the Yorkshire Dales.”

The next morning we drive north to visit Gilbert, who is delighted to tell his story on camera. Gilbert looks directly at the lens and says, “The worst mistake in my life was selling my company to The Rank Organisation.”

His interview was never shown at the conference. Funny about that.

ABOVE: That old "You lookin' at me?" look from the quarry truck marshal.

You lookin’ at me? San Rafael, Calif. August, 2007. Shooting complaints for a protest group about quarry trucks-250,000 trucks a year. The quarry management gets twitchy and sends out its truck marshal.

“You filming our trucks?” I film him. The quarry guy sees the camera, shrugs and slouches off.

Stefan’s Tip: “Get Outta Here!” means, “Shoot Me!” Turn around, take aim and fire.

Never fails.

A Family Outing

Son-in-law George (www.thebigpicture.tv) posing in front of his ginormous mega-van with camera. Spot the battery?

101 South from Corte Madera, Calif. March, 2002. George, my son-in-law, is driving his ginormous Ford E-350 Super Duty Extended wagon. It’s crammed full of cameras, tripods, lights, lights stands, sand bags, you name it.

I’m chattering on, “I don’t have a list, I just do a complete set up in my living room the night before. Check the lights, run the cameras. Then I pack it all up in one suitcase and a camera bag.”

“Well that’s fine for you, but I’d rather work from a fully equipped truck. If I need a couple of HMIs, they are packed and ready. I leave everything in the truck. I never have to worry about leaving anything behind.”

“I guess you have to take out the batteries to re-charge?”

“That’s the only thing I take out—I take out—the—the batteries—sheeeeet!!!”

We are passing Daly City—about halfway. George stops, gets out and checks the van. Nope—no batteries nowhere.

He’s on the cell to the office. “Steven, quick, grab the Betacam batteries, they’re on charge. Get the address from the call sheet. Meet you in San Jose.”

“Stay calm,” says George to me. I’m calm; it’s not my screw up. “We drive there. Arrive on time. Then I’ll do the best, slowest, setting up job you’ve ever seen.”

Downtown San Jose. George meets Heidi, his client. The space is a big conference room with windows on every side.

We unload the van. I secretly phone Steven from time to time.

Now he’s crossing the GG Bridge. George: “Can we move the conference table a little? Take the chairs out?”

Batteries at Daly City. “Maybe we should blackout the windows.” I get the ND 0.6 gel and a roll of gaffer tape.

Batteries now passing SFO airport. “We really need a better background. Can I use that company board in your reception?”

Batteries at Redwood City. “I just think we need to take down the background a little. Stefan, can you get some gobos from the truck and another C stand?”

Batteries at Mountain View. “You know, I’d like to add a bit of powder to your forehead. There’s a little shine there.”

Heidi: “George, you are the best cameraman I’ve ever met. So much attention to detail.” George: “I’m really a producer—and you are my product.”

Batteries now entering San Jose. “I think we are ready to rock.” Steven enters the room. Slips George a battery like a palming a $100 bill to a Las Vegas maître d’. The camera bursts into life.

“Heidi, You look terrific. I’m running.”

George collects $200 and passes GO.

A Right Royal Screw Up

Those ears. Those ears. Oh my!

Windsor Castle, U.K. November, 1975. We’ve been here for three hours to shoot a three-camera interview with Prince Charles and Alistair Cooke. Titled “A Much Maligned Monarch,” it’s been presold across the States in time for the 1776 bicentennial.

Tricia sits in for both Charles and Alistair while I adjust the lights. Wow, that looks great! Colin Clarke, the producer, looks through the viewfinder at Tricia. “Perfect!”

So where’s the prince? We turn off the lights and wander around aimlessly down the nearby art-filled corridor. Rembrandt, Rubens, Holbein…We don’t go far as the palace staff are there all the time…watching.

Three more hours pass. Finally, the royal party arrives.

Tricia wires up the 27-year-old prince with a lavaliere mike. She’s wearing a form-fitting jump suit with a zipper top to bottom. The prince is intrigued in the mechanics of the zipper. I switch on the lights.

