On Location on Treasure Island

An aerial view of Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay.

When you commit to writing a daily online column or blog, one of the things that occurs is you will find yourself doing something you might not ordinarily do under the justification, "Well, if nothing else, maybe I'll get a blog post out of it."

So with that in mind, and a little free time, I responded to an online posting from a local casting agent looking for people to be extras on a TV show, filming last week on Treasure Island in San Francisco.  The pay wasn't great and Treasure Island is an hour drive from my house in San Jose, but I didn't have anything else planned and, hey, I might get a blog post out of it.

I e-mailed the casting director with a short message and attached a recent picture.  And as if just to prove that timing is everything in life and Television, the casting director e-mailed me back within minutes.  She was looking for someone to play "Airport Cop #3" on Friday morning.

We continued to exchange a couple of e-mails where I replied that I thought I would make a fine Airport Cop #3 and she said wardrobe requested the character be dressed all in black.  I could do that.  The final catch?  My participation wouldn't be confirmed until Thursday night and, if confirmed, I would need to be on the set at 6:30 a.m. on Friday.  I was familiar enough with television production schedules that the early call time didn't surprise me.

Just after six p.m. on Thursday afternoon, I received another e-mail from the casting agent asking if I was still up for playing an Airport Cop at 6:30 a.m. the next day on Treasure Island.  She needed to confirm me by 8 p.m.  I called her voicemail and confirmed.  My first big break.  After living in Los Angeles for seven years and never once being an "extra" or "background artist" -  a person in the background of a scene - on a film or television show, I was now on the call sheet as "Airport Cop #3." 

Now for those of you not from the Bay Area, or if you have never visited the Bay Area, let me give you a little background on Treasure Island.  It is a small (535 acres), man-made, perfectly flat island that was created from sludge and fill from the bottom of San Francisco Bay in 1936 - 1937 to provide a site for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition (World's Fair).

One of the buildings constructed, now known as the Administration Building, was to be built as a permanent structure and, after the Exposition, would be the terminal for the new airport where Pan Am Clipper seaplanes would arrive and depart. 

A Pan Am Clipper docked at Treasure Island.  The Bay Bridge is in the background.

With the possibility of World War II on the horizon, the U.S. government thought the site might make a good naval base and swapped it for Mills Field in Millbrae, just south of San Francisco, that would go on to become San Francisco's international airport.

Treasure Island became the major departure point for U.S. soldiers shipping out to the Pacific during World War II.  It remained a Navy base for the next fifty-six years until it was decommissioned in 1996 and turned over to San Francisco. 

The City of San Francisco finally approved a plan earlier this year to develop Treasure Island into a new neighborhood with a population of nearly 20,000 people.  It's fair to say that Treasure Island is the most valuable piece of undeveloped property in the City of San Francisco.

After the government decided to close the base in the 1990's, Treasure Island and its voluminous airplane hangars were ideally suited as film studios for any TV or film production shooting in San Francisco.  Flubber, Patch Adams, Rent and The Matrix were among the films shot in the studios on Treasure Island.  Most prominently for TV viewers, Treasure Island was used both for exterior and interior shooting for the TV show Nash Bridges.    

Even though I have lived in the Bay Area most of my life and lived in San Francisco for over three years in the early 1990's, I had never set foot on Treasure Island.  I knew it was there.  I knew it was built for the Exposition and that now it mostly sat vacant while the U.S. government and the City of San Francisco argued over how it should be developed, and that it was the occasional base for film companies shooting in The City.

So last Friday I was up early and in my car - dressed from head to toe in black - and heading north to the Bay Bridge at 5:15 in the morning.  It was dark out and early enough in the morning commute that you could still move at the speed limit.  I stopped for a moment at the Bay Bridge toll booth to pay my toll (six bucks!), drove halfway over the bridge and, for the first time in my life, took the exit marked "Treasure Island."

I exited from the Bay Bridge and maneuvered my car on to the narrow and winding roads of Yerba Buena Island - the natural island that is connected to Treasure Island.  I knew if I just kept driving downhill I would eventually find Treasure Island.

The road started to straighten out and through the darkness I could make out a few lights ahead on Treasure Island.  I slowed at a lighted guard shack with a man standing inside - I wasn't sure if access to the island was restricted or not - but he waved me through.  I never did figure out why he and the guard shack were there.

Looking closely at my map, I made a couple of turns and thought I was at the production office address I was given, but there didn't seem to be enough activity - there was only one large truck parked on the side of the building - to indicate a TV production.  I drove around the block and came back, deciding I must have the right spot.

