by Katharine Schroeder

When the call time for the actors on a movie is early in the morning, I can only imagine what the call time is for some of the crew. When we arrived at the hospital location in Pasadena, the craft service (food service) was already there and waiting for us with a delicious breakfast. The crew was inside the hospital working on the set and it was still quite early in the morning. I knew that a lot of the crew had stayed late the night before, but here they were back again for another day, and they were even smiling!

Frances smiles a good morning to everyone from his catering truck.

After breakfast, Diana and I walked over to Jackie’s trailer to go over his dialogue for the day. It was then we found out that shooting was going to be delayed for quite some time. So while Diana and Jackie reviewed the dialogue and Dorothy cooked something in the little kitchen, I settled into a corner of the couch with my laptop to do some work.

After a while I noticed that it was very quiet and was surprised to discover that everyone was gone except Jackie. He was fiddling around with something over at the dining table. I asked him if he’d like to be alone and he replied, “No no! Let's watch television.” With that he flopped onto the couch and picked up the remote control. Most of you read Jackie’s diaries so you know that Jackie loves to watch television. But watching TV with Jackie isn’t quite the same as watching alone; it's a bewildering adventure. Jackie embodies every single stereotype of a man with a remote control – he can’t stop flipping the channels. We started off with the news and in rapid succession we watched the Home Shopping Network, the Discovery Channel, Green Acres and a dozen other shows. Just as my interest in one show was ignited, Jackie would flip the channel to another:

"Wow! Look at the size of that bulldoz..." I’d begin.
*CLICK*
"Ha ha ha! Look at this guy!” laughed Jackie.
"Omigod, he’s really..."
*CLICK*
"Hey, I remember this show from when I was a k..."
*CLICK*

And so it went on.

Finally we settled on America’s Funniest Videos. Jackie really liked this show and was chuckling at the funny parts and cringing when someone tripped or appeared to get hurt. As we watched, the show’s announcer introduced the next video by saying that it was “a cross between Jackie Chan and Mister Rogers.” (Yes, he really said that.)

"What do they mean?” Jackie asked.
"Well, Mr. Rogers was a very popular American children’s show host and I guess he’s just about as different from you as is possible. He’s quiet and calm and wears cardigan sweaters,” I snickered.
"Oh," replied Jackie, looking thoughtful.
"Ummm...," I continued, "...it's kind of hard to explain why that would be funny. But trust me, it is."

We soon moved on to a show about hurricanes and then one about giant machines. I think the television received around 500 channels, so it was possible to sit for hours clicking from one channel to the next without stopping for very long on any one program. I felt like I was watching one of those awards show videos; the ones that cover the entire career of an old movie actor – one moment you’re watching a Western, the next a drama, and on and on. Jackie is a very interactive television viewer, gesturing at the screen, laughing, and commenting on what he sees. He’s full of curiosity and questions and I thought about suggesting that he actually stay with one program for a while, but I held my tongue. Watching TV with Jackie is dizzying, but certainly I was not surprised that he was unable to stay on one channel for any length of time. Not Jackie. Not with 500 channels to choose from.

Adventures Watching Television with Jackie was interrupted by Dorothy who came to tell us that it was time to go to the set. I packed up my laptop and camera and we walked over to the hospital for shooting. Today we would be filming the scene that Jackie and his stunt team had planned a few days before. I was anxious to see how the planned action translated into an actual scene.

It seemed as though there were a hundred people on the set doing a thousand different jobs. The lighting team was arranging the huge banks of lights; the set decorators were checking a million details, the camera crews were preparing their equipment – everyone was very busy! I thought it would be best for me to find a place off to the side where I wouldn’t get in anyone’s way and as I wandered around, I found the perfect spot. Since we were filming in an actual hospital, there were many rooms off of the main area where the crew would be shooting. I found one room right near Goldy’s video assist station that was perfect. It was out of the way but it was very close to the action, and lucky for me it wasn’t being used. It looked like a regular hospital room: there was a bed, a chair, lots of equipment hook-ups on the wall, and a rolling hospital table. I set my laptop up on the table and had a seat on the bed. I looked around the room and noticed that there was a supply table pushed up against the wall with an interesting label on the side:

If you know Jackie, you know that number 32 is lucky for him. Later, when Jackie saw the photo of the cart, he smiled and told me that it was good luck for the shoot.

After I set up my things, I took my camera and wandered around the set for a while. Since the crew was shooting a very important scene, the producers were nervous about anyone but the crew pointing a camera in that direction. (They understandably want to keep as much of this production under wraps to make sure the audience enjoys the film fully.) I assured them that my intention that day was to take some photos of the crew. Little did I know that I would end up taking 74 photos of crew members doing some very strange things! (More on that later.)

So I spent the day moving between “my room” and the set. I would take some photos and go back to my laptop to have a look at them. This ended up being a real source of curiosity for many of the crew, and all day long people stopped by to see what I was working on. A few of the JC Stunt Team members who weren’t needed for the scene spent some time hanging out in the room – many of them got a kick out of looking at all the photos from the set.

