It’s time to meet some of the crew! There’s a lot of waiting around on film sets (see my previous post for more on that fascinating subject!), and I’ve spent a good amount of that time talking to some of the highly trained professionals who have gathered together to make Rob Meyer’s and Luke Matheny’s vision a reality. (It actually still kind of trips me out that so many people are working so hard to bring to life something that Rob and Luke just kind of thought up. But then I remember the years of hard work they put into it and it makes more sense.) Here’s a little bit about a few of them.
Joe Props stealing a car
This is Joe Murray. Nobody calls him that, though. They call him Joe Props. This is because Joe is the props department on this film. I’d make fun of this nickname, but it’s actually pretty cool. Also, he seems to be one of the nicest guys around.
Joe Props has been in the business for about five years. You may have seen his props in films like The Art of Getting By and BuzzKill. I haven’t seen that last one, but the IMDB description includes the words “…a notorious serial murderer, named the Karaoke Killer,” so I’m going to have to add it to the list.
Joe Props has a face tattooed on his shoulder. I asked if the face has a nickname, but I think Joe thought that was a weird question.
Ben Logan
This here is Ben Logan. Ben has been a grip for three years. Before that he worked as an AD (That’s an assistant director. As far as I can tell, the AD’s are responsible for nearly everything that happens on a film set and get approximately zero percent of the fame or credit. I’d switch jobs too.) Over lunch, a few of us tried to figure out where the word “grip” comes from. No one really had any idea. Wikipedia has a couple of theories involving guys holding tripods and slang for a bag of tools. Those are pretty boring, so I’m going to edit the Wikipedia page and add a story about a legendary crewmember from the days of vaudeville called “Wolfgang Grip.” We’ll see how long that stays up.
Anyway, Ben does more than grip work. He’s also producer of a web series called “Brett and the City.” You can check it out at brettandthecity.com, or, perhaps more likely, on Youtube.
BK hard at work
Last but not least we’ve got BK Kelley. BK has been working as a PA for two or three years. He’s also a comedic writer and a standup comic. On twitter he’s @bkisfunny, in case you’re into that kind of thing. I tried to get a picture of BK doing his job, but this was the best I could do.
BK played football in high school. He’s not as tall as some of his opponents were, so when tackling he had to use his head to ram people to the ground. Here are BK’s thoughts on the concussion scandal in football: “If they water it down too much, it’s not football anymore. You can’t make everything safe. And everyone who plays football knows what they’re getting into. I just think… well, you can’t take the living out of life.”
Indeed.
by ameeryoussef
