After graduating high
school in 1980, Tignini majored
in film at San Francisco State,
earning a bachelor's degree in
1984. "Film school opened my
eyes to world cinema, docu-
mentaries and classic films that
I would not have been exposed
to, things that I reference today.
It was amazing to see where
some of our filmmaking
masters get their influences
from."
Knowing no one in the film
industry, Tignini was lucky to
land a job on a feature right
out of film school. Discovering
that the Coen brothers were
planning to shoot a film called
Raising Arizona in Scottsdale,
he contacted the production
company and landed a job as
a production assistant. "I'd
seen their first movie, Blood
Simple. I really liked that
movie and thought, `This
really speaks to my sensibili-
ties.' I pursued getting on
the film.
"[Raising Arizona] was my
first film and turned out to be a
really lucky break. It was low
budget enough where I was
able to be up close to see a lot
of things happening. It had a
wacky script and wild charac-
ters. It also had, at the time,
very inventive camera work.
It had babies, animals, explo-
sions; it was everything. It was
like a cartoon come to life for
someone right out of film
school."
What do you like
least about your job?
"What I like least is that
the second AD has to deal
with every single depart-
ment. It's the flip side of
the coin. Sometimes it's
really wonderful and other times it's a com-
plete pain, because it can be very taxing. You
have to switch gears so quickly. One minute
the grips are saying, `We can't put the crane
here for this reason . . . ' You listen to them
complain for a few minutes. You really can't
help them, you have to let them sort of work
it out themselves, but you listen to them. You
turn around and there is a makeup person
coming up complaining about something, or
an actor asking, `Why did you bring me in
early?' At times you feel like a really high-
paid concierge."--Eric Tignini
What do you love most
about your job?
"What I love most about my job is that every
day is different. Every day is a different chal-
lenge. I remember working on Forrest Gump;
it was really interesting. The first half of the day
we would be shooting something that took place
in an army barracks, the mid-to-late '60s period,
and in the second half of the day, it would be
1974 and we would be on a disco set. It was
something different every day. It's not like being
in an office. I like that."--Eric Tignini
"Another thing I like about being the second
AD is you communicate with every single
person on the crew. You have to go to every
department and let them know what we're
going to do tomorrow. I like meeting all the
different people. The film business is made
up of really diverse types of people. I don't
know too many jobs where you have the
costume department working side by side
with the big burly grips for a common
purpose."--Eric Tignini
VOICES OF
EXPERIENCE
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