On a large production like this one, there are hundreds of people doing a thousand jobs and each of those jobs is important to the success of the film. For example, the Transportation crew consists of several people who drive cast and crew members from the parking area to the set, from the trailers to the set, or wherever else they have to go. Without them the production would come to a halt. Many of these drivers have worked on dozens of film productions and have met a lot of famous people. They have really interesting (and sometimes funny) stories to tell and because of the nature of their jobs, they are very good at conversation. One of the drivers, Christian, told us about his ranch in the western United States and about his dream of living there with his family; riding his horses and spending time with his children. We were lucky enough to meet his family when they stopped by the set and there was even some time for Jackie to meet Christian’s wife Casey and his daughters Madyson and baby Leela:

Another important job on any film production is that of the Medic. On the Rush Hour 3 set, Tony Whitmore is the man to see when you have a headache, indigestion, a cut, or any other ache or pain. He took me on a tour of his traveling pharmacy and showed me a dazzling assortment of medications, sprays, creams, and bandages:

After my tour with Tony, I went back to my room to do some writing and have a look at the photos I’d taken. Jackie wandered in again, curious about what I was up to. “I have an idea,” he said, and that was the beginning of a very funny project that took place throughout the rest of the day. Jackie’s idea was to have everyone sit in the same chair and make a ridiculous face for the camera. “I’ll go first,” he said. He sat down in the chair, instructed me to take a tight shot, and proceeded to push his face into a remarkable impression of a Shar-Pei dog. A Shar-Pei has tremendous folds of skin which make it look like…well, like this:

Next in line were the stunt guys because they happened to be in the room at the time. One after another they sat in the chair and contorted their faces into some of the silliest expressions imaginable. After they were done, we began recruiting anyone and everyone who was nearby. Most people sat down in the chair, waited for my ready signal, and made a face without giving it a moment’s thought. Several people didn’t have a clue what this was all about, so I put all the photos I’d made so far and ran them as a slide show on the laptop so people could see what we were doing. This also relaxed them and made them feel less self conscious about making a silly face. As the day went on, the number of people who participated kept growing and growing. Laurel Frushour, a costumer for the production, was extremely helpful in getting people to participate. Without her the slide show wouldn't have been nearly as complete since she was very good at persuading people to join in. She even talked the producer to come in for his portrait! By the time I was done there were 74 people who had posed for my camera, including Brett Ratner, Chris Tucker, and several crew members’ children. Here’s the resulting slide show of silly faces:

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE SHOW

Several of the scenes scheduled for shooting that day involved gunfire. Of course they use only blanks in the guns and everything is closely supervised by a firearms expert. The guns are handled with extreme caution and treated as though they're loaded with real bullets. Although the ammunition is blank, the noise the guns make is just like the real thing. So when a firearm is loaded and prepared for a scene, Jamie Freitag (the Assistant Director) let everyone know that it was time to get ready. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!!!!" That means it's time to cover your ears and prepare to be startled by the incredibly loud noise of the gunfire. He always gave us a count of how many shots would be fired and the assistants on the set went around handing out earplugs. When the assistant held the box out to me, I reached to take a pair and was surprised when someone grabbed my wrist to stop me. I looked up to see that the person preventing me from taking the earplugs was, of course, Jackie.

"What are you doing??" he asked.

"Well, I thought I was going to put the earplugs in my ears." 

He gestured to the box of earplugs and shook his head "no." Then he held up his two index fingers and stuck them in his ears.

"You don't need those earplugs. You have your own fingers. Saves money. Works better."

So I installed my fingers in my ears and waited for the shots to ring out. BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! Then silence. Even though I was warned about the gunfire, it still made me jump the first few times I heard it. And Jackie was right; fingers worked just fine as earplugs.

As I said earlier, there are hundreds of people doing so many different jobs on a set and each one has a particular talent that makes him or her crucial to the success of the production. While Jackie was working on a scene, I walked around a little more and ran into Lee Ross, the Set Painter. Earlier in the week I had been admiring his colorful cart of art supplies and as I stood looking it over again, he came into the room. I asked him to show me the small box sitting on his cart. It looked like a wooden cigar box that had been covered with a collage of photos and trinkets. He told me that he made it for the Hospice of Palm Beach County as part of the Don’t Box Me In: Celebrity Creations II charity event. As I looked at the box, I realized that it was the same one I'd seen him with several days before when we were filming at the substation. I remembered that Brett had given Lee a plain wooden box and I recalled being fascinated by Brett's instructions to Lee:

"Here. Here's a box and I want you to decorate it. It's for charity. Do....whatever. A Rush Hour 3 box with, you know, something. Whatever you can think of. Okay?"

Lee had listened to Brett carefully and then answered, "Sure. No problem."

"Wow," I thought to myself. "What kind of directions were those?" I was very interested in seeing what he'd come up with. Well what he did was to take an ordinary wooden box that would have ended up in the trash and worked his magic on it, turning it into a work of art and an invaluable collectible that anyone would treasure. I expressed my admiration to Lee and offered him my congratulations on creating such a whimsical box for charity. I told him I was sure it would command a high price at the charity auction. Here are some pictures of Lee and the box:

Lee shows the box to Jackie and Brett. The box would later be autographed, increasing its value.

CLICK HERE TO READ PART TWO

Text and photos ©2007 The Jackie Chan Group.  All Rights Reserved.

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