Re: packards in tv and movies

Posted by Peter Hartmann On 2008/10/24 17:43:52

I did let Andy Griffith drive my V-12 once, but that was because he was a 1) neighor at the time so that I personally 2) knew he was well-aqauinted with manual transmissions and 3) knew I was nuts and would tear his head off if he damaged it....!

Seriously, I must have done fifty movie jobs over the years, and was yet to find a movie crew anything but sympathetic and cooperative. Of course I never EVER (except for Griffth) let anyone drive my car.

You have to bear in mind that PRODUCTION people are often "gear head" types who mostly LOVE old cars, and thus shoot lots of flim in lots of takes to get the cars looking "just right". I have seen some of the out-takes of my '38 V-12, just about all of them made the car look even more magnificent than it is.

And that explains why so much of what is shot, ends up on the "cutting room floor".

Film EDITORS, as distinguished from PRODUCTION people, are the "artsy craftsy" type. If they dont HATE and RESENT old big luxury cars to start with, they are at best indifferent, and dont want the magnificence of the car from detracting from the actors and/or story they are trying to tell. So much of what is shot involving collector cars, is destroyed.

In one case, I was part of a magnificent "shoot" in front of very expensive-to-built sets, involving literaly DOZENS of high dollar cars. Have no idea how much it cost to build the sets, or hire the cars. And it took several days to shoot, costs had to be in the MANY hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Editors cut the entire scene, and re-called the actors to shoot a scene in a bar where they DISCUSSED what had happened with the cars, to give the picture "continuity", just so the cars wouldn't have "stolen the show".

This has happened so many times, that it became a running joke amongst fellow hi dollar car collectors in So. Calif. over the years.