With two successful big films under his belt, Blomquist's career contin-
ued from one feature to another, including Of Mice and Men, Vanishing
Point, and What Dreams May Come.
"On What Dreams May Come, there was a ship graveyard scene written
into the script. While location scouting one day, we saw this scrapped air-
craft carrier belonging to the U.S. Navy that had been mothballed and
left sitting at a pier in San
Francisco for twenty years.
It had been decommissioned
and was rusted and rotting in
place." After discovering who
owned the ship, Blomquist
was eventually able to per-
suade the various agencies
involved to allow him access.
"We built a huge set around
the aircraft carrier that basi-
cally cost us nothing. The set
cost some money, but the air-
craft carrier was free. Those are
the kinds of things that are
grist for my mill. I just love it."
Blomquist's association with
director Lasse Hallstrom began
on What's Eating Gilbert Grape,
and continued on to The Cider
House Rules and Chocolat.
Having just completed nearly a
year on location, working on
Chocolat, he chose to turn down
Shipping News in order to spend
more time with his family.
"For Gilbert Grape, we actually
burned down a house. In the movie, the woman dies and they set the house
on fire as a funeral pyre." They considered building a set to burn down, or
creating the effect in post, until Blomquist found the perfect house. "It was
150 years old, one of those places in Texas that you drive by and it looks like
a haunted house with no window glass, because kids have broken it over
the years." Long since abandoned, the farmer who owned the house
thought it too expensive to tear down, so he farmed around it. He agreed to
sell the house for $5,000 and allow the production to burn it down, if they
would agree to haul the remnants away. "That was a huge saving to us,
"You can't look in
the want ads for a job
in the film industry.
It's all about referrals,
recommendations, and
word of mouth."–Alan Blomquist
"This is a very competitive business.
It's a very unforgiving business, but it's also
a very wide open business. Anybody can be
anything . . . if you're smart, enterprising,
and tenacious. But, you have to have a sense
of what the job is. You have to have a sense
of your own skills. And, you have to have
a social aspect. The best technician in the
world, who can't get along with people, is
going to get hired less than somebody who is
less skilled, [but] knows how to get along
and schmooze people."–Alan Blomquist
"Each time you work on a freelance
basis, you have 50 to 100 people who become
your agents."–Alan Blomquist
CAREER TIPS
User Comments Add a comment…