Working with J.J. Abrams and Tommy Gormley

By Stephen Tulley (@Stephen_Tulley)

If my last post about working the cast members from Fringe seemed a bit terse at the end it was too long to be posted as a whole and was edited for this blog. This is the continuation of that post focusing instead on someone I am sure the entire Fringe fandom knows quite well.

J.J. Abrams

And although not one of the actors of Fringe, I’ve been privileged to have worked on sets directed by J.J. Abrams, so I’m including a couple humorous stories about him too.

In 2009 J.J. directed another unaired pilot, this time a medical drama called “Anatomy of Hope” where I was cast as a physician in a white lab coat walking the hospital hallways, checking on patients, etc. All very easy stuff to do.

Another background actor cast as one of the nurses seemed to be in shock after a certain take. So before we began filming again I asked her what the problem was. Her reply:

“Well, I was talking to this PA (production assistant) and he began asking me about which comic books I liked best, and science fiction shows, and stuff. Then I heard ‘picture’s up’ and I told him I had to a cross in front of the camera at the top of the scene. So he said, ‘Yeah, I have to work too’ and he jumped into the Director’s chair at video village.”

That “PA” was J.J. Abrams, but at the time she didn’t know who he was!

I also worked many days on J.J.’s movie “Super 8” (2011) including the opening scene at the wake set in West Virginia. In a house set with about 30 extras not everyone is on camera for every set-up. So when a new angle is being filmed, if you’re not being used you try to ease out of everyone’s way, preferably just leaving the set until you’re needed. In this case I tried to exit the set down a very narrow hallway leading to the lead character’s bedroom, but when I tried to find an exit…there was none! So I turned around to look for another just as J.J. was setting up two large flat screen camera monitors on a stand to look at the camera feed and as I tried to squeeze through the passage they began “rolling” (i.e., filming). There’s a joke on set about how many people try to peer over the shoulder of a director at video village to watch the monitors, but on that day it actually was just me looking over J.J.’s shoulder for almost an hour! Film school students would have paid top-dollar for that experience.

In the plot line of Super 8 the entire town is evacuated by the military. In many of those scenes I was hired to use my 1968 Chevy Chevelle/Malibu. There is a small group of union background actors who are often hired to do precision driving on period movies and TV shows. One day they filmed over 400 extras inside a terminal being loaded onto buses to be evacuated. About 20 of us with classic cars were patiently waiting outside for some scenes to be shot using our cars. It kept getting later, and later, and darker. Suddenly, at the other end of the lot J.J. burst out of one of the doors of the set and began holding up his hands in a square as if framing the next set-up, and this was just about sundown. His Director of Photography followed him in tow, pulled out his light meter and held it high, only to shake his head “No” to J.J.! It was just too dark.

The transportation coordinator whom the drivers had been chatting with all day waiting for this shot turned to us an announced, “You are all recalled for tomorrow!”

The following morning we did lots of takes with the cars, because in the story the kids escape from the evacuation center hiding behind all those parked cars. As J.J. was setting up one shot he walked through the cars with his DP indicating what he wanted the camera operator, who would be using a steady-cam, to do.

One of our fellow drivers was helping a friend replace a distributor cap in his engine, so the hood (“bonnet” in Commonwealth English) was up. J.J. asked him, “Can you please lower that?” Answer: “Of course Mister Abrams…I’ll be done in just a minute.”

Now I have worked with directors who would have become enraged over something like that (and rightly so), but it did not phase J.J. one bit, he just kept on setting up the scene as he wanted it!

Tommy Gormley

Finally, in one of the scenes inside the evacuation center we were given some directions by the 1st Assistant Director Tommy Gormley. Fringe fans might remember that Tommy directed 5.09 “Black Blotter” but might not know that for years now he has served as the 1st AD on every movie J.J. directs and is highly respected in the industry. Tommy, though, is a good Scot, and has a very, very thick Scottish brogue. On this particular day he grabbed a speaker and announced to us all:

“Background…Background…Now (something unintelligibly Scottish) and then (something else unintelligibly Scottish).” Then he clapped his hands and said, “Let’s do this!”

I turned to one of my friends. “Did you understand that?” “Not a word. I’m going to do what we always do.” And we did!

Tommy also had the habit of trying to “hurry up” J.J. to take the shot by motioning as if he were filming an old silent-era hand-cranked camera. I thought this was just a peculiar mannerism on his part, but have since learned from friends who have worked on sets in Europe that this is a common gesture in that part of the world.

So that’s what it’s like working with some of the people who brought you Fringe from other sets, and a little bit more insight into what it’s like to work on camera.