One of the gigs Image International had going was the decoration of Disney resorts and other public areas for Christmas. This project took a couple of weeks and was accomplished between 10:00pm and 6:30am during the latter days of November. Eddie and I never had to be on that crew - we were much more valuable in the shop during the day.
Then one year we also got the job of decorating Universal Studios, Florida. Eddie and I were essential to that project. For one thing, there was a plethora of new construction, including a 24' x 36' "ice" skating rink covered with a layer of Teflon sheets. We'll come back to that. The first monster project was the erection and decoration of the 45' tall tree. We had probably twenty guys, two snorkel lifts and two scissor lifts, miles if rope and a truckload of decorations. It took us about four hours to stand it up and secure it in an upright position. That done, while Otto and his decorators were hanging decorations, Eddie and I were taking the pile of extra branches and securing them to some of the sparse areas around the bottom. We drilled holes in the tree, jammed the branches into the holes, and knitted them in place with three inch screws. Then we arranged the huge plywood "gift" boxes around the base and screwed them together.
Next we helped Al to invent a Christmas tree lot in an alley of the New York City street scene part of the park. After that it was on to the skating rink. We assembled, legged up and leveled nine of our standard 8' x 12' deck frames and sheeted them with twenty seven sheets of 3/4" plywood. Then we assembled the railing around the perimeter and put down twelve sheets of 5' x 10' tongue-in-groove Teflon, tapped them together and put blocks around to keep them from separating. That done, Otto and the boys covered the edges with fake snow, while we went home for a few hours to shower and sleep a little before returning to the shop in the morning.
About an hour after sunrise there was an emergency call from Universal. The skating rink was all messed up! Somebody has to come fix it before the park opens! Eddie and I (of course) were sent out to assess the problem and deal with it. What we found was the Teflon, now bathed in sunshine, buckled at every seam. We removed the blocks around the edges to let the whole thing expand out to its new size, tapped it all back together again and reset the blocks. Problem solved - until sundown. Suddenly, there were two-inch gaps between the sheets of Teflon. We arrived with a crew of goofies and showed them how to tap it back together again for the evening "ice" shows.
From then on, for the duration of the season, there was a new detail that removed the blocks first thing in the morning, reset them after the expansion, pushed the Teflon back together after sundown and blocked it at the nightly size.
I don't know who ended up paying for all of that extra labor. What I do know is, we never set up that skating rink again.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Transitions
Beginning in the spring of 1989, Image International went through a major upheaval. There was a recession on, and the term "downsizing" came into fashion.
For years, and I don't know how many, Image International had an audio / video crew at the Buena Vista Palace hotel on Disney property. The rest of us did so few shows there that we were not even really aware of the existence of this crew until the recession of '89 prompted the BVP to look into making their A/V more efficient. The equipment, owned by Image, was many years (I don't know how many) out of date in an industry where the latest and greatest is standard. The Palace told Al Caputo to either update the equipment or pull his crew out. I suppose Al looked into the cost of buying all new stuff and found it to be a hundreds of thousands proposition. The next thing we knew, the A/V crew at the shop had grown from two or three to eight or nine, and our stock of years-out-of-date equipment had grown similarly. It wasn't very many years later that the A/V department was discontinued completely.
Al Ohlson, one of my first alcoholic bosses, left the company in the early summer. I'll never know whether he decided to leave or if he was squeezed out. His lunches had become more and more "liquid" and his afternoons less and less productive. He wanted to go back home to California, and I suppose that he did. For about a month, during the dead slows of summer, I was the shop. Steve Beetlestone was still there, but he was more in the way than helpful. His wife was having a baby, and he was looking for a more stable career.
It was announced in June that Al had sold the company to a Dutch holding company. This company collected travel agencies, and Image International Travel was the most successful agency in the state. Al's deal was that he would sell them the travel division on the condition that they keep the Production Department operating with him in charge. For us, this was a boon because Noro poured some money into the shop. We got a new table saw, a wonderful new radial arm saw and a dust collection system installed over the next six months.
Early July brought a new shop boss, Eddie Channell. His first day was Beetlestone's last day, and it was entirely up to me to train Mr. Channell in the fine art of working for Caputo. In fact, Al was on vacation, fishing in the Amazon, during Eddie's first week. Ray Ramsey had sold a "Cruise Ship" party and described what needed to be built. I tried to tell Eddie about the special relationship between Al and Ray - Ray sold big expensive parties, and Al undermined him at every turn. "Don't build anything until you talk to Al," I said. He said "You can't run a business that way! We need to get started on this!" So we started on the onstage set, the stern of a cruise ship sixteen feet tall by twenty feet wide. The smokestack sat on scaffolding behind the curved wall of flats, and we were already working on the lifeboat hangers when Al returned. We could see his face get red and the vein in his temple bulge when he saw what had gone on in his absence. He told Eddie to come to his office. About a half hour later Eddie returned, his face drained of color. "You were right," he said, "Never build anything without talking to Al first." We took apart the set and cut two feet off the bottom of every flat. Ray sold sixteen feet, Al gave him fourteen. That was how things were at Image International.
