By TOM WATKINS
Big Shout Magazine, February 1996

Editor’s note: Tom Watkins was a well-known artist, business owner, and freelance writer for Big Shout Magazine from 1989 to 1996. During this time, he began working on set production for two films that would become major productions: Dead Poet’s Society (filmed in Delaware in 1988) and 12 Monkeys (filmed in Philadelphia in 1995). Tom wrote articles about both of those experiences, including his interactions with the actors Robin Williams and Bruce Willis. He passed in June of 2021 in Philadelphia.

“Two things you never want to see being made are sausages and laws.” — Winston Churchill
“Movies are a third thing.” — Tom Watkins

Films are like laws and sausages — “collaborative works.” Besides a director or writer’s vision, there are actors, producers, and often hundreds of technical and administrative personnel. Hopefully, they agree on the “vision” and push for the director’s concept. Realistically, there’s chaos, self interest, accidents (lucky and otherwise), and a bureaucracy from hell. Then there’s a Terry Gilliam film. Winter ’95 found me in Philadelphia on the set-dressing crew of Gilliam’s darkly humorous “12 Monkeys.” To say it was bizarre is an understatement. Bizarre, grueling, filthy, frustrating, and occasionally sublime might be closer to the truth. As a co-worker put it, “I rented ‘Brazil’ last night. Now I know what we’re doing. We’re making a movie run by the people in that movie…” I wrote letters detailing my days to Bill Lynch (London) and Sybil Brabner (Chicago) during my “Monkey Boy” months. This made 70-hour work weeks in miserable old buildings bearable, if not fun. So the following (edited from about 100 pages) is one view of this great enterprise. Sausages anyone? Here are the excerpts…

… The week started with 17-degree temperatures (-30-degrees with windchill). If you spilled coffee, it froze on the the ground in 5 minutes, inside the plant. “Mr. (Bruce) Willis” thought it was cold even with a propane heater and numerous film-lighting apparatus on. He requested clean packing blankets be brought to his jail cell set so he could lie down between shots.

I restocked Sudafed “Serious” or “Drastic” or whatever it is for the ongoing cold we all have. Ditto for “Wetnaps.” Something about handling food after sorting used bed pans and blood-encrusted surgical instruments that have been sort of sitting around an abandoned mental hospital for eight or nine years puts me off my feed. I wonder sometimes about this “cold” we all have; maybe it’s a virus, not unlike the one in the movie…

We “cut” on Friday… My boss was bumped down to my position, and another dresser was cut as well. We lost another on Tuesday. The basic problem is budget. They (Universal) underestimated manpower for stripping, sorting, refurbishing, and installing a slew of heavy, bulky fixtures into huge buildings with limited access. This show has a lot of problems like that. No coffee in our shop — no water (even tap water has industrial waste in it and is non-potable). No water jugs some days, no coffee, no toilet paper or paper towels… No soap… no hot water. It’s a mess.

Norm Dodge is our Lead Man. He asked for 80 “man weeks” of staff to dress the show. His boss said 60 “man weeks.” The producer gave him 20 and didn’t cut the script. He has a pager, cell phone, clipboard, desktop computer, and lost his assistant when he went over budget.

A new guy, John Kreschner, is now in Norm’s spot. Universal eventually “got it” — Norm and John shared authority as “Co-Lead Man.” So we got all the sets done, but we went into overtime to do it. Our main site is mostly abandoned PECO plant. It’s huge — many football fields in size, vertically and horizontally. Most days the freight elevator doesn’t work resulting in our hauling tool carts, buckets, dressing, etc. by stairs. We’re on the third & fourth floors and basement. Our dressing is not froo-froo stuff. The sets are police cells and hospital research facility stuff. Lots of industrial fixtures, all of it glass, steel, cast iron, etc.

I run the warehouse for Set Dressing. I receive and ship out all packages and coordinate our three docks for trucks moving our stuff on and off sets. I find stuff that was lost during the 10 days my predecessor was “on set,” and no one paid for this job to be done. I sweep, I arrange shelves, I make coffee, unclog toilets, fix broken pipes and order supplies that never arrive. And I walk around with Crispian (our set dresser) while he points and does his “Eh, Wot?” routine. Love those Limeys!

Did I mention telephones? Since most of the important people on the show have a desk phone, cell phone, and pager, no one ever reaches their party the first time because they’re answering your first call when they get the message. It’s a beautiful thing. Crispian’s cell battery goes out about 3 p.m., and he’s talking fast, faintly, and frustratedly while enumerating the then current “immediate crisis” information…

Saw director Terry Gilliam on set tonight. Word is we’re trying to do a $60 million show on $30 million. Our Tuesday a.m. “pep talk” included “The director’s career depends on how we do this week.” A fairly serious opening for a “short week.”

Well, I guess I’m officially “old” now. I had an invite to a party thrown by Bruce Willis at his veeery expensive hotel last night, but I stayed after work to call the new crew for Monday. Got home at 8 p.m. and cleaned up ’til 9 p.m. Couldn’t stay away ’til 11 p.m. So much for show biz’s glamour.

It turns out our big warehouse (#250) is going to cost another month’s rent if not emptied by tomorrow. Went to Pennhurst (mental hospital) to return benches to a church (at a huge cost… pews were stripped, transported, installed on a second floor power plant location with a crane, shot and abandoned. Then a new bureaucrat decided we had to return the now ruined pews — a four-hour trip. The scene isn’t in the film.

I led some of our fresh troops through the hospital surgery areas and picked up lots of morbid souvenirs, including leather restraints and some very ugly bone marrow needles. Norm found communion plates in the church and he and the boys and girls used them as frisbees — a new sacrilege at this late date in the 20th century!

Finally, we’re out of the warehouse with about a ton of scrap metal generated to boot. Of course the dumpster rental, two forklifts, and front loader eat all the profits completely. But they saved a month’s rent and allowed a new tenant to move in tomorrow.

At this point we wrapped sets, returned tons of rentals, shipped purchased and built scenery to Hollywood and got the hell out of there.