YOU DID WHAT?

The fondest memories are those where you should have gotten into big trouble, but didn't. I was at Epic one day and my coordinator said, "Do you want some ice cream?" Normally that would sound innocent enough, but this was during a show. We walked over to the dinosaur ice cream stand outside Epic and ate ice cream, then strolled back to the stage in time to finish the show.

During the run of Hunchback of Notre Dame, one of my cast was a Michael Jackson impersonator. To look at him out of make up, you would never know it. I am a photographer on the side and had started making a name for my self as such at several of the stages that I worked at. He wanted pictures of him as MJ, so one day, he dressed up and did the hair and make up. Let me say he looked exactly like MJ. We went out on stage and shot some pretty good pictures. The techs saw what we were doing and turned on the fog machines and fans. It was pretty darn cool.

HOWEVER, it didn't stop there. Back in the day, before lights motors action stunt show, there was residential street and a backstage studio tour that ran right next to our stage. MJ impersonator walked off the Hunchback stage and into view of the tour tram. People started to talk. He walked next to the tour tram. The tour guide lost her train of thought and started stumbling over her lines. We, meaning MJ impersonator, myself and half dozen members of the hunckback cast walked into the park. Now, mind you, the cast was wearing shorts and t-shirts with 'Hunchback' written in sharpie on the front. They were playing the body guards. . . . God help us. Seeing how the crowds mobbed MJ, this as not a smart idea.

We heard a few guests say "Hey MJ!" "Is that. . .no it couldn't-" "Look who it is." You could feel the electricity start to build in a matter of moments. Seeing a stir start to build, we ducked out the back gate as soon as we could. End of story ? Not quiet. Later our stage manager came up to us and said,"Please tell me that you did not walk through the park like that." We said, "Of course not." WE knew, that he knew, that we knew.

Speaking of being in place you probably shouldn't, as a photographer for several of the Indy Stunt doubles, I have been in places on that stage that I KNOW I should have neve been in. Like the Mayan temple set in the ball(rolling boulder) track. In a prop rock during the show so I could get pictures of the Plane scene. At the top of the market place buildings, so I could get shots of high falls. At least I never went up in th rafters like the boys did one day. THey were bored and moved the high fall pad to under one of the beams in the rafters and decided to take flying leaps from the roof of the stage.

If you have ever seen the Indy stunt show, then you'll know that scene two is the cairo marketplace. In that set above the awing is a little niche. They use this niche for DJ's at times during convention shows. One day two of our Epic/Fantasmic! cast got bored between Fantasmic shows and decided to climb into the set and pretend they were eating dinner. . . during the Epic show. One was wearing one of Marion's shirts as a diguse. At the end of the scene, he knelt down to the other and pretended to propose. (By the way, both guys were married with kids.)

THe cast and crew about died laughing. The stage manager, thank goodness was awesome. She came up to them and said(paraphased) "That was the funniest thing i have ever seen. Don't you ever do it again."

Fantasmic! stunt perfomers meet at Epic, use Epic's pargo to ride over to the stage. Every so often they'll give ride to a character or two as well. One day the driver took a short cut through the creative costuming tunnel (part of the backstage tour) and turned a lliiitttle to soon. Because setting outside of the tunnel are prop planes from the movie Pearl Harbor. On this particular day, the Epic driver plowed into the wing of the plane an crumpled the top of the pargo. No one was hurt, from what I can remember, but they did have to use the jaws of life to get one of the character girls out of the front seat. And wouldn't you know, the driver still works at Disney.

I had my own personal "You did what ?" moment one day at Fantasmic!. I was not in a good mood that day. I had one precious darling cast mamber get all over my case one day because she said "This is not my costume. My costume does not have this piece in it" (it was a snap in, snap out removable piece)
I said,"you're the only one doing this role today. Not one else has worn it. It's identical to the other costumes in the trailer."
She still said, "This is not my costume, I don't use this piece."
Now, mind you, we are on the steamboat. The cross bridge is pulled back and the boat is about to start moving. I snatched the costume from her hands, ripped out the unwanted item and handed it back to her. "Here it's doesn't have that strap anymore."
She went out and did her part, but ran to the stage manager afterwards and said "costuming was being mean to me."
And 'bless his soul', he stood up for us and said,"Did you check your preset ?"
She started to cry.
I went to my manager and told her what happened. All she said was, "Yeah, you probably shouldn't have done that."

