work for nothing, and then after a period of time, the house they are
working for gives them a paying gig."
Professional Profile: Jim Borgardt, ADR Supervisor
The flashing on and off of neon signs was the theme for one of the first
movies a teenage Jim Borgardt made with his parents' movie camera. His
first edit was of a train coming and going. However, it was not until
several years later that he would discover filmmaking as a career.
Following his honorable discharge from the military, Borgardt enrolled
at College of San Mateo in the San Francisco Bay Area. He wanted to take
a photography class, but the only course with an opening was in motion
picture production, taught by a former Candid Camera cameraman.
"Basically, all he did was teach
us how to load and unload this
Auricon camera. I excelled at
loading and unloading and
thought, `There's got to be
more than this to motion
picture production. What about
scripts and shooting stuff?'"
Undaunted, Borgardt
enrolled in the class a second
time and became the instruc-
tor's PA. "We had students
write short scenes and we
would shoot them in the hall-
ways with this Auricon
camera. It turned out to really
be a motion picture class."
Borgardt's introduction to
the film industry was as a
janitor at Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope. "George Lucas was
just beginning to mix American Graffiti--Walter Murch was doing the
mixing. Francis was in preproduction on The Conversation. They needed a
janitor, so they hired me. That lasted about a week. Then they realized
they needed a cleaning service, so they hired one and put me in charge of
rental equipment." Coppola had invested some of his Godfather earnings
into buying equipment that could be rented to whichever production he
was working on, namely The Conversation. "That was my beginning."
For Borgardt, being able to watch over the shoulders of these great
filmmakers was like going to film school. "I was always looking in and
What do you like
least about your job?
A people person, Jim
Borgardt's least favorite
part of the job is any
work he has to do alone.
What do you love most
about your job?
"I really love being onstage. I love working
with the director and with the actors. I enjoy
doing group [multiple actors looping at the
same time]. The most fun I ever had was
working two days on a prison movie with ten
women screaming and yelling for two days--
it was so much fun."--Jim Borgardt
VOICES OF
EXPERIENCE
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