SURPRISE. Charles’ ears light up like pink stained glass—the backlight is shining right through them. Those ears. Oh my! What was terrific lighting for Tricia is a total disaster for Prince Charles.

“OK, Let’s go”, says a tense Colin.

“No, I need to make some lighting adjustments.”

“Come on, Stefan. It looked great when I looked through the viewfinder.” How can I say, “The Prince’s glowing ears don’t meet broadcast spec”?

I fiddle with the backlight. “I need some spun glass and a chopper.”

“Stefan, you’ve had all day to set up! It’s fine—leave it.”

I need 15 minutes to fix. I can feel tension mounting. “STEFAN, WE ARE WAITING.” OK, I give in. “Roll cameras—slate it!”

“Much Maligned Monarch, take one.”

Stefan does not collect $200. The prince has bright red ears—he hasn’t spoken to me since!

Way back in 1958, Bert Stern had a multicam shoot at the Newport Jazz Festival. Jazz on a Summer’s Day took just a few days to shoot, but six months to sync up the cameras and the sound. It was “a very painful and difficult process,” Stern once said.

He never made another movie. If only he’d had today’s technology.

Nob Hill Masonic Center, San Francisco, July, 2007. Here on another Summer’s Day, I have a multicam shoot. Louis Armstrong couldn’t make it, but no matter. We have Dr. Graham Powell, Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering, UC Berkeley. The lecture is about “nonlinear modeling and analysis for performance-based design.” Huh? Where’s Louis?

I set up two Sony V1U cameras, side by side, halfway up the center aisle. On one I’ve switched on the internal X1.5 digital telephoto—that’s my close-up camera. The other I’ll use for the wide shot. I operate both cameras, but the wide is really locked-off until question time.

Some Hysteresis Loop Shapes,” courtesy of Dr. Powell’s PowerPoint and Camera 2.

The venue has supplied an IATSE cameraman, Dimitri. He’s good. I put him on the stage with a third V1U. Tricia gaffer tapes his tripod to a spreader with wheels. I tell Dimitri he’s free to get the best shots—audience shots, close-ups, wide shots, reverse angles of the presenter—by repositioning the camera during the show. We switch off his red light so that it doesn’t distract the audience.

I’ve reset the timecode on all three cameras to “FREE RUN.” Now, here’s how to sync up the cameras in a jiffy. Get a Sony RMT-841 remote control. Power up the three cameras, hit “TC RESET,” and bingo—all three timecodes go to 00:00:00:00. The cameras will stay locked even when you change tapes. Magic. Eat your heart out, Bert.

The sound is coming from the PA mixer. Now for a secret weapon: a Shure A15AS XLR audio pad. If you’re getting a feed from a PA system, a pad is essential. They may say they are sending you line level, and then blast you clean away. Just as well that I brought a XLR gender changer. The feed was XLR female—how is that possible?

At every hour, Dimitri and I change tapes. I have a cute Sony DR60 disc unit on my close-up camera. I only want to use it when I’m changing tapes, so I run it manually before the change and stop recording once the new tape is running.

Camera 1's close-up.

Dimitri’s on-stage camera has rolled into a position where he can get a good shot of the presenter when he turns away from the audience and looks up to the PowerPoint slide on the screen. My two cameras only see the back of his head, so that third, on-stage camera is essential. Come question time, Dimitri has good shots of the audience.

When it’s all over, I whip out my Memory Stick and grab a copy of the PowerPoint file from Dr. Powell’s laptop. No real secret. The trick is: always carry a Memory Stick. Back at base, today’s shoot has produced 22 one-hour DV tapes and one tape copied from the DR60 disc drive. Good labeling is essential. I wouldn’t be without my Brother PT 1830 labeler.

Although we shot HDV 1080i, I do this edit in standard def. I use a Sony M25 desk player, feeding its HDMI output into a nanoConnect box from Convergent Design, and the SDI output into my G5 via an internal BlackMagic DeckLink HD card. I also have an external BlackMagic HDLink, but that’s only for monitoring.

