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Somewhere
in Time
 Over
the weekend, scores of Capital Region residents scuttled into
theaters to see The Time Machine, the new adaptation
of the H.G. Wells science-fiction classic. Several scenes
for the picture were shot in Albany, Troy and Schenectady
last winter, so the locals who worked as extras and production
assistants hoped to see either themselves or their handiwork
onscreen. And while some of these people have given cheery
quotes to local papers about how thrilling their brush with
Hollywood was, not everyone paints as rosy a picture.
Joe Glickman, a 24-year-old independent filmmaker based in
Albany, worked for several nights as an extra, checking in
around 5 PM each evening and checking out around 5 AM the
following morning, all for a princely $50 per day after taxes.
He saw the movie at a sneak preview last week, and says the
payoff for his efforts just wasn’t there.
“I
was anticipating a lot more than actually ended up in the
film, because I recall a lot more angles being filmed,” says
Glickman. “But I enjoyed sitting there just watching the Capital
Region. I saw myself up there in an eight-
second wide shot. That was my big claim to fame.”
 Glickman,
who works as a still photographer on low-budget movies in
addition to directing his own short films, says his Time
Machine experience revealed the financial waste inherent
to big-budget filmmaking. “I knew that it would be a very
big undertaking for them to have to re-create the Victorian
era, but I recall it being probably the most disorganized
film set I’ve ever worked on,” he says.
“A
lot of them didn’t know where certain extras were supposed
to be,” Glickman says of the crew members working on the DreamWorks
production. “There were too many chiefs. And some people were
treating the extras pretty nasty. There were occasions where
people would walk off. Despite what I read in an article,
extras were not trying to come back. . . . I was only supposed
to work two days, and what happened was so many people did
not come back that they became desperate and had to call on
anybody who would come out to [Schenectady’s] Central Park.”
While working in Central Park, Glickman saw that several pieces
of lighting gear had been left in plain view of the camera.
“It would’ve taken about five minutes to just take the stuff,
gather it, and throw it behind a tree,” he recalls. “I could
see the camera across the street aiming over in our direction.
I grabbed one of the production people and asked ‘Aren’t they
gonna move this?’ He was like ‘They don’t have time—they’re
gonna remove it in post,’ ” meaning that computers would be
used to digitally remove the anachronistic items.
 “I’m
thinking ‘Wow, that’s going to throw the budget up there a
little bit more,’ ” Glickman says.
According to Glickman, other filmmakers can take several lessons
from the Time Machine experience: “Never take the amount
of money that you have to make a film for granted, because
apparently if you’ve got millions and millions of dollars
to toss away, you start tossing it away. . . . Also, make
sure that your crew and your cast, regardless of whether they’re
extras or whether they’re going to be onscreen or not, are
treated properly.
“That’s
why they lost so many people—because their crew members were
treating PAs like dirt, and I saw crew members being treated
like dirt by higher-ups,” Glickman continues. “I saw in the
end credits that certain people in this area who worked on
the crew for a month did not get a credit. . . . The people
that ended up not getting credit were the ones that worked
hardest—they worked harder than some of those big filmmakers
who probably were on salary.”
—Peter
Hanson
ART
BEAT
Here’s
a follow-up to an item we ran recently about the cancellation
of this year’s Riverfront Arts Fest, which has been
held annually in Troy for 36 years. According to event organizer
the Arts Center of the Capital Region, a task force
has been put together to discuss what the event should be
like in the future. “The decision to rethink the scope and
direction of the festival grows out of a long-range strategic
planning process taking place during the Arts Center’s 40th
anniversary year,” Arts Center president Raona Roy
said in a press release. The task force includes politicians,
artists and members of the business community. Although the
festival itself will not take place, two components of the
festival will occur: The popular Fence Show, featuring works
by hundreds of artists, and a 5K Run for the Arts both will
be held on June 16. . . . Glenn Slingerland, the area
DJ whose weekly radio show is highly regarded for its eclectic
mix of rock, jazz and other forms, just reported that the
TV version of his show is about to launch after a well-publicized
false start last year. The Glenn Slingerland Situation,
a seven-minute mix of images and music, will run on Albany’s
Time Warner Cable at 11 PM, 11:10 PM and 11:20 PM on Tuesday,
Wednesday and Thursday nights beginning on Tuesday (March
12). The show will air on Channel 2, normally occupied by
New York station WPIX but blacked out locally from 11 to 11:30
PM because of Federal Communications Commission rules. . .
. Congratulations to area author Joseph F. Girzone,
a former priest whose Joshua books depict a modern-day
second coming, because a movie version of the first book in
the series, simply titled Joshua, is scheduled to hit
screens on April 19. The G-rated drama, distributed by Artisan
Entertainment, stars Ghost’s Tony Goldwyn and Oscar-winner
F. Murray Abraham. Movie release dates are famously liquid,
so check out www.joshuathemovie.com for updates. . . . Queensbury’s
L.H. Barker recently learned that one of her pieces
was selected for inclusion in the American Society of Architectural
Illustrators’ latest international exhibition, called Architecture
in Perspective 17. The piece, which also won the organization’s
Award of Excellence, is a gauche illustration depicting a
1670s chapel in Maryland. The exhibition will open in October
in Australia, then tour the world for a year. . . . Speaking
of architecture, the Center for Shaker Studies, located
at Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Mass., was
just recognized for excellence in design by the Maine chapter
of the American Institute of Architects. The jurors behind
the award said that “The project demonstrates that restraint
is often best, but yet can be done artfully.”
. . . The Times Union reports that Albany Mayor Jerry
Jennings is expected to be at the Madison Theatre tomorrow
(Friday) at 11 AM for a ribbon-cutting that will commemorate
the launch of the movie theater’s latest incarnation. Late
last year, indebtedness forced the multiplex’s previous owners
to close, so one of the creditors claimed ownership. The seven-screen
theater, located near the intersection of Madison and Western
avenues, will once again show first-run movies. . . . Finally,
welcome aboard to Andrea Lyons, who was hired recently
as the first permanent executive director of the Woolworth
Theater Project, the campaign to renovate a retail space
in Glens Falls as a performing-arts space. If all goes well,
construction will begin next year. . . . Send Art Beat items
to
phanson@metroland.net or call 463-2500, ext. 144.
—P.H.
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