A side note about the Cruise Ship party: most importantly, the headliner at the party was Bill Skyles formerly of Skyles and Henderson - if that means anything to anybody. I'd seen them on Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, and a dozen other variety shows and enjoyed their wacky sound-effects-comedy immensely, so it was a thrill to meet Bill Skyles, even at the point in his career where he was playing a corporate party at the Marriott Orlando World Center. The other item of note happened during the load-in. Al brought out all hands for this, including the current art guy, whose name I'll never recall. He was pushing a stack of flats into the room and stopped to ask me where they were supposed to go. "Put the blue ones over along that wall, and the grey ones in that corner," I said, pointing appropriately. The art guy, who was gone very soon after this, said, "Which ones are grey and which ones are blue?"
For years, and I don't know how many, Image International had an audio / video crew at the Buena Vista Palace hotel on Disney property. The rest of us did so few shows there that we were not even really aware of the existence of this crew until the recession of '89 prompted the BVP to look into making their A/V more efficient. The equipment, owned by Image, was many years (I don't know how many) out of date in an industry where the latest and greatest is standard. The Palace told Al Caputo to either update the equipment or pull his crew out. I suppose Al looked into the cost of buying all new stuff and found it to be a hundreds of thousands proposition. The next thing we knew, the A/V crew at the shop had grown from two or three to eight or nine, and our stock of years-out-of-date equipment had grown similarly. It wasn't very many years later that the A/V department was discontinued completely.
Al Ohlson, one of my first alcoholic bosses, left the company in the early summer. I'll never know whether he decided to leave or if he was squeezed out. His lunches had become more and more "liquid" and his afternoons less and less productive. He wanted to go back home to California, and I suppose that he did. For about a month, during the dead slows of summer, I was the shop. Steve Beetlestone was still there, but he was more in the way than helpful. His wife was having a baby, and he was looking for a more stable career.
It was announced in June that Al had sold the company to a Dutch holding company. This company collected travel agencies, and Image International Travel was the most successful agency in the state. Al's deal was that he would sell them the travel division on the condition that they keep the Production Department operating with him in charge. For us, this was a boon because Noro poured some money into the shop. We got a new table saw, a wonderful new radial arm saw and a dust collection system installed over the next six months.
Early July brought a new shop boss, Eddie Channell. His first day was Beetlestone's last day, and it was entirely up to me to train Mr. Channell in the fine art of working for Caputo. In fact, Al was on vacation, fishing in the Amazon, during Eddie's first week. Ray Ramsey had sold a "Cruise Ship" party and described what needed to be built. I tried to tell Eddie about the special relationship between Al and Ray - Ray sold big expensive parties, and Al undermined him at every turn. "Don't build anything until you talk to Al," I said. He said "You can't run a business that way! We need to get started on this!" So we started on the onstage set, the stern of a cruise ship sixteen feet tall by twenty feet wide. The smokestack sat on scaffolding behind the curved wall of flats, and we were already working on the lifeboat hangers when Al returned. We could see his face get red and the vein in his temple bulge when he saw what had gone on in his absence. He told Eddie to come to his office. About a half hour later Eddie returned, his face drained of color. "You were right," he said, "Never build anything without talking to Al first." We took apart the set and cut two feet off the bottom of every flat. Ray sold sixteen feet, Al gave him fourteen. That was how things were at Image International.
A side note about the Cruise Ship party: most importantly, the headliner at the party was Bill Skyles formerly of Skyles and Henderson - if that means anything to anybody. I'd seen them on Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, and a dozen other variety shows and enjoyed their wacky sound-effects-comedy immensely, so it was a thrill to meet Bill Skyles, even at the point in his career where he was playing a corporate party at the Marriott Orlando World Center. The other item of note happened during the load-in. Al brought out all hands for this, including the current art guy, whose name I'll never recall. He was pushing a stack of flats into the room and stopped to ask me where they were supposed to go. "Put the blue ones over along that wall, and the grey ones in that corner," I said, pointing appropriately. The art guy, who was gone very soon after this, said, "Which ones are grey and which ones are blue?"
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