The view from Camera 3 on stage.

Now all I have to do is edit six hours of a totally incomprehensible technical seminar. I do this in real time using Final Cut Pro’s multicam and a glass of cabernet. With the multicam edit complete, I switch to merlot and cut in over 350 PowerPoint slides. It’s tough checking an edit that runs for over six hours, so I ask my client to help. Hey, just one wrong slide and a three-second black hole. Easy to fix. Time to make the DVD menus and burn two dual-layer DVDs. Six hours on two DVDs. Amazing.

As a thank you for the celebratory champagne, I make a no-charge 60 sec. promo. See it at http://www.csiberkeley.com/Powell/DVD/.

And rent or buy Jazz on a Summer’s Day. Sorry, no V1s, no DR60, no nanoConnect, no BlackMagic, no FCP. Just Louis, Anita, Chuck, etc.—and all in 84 minutes!

FIRST BLOOD. Sydney, Australia, 1968. “Here’s the deal Stefan. I’ve got this weekly report from the markets which you’ll shoot and edit. It should be $750 a week but I can make it a grand. Send me a credit note for the last job. I’ll make sure you get the market reports.”

I give him credit. Surprise! The market job is delayed a month. Another month. Six months pass. The weekly market reports never happen. Do I get paid for the original job? Of course not.

Made on video, but my client won’t pay because the laboratory release form is missing.

AMBUSH.  London, 1982. I’m running Molinare, the biggest video facility in Soho. Alan Stewart, our wonderful builder, needs to be paid. Unlike 30-day trade accounts, builders want their money fast. Alan’s accounts are simple. He pays for his building materials cash on pick up. He pays his workers cash each Friday. I pay him every week. What’s left over is profit. Who needs accountants?

But our cash flow is low. We’ve been chasing our debtors like crazy, but it’s not coming in fast enough.

I show Alan our accounts receivable.

“I’ll sort out your bad payers,” he says. “Pay me as I bring it in.”

“Let me see—look, this guy Adrian R. is on Wardour St. He owes us £12,500, most of it over 90 days. Go get him.”

Alan and five builders, all carrying tools of trade, head for Adrian R. on Wardour St., about five minutes’ walk away.

Fifteen minutes later Alan returns, £12,500 check in hand.

“Alan, what did you do?”

“Nothing—I just said that I couldn’t pay my men because he hadn’t paid Molinare’s bills

. My lads were wandering around the office straightening the paintings. He pulled out his checkbook there and then.”
A few weeks later, Adrian R. is in my office. He’s promising prompt payment in future and hoping he’s welcome back as a client.

BATTLEFIELD HOLLYWOOD. London, 1992. I am making a 90-minute “sell-through” video, The Trials of Claus von Bülow, for a major Hollywood company. I finish the job. Everyone happy. I invoice for $50,000.

But no. “You’ll have to bill our New York office.” I send them the invoice and wait. After a month, I phone. “Where’s the E&O certificate?” they say. I get one. It costs $16,000 even after getting a signed release from von Bülow himself.

I chase again. “We are waiting for the laboratory negative release form.” I explain that there is no laboratory, no film negative. It’s a VIDEO.

“The contract specifically states we must have a laboratory negative release.”

“But there is no negative!”

“That doesn’t matter—are you going to sign the form or not?”

I FedEx a laboratory release form. But then, they relocate from NYC to L.A. Can’t find their files.

Next, “We can’t pay you unless the film has U.S. copyright with the Library of Congress.”

Seven months after master tape handover, we get their rotten $50,000.

ATTACK OF THE CLONES. San Francisco, June, 2007. I’m chasing a job that I shot last year and edited over Christmas. That’s six months ago. The final payment hasn’t happened.

“No worries, Stefan. We’re working on it.”

Working on it? Huh? It’s a piece of paper: the date, my name, the amount, a signature.

“But I’m glad you called. I’ve got a TV commercial I want you to do.”

Here we go again: the old “Big Job Coming Real Soon” routine.

