The Art Department Blog

“I have no patience for stupidity” That’s what the cop said to me, right after he said, “Do these guys know what they’re doing?” He was talking about the location permits and the photographer changing his mind. Apparently what the photographer wanted to do and what was detailed on the permits were completely different things… Not much of surprise because throughout the ten days or so we have been shooting the photographer has changed his mind about a dozen times. Where we were going to shoot, what we needed to shoot with, all of the critical information changed from moment to moment. We’re there on 42nd Street with a flatbed truck set up with platforms ten or eleven feet off the bed for the athletes, another at four feet and a third two feet high for the photographer and the camera. At the back of the truck is a stack of crash pads that the athletes are going to be jumping onto, over the head of the photographer.

So, you get the idea, we’re there at six AM sharp on 42nd Street,  putting the second level on the athlete’s platform because we can’t drive around with this on the back of the truck or we would hit the traffic lights. All of this was scheduled to take place on Wednesday afternoon. We were on our way to pick up the truck and meet the crew for the setup on Wednesday morning when we get a call from the producer that we have once again changed our minds and we were going to keep shooting on the roof in Chinatown today and could we do this on Saturday because we could get the permit to shoot in Times Square by then. This after we had already canceled this rig for a shoot on Tuesday when they had asked for it on Monday. HiHo, on we go.  At any rate there we are and the cop, who is none too happy with all of this, is going to let us shoot on Seventh Avenue looking downtown at Times Square rather than 42nd Street which is what read on the permit. And there we are with this flatbed in the bus lane on 42nd waiting to back it around the corner onto Seventh Avenue, while the photographer is shooting these guys running up on the side of a Pepsi Truck, and the cop is shaking his head, and I’m getting cold sitting up on the back of this flatbed waiting to pull it into place. Then with only two hours left on the permit which expires at eleven o’clock we’re walking this truck around the corner of 42nd Street and Seventh Avenune and moving it into position right on Times Square at the base of the ticker where the ball comes down every New Year’s eve.  I look down the avenue below and this is the shot that I know he wanted all along. It’s what is the true heart of New York City, the center of all that’s truly the city,  and a lot of what’s American. The advertising, the people, the traffic, even at 10 AM on  a Saturday morning we are attracting a crowd of tourists on the sidewalk.  About fifty people have gathered already, taking pictures and watching these guys jump over the photographer’s head while he shoots to catch them mid-air. I took about ten shots or so just to get this one and I saw the Polaroids, it seemed like he never missed.  I guess that’s why he’s the photographer and I’m the draftsmen.  At eleven o’clock on the dot the cop steps up and stops it. The meter has run out and the permit has expired. So, we’re packing it back up to move the truck over to Fifth Avenue where we have the rest of the day to shoot; but no extra copies of the permit to put in the window of the truck so we get a parking ticket.  It’s the life we lead – moving trucks, stacking platforms, explaining to the cop that they were just trying to see if they could shoot in the middle of Fifth Avenue on  Saturday, or trying not to break the branches of the trees along the street while we pull a U-Turn to get the truck set up again for another shot. It’s art, that’s what we live for isn’t it, to make art.

Tags: Time Square

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 10:05 am and is filed under Life in the Art Department. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.