MMPR02

Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie

    Chris the AD

    I was concerned about this so-called Chris, the new AD. He had been the AD on the series and for some reason wasn't asked to work on the movie. Word was he yelled and got angry but at the end of the day, he'd have a beer with you. I didn't find this comforting. So when I saw him in the office talking to unit production manager Yakov, I walked into their meeting and introduced myself to him to get the civil portion of our working relationship out of the way and he smiled somewhat amused at me when I backed out of the office, so I thought that can't be too bad. The first day I worked on the same set with him, we were at Griffith Park and he was bored, so he started breathing heavy and moaning into the bullhorn. I had my back to him and tried to think of an expression that would allow me to overlook this audible assimilation of sex with some degree of decorum without appearing too much the prude when grip Carlos, smiling at me, announced "Marilyn, Chris. Chris, Marilyn."

    Chris is a sunbaked hippie looking guy with long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail and a long gray mustache, two earrings on his left ear and, I later discovered one hot day when he took off his shirt, a nipple ring (Yuck!). He wears either blue jeans or shorts and, when the weather allows, sandals. He generally drapes himself over a director's chair or drops his chin on his hand and looks up at people in pathetic disgust when anyone asks what's going on, how many set-ups are left, or how he's doing. He's got the West Virginia accent he was born with and, I was happy to deduce, is a Dan Hicks fan (one evening to pass the time, he and I sang bits of Striking It Rich and Last Train to Hicksville songs).

    Possibly the most famous things he's done has revolved around walkie-talkies. He despises anyone telling someone to "go to channel 2" to avoid airing their conversation for everyone else's ears (channel 1 is broadcast to the crew). Yakov (amazingly inept unit production manager, and Israeli Army buddy with the producer -- everyone is convinced he must have saved his life and that's why we're stuck with him) is notorious for doing this, so the night we were shooting outside the Woodland Hills stage, Chris heard Yakov tell someone to go to channel 2 and Chris flipped over to channel 2 and turned the volume up, essentially broadcasting Yakov's excruciatingly dull and uninformative conversation with a PA who was sent to buy groceries since we didn't have a craft service person that night.

    Yakov can't live without doing this and he also can't live without switching over to listen in on someone else's private conversation, so one evening Transpo Jay told PA Angie on channel 1 to "go to 2" and really went to 7 and discussed how funny Yakov looked hitting his walkie, turning up the volume and holding it to his ear. Chris said he did a similar thing on another show when his boss would call his name, then say "never mind" which was code for go to 8.

    My favorite walkie-talkie experience was when we were on a San Pedro beach and someone standing hardly 20 feet away radioed Chris a yes or no question. Chris was perched in his director's chair and had to twist around and reach to the back of his belt to get the radio and it flipped out of his hand and crashed to the ground. He looked down from his perch at it, then over at the caller and hollered "No!" and sat back, not worrying about the walkie on the ground.

    The Jacket

    It's Saturday morning and we're trying to shoot four major Ranger cockpit scenes in one day. Our original schedule had us slated to shoot the four rangers and some helmet heads (stunt guys in suits), but they decided that was totally improbable. So we've been shooting Johnny for a couple of hours and we've still got two more shots to go and AD Chris is constantly asking today's 2nd Unit director Makoto how many more set-ups because Jason Frank (Tommy) is ready and we need to move on. These last two shots are for a different scene than the one we've been shooting all morning, and I check my notes to verify some information on this new scene and I see a note from 1st Unit scripty Janee (and official keeper of overall continuity) that Johnny is definitely NOT wearing his jacket in this scene, which is after the pod monster fight where he takes it off. I sit back. He wasn't wearing it in the scene we just shot, which is before the pod monster fight where he takes it off. My brain goes into anti-lock brake position, something I had installed when I took up script supervising.

    While Makoto and Chris are setting up the next shot, I casually look over the playback on the monitor, which I can't get to work, and I ask if they mind if I look at something on the video. "What do you need to see?" asks Chris. I need to see if Johnny was wearing the jacket and I just didn't notice, but I'll die before I say that, so I say "checking something." Playback. Yep, it's off. I nod and say "Okay" and make a note as if I'm writing screen direction.

