Bozo the Clown, an Angry Faculty, and Breaking Rules
I have always had trouble with rules. No particular reason, I just never really liked being told what to do. That might be one reason I always had trouble in school. If I didn’t see a good reason for a rule, I jut ignored it.
When I was in film school the faculty was pretty hardcore as far as, you had to shoot your films within (I believe) 25 miles of campus. I’m sure there were a few exceptions but we were told it was for insurance reasons.
It’s a rule and you’re supposed to follow the rules, right?
If you were doing a 480/580 (senior project) you had a group of faculty advisors, but if you did what was then called a 580B you only had one faculty member you met with. To do a 580B you had to have already worked on someone else’s 480/580 so you had experience. There was also less competition to do a 580B. That’s why I went for the 580B.
I proposed a documentary on Clowns and the commercialization of Clowning. My project was accepted and Mel Sloan was our advisor.
Mel was a force to be reckoned with. He was one of the longest serving faculty members. People either loved him or hated him and many of the faculty were apparently in the latter camp.
He was really tough on the students that he advised. He put us through hell before we were able to go out and shoot.
He wanted to make sure we knew exactly what we were making a film about and why. He played devil’s advocate in every meeting we ever had with him. Our final meeting before we started production was 3 hours long and my crew and I walked out of that meeting absolutely drained. We walked across the street to a bar and had a drink. We wanted to celebrate but were too wiped out.
In the end when he was sure we knew what we wanted and how we were going to achieve it, he gave us his approval to move forward. Once you proved to Mel that you were serious and he saw you were working your ass off, he had your back.
I had put together an entire crew of teaching assistants. We had keys to the various departments within the school, (sound, equipment, editing, the lab, etc). If we needed stuff we just went in and got it and then had the production manager turn in the paperwork later, which used to really piss him off. As the production manager he thought he was in control. Not be a long shot!
The first shoot we did was in San Diego, about 120 miles from campus. I did my first “ambush interview” with Ronald McDonald in a parking lot. It went well, we brought back good footage and Mel was happy. He never realized we were in San Diego, he assumed we were some place in LA.
Our second shoot was in Phoenix, 400 miles from campus, to film with a circus that was playing there. That trip turned out to be a disaster. Permission was pulled at the very last minute so we were unable to shoot anything.
We did a couple shoots in the LA area that went well. We had to screen everything we shot for Mel and he was happy with our progress.
As spring break rolled up we had two shoots we needed to do. I took some gear and drove up to Jacksonville, Oregon, 695 miles, to shoot in a small county museum that had the original Bozo the Clown costume and make up. The guy who actually originated the character was from there.
The other shoot was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2100 miles give or take. Ammiel, one of the cinematographers, was from there. He flew home for spring break with a decent amount of the schools camera and sound equipment. Grand Rapids was one of the last cities that had a TV Bozo the Clown, who was still on the air.
Through personal contacts Ammiel (the photo to the right is Ammiel Najar and I meeting up in Palm Springs in 2017) was able to get permission to shoot the show being taped and then sat down with Bozo and did an interview with him.
It was great because first he was talking while putting on his clown make-up, then interacting with the kids on set. Ammiel also interviews him two days later in a furniture store where he’s doing a commercial. He’s dressed in a very nice suit holding a cigar, talking about the other things he does besides Bozo through the TV station. Another classmate from Michigan was home so he showed up to roll sound while Ammiel shot.
The footage was amazing, but how do we explain that we sent a bunch of the schools equipment back to Grand Rapids for a shoot? I could fake where the stuff I shot in the museum came from, but it was a little harder to do that with the Grand Rapids footage.
The following week we screened everything for our faculty advisor expecting the worst. Our saving grace was the footage and interview were really good. At one point there was an exterior shot of the TV station and snow on the ground, and Mel doesn’t say anything.
I was sure we dodged a bullet.
Then while watching the taping of the TV show Mel spots a security guard in the background and he’s wearing a patch on his uniform that says “Grand Rapids Security”. All of a sudden Mel shouts out in the dark screening room, “Grand Rapids! What the…”
Before he can finish his sentence, Harry Miller, the editor says, “Hang on a minute Mel! There’s some really great footage coming up!” Harry and I exchange glances. At that moment we both thought we were screwed. Harry was just buying us some time.
I’m sitting in the back sweating bullets thinking, “We are so busted… They are going to shut us down. I’m getting tossed out of film school…”
Mel is quiet as he watches the rest of the footage.
When the lights come back on Mel was so impressed with the footage and the interview he never said a word about the travel rule. He made some comments about the footage and how we could edit it and that was it.
We kept shooting and finished the film.
But the rest of the Faculty was pissed!
I heard later when the rest of the faculty heard what we had done they all wanted to shut us down. Mel fought for us and since he was technically in charge of our film, the rest of the faculty backed off. I guess it was a real tense situation, but Mel won out.
And no, Mel never had any idea that we were going to break the rules in the manner which we did. To this day I don’t remember what we told him about where we were going to shoot all of the material we needed. At that point I’m not sure I knew how much we were going to end up traveling.
I’ve always felt a real debt to Mel for having my back, not just on that film but everything else I did afterwards while I was in school. Yeah, I probably should have been tossed out on my ass.
Thanks Mel for all lessons you taught me that I still carry with me.
So what did I learn from this? As a filmmaker, if you break the rules you’d better come back with some damn good footage!
Postscript: I don’t own the rights to the film I made, the University does. I was told years later that it had won a lot of awards on the film festival circuit, but nothing was ever shared with me. That’s how USC did it at that time. I was just grateful they didn’t throw my ass out.
Thanks for reading. Have a great week.
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