Within a year of finishing school, three Columbia College graduates are getting a taste of the big time as they work as Production Car department assistants on Michael Mann’s $150 million-budgeted, 1930s crime saga, “Public Enemies.”
Principal photography in Chicago, held up by bad weather in Wisconsin, is due to start sometime next week.
The grads, David Lind, Kristen Simcik and Ryan Flader have been covering almost as much ground as the movie’s gangsters on the run.
Four Picture Car assistants accompany a fleet of rare rare vintage cars as they drive around authentic Illinois and Wisconsin locations where notorious bank robbers John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) and Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum) who were hunted and chased by Federal agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) and J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Cudrup).
Two assistants each are responsible for hero cars and background cars, which is Lind’s baliwick. L.A.-based Howard Bachrach, the Extra Car Captain, is their boss.
“We are more than PAs,” says Lind. “We book the cars. When we’re on set, we’re in three places at once. We listen to where the director wants the cars placed, we cater to the drivers and handle the continuity of car placement on the set.”
A scene might use a daily average of 30 cars, Lind notes. The cars are driven by their actual owners, who are accustomed to double clutching to shift and hard-turning steering wheels.
The four assistants recruited the “movable props,” as te cars are labelled, through classified ads and radio and TV outlets within 100 miles of the designated location, Lind says, resulting in a databank of 700 classic 1930s cars.
The car and truck contingent consists mainly of 1930s Ford Model As and a few Model Ts, Chevrolets, and such exotic makes as the Hudson Terraplane, and Lind’s favorite, the 1934 Brewster.
“There are very few of them left in the world, but I like the car because of the front grill. It has a certain look of seriousness to it and when you see it coming down the street all heads turn to look at the car. It’s a very nice ride.”
To prevent the pristine owner-cars from being damaged in any way, Universal purchased many old cars “for the particular purpose of shooting bullet holes in them or blowing them up,” says Lind.