Ah, those were the days.

STARWARS CENTRAL

If you think Star Wars fans swarm the Disney MGM Studios (aka Disney Hollywood Studios) for four weekends in May and June, you would only be half true. In fact, some of the biggest fans are actually backstage. At least for the first few years, there was stiff competition to be in the cast. The first character coordinator took ownership of the event and continuted to live, eat and breathe Star Wars for the first four years of it's existence.

We had Imperial Guard uniforms that were hand me downs from the Star Wars on ice show. We never intended to use these costumes until Coordinator "T" saw them. He got permission to use them and for years they became the official coordinator costume. Sadly, we lost coordinator "T" to cancer during the fourth year of the event. The following year as we unloaded the road cases, we resealed the Imperial Guard costumes and no one used them that year in honor of our friend and colleague.

Coordinator "T" established the greenroom / breakroom as Star Wars Central. He made posterboard size placards to hang around the room, each with a character's picture, history and thier autograph. Every year we had a TV /DVD player set up to play the movies. . . all day . . . non stop. . . over and over and over. Don't get me wrong, I love the movies, but when you start receiting the movie word for word, it gets to be a bit much. The first few years espescially, we'd have the walls covered in character development information, the movies running in one corner and people reading the books in another. Needless to say it was total immersion in the World of Star Wars.

I consider myself a fan of the film, but not a fanatic. However, I was training a new costumer one year. While I was showing her who was who and who did what, I caught myself sounding like a fanatic. "Darth Maul was a Sith Lord who killed. . . . Bobo Fett is the son of Jango Fett who fought in the. . . . Before Anakin turned to the dark side he and Queen Amadalla . . . . " NOoo!!!. I refuse to be a fanatic !!! Okay, there I said. I'm better now. Let's move on. :)

Star Wars was always a bit of a step child when it came to setting up for the event, we were rarely had the same venue twice. One year Star Wars Central was the character's warm up room. Two years it was in the old Hunchback of Notre Dame stage (Until Spectitcal of Lights - the christmas lights people moved in). One year we were in the parade car barn, which got nice and toasty during the day, even with fans and AC blowing. My last year we were over in the lighting and grip building with an outside costume drying room that kept tripping breakers.

Besides the greenroom area and wardrobe, Starwars Central also had a sizeable Cosmotology department. Four o'clock in the morning call times, some of our cast would stumble into work, throw on a t-shirt, climb into the make up chair and fall asleep while the makeup artists worked. Sometime around 8 o'clock they would find caffine, thier costume and THEN thier day would begin.

Packing up such a large event was always an adventure. For the first few years, we used cardboard moving boxes. They work great if you're moving. They don't work very well when you have to pack and unpack over and over. Our poor beat up boxes were eventual replaced by five or six snazzy new roadcases. The only problem is you needed two people who were not afraid to drive 16 ft box trucks across town to the warehouses.

I am proud to say, I met that challenge and won. The first trip however. . . .Let's just say, bouncy box truck + speed bump = unhappy driver. . . and passangers. The first time I drove the truck, I went to the gas pumps near central shops to fill up . . . alone. I wanted to get used to the brakes, ect with out anyone kowing how badly i drove. That was my first lesson on speed bumps. On the road across town to the warehouses (no, I'm not telling you where), I had two people in the cab and the back end filled top to bottom with stuff. Altough it wasn't a speed bump, I learned quickly that MR Box Truck didn't like rough railroad tracks either. My passangers also learned where the 'oh shit grips' were. Sorry guys. I made it up to them a little when we decided to play hooky our way back and stopped at a buffet for lunch.

While Disney Hollywod Studios had a Disney Stars and Motorcars parade, they included a Star Wars car. Luke and Leia would ride in the car and a remoe controlled R2D2 would drive along ahead of it. The day R2 arrived at the studios for a test drive it was like a homing beacon went out to everyone who had ever worked Star Wars weekends. What started out as five or six people grew to nearly twenty in minutes. "There's a real R2 unit." "We have an R2D2." "Can we keep him?" We had a manager who was scared to death of it, so the robot operator made sure he (R2)chased her around backstage every chance he could.

One final thought on Star Wars but sadly, I can't take credit for coming up with this saying.

The Force is like Duct Tape - there's a light side and a dark side and it holds the world together.