I don’t think that I work in Hollywood any more. My most recent Hollywood job was back in 1996. On that occasion, most of my time was spent in organizing computer files and keying in abstract numbers that controlled the facial expressions of a computer generated bottle stopper. Most would agree that when it’s been more than a decade since you performed a certain task, then you just might be retired from that particular job description.

Anyway, the very first Hollywood job that someone gave me was to paint a Persian carpet. Actually, it was a scale model of a real Persian carpet that was hung on a set for a movie that had been shot up in Canada. After every scene requiring the use of living, breathing human actors had been completed the crew came back to LA to shoot various special effects shots. One of these shots included a foot tall Villain-Demon-Four-Eyed-Six-Armed rubber puppet rising up out of the floor in a scale model of the Canadian house’s entryway.

Others were building the model entryway, and I was delegated to construct the model carpet. I briefly noted that the model of the entryway looked just like the set from up in Canada, but that the set itself didn’t make much sense. It was a three story tall octagonal room that was supposed to be the entryway in a run of the mill, suburban Canadian home, and the photos I’d seen of the two story structure didn’t seem to have any place where a three story tall, octagonal room with an enormous skylight might fit into the house’s shape.

My kindly supervisor took me aside and explained the situation to me. This was the first time I’d heard the phrase, “Hey, we’re making a movie here.??? And it was delivered with such certainty that I knew it must have a deeper meaning of which I was as yet unaware. Subsequent discussions over drinks suggested a definition somewhat along the lines of – It’s a movie… of course they don’t know what they’re doing… our checks come on Friday… and don’t’ rock the boat and risk our phony baloney jobs.

So I fabricated my model Persian carpet. My supervisor wanted me to make it out of sheet lead covered in rubber cement, but this wouldn’t have reproduced the weave pattern of the original carpet. I had a pair of old, white jeans from which I cut out a portion of the upper thigh. This had a weave pattern that almost exactly mimicked that of the original carpet, and since it was white I could then paint it using water-based acrylics. I then recreated the various tassels at the edge of the carpet using some sort of domestic yak hair from a craft store.

After about a week of painstaking work I presented my model carpet to the supervisor. He was horrified. It seems that the absence of lead foil was damning. Without it there was no way that the animator shooting the Villain-Demon-Four-Eyed-Six-Armed rubber puppet rising up out of the floor in a scale model of the Canadian house shot would be able to make the carpet move when it was stuck by one of the demon’s six arms. In my defense I pointed out the wondrousness of the carpet’s weave pattern. It was at this point the supervisor taught me a second term, “Over Produced.??? It seems that although it was very nice for the model to reproduce the weave pattern of the original carpet the fact that the camera would be unable to pickup this little detail made it completely superfluous.

I was completely crestfallen. All my extra effort had gone for naught, and soon I would be reprimanded for omitting the lead foil. Seeing the expression on my face, my supervisor asked if this was my first effects job. When I acknowledge the fact he promised to make sure that I wouldn’t take any heat for the carpet. He then went over to the director and asked a seemingly simple question about light sconces. Well, it appeared that somehow the model light sconces didn’t quite match those of the original set, prompting an enormous and prolonged meeting on that subject, completely  overshadowing any discussion of the carpet. Throughout the rest of the job whenever anyone asked any questions about the carpet we’d say, “What about those sconces???? And any carpet shortcomings would be immediately forgotten.

I kept the model carpet as a souvenir. It is framed and hangs between a photo taken of my very first programming coworkers on the day we all went sky diving and a poster of Mickey Mouse wearing a sombrero and riding a giant ant, from a movie which did not include Mickey Mouse, but which did include giant ants.

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