Bloom continued to serve as
a production assistant for a
time, then as an assistant to a
producer on Falling in Love,
before segueing into location
assistant, scout, and then
manager. Her first big feature
to location manage was When
Harry Met Sally, a job she
landed thanks to writer Nora
Ephron.
"I had worked on Cookie, a
film that Nora Ephron wrote. I
met Nora--she is very pro-
women getting ahead in this
business--and she was always
cordial to me, but I didn't
know she even knew my name.
She went on to write When
Harry Met Sally. She was
talking to Rob Reiner and he
said, `We'll be shooting in New
York, so I need a location manager.' She said, `I know the person.'"
When one of the film's producers called, Bloom thought it was a joke.
"I was unemployed. I had quit The Equalizer and was sitting at home
thinking, `Well, let's see if the phone rings,' and this man called me up
and said, `I'm Rob Reiner's producer. Would you be interested in meeting
with me to be the location manager for Rob's next movie?' I thought it
was a joke; I thought somebody is really playing a nasty joke on me."
Hired for the job, it was the beginning of a long relationship with
Castle Rock.
For the next nine years Bloom continued to work as a location
manager on films such as State of Grace, The Super, This Is My Life, and Mr.
Wonderful.
The leap from location manager to production manager came on the
Castle Rock film North. "The same man who gave me my first job as a
location manager gave me the New York portion of North--Jeff Stott. He's
been my mentor. I have had two mentors: Jeff, and Steve Nicolaides, who
was the production manager on When Harry Met Sally. They were the two
men who offered me that first job."
When Nicolaides stepped up to produce his first film, another Castle
Rock picture entitled Little Big League, he asked Bloom to manage the
What do you like
least about your job?
"What I don't like is the
deal making with the
crew, because there is
often a feeling of me
versus them, which is
exactly what I don't like, because I am them.
I have to be faithful to a budget and fair to
the people that I'm hiring."--Donna Bloom
What do you love most
about your job?
"What I love most is the feeling of cama-
raderie in putting together a movie, a group
of people that work well together. I love the
sense of accomplishment when I walk on the
set that first day and everything is in place
and it's like, `Wow. Here we go. Let's make
a movie!'"
VOICES OF
EXPERIENCE
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