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Round Up the Usual Suspect – Please!

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When Claude Raines talks about "rounding up the usual suspects" at the end of "Casablanca", he is not talking about my usual suspects. Nor are my usual suspects likely to have very much to fear from Kaiser Souze.

My usual suspects are actually more like the team Mr. Phelps put together at the beginning of every old 'Mission Impossible' episode (and I'm certainly not talking about the Tom Cruise vanity series of the same name).

Did you ever wonder why Phelps always picked the same people? Yes, I know that Barbara Bain and Martin Landau were under contract. More importantly, Phelps knew that if he were going to pull off a highly unlikely mission with a small degree of success, he needed to trust the people around him.

This is much the way I feel when I come onto a movie as producer or line producer. The first thing I want to do is surround myself with people who I can count on.

All of my usual suspects are very good at what they do, but there are certainly other people out there who could get the job done. Films are made under pressure, and different people react differently when under pressure. I don't want to wait until the first hard day on set to find out my sound recordist has a temper, or my make-up artist is a gossip who undermines people (yes, both of these have happened to me). My usual suspects always come through in the clutch.

Over the years, I have compiled from various contact lists on films a "usual suspect" contact list. I keep this list so that they can be called by anyone on my staff. I know most of these numbers by heart, as many of them have become great friends. I urge all directors and producers out there to compile a similar list.

So, who are these usual suspects?

The first person I think about hiring when I am producing a film is the assistant director. I often am in the position of working with first-time feature directors, and I want a steady hand at their side.

I am lucky enough to have three usual suspects for this position. They are as different from each other as they could possibly be, but they are all beyond dependable.

Chris, who I call "CK", is a real buddy. He was my second when I was a first, and he is tough as nails with a wit that I have seen in few other people. He uses that wit to keep things moving in a way that is pleasant and not threatening. While in the South, he once inspired a group of lackluster PAs by observing, "God, you people are slow; no wonder you lost the war!" He proceeded to nickname them after characters from "The Dukes of Hazard." While I thought this would offend them, it amused them, yet they got the point that they had to move faster.

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