The building had been the old library on the base and was now the production office and small studio of a basic cable show on the Discovery channel that re-enacted interesting cases of criminals on the run.

I had worked on student films and big budget network TV shows in the past.  This production was somewhere in the middle, but so low budget that it was closer to the student film side.

I poked my head into an open door at the top of a ramp leading into the building, and saw a couple of living room sets and light stands inside the building.  This must be the place.  A crew member took one look at me and pointed at the other side of the set and told me to check in over there.

As I reached the other side of the set, a petite young woman with long curly hair stopped me and  introduced herself.  She was the head of wardrobe and was sizing me up.  She noticed I was wearing a CCM jacket and asked if I played hockey.  She was from Buffalo and we talked hockey for a few minutes and then she led me to the talent "holding" area.

She, like everyone else in the production company, looked incredibly tired.  They were on their last day of filming this episode - I would later learn they had worked late the night before - and she had that lowered metabolism and energy level that only someone working on a film shoot could have.

The talent "holding" area was a 20' x 20' room that gave drab a bad name.  No dressing rooms or trailers on this show.  The gray walls looked as if they hadn't been painted since the Navy left.  There were four chairs lined up along each wall and a flat of bottled water was unceremoniously placed on the floor.  I was the first one to arrive and claimed a chair in a corner.

All the other actors started to trickle in behind me.  Half of them had been working on the show all week and the other half, like me, had been brought in today as extras for the airport terminal scene.  I introduced myself to the two actors playing Airport Cops #1 & 2 and took my seat, pulling out something to read and expecting to sit a while.

The actors, several of whom seemed to know each other from other productions, talked shop - what was filming in the Bay Area, the good and bad agents and casting directors in the Bay Area and how great the pay was if you made a national TV commercial.

The talent coordinator came into the room and asked those of us who hadn't worked on the show before to come to his office to fill out a few forms.  Finished with the paperwork, I returned to the holding area and my reading.

A few minutes later, a tall, thin man in his mid-30's with short, wiry hair that looked uncombed, and a couple days' growth of stubble on his face, poked his head in the door and said good morning and asked how everyone was doing.  Everyone cheerily said "Hi" and he seemed to know most of the actors in the room.  Turns out he was the director.

The wardrobe gal came back in the room and went through each actor and what they had brought to wear for their scenes.  She was very laid-back and seemed pleased with what all the actors were wearing.  She asked me and the other two cops our shirt sizes and came back a few minutes later with a black, short-sleeve police officer's shirt with an official looking seal on each shoulder.

An overweight, gruff man popped his head in the room next and said he needed to see the cops.  He told us he was the property master - the prop man - and he had utility belts with fake guns, walkie-talkies, badges and name tags for the cops.  He was quite emphatic in instructing us NEVER to remove the gun from its holster unless we were instructed by the director, and that these props were to be returned immediately after the scene to him and only him.  He wasn't much for small talk.  Okey-dokey.

I was in full wardrobe and ready to go.  Which I knew from my past experience working in film and television meant I was ready to hurry up and wait.  I took my seat again and went back to my newspaper.

I looked out the one window in the room and noticed it was starting to get light outside.  It was now seven a.m.  The talent coordinator entered the room, told us the airport scenes were first up and he needed several actors immediately, including Cop #1.  I stayed behind in the holding room with Cop #2.

I read and talked for another hour while nothing happened.  Then the talent coordinator came back and announced they were ready for Cops #2 & 3.  I got up quickly and followed him out the door, leaving my backpack and reading material behind.

The Administration Building served as an airport terminal in Indiana.

We followed him out a side door to a car in front of the building.  He motioned for me and the other extra playing Airport Cop #2 to get inside.  He drove up a block, over and around another two blocks and then circled back past the building where we had just been, only to make a left turn into the parking lot of the main Administration Building, which would be serving as the front of an airport terminal in Indiana for our scene.  The funny thing about the whole ride is I'm sure we could have walked it in just the same amount of time.

As we were dropped off in the middle of the set, we quickly scurried out of the line of sight of the cameras and over to the 20 or so crew members standing behind camera one.  There were a couple of flat screen monitors off to the side where you could see the feed from the two video cameras filming the scene.  I stood and watched as they filmed a scene.  A police car was stopped behind a Ford Explorer SUV in the front of the terminal while Airport Cop #1 spoke with the driver of the SUV.

