On the bus this evening ,a young lady in a “Security” uniform got on. She was also wearing a hardhat – a snazzy grey hardhat,
This took me back to the days (and many things take me back to the days) when I knew a couple who worked in the movie trade. He was a cameraman and she was an editor – though each knew the others job pretty well.
They were dealing with a scene where a construction company was renovating an old building. It was being shot on location beside a real old building (a railway station) that had fallen into great disrepair. There were big machines, piles of dirt, construction supplies and construction ‘workers’.
The scene focused on two women who were (if I remember) partners in the construction firm. They were on site to direct the operation. A whole scene had been shot, showing the work in progress and various conversations between the two actresses.
But then everything was hauled to a stop.
One of the “producers” (that is, someone who was supplying the money) had an idea. Which is never good from folk who are not expected to have any ‘creative’ say. They are there to count the dollars and cents.
However, this fellow wanted the whole scene (a morning’s work with actors and machines and crew) re-shot. He wanted the two actresses to wear hardhats. He liked to see women in hardhats,
Well, Buddy was helping pay the bills, and everyone would just get paid twice for doing the scene again. And maybe the different lighting would not be noticed.
So, hardhats were found and the whole thing was shot again.
And – yes – we can thank Franz Kafka for this, because he invented the hardhat through his work with the “Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia.”
And, decades later, I have used this dilapidated railway station as a setting for one of the chapters in my current novel – though there are no hardhats.
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