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"This Is It?" and "I Need Some Space." —The Only Two Things Billy Joel Ever Said to Me

"THIS IS IT?"
One mildly annoying thing about the film industry is that, regardless of how simple a shot may be to get, you almost have to put on a big to-do to make the producers feel like they're getting what they paid for. Sometimes, if given a blessed situation, all you need to shoot a scene is a bounce card or nothing at all. But take a few hours to put an 18K HMI through a double 12x12' silk and now you've got a production even the biggest movie star can be proud of walking on to! Maybe I'm exaggerating... or maybe I'm not. My point is, sometimes you really don't need much of anything to get a good looking shot.

When we went to Billy's house [mansion] in Long Island, we brought the usual light kit we'd been lugging around for all our other interviews (sorry, the 18K HMI didn't fit in the SUV we had). We did the usual scout around the place to find the best spot. I told the director that the library/study/whatever room it was would be the best spot (see bottom left picture of the stolen image on the right). Billy went away and I started setting up the camera with our production assistant as a sit-in for Billy. Once I set up the camera, I took a look at what we had and thought that it looked great as-is. I wrestled with the idea of not using lights at all and told the director that not lighting would be the best thing to do. The circumstances were perfect. It was overcast, middle of the day, large windows, dark room and a most-likely short interview. The director trusted me and we went with it.

We called Billy and told him we were ready. He walked into the dark room where he most likely expected lights and C-stands and flags and silks and whatnot, saw nothing but a camera and a chair and said, "This is it?" I said, "Yeah, it looks great!" "Okay," he responded and we did the interview. Thanks to God, a great architect, and a decent eye, we did one of our most important interviews with almost no work at all. That's how I roll. ;)

So we were in Hershey, PA documenting a concert which was basically a "trial run" for the big Last Play at Shea concert in Queens. It was a fairly large stadium that seats over 30,000 people. They were doing a sound check with Billy and I kept my distance as I was supposed to. But somewhere in the middle of his song, I kept getting closer and closer because the shot was so good. I kept thinking, this is amazing! What a great shot! Then he stopped and talked to the sound guy about something. Then he turned to me and said, "Are you with the documentary crew?" I said very proudly, "Yes, I am." Then he said the words that put our non-existent relationship on hold:

"I NEED SOME SPACE."

I was heartbroken. Ok, maybe heartbroken isn't the word... Let's see. Ah yes, über-embarrassed. Yeah, that's the word. Billy Joel just told me to back off and it was echoing in the stadium for everyone to hear. I know for a fact that the sound from the stadium could be heard in the adjacent amusement park as well because I was over in that area later in the day and I could hear everything played and uttered on the sound system. As I backed off, I looked at the director off stage who was standing next to our Billy Joel liaison and they were both giving me the "back off!" hand/arm gestures. Oy vey. 

Other than a "hello" here and there during the entire production, those are the only two things Billy Joel ever really said to me.  People ask if I got to know Billy pretty well.  The answer is a resounding "NO" and I am most certain that Billy doesn't know me from Adam.  I was just the guy behind the camera.  Yup, there you have it.

I do want to clarify that Billy was always very nice and I respect him as a person and an artist.  I hope I didn't paint him in a bad light for comedy's sake.

In closing, here is a picture of me and the thirty thousand in Hershey, PA:

Still the Uptown Girl

So if you're past your mid-thirties, you probably know how hot Christie Brinkley was in your childhood memories.  Well, let me tell you, she's still absolutely gorgeous.  Christie was a no-brainer subject for this documentary but it wasn't until late in the game that we finally got permission to do the interview.  We went to her house in the Hamptons for the shoot.  We looked around her place to find the best spot to shoot and she told us that she had a beach house nearby that we could also shoot at.  We went over there and ultimately decided to shoot in her living room back at the house.  

I can't even tell you how stunning, nice and hospitable she was.  She was beautiful when we got there and then she went into hair and makeup and her beauty was like a punch to the face!  Anyway, she was so nice that she even provided us (a really amazing) lunch.  Who does that?  After the interview, we literally hung out at her house with her for a little while as we got our equipment packed up.  She didn't disappear as you would have expected.  Then we all hung out on her front steps talking about her kids and whatnot.  She even busted out her electric guitar and started "playing" for us.  Random, yet awesome!


It's funny because Billy Joel's Uptown Girl is my favorite song of his and here I was with the Uptown Girl herself... at least the one in the music video (which I just re-watched for the first time since the 80's... it's horrid).

On a side note, I got to go into the storage facility where all things Billy Joel are archived and I saw on the shelf the original master recording tape for Uptown Girl (and other tracks).  I thought that was pretty neat.

