As a young fellow wandering the streets of New York City in the late 70/early 80s I was always thrilled to stumble upon a movie shoot in progress. Since the New York filmmaking community was quite small then, it was more than likely to be either a Woody Allen or Sidney Lumet shoot. But Hollywood came to New York as well and one of the most successful (and still delightful) films of that era, ‘Tootsie’ (1982) was very much a Hollywood movie shot in New York. Above I’ve posted some very raw and unedited behind the scenes footage of the New York exterior shoot. We see nice shots of the crew standing around not doing much (which of course isn’t true–it’s just what movie sets look like if you’re not involved in one). We see quite a bit of Sydney Pollack directing and the great DP Owen Roizman acting like a DP. Movie sets haven’t changed much. There are walkie-talkies, self-important P.A.’s doing lock-up, crew guys in bad shorts and tacky shirts, a general air of discontent and annoyance (typical of any happy shoot) and a brief couple of glimpses of Dustin Hoffman and Jessica Lange. As I said at the beginning of this post, the sighting of a shoot on the streets used to provoke in me a mixture of excitement, envy and ambition. Having now directed a bunch of movies I’m sorry to say that the sight of a crew on the street now provokes something very different in me: anxiety, nausea and relief that it’s not my responsibility but some other directors. Of course that’s followed by me going home and spending the day writing scripts or making calls trying to drum up money and interest so I can make another movie. The whole thing is hard to explain unless you’ve been there…