Neal Fredericks
Neal Fredericks ForumArchive for August 2004
Working with Neal
It was before dawn and I pulled up to Ed and Neal’s apartment to pick him up for another long day on a film that could only be described as cross between TJ Hooker and Dukes of Hazzard, minus the General Lee. This was back when I was in film school and the two of us were hired as camera assistants on what we thought was a “real†feature film at the time, one with actual deferred payment and everything. (Years later, Neal still had his $1,200 deal memo, the producer and film, long forgotten, but the running joke about eventually cashing in never got old.) Neal came out the front door that early morning with his gadget bag slung over his shoulder. He climbed in the car and mentioned that he had taken a much needed dump moments before, so he was relieved to not have to use the so-called facilities on set, which was an overused Port-O-Let if we were lucky. I was just happy, because his farts would be much less lethal if we were in tight quarters on set and let me tell you, Neal could clear a room.
We made the long drive to a nondescript, small town street in Osceola County, FL. This was to serve as the backdrop for the big stunt spectacular that afternoon. We were running two cameras, me on A cam while he was manning B cam. I remember standing on set as the stunt coordinator was setting up for the big “van crash through the car†scene and Neal looking to me and saying, “This is going to be cool.†Of course, I wasn’t so sure. After reading the script, I knew where this scene played and in my own film-school-snob sort of way, passed judgment on its value as “artâ€. Neal, on the other hand, never looked at it that way. He treated everyone and every script as an opportunity to better himself as a cinematographer. I always admired that quality in him. He never considered himself above the material. This is why his value as a DP cannot be overstated. He gave you the best of both worlds; artistic insight coupled with humility, a rare combination in life, let alone this business.
We had one take to get it right. The van did a couple of half-speed practice runs towards the hapless LTD sitting in the middle of the intersection. Once all was ready, the Stuntman/Intern in the van put the pedal to the metal.
We soon found out that nothing goes a planned.
The van crashed through the car and instead of veering to the left and hitting its mark, it careened straight up and over the car throwing a ball of flame towards my camera position. I was singed pretty badly and a deep tension fell over the set for the rest of the day as we all wondered if this situation could get any worse. The next day, I called Neal up and told him I was throwing in the towel. Since we really weren’t getting paid, I told him it wasn't worth it for some no-budget production that couldn’t care less about either of us. (This latest failed stunt was just one of several near misses that happened through out production.) He understood and supported my position, but told me that he was going to stick it out. And he did. He soldiered on for days and weeks seeing the shoot through to completion and relaying to me every day’s horror stories. Yet, no matter how bad things got, he never missed a call time. I’ll never forget that.
Neal taught me something incredibly valuable. He showed me that you can be true to your craft despite how you perceive the big picture. It was this kind of focus that made him special. He was the consummate professional that could crack you up one moment and save your ass on a shot the next. The man knew his job inside and out, not because he was getting paid to, but because it was in his blood.
Ed and I used to kid Neal sometimes, because he would treat his camera like it was his only child. That’s not hard to imagine for an owner/operator that totes around state-of-the-art equipment, but for Neal, it didn’t matter what he had. His CP-16, Vietnam era, 16mm film camera might as well have been a Panavision Platinum. His care and consideration for his craft and equipment was unlike anyone I’ve worked with. His job was his life and his camera was an extension of himself. He lived and breathed the stuff. He and I shared that camera geek connection in the early days, but Neal went on to turn it into a profession and I never got the chance to tell him how damn proud of him I was. Neal was one of those people that earned your respect by example, never by expectation. He represented all that can be right with this business. It’s about making films and that’s what Neal did. He made films.
Our friend and peer died tragically on Saturday in a plane accident while shooting another film for another director for another pay rate that I’m sure was well below what he deserved. Nothing against the film, of course, it's just that Neal was a very rare breed. He always gave you more than you asked for. At the risk of sounding cliché, I feel a small amount of comfort knowing that Neal passed away doing what he loved, but then again, that's the way he spent most of his time.
I’ll always look to Neal to remind me not to let myself get sloppy. I’ll look to him to help me keep my focus, to remember that dedication to one’s craft still means something no matter who or what you’re involved with. Neal, our friend and peer, will be missed more than I can contemplate right now and his memory will live on in many forms. I know I speak for the rest of the Haxan guys when I say,
Neal, we're so damn proud of you, brother.Neal
Our main man NEAL LESLIE FREDERICKS
I met Neal Fredericks while we were both students at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland. We had a bunch of classes together but never talked until he approached me one day after our Intro to Broadcasting class and asked me some stuff about a little video of mine that had been shown that day. He asked me where I had edited it and how much time it had taken to produce and finally gave me some encouraging words on how much he liked it. He just wanted to say that, he said. He just wanted to see what was up with me and see if we could work together on something in the future. I didn’t know what to say. You don’t really get many compliments like that from fellow students, especially that early in college. So I somehow blurted out my thanks to him and said something about working on a project together soon and left it at that. It was 1987 and as it turned out, from that day forward I rarely did anything in my production life that didn’t involve Neal Fredericks.
Besides all the dumb school assignments we worked on together, Neal was a guiding force through both of my first features, VIDEOALL in 1989 and GABRIEL’S DREAM in 1991.
1991- Neal on the set of GABRIEL'S DREAM, doing what he loved most, shooting
He officially operated the camera on both of those projects but he really did a lot of everything else, too. He was just so enthusiastic to make videos and films and just go out and shoot stuff. And he was also a good guy, on and off the set. Funny as hell and just plain cool, always ready to do whatever it took to make the shot work or move the project forward.
