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12 THE FUTURE IS MORE EXTREME THAN YOU THINK
Our film careers began one soggy Tuesday morning in early 1993, the daffodils still asleep within the grass, the clouds like soaked dishrags squeezing out gray wet glop. Pam, then doing makeup and styling for the exploding local film and TV industry, had arranged for Hamilton, Linus, and me to visit her on location at a "Movie of the Week" being shot just up the hill from Rabbit Lane—a film of the mom-loses-tot-gets-tot-back genre we soon came to know all too well.
The January housing market was dead; I took a few more days off to play cards and waste time. Linus, a consultant, could take off whatever hours he wanted. We decided to walk up the hill to Pam's shoot while Hamilton drove. We shortcutted through the golf course and had a golf-ball fight, which landed Linus in the espresso-colored water traps up to his knees. "A dissolute lifestyle has its rewards," said Linus, peeling a bulrush frond from his shins, a leech cuddling into his calf.
We arrived at the location on Southborough Drive be-mucked, resembling extras and feeling like outsiders. Hamilton's Javelin ka-chunk'ed onto the road's shoulder and soon we three bumbled pointlessly amid the necklace of white vans and utility trucks that border any film location. We found Pam. "Go grab a bite at the catering truck. Wait for me there."
"Where are the stars?" Linus asked.
"What were you expecting, kids," Pam said, "chorus-line girls carrying enormous foam boulders? Roman centurions riding along in golf carts? I'll tell you the official credo of film: Hurry up and wait. See you in five."
We ate cold pasta, watched thick white lighting cables being hauled into a front doorway, and became thoroughly bored. "This blows," Hamilton said. "Let's amscray."
We were set to amscray when Tina Lowry, an old classmate of mine, called, "Richard! Richard Doorland, is that you? It's me. Tina." Tina, like most people in the film and TV industry, had that slightly on-the-run-can't-talk-long look on her face. A tiny patch of blue sky allowed sun to sparkle the light meter that hung around her neck.
"Tina. You're here?"
"Heya, Richard, what are you doing on set? Crew? Extras?"
"No. I just live nearby. A friend of ours, Pam, is doing makeup here. Are you directing or something?"
"Not yet. I'm a production assistant here—a PA. We're scum on the food chain, but the job rocks. You know Pam?"
"We grew up just down the hill. Hamilton here," I indicated the soggy beanpole to my right, "is her meat puppet."
She gawped at Hamilton. "I use to cut out the pictures of her in
Vogue and stuff. I wanted to be her so badly and now I'm working with her. It's trippy. What are you doing these days, Richard?""You mean right now—right here?"
"No, like in your life—and stuff."
I'd learned it was easier to say "nothing" than to mention real estate. "Nothing. Taking it easy." I awaited the usual strained, "Ohhh …" signaling embarrassment. Tina surprised me.
"You need work?"
"Uh, sure … maybe … doing what?"
"We'll find something for you. We're short-staffed and need bodies quick. I'll help you with union stuff. Phone me." A horn honked. "Gotta go." Like most film people, she vanished in a little cloud of cartoon dust.
Once again, for the first time in what seemed like a decade, the city was a place of enchantment for me. Voila! Hamilton, Linus, and I became location scouts, and for two cigarette-packed weeks, we rollicked about the city and countryside in Hamilton's Javelin ru
Scott, a production guy from Los Angeles, told us that "they film everything here because Vancouver's unique: You can morph it into any North American city or green space with little effort and even less expense, but at the same time the city has its own distinct feel. See that motel over there? That was 'Pittsburgh' in a Movie of the Week."
Scott, like us, had never trained to be in film. Like everybody in the local industry, he arrived from another realm. Mathematicians, lawyers, dental assistants, ex-hippies—all of these people winging it. The energy was addictive.
Life became very cha-cha-cha. "My oh my," Hamilton WOllld preen verbally, "aren't we just the niftiest, coolest, hippest, grooviest, sexiest, most with-it, and most happening people we know?""Yes, Hamilton," we would reply as androids. "You certainly are."
Then came word that Fox was filming a series pilot in Vancouver, one of dozens filmed here a
TV pilots are crap shoots. We enjoyed our location scouting as much as we could, making hay while the sun shined and we located dank, dense, evergreen versions of Florida, California, Wisconsin, and Pe
After a few weeks, Tina introduced Hamilton and Linus to the world of special effects at an FX house across town called Monster Machine. Their eyes lit up; within a week, they left Fox to score jobs with Monster Machine, entering a sub-world of flash pods, latex limbs, buckets o' blood, and blue screening. Their combined explosive and electrical knowledge was impossible to refuse. Me? I stayed on the set of my weekly paranormal drama. It hadn't become a hit yet, but I liked its vibe and it was the most polite set I'd worked on.
Soon enough Pam stopped doing makeup work and joined Hamilton and Linus at the special effects firm; the three became known locally as quality special effects people. Their specialties were latex body molds and convincing explosions. Pooling their skills, they helped create aliens, zombies, vampires, Mafia-shot corpses, humans in all states of decay, mummification, terror, and explosion. They traveled frequently, usually to California to take courses with the masters, and returned to Canada with Ziploc bags full of smuggled,tissue-wrapped, German ceramic eyeballs. "Aren't they wunderbar?" squeaked Pam in my car driving back from the airport.
Pam was so happy. The "Whatever Happened to …" magazine articles ended, replaced by "Hot New Comeback!" articles. An ex-model turned special effects artist was an irresistible combination for the media. Added bonus: "I've conquered a drug problem!" Magazine and TV stories about her flourished.
A strong memory of that early period of TV production was of bodies: bodies on gurneys, bodies in boxes, bits of bodies, bodies bleeding, dummy bodies, alien bodies, bodies embedded with artificial components, bodies slated to vanish, bodies popping out of bodies, bodies just returned from the beyond, and bodies set to explode. A few of these bodies were used on my own show, but I'd also see "a galore of bodies" (Linus's term) while visiting Monster Machine, where they were experts in the trick-wiring of both latex dummies and real people, making their subjects explode, cough up blood, shimmy, or radiate green light on cue.