They quickly shot a few more takes of the scene and then a call came out for Airport Cops #2 & 3.  I was on.

We walked over and the director introduced himself and outlined what was going on in the scene.  It wasn't until that moment I realized there wasn't an actual script with dialogue that the lead actors had memorized.  Everything was just generally outlined and improvised.  This really was a low budget show.

The same Administration Building as seen in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

The director walked back behind one of the cameras and an assistant director yelled "Background!"  Four cars driven by members of the crew started to drive in circles in front of the curbside of the terminal, then out of the scene and through the parking lot and back in the scene from the other side.

Four extras hired to be customers at the airport came in and out of doors in the front of building, crossed through the scene and then went back in a different door, only to emerge again from another door.

To create the illusion of activity even further, members of the crew who were idle during the shot moved back and forth in front of the two cameras, so close that they could only be seen in silhouette.

Everything and everyone was recycled through the set over and over again during the scene.  You have to make use of every resource you have on a low budget set.

I straightened my back and puffed out my chest, trying to look as tough as possible in my role as a cop.  We ran through the scene and the director said "Cut!"  He walked over and told us we were a little too timid.  Feel free to talk and yell and be more demonstrative.  In other words, the scene needed more energy.  We tried it again.

Everyone got back in their starting positions and the assistant director yelled "Background!" and the passing cars and airport passengers started to move.  The director yelled "Action!" and we started our scene.  I noticed at the end of the scene that the other two actors playing the cops were at the front of the Ford Explorer, so I moved around towards the back.  And channeling my sense memory of what interactions I had experienced in the past with airport cops (particularly the rude parking Nazis at SFO) I did something actors would refer to as "in the moment" - I slammed the back of the truck with my left hand and loudly yelled, "Come on, ladies!  Let's move it out!"

I could sense the actors in the car jump just after I slammed their vehicle with my hand.  The director yelled "Cut!" and the actor closest to me in the front seat told me that was great when I hit the car and it really made her scared.  The director liked the energy of the scene much better and pointed to me and said, "That was great."

Over the course of the next two hours we would proceed to re-enact the same 30 second scene about twelve different times with the cameras moved to four different positions.  And this is when I learned a crucial lesson in film acting; if you decide to do something in a moment of inspirational improvisation in the first "master" take of a scene, be prepared to do the same damn thing for the next two hours as the scene is shot over and over again to provide enough different angles to allow "coverage" for the editor.  My left hand was sore by the end of the morning.

(The Administration Building on Treasure Island is seen numerous times in this clip from The Parent Trap.)

The entire crew was incredibly fast and efficient.  Although much lower in budget, this production moved much quicker than a normal TV show.  There weren't any adjustments for hair and make-up, no scenes were stopped because an actor forgot a line because all the dialogue was improvised and the lighting set-up was so spare that there wasn't a lot of time spent rearranging lights (lighting is what really slows things down on a big budget set).

The final take was shot with a Steadicam camera (a camera on a carefully balanced rig that allows the cameraman to walk next to an actor in a scene and keep the camera smoothly in position as if it's gliding or floating) - the first time I had ever seen one in use close up - and after three takes with the Steadicam, the director felt he had enough and a "wrap" was called on the scene.  It was 10:45 a.m.

So here's the strangest thing, to me, about the entire experience.  For three hours we had a crew of 20 and 15 actors filming in front of the the Administration Building dressed up to look like an airport terminal in Indiana.  And if one of those two cameras had been allowed to turn around for just a moment, this is the view we had as we filmed the scene:

The view of San Francisco as seen from Treasure Island.

That, my friends, is Hollywood.

With our scene finished, this time we just walked from the set back to the production office.  I stood with my arms raised while the prop master removed my gun, belt, walk-talkie, name tag and badge.  I took off my airport cop shirt and handed it back to the wardrobe gal.  I walked into the talent coordinator's office and signed a sheet of paper and was paid in cash for the day's work.

Because I wasn't permitted to have a camera or cell phone or take any pictures during the filming of my scene, I stopped at the set on my way out to take a couple of pictures.  Every airline and baggage claim sign had already been removed.  The set was completely clear of all signs of a TV crew 30 minutes after we had wrapped.

I walked down to the rocks on the edge of the water and admired the spectacular view of The City.  I thought how enormously profitable this island would be for development.  And then I got in my car and drove off.  Up the hill to Yerba Buena Island and then back on to the Bay Bridge.  I got home just after noon, ending my first day as an extra on a TV show.

This has been a Quinn-Martin production.