1994 or so - One of my favorite pictures - Neal (left with camera) was shooting a sunset shot for GABRIEL'S DREAM and all these kids starting coming around to see what he was doing
In 1991 he traveled down to Orlando and moved in with me while I attended UCF. That’s where Neal met Dan and Mike and was soon shooting for just about everybody at film school. We shared a room for a year and I remember him waking up at like 4 or 5 am to drive for an hour to be an assistant camera for a low-budget feature that was paying no one and treating the crew pretty bad, as I recall. I would wake up momentarily to his alarm clock and look over and see him getting up, getting ready for another long day of working under the hot Orlando sun for free. That was dedication. That was Neal.
He shot my short film RESURRECTION in 1994 and then moved back with me to Maryland to finish editing GABRIEL’S DREAM, which was dragging in post production due to low funds and to tell you the truth, low belief on my part. I wouldn’t have finished that film without Neal. He was the guiding light on that thing, using his own money a lot of times to keep things moving. Later, once we all went through the painful realization that the film was not going to sell, Neal headed out to LA to begin working his way up the ladder and to become a great Director of Photography. Honestly, I didn’t know how far he was going to go as a DP. He had mostly concentrated on the camera when he worked with me and I just didn’t know if he was enough of an artist to be a great DP.
But in 1997, Dan and I didn’t have anyone else in mind to be the DP of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT except Neal. He came to Maryland and shared that adventure in the woods with us, always professional, always there with whatever needed to be done.
1997 - Neal, Gregg and Tony Cora suit up during BLAIR WITCH
After BLAIR blew-up, he weathered all the crap about the making of the film, the questions about how he DP’d the film if the actors were out there shooting the film the whole time, the same questions Dan and I were asked about our directing and writing contributions.
1999 - Dan and Neal in the van at SUNDANCE
But Neal came through like a champ. His basic answer was that he did what needed to be done on the film just like he did on all his other films. BLAIR WITCH didn’t need to be lit, so he didn’t light it. It didn’t need a camera operator, so he didn’t operate. What he did do was make sure those actors knew everything they could and had everything they needed to keep shooting, to keep getting those images into the camera. And really, that’s what the DP job is all about.
1999 - Stef, Neal, Carolyn DeCassan and Rick Moreno during the BLAIR WITCH reshoots
Neal was frustrated that BLAIR WITCH didn’t open up as many doors as he deserved. But he didn’t dwell on it, he did what he had been doing all along, he kept working. Working on everything he could. Just look at his IMDB profile to see how much this guy worked. And he was doing some amazing stuff. I know, because the last time I saw him in LA a few months ago he showed me his new reel and it completely blew me away. Particularly, his work on a film written and directed by Ann Lu called EROSION was jaw-dropping gorgeous. Neal told me that this was going to be his break-out film as a DP. I finally believed in him. He had become a hell of an artist.
Neal died on Saturday in a plane crash in the Dry Tortugas 70 miles off the shore of Key West. He was shooting film. He died doing what he loved doing. He loved it more than anyone else I’ve ever known.
Neal was going to DP my next film, PROBED. We were looking to shoot early next year in Orlando, Florida, the same place where he logged in long hours of hard work for no pay so many years before. But this time he was going to be the director of photography and he was going to be shooting in a real soundstage at Universal Studios with real actors and a real crew. Him and I, the old Montgomery College team back together again, shooting a real movie.
1999 or so - Matt Compton, Me, Mike and Neal in LA
And that’s hopefully the way it’ll still be, because even though someone else will be DPing PROBED now, Neal Fredericks will somehow still be on that set. Something will happen that will make me miss him every day and I know that. Someone will say something funny after a shot and it’ll be Neal. In the long hours of shooting, maybe when my energy may not be where it needs to be, something will urge me to keep going, something will tell me to get off my ass and make the shot work somehow, and that’ll be Neal. I will miss him here in this world but he will always be with me every time I step onto a set I direct. Every time I yell cut and ask the camera person how the shot was and he or she tells me, “looked good,†that’ll be Neal also looking through that lens. Doing what he loved to do. Doing it until the very last moments of his life.
Neal is my friend. He will be my filmmaking companion for life.OPEN WATER PREMIERE
Just got back from NYC! Went up there for the NY premiere of OPEN WATER.
The producer, Laura Lau, invited us out so Stef and I left the kids with our family and headed up on Monday morning. We hooked up with Gregg and Adrian and saw the film on Monday night.
OPEN WATER is really good. It’s just a simple but very cool idea that the studios would never touch. The execution was right-on, too. Just enough to get the audience where we needed to be and then left us right there in the water with the two leads. Incredibly tense at some points. Reminded me a lot of a little film we did five years ago.
But that’s all that the two films have in common. I know that OPEN WATER is being compared to BLAIR WITCH and I read some stupid stuff on the IMDB boards calling it a “rip-off†of our film, but I think all of that will stop once people see the movie. Besides the fact that it’s intense as hell and was shot for nothing on video, OPEN WATER is completely its own thing and just made me glad that these kinds of movies are still being made out there.
The whole night was kind of a nostalgia trip for us. Gregg and I were in line when we spotted Jeremy Walker, our publicist from BLAIR WITCH, doing his little publicist duties with the press. We called him over and hugged and touched and stuff. It was really good to see him. He took us over to the press area where they took some pictures of us (the photographers all yelling at Jeremy, “Who the hell are these guys?â€) and then we did some quick interviews in the lobby. Everyone was asking what the hell we've been up to so we just made up some shit and moved on.
Super Publicist Jeremy Walker can't help but rub Gregg's prickly beard