VINTAGE 1984 MIAMI VICE ACTOR LOCATION CALL SHEET!

[pahonu]

4 hours ago, lindenska said:

 

pahonu...what did you do on Baywatch?

I was a production assistant or PA, the lowest rung on the ladder.  I was straight out of college with a film degree and it’s a typical way to get your foot in the door.  You’re basically a gopher, but... and this is a big but, because the show was syndicated and on a tighter budget, they tried to double up jobs.  For example, standins usually don’t look much like the actors they are standing in for.  They just need to be a similar height and complexion for setting up lighting and blocking camera shots.

On Baywatch, however, they did a pretty good job of finding standins who were quite similar looking so they could do double work as well.  That’s pretty much why they hired me, I believe.  I could do the gopher work and also double when needed, which I did quite a bit.  I even had my hair cut on set several times to match the Mitch character.  The standin for Hasselhoff was a nice guy actually named David Hass, I kid you not!  We hung out on a few occasions if we wrapped at a reasonable time.  Production assistants came and went a lot. Lots of nepotism in the industry so I really got a lucky break so soon out of college.  I think they kept me around for the above reasons until I quit.

[pahonu]

4 hours ago, Matt5 said:

Just seen this - sorry for the late reply. It was so informative so Thankyou again for sharing with us.

No worries

[lindenska]

1 hour ago, pahonu said:

I was a production assistant or PA, the lowest rung on the ladder.  I was straight out of college with a film degree and it’s a typical way to get your foot in the door.  You’re basically a gopher, but... and this is a big but, because the show was syndicated and on a tighter budget, they tried to double up jobs.  For example, standins usually don’t look much like the actors they are standing in for.  They just need to be a similar height and complexion for setting up lighting and blocking camera shots.

On Baywatch, however, they did a pretty good job of finding standins who were quite similar looking so they could do double work as well.  That’s pretty much why they hired me, I believe.  I could do the gopher work and also double when needed, which I did quite a bit.  I even had my hair cut on set several times to match the Mitch character.  The standin for Hasselhoff was a nice guy actually named David Hass, I kid you not!  We hung out on a few occasions if we wrapped at a reasonable time.  Production assistants came and went a lot. Lots of nepotism in the industry so I really got a lucky break so soon out of college.  I think they kept me around for the above reasons until I quit.

Although I'm more familiar with syndication in relation to reruns, until I looked it up, I haven't really heard of the 2 other types of syndication. I would've thought syndication meant that shows had more budget since they were then shown in many places (especially the international markets from Baywatch), that meant more money the show was pulling in. I'm shocked that money was tight. Looking up Baywatch, it looks like it became so successful they spun it off into 3 films and another series (Baywatch Nights) in filmed a year or so after this, which appears like this episode was right in the midst of Baywatch's popularity. So I'm surprised that the budget was slim. I guess because there wasn't a big 3 network behind it, so it's a different money game then. I've been doing some work on TV shows recently and noticed that the Emmy-nominated Marvelous Mrs Maisel gets a lot more perks and pay than some of the other shows that are either just starting out or winding down. That's so funny about you doubling as the double in addition to your PA job. I haven't seen or heard that yet.

you did the PA thing for 2 years, then quit, did you transition to something film-related?

 

edit: I guess this quote explains exactly what you're talking about..."This show is going into the 10th year because we do it to the dollar," Bonann said. "We don't have network money. If we go over budget, it comes out of our pocket."

Edited July 31, 2019 by lindenska

[pahonu]

On ‎7‎/‎31‎/‎2019 at 4:04 PM, lindenska said:

Although I'm more familiar with syndication in relation to reruns, until I looked it up, I haven't really heard of the 2 other types of syndication. I would've thought syndication meant that shows had more budget since they were then shown in many places (especially the international markets from Baywatch), that meant more money the show was pulling in. I'm shocked that money was tight. Looking up Baywatch, it looks like it became so successful they spun it off into 3 films and another series (Baywatch Nights) in filmed a year or so after this, which appears like this episode was right in the midst of Baywatch's popularity. So I'm surprised that the budget was slim. I guess because there wasn't a big 3 network behind it, so it's a different money game then. I've been doing some work on TV shows recently and noticed that the Emmy-nominated Marvelous Mrs Maisel gets a lot more perks and pay than some of the other shows that are either just starting out or winding down. That's so funny about you doubling as the double in addition to your PA job. I haven't seen or heard that yet.

you did the PA thing for 2 years, then quit, did you transition to something film-related?

