The Crime Story incident Part 1

In May of 1986, I graduated from Columbia College in Chicago and during my first Summer out of school I was looking for freelance and full time work of any kind. I was also working on finishing an animated film I had started during my final year at Columbia.

I was looking for both animation and live action work and began finding short gigs on various small projects. I remember working as a PA on a music video where a large group of extras gathered in a dark bar. While this was all happening, a make up person was putting the last bits of details on several Zombie characters to be shot after the Bar scene.

A new NBC TV series began shooting in Chicago and my roommate, Mike had managed to get a job as a PA. "Crime Story" was a new TV show produced by Michael Mann, set in Chicago during the early sixties, about a group of Chicago cops and the bad guys they were trying to catch. It only ran for 2 seasons and featured actor Dennis Farina, who served 18 years in the Chicago Police Department (1967 to 1985), during which he advanced from patrolman to detective, now in his first starring role on a TV series.

At one point of the production, my roommate got me a job as a PA and my first taste of TV series production work had begun. Some of these events are a little blurry since I wasn't on the show for very long and most of the work hours were long night shoots.

My first day on the job was to help get the craft services table set up for the shoot. Mike had more experience then I did and so he showed me what to do. While we were buying snacks and drinks for the crew, the crew was shooting at a location not too far away. Mike thought it would best to meet the crew at the next location and have the snacks set up there.

Mike had a car and we drove to the next location, got everything set up and waited for the crew to show up. As things turned out, we should have went to the first location to set up the tables because the film shoot took longer than expected.

The next thing I know, a bunch of angry looking crew members are walking towards us and somehow they all know my name. A few start yelling and asking why we didn't show up at the location. Mike was trying to calm them down and keep them from ripping my head off. The term "Hangry" had not been invented yet.

All I know, is that my first day on the job had not turned out to be a pleasent experience. Over the next few days and mostly nights, I would have to work harder to be seen as being more dependable. I also learned all about Union rules throughout my time on the job.

When the Assistant Director (AD) asks you to tell the driver of the large truck to move slightly forward, the driver will not listen to you. You must then find his boss, the head teamster on the crew. Then the boss tells the driver and he does the task.

Also, when it came time for lunch or dinner, the crew would be watching the clock, any sign of delay and the crew could call a penality if they were not fed at the right time. Also the crew would eat first before the talent or extras. These were the laws of the jungle I was learning about on the job.

I remember I was given a walkie talkie and told to block off the street so no modern day cars would drive through the background of the shot. I did and had to turn a few drivers around until another PA ran up and needed to take my walkie talkie away to do something else. Now, I was just some weirdo who tried to stop traffic without any proof of authority or a walkie talkie.

And so, this was my week of learning about being a PA, from blocking areas from traffic to picking up a pack of cigarettes for the director to finally deciding that I didn't want to do this for a living. That was on Friday, Sept 5th 1988 when the accident occured.

BTW, I recent found out that I had worked Six  12 hour days back in September 1986 on Crime Story. 1) 12 hour day = $69.07!!!!  Was it worth it? What was the big event that changed my mind from working in live action and working in animation production? Find out soon in Part 2.