Time to send in the builders.

London, Soho, February, 1999. 8:00 p.m. Boooom! I’m in my edit room-cum-office at the rear of The Soho Screening Rooms. Derry, the projectionist, is showing the director’s cut of Das Boot. Every time the U-boat is depth-charged, my adjoining wall shakes so much that tapes fall off the shelves. I’m bracing myself for another charge. Boooom! Trying to edit a conference video that’s needed for tomorrow in Holland. Boooom! Got to meet my client, Martin—ICI’s group public affairs VP—at the airport.

Tomorrow’s conference has three circular screens—just more work for me. This one depicts Wells Fargo’s exploding bank notes.

My BetaSP machine died yesterday. Chewed up tape. I rented a replacement today, but before I could lay off a safety copy to tape, my client wanted mega changes.

The Avid is unhappy too. It doesn’t like it when I go to the loo (translation: restroom). It misses me and crashes. I really have to go to the loo again but can’t risk it. I decide to go out into the reception area and then return. Fooled it. Still running.

This time I’ll take those few extra steps to the loo. I come back. It’s dead again. Thinking of making a life size replica of me so that the Avid thinks I’m still here.

Reminds me of the story about the lady with the broken vacuum-tube radio. She discovered that if she put her finger on a tube, the sound would come back. Tired of keeping her finger there, she replaced it with a pork sausage. It worked! The problem was that the sausage cooked slowly and needed to be replaced every Friday. “Hey mum, the radio’s fading, needs another sausage!”

10:00 p.m. I’m assembling the segments and keying in a circle matte. The team doing the set design and projection has succeeded in convincing the ICI conference lady to have three circular screens, one big and two small on either side. They call it “MoonVision.” Spare me from “creatives.” My compilation video is 85 minutes and all within a stupid circle.

Midnight. This is crazy. Das Boot is over. Derry has closed down the projection theatre. I’m alone. I’ve gotta go to de loo. I need to fool the Avid:

“Look, I’m just going to the Poland Street garage to collect my car. You be a good Avid and keep rendering those dumb circle mattes. Back very soon. Love you.”

Never fooled Avid for a moment. Whammy, it crashes again. Not your average Panic Kernel. It’s a (gasp!) General Error 41. The Mac’s running but Avid’s dead.

3:00 a.m. Nothing is working. I’ve done everything. Trashed preferences, ran Fix Permissions. Tried Disk Utilities, Norton, Disk Warrior, you name it. This job is on my books at £35,000 (US $70,000) and it has to be ready for today. Got to be out of here by 5:00 a.m. I’m distraught.

A thought. I have a BlueICE board in the Avid. It runs hot. I’ve squeezed in three little fans around the board and there’s a household fan on the floor pumping air into the Mac. The card gets so hot that its own heat sinks fall off. The Avid’s never been the same. Maybe it’s just a heat problem. OK, take it easy and cool it.

I turn everything off except the external fan. Vacate to the empty reception area. Nibble at the Das Boot leftovers in the kitchen. This is going to be my big, big screw up.

“Sorry Martin, Avid’s crashed. General Error 41.”

“The fertilizer plant in Taiwan?”

“Trashed.”

“Surfactants in Delaware?”

“Dead.”

“Australian ethane pipeline?

“Nope.”

“Wells Fargo exploding bank notes?”

“All gone. It’s over. I’m off. Got a green card. You’ll never find me.”

I go back. One last try. Give my Mac the old Das Boot start up. This is it baby, make or break. Yeah! Error 41 gone. Woo hoo! Avid opens up my project. I’m delirious. Hallelujah!

Render, render. Now save the project. Transfer 85 minutes to BetaSP tape—no time for a safety copy.

5:00 a.m. I spot check the tape. High on Das Boot caffeine. Drive home. Shower. Shave. Pack overnight things. Suit ‘n’ tie. Drive to Heathrow. Park. Run to Terminal One.

8:00 a.m. Made it. There’s Martin.

“Hi Martin!”

“Everything OK?”

“Piece of cake.”