And here is a picture of us on the porch...

My wife says I have the life.  I get to do what I love to do, hang out with celebrities, eat out, tour cities, be driven around, stay up late... all kid-free.  It's like I get paid to be on vacation.  But I guess she's right.  Poor her.  She says I owe her a couple of trips to Europe.  She made me write that last sentence.

Off to London to See Paul

After the concert, we were able to schedule a follow up interview with Paul McCartney at his office in Soho, London.  We were shooting in New York at the time so we left from NY on a Wednesday, interviewed him on Thursday and then flew back in time to keep shooting in NY on Friday.

After I had setup all the lights with a stand-in (the director), Paul's assistant arrived and told me that the lighting had to be a certain way.  It didn't exactly agree with the style that I had been going with for every other interview we had shot for this film.  After he made his case, I needed to do some quick adjustments before Paul showed up.  Paul showed up sooner than I thought and his assistant and I came up with a compromise that met Paul's requirements as well as mine.  We showed Paul on the monitor and he was happy with it.

We weren't allowed to take any pictures or get any autographs with him, but I did manage to sneak a shot from my camera phone during the interview.  I'm bad.

One cool, yet unrelated, thing that happened on this quick trip to London was that a long-time friend of mine, Clayton Vance*, that I hadn't seen in a while happened to be in London that day as well.  He was studying abroad with fellow students from Notre Dame architectural school.  We met up for lunch and he taught me a thing or two about classical architecture.  I'll never look at a lintle the same way again.  He's since graduated at the top of his class and working with a great firm.  Congrats, Clayton!

Clayton and a chubbier version of me. 

*Clayton was one of the missionaries that taught me about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints back in June of 1997.  We've been friends ever since.

Celebrity Surprise!

In two days, I had the amazing experience of not only shooting behind the scenes footage of the historic Billy Joel concert, I also got to shoot interviews with Steven Tyler, Garth Brooks, Tony Bennett, Don Henley, John Mayer, Roger Daltrey and John Mellencamp.  Then I followed Paul McCartney from the greenroom on one end of Shea Stadium to the opposite end where the stage was.  It was pretty cool.

Paul being carted to the stage.

On the day of the concert(s) I heard there may be some guest artists invited by Billy to sing a song or two.  It was really cool to hear exactly who was coming—and how many of them.

As much as I wanted to shoot each personality's interview with a different setup, it was logistically impossible—so we had a single setup for everyone.  Plus, with us running around the stadium all day, it was too hectic of a situation to even think about setting up something different when we only had a few moments notice that the next celeb was on his way to be interviewed.

There was only one room in all of Shea Stadium that we were able to shoot the interviews in, which was a small room that led to the Mets' locker room.  It was a small, boring, white-walled, virtually unfurnished room with a conference table and some chairs.  As a bonus feature, the air-conditioning unit for that area of the stadium was behind door number two! Ah, the rumble of an industrial air-conditioner directly behind the door is absolutely perfect for getting good clean audio.  Thanks to a great sound guy and some digital audio cleanup in post, we managed to get usable audio.

My view of John Mayer

Only a few of the interviews ended up in the final cut of the film.  I have to say that Garth Brooks wins for most humility and best impression of a good guy.  On the opposite end, it seemed like Don Henley couldn't have cared less about anything or anyone that day.  John Mayer was the most fun and personable.  Steven Tyler was the most intimidating, but he was really nice.  Tony Bennett wins for being Tony Bennett.

Jon Moe and his blasted Octodome! ;)

Jon Moe was the photographer for those days and we had to use the same space for stills and video.  He brought a gray seamless backdrop and we had our hot lights and his strobes overlapping each other.  As soon as we got the video interview done, I'd turn off my lights and he'd fire up his and take some stills.  The only time this tripped me up was when the modeling light of Jon's Octodome was left on during Tony Bennett's interview without any of us noticing and gave me a fill light that I really didn't want.  I noticed it a few moments after we started but it was too late to do anything about it.  Oh well, it didn't end up in the film anyway. Phew!  I still love you, Jon.

It was an incredible time.  Granted, it was the pinnacle moment of what the entire film was about so it, naturally, was amazing.  There were over 50,000 people at this concert—each of the two!  Being in that stadium with all those people looking at one guy on stage was unforgettable. Looking up at the people in the seats is literally indescribable.  I mean, look at this:

50,000+ people.  Photo taken on my phone while shooting video.  Sorry for the blur.

The seating in the stands that you see in this photo is less than half of what's there.  Crazy!