Leading key grips shed light upon their working relationships with top cinematographers
According to popular rumor, Steven Spielberg once said that were he ever stranded on a desert island, he'd want only two things: a good book and a good key grip. The director's implicit message, of course, was that a good grip is a virtual Houdini, capable of turning a few palm trees into a seaworthy raft in mere minutes, or transforming a stark beach into a tropical paradise before sunset. "If Leonardo da Vinci were alive today, he'd be a key grip," speculates cinematographer Woody Omens, ASC. "Grips are master inventors, and they have to create their inventions quickly and economically. They have to have an architect's sense of structure, and be master problem solvers in time and space."
Indeed, in an article she penned for the New York Times, producer Lynda Obst once referred to grips as "existential cowboys" whose mastery of highly specialized skills makes them an invaluable asset on the set. To Omens, the relationship between the cinematographer and the grip is crucial, because "ideally, the grip and the cinematographer must think as one. They become one person, they are one eye."
The dolly grip also deserves special attention, Omens maintains, "because I strongly feel that the dolly grip should be part of the camera crew. There's a real intimacy between the work that the cinematographer and the operator do together, and I believe that dolly grips share in that intimacy their work is a fine art. So many problems get solved when a few dolly tracks are built."
Sandi Sissel, ASC, who at press time was out of the country shooting Barney's Great Adventure, describes what a grip does "as a uniquely American thing." Sissel points out the diverse degree to which U.S. grips help cinematographers: "They do an enormous amount of rigging, and they stand by the director of photography's side to help with artistic and mechanical decisions." Outside the States, Sissel finds that productions in such English-based Canadian cities as Vancouver and Toronto offer American-style crew systems, while in the Francophone milieu of Montreal, Quebec and all through Europe, "key grips deal mainly with the dolly track. The gaffer tends to be the chief electrician, and does everything that relates to lighting flagging, silking, and the other things we usually depend on grips for."
The three grips Sissel works with most often are Tony Marra, Mike Pizzuto and Tim Pershing. "They've all not only set the dolly track and worked the cranes, but they've set the flags and silks and really rigged actors safely," she says. "They've harnessed the camera, and harnessed me in many ways, they are the nurturing males on the set."
With the advent of Louma cranes, Technocranes and remote heads, Sissel notes that key grips often help to design camera moves. "They control all of the arm moves, and therefore contribute a great deal of artistic input," she observes. Sissel has come to depend on her grips for special help. As she notes, "Only when I don't have a good grip do I realize how invaluable they are. Tony, Tim and Mike tend to stand by my side on the set. At any given moment, they can jump in and handle any of the tasks that become necessary." An extraordinary grip, says Sissel, "is an expert organizer and a kind of protector on the set, someone who can take on any kind of problem involving the riggings, cameras or lights."
Tony Marra, one of Sissel's trio of top grips, agrees that American grips are always willing to go the extra mile for a cinematographer. "British directors of photography always tell me that I'm spoiling them," he says. "In America, grips add to the lighting capabilities by shaping light for cinematographers and giving them exactly what they want to see. We're a driving force on the set. In Europe, they don't want to fly any overhead butterflies."
Marra, who most recently worked with Sissel on the TV movie The Innocent, loves to collaborate with the cinematographer, "because she's so open to the movement of the camera. I love trying to get encompassing crane shots and dolly shots, whether they cut into the master or not. Sandi is always interested in giving us the freedom to try something new. She's like a breath of fresh air."
Marra also grips for director Robert Altman, another advocate of lengthy and intricate camera moves. "Altman doesn't do a conventional master over single shots," Marra notes. "He likes to carry a piece so the actors can work it out, and then present it to viewers like a staged play." As an example of this creative ethos, Marra cites the eight-minute opening scene of Altman's The Player, which introduces all of the film's main characters in one continuous shot. "I always like to give the actors more to work with, to give them more reign over the territory," Marra submits.
In the eyes of cinematographer Bill Dill, a good key grip is the cinematographer's trusted safety advisor. The heat of a given light, as well as the steadiness of mounts and cranes, must be ascertained by someone who knows the point at which they can become dangerous. The relationship between grip and cinematographer must therefore be one of implicit trust. "When you've got a light over an actor's head," says Dill, "it's up to the grip to determine if the mount can support that weight. And getting on and off a crane can be hazardous; you have to wait for the dolly grip to answer to the key grip as to whether that particular crane is safe. If it's not safe, it shouldn't be on the set. After all, it's only a movie."
Dill has special ties with grips Derek Wells and Gary Nepa. Wells, a second-generation grip who began his career fresh out of Marine boot camp, describes his peer group as "the most unsung heroes in the industry, because we make it happen." His lifelong exposure to gripping has made Wells something of an expert in grip trivia. "Not many people know that grips wore suits in the early Twenties," he reveals. "Back then, the job mainly involved assisting the camera crew in moving those big, heavy 100-pound cameras."
Wells points out how far grips have come since that early era: "Now, we can take a light and mold it to any shape. You can't just turn on a 10K and start shooting; the shot has to be cut and made to look agreeable to the eye. Sometimes you have to diffuse to hide shadows, because in the real world there aren't as many shadows as there are on a studio set."
According to Wells, the grip-cinematographer relationship is complex, because the grip's domain is so extensive. "We interact in so many different areas. In addition to lighting interiors and exteriors, rigging, and dealing with things like cars and planes, the job also involves artistry, engineering and on-set politics."
Wells says that when he works with Dill, "I never try to get into Bill's head. Instead, I try to anticipate the challenges, then take his ideas and bring them to life." He notes that Dill likes to use a nine-light Fay unit. "We build our own frames to put in front of the light to achieve the look Bill needs for each show," he explains. "A lot of cinematographers work that way, which is why they like to work with certain key grips who will bend over backwards to get that look." Wells describes Dill's approach to filmmaking as "scientific and analytical. He'll break each show down in terms of what each department will need before we get on the set and start work. I appreciate that, because it helps me home in on what needs to be done."
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