    Then I sit back in my chair and look around. I don't see what I'm looking for. I lean up to Chris. "Is wardrobe here?" I ask casually. "She's sitting behind you," he says pointing to a new person I didn't know. Then his head snaps back to me and he says, "Why?" I say, "Oh, nothing!" and spin back to her. "In scene 60, is Adam wearing his jacket?" I ask her quietly and anxiously. She looks at me with the horror of one who has no idea when someone asks her a career-ending question. She fumbles through Polaroids of the Rangers in costume and has no answer. She says she'll check with her boss and runs out of the set. I turn around. "What's happening?" someone, I don't remember who, asks me. "Oh, I'm about to be fired," I sigh. Chris' stern voice calmly rattles down to me, "Are you saying we may have to reshoot everything we've done this morning?" I look up him, totally dead but trying to look calm. "Is he supposed to wear his jacket?" someone else asks. "I'm not going to let my brain explode until wardrobe gets back!" I announce. Then I start rubbing my temples with my fists muttering, "He's supposed to wear it, I know he is, he is, he is, I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead..." Chris says, "If it's wrong, we'll just blame you." Then he suggests I go see Janee, the 1st Unit script supervisor who's shooting on another set nearby.

    I bolt, terrified. I run three long stages and have to wait for them to say "Cut" before I thread my way through the crew past the director (the owner of the company) to Janee. "In scene 60, is Adam wearing his jacket?" She quickly looks through her notes. "No," she states. "Are you sure?" I ask, not believing this answer - a.k.a my great fortune - for one second. "Yes, I'm sure!" she replies annoyed, then, when she sees the fear in my eyes, explains, "He doesn't put it on until the campfire scene." "Oh!...You're sure?" "I'm totally sure." I kiss her head, she laughs, and I run back to 2nd Unit, where the wardrobe department and Chris are huddled and waiting for me. Wardrobe says, "We don't think he wears it, but what did Janee say?" When I say she said No, they suddenly know with no doubt that he didn't wear it.

    After lunch, where I was too shaken to eat anything for 10 minutes, we settle back on the set. I'm working quietly and Chris stretches, announcing, "That was pretty exciting, that jacket thing, huh?" I look up and he's smiling at me, continuing with "That was great!" I laugh, telling him I'm glad he enjoyed it, and he proceeds to tell me about a shoot two seasons ago when he and Koichi spent an entire day shooting a big chase scene using a very expensive insert-car and location permits. The story was an evil taxi cab had gobbled up the Pink Ranger's motorcycle and the other Rangers were chasing it through the city on their motorcycles to get her back. Saban spent a lot of money on that one day's shoot, and the next day Koichi went up to Chris and said, "I think we screwed up. We had the Pink motorcycle chasing the taxi, too."

    The Power Pranksters

    Same Saturday, word is orange unit, down in Dana Pointe near San Diego for 3 days and 3 nights, will be utilizing the five actors on Sunday. When they wrap with us, they'll be shuffled onto a van and driven for a couple of hours, arriving at their hotel room at approximately 10 p.m. for an alleged 5 a.m. call time. (This news broke Friday while brown unit was on the set with Jason Frank. When I asked Chris about it, he told me to keep it quiet, as he had two more set-ups with Jason, and he wanted to try to get them before Jason heard and hit the ceiling). So Johnny asks me if they've cut the mermaid scene (his big scene where he gets to bungee jump from a cliff and snatch a mermaid from the path of a torpedo) and I tell him regretfully that they have, and he and I are both bummed about it. Then he asks me if I'm going to Dana Pointe with them the next day. I tell him no, producer Jonathan says he doesn't need me. Johnny looks at me with disgust and says, "Script supervisor's not going, make-up's not going…" I said, "Do me a favor. Say things like 'Where's Marilyn? We need Marilyn! Why isn't Marilyn here?!!'"

    Two days later, brown unit's shooting with the Bulk and Skull characters, and I'm talking to one of the make-up women, fishing for stories from Sunday that she might have heard. I tell her what I asked Johnny to say for me. She says, "Oh, he did you one better. He buttoned up his shirt that's been hanging open for the whole movie." I love it.

    The next day when I see Johnny at lunch, I ask, "So, Johnny, were there any continuity problems this weekend?" He looks up at me from the salad bar with a devilish grin and nods vigorously. All the actors were mad because the director decided to do some close-ups and their hair and non-made-up faces were going to look awful on film, so they totally sabotaged the day, half of them wearing coats when none of them were supposed to wear coats, half not wearing coats when all of them were supposed to wear coats, Johnny kept flipping one collar up and the other one down, then switching. And Jason Frank, who has a tattoo on his arm that always has to have make-up cover it, held out his arm and pointed at stuff that wasn't there so the tattoo would be visible at all times. I announce I want my name in the credits to read "Marilyn 'I wasn't there that day' Estes."


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