 

edit: I guess this quote explains exactly what you're talking about..."This show is going into the 10th year because we do it to the dollar," Bonann said. "We don't have network money. If we go over budget, it comes out of our pocket."

The show was originally network funded, NBC I believe, but was canceled.  Greg Bonann, a real lifeguard and the creator, was one of a group including Hasselhoff and Doug Schwartz who put in their own money to bring it back and syndicate it.  I believe it’s called first-run or original syndication.  That’s why they were very careful, shall we say, with the money.  It was their own!  The show would be sold to each market individually and the ad revenue for local commercials is FAR less than nation-wide ads on the networks.  The show did indeed make most of its money overseas not in the US.

I left the industry entirely when I quit.  I talk about it in previous posts in this thread.  What kind of work are you doing?  Is it in SoCal?  Most of it was when I worked in the industry but I know it’s changed a lot since.

I comment on the series here:

 

Edited August 2, 2019 by pahonu

[lindenska]

no, NYC metro area.  just working with background actors.

[pahonu]

22 minutes ago, lindenska said:

no, NYC metro area.  just working with background actors.

Cool.  They always need atmosphere.  Have you ever been on a cattle call?  They're the ones with huge numbers of extras.  From a production assistant standpoint, they were a pain.  We usually had fewer than a dozen extras around most days, sometimes just a handful, but a couple of times we had like 50+ for crowd scenes.  All the vouchers at the end of the day sucked!  I heard stories about some with a few hundred extras!  Do they still do the vouchers?  I remember extras trying to get enough SAG vouchers so they could join the union.  I haven't thought about that in years!

[Matt5]

10 hours ago, pahonu said:

Cool.  They always need atmosphere.  Have you ever been on a cattle call?  They're the ones with huge numbers of extras.  From a production assistant standpoint, they were a pain.  We usually had fewer than a dozen extras around most days, sometimes just a handful, but a couple of times we had like 50+ for crowd scenes.  All the vouchers at the end of the day sucked!  I heard stories about some with a few hundred extras!  Do they still do the vouchers?  I remember extras trying to get enough SAG vouchers so they could join the union.  I haven't thought about that in years!

Great information in your posts @pahonu.

[lindenska]

On 8/3/2019 at 8:36 PM, pahonu said:

Cool.  They always need atmosphere.  Have you ever been on a cattle call?  They're the ones with huge numbers of extras.  From a production assistant standpoint, they were a pain.  We usually had fewer than a dozen extras around most days, sometimes just a handful, but a couple of times we had like 50+ for crowd scenes.  All the vouchers at the end of the day sucked!  I heard stories about some with a few hundred extras!  Do they still do the vouchers?  I remember extras trying to get enough SAG vouchers so they could join the union.  I haven't thought about that in years!

yep. a lot of the actors talk about those vouchers. Just listening to others that have been doing it a while, you learn so much. I'm just doing it in the summer for fun, which it has been, if you're interested in any of this stuff. All of the calls I've been on have been 150+ actors (which require additional PAs too). One actor was telling me about his experience on Spiderman, which had 700-2,000 for his scenes.  Some productions are efficient with all the end of day vouchers, some are not. Also sometimes they dismiss background in waves, which helps. 

[pahonu]

On 8/7/2019 at 9:47 PM, lindenska said:

yep. a lot of the actors talk about those vouchers. Just listening to others that have been doing it a while, you learn so much. I'm just doing it in the summer for fun, which it has been, if you're interested in any of this stuff. All of the calls I've been on have been 150+ actors (which require additional PAs too). One actor was telling me about his experience on Spiderman, which had 700-2,000 for his scenes.  Some productions are efficient with all the end of day vouchers, some are not. Also sometimes they dismiss background in waves, which helps. 

Having a little fun this summer and making some money sounds like a pretty cool plan.  You must be working on more feature films than TV series.  We never had 150+ extras.  I heard lots of interesting stories from extras working on features.  Films are completely different animals filming everything in a few weeks versus filming a season of television over the year.  

What’s the rate for a SAG voucher versus non-SAG today?  From 93-95 when I signed them off; it was $100 for the 8 hours hour base versus $65.  Is it still time and a half for the next two hours, double for the two after that, and then golden time x3 beyond that?  I remember a few times when the director dismissed all but a couple of extras and wanted “one more take”.  The extras chosen were stoked when they got to golden time!  The rest of the crew, including me, usually just wanted outta there when we went so long.  LOL!

 

Edited August 10, 2019 by pahonu