Another Interview with a real-life reality tv crew member!

banana boy. bahamas bachelorette. photo by chad

1.) what is your name?

-Mark Walkowiak

2.) what's your job title?

-A.C./Junior Camera Operator

3.) how did you get your first reality tv job?

-I got my first reality t.v. job through my girlfriends brother. The show he was working on was traveling, and needed someone to drive them to the airport. They called me again when they got back so I could pick them up, then ended up working as a P.A. on the show for about 3 months.

4.) what was your first behind-the-scenes impression of reality tv?

-My first impression was that it was very much like what I was doing with my friends back home, just on a larger scale. Some of the equipment was the same and most of the people had the same "lets get this done and still have fun" attitude.

5.) what's the worst thing to ever happen to you at work?

-The worst thing that ever happened came on my first reality tv job. I did such a good job driving to the airport that they wanted me to drive the equipment truck full time. It was a traveling show and on our first trip I had to drive the truck to Lancaster CA. The shoot went fine, we wrapped up and headed out, the crew in one van and me in the equipment truck. All I had to do was gas it up, drive it to the office and go home. The only problem was I had no real experience driving a truck this big and didn't realize that not every gas station is equipped to fit trucks this size. I knew how tall my truck was but not the roof of the gas station and just assumed I would fit. I did not. Luckily the difference was only about an inch, and with all of the gear weighing the truck down I just kind of wedged my self under the roof as opposed to smashing into it. The owner came out yelling and waving his arms so I stopped and got out. I looked at it for a minute while he yelled at me. At this point I figured I was screwed so I just got back in and backed it up. It turns out the damage wasn't that bad, the place was kind of old and beat up so it really didn't stand out but the owner wanted like $500 dollars. All I had was about $200 dollars in savings at that time so I talked him down to that, because we both knew he wasn't going to fix this minor damage, he just wanted me to pay. So I went to his ATM to withdraw all of my savings. The machine spit out $100 dollars and then said it was out of cash. I handed it to him, pointed to the blinking "out of cash" light and walked out the door. I got gas down the road at station with a taller roof and never told anybody what happened.

6.) two words to describe this industry

-crazy, fun

7.) best experience on the job

-Playing baseball on the field at Dodgers Stadium

8.) worst day ever...

-See longest day

9.) best jerry-rigging on set...

-It's hard to say what the best one was since it happens so often that half of the shows wouldn't get done without someone figuring out a way but the one that sticks out in my mind was a lighting setup we did in this tiny room where there couldn't be any stands. We zip-tied lights to a thin piece of crown molding somehow, using clothes pins and whatever else we could get our hands on and lit the scene with those lights. I couldn't believe it.

10.) nicknames?

-I've had a few nicknames depending on the crew, my favorites are Dirty Mark, Plutark and Goo-Fart.

11.) nicknames of co-workers?

-My favorite of all time is Father Dick followed closely by Poops Callahan and Hansel.

12.) funniest thing to happen to someone else on the job?

-Shooting high up on a mountain, this poor guy got a wicked sun-burn whilst wearing sunglasses. Needless to say for the next week he had to listen to every person he ran into tell him he "got a little sun today" or "why don't you take your sunglasses off".

13.) pranks on set?

-Pranks are what keep the crew sane on set and happen all the time but usually don't translate well to the outside world. The best one I have heard about involved hiding walkie talkies in someone's room. Everyone told this poor girl that the hotel was haunted, then when she went to bed made creepy noises over the walkie. She ran out of the room screaming.

free at last! photo by laura merians

14.) what makes this industry unique to you?

-What makes this industry unique to me is that it's creative and fun, even on the bad days. I feel like most people don't get to go to their jobs and have as much fun as I've had. No matter how bad the actual show is, making it is almost always a source of great entertainment for me.

15.) if you weren't doing this, what would you be doing?

-I like to think that if I wasn't doing this, I would somehow be involved in beer. Making it, working at a brewery, working at a great specialty store buying the beer, starting up a great beer bar or welding.

16.) worst food...

-California Pizza Kitchen

17.) do your family members call you "our little speilberg!"?

-No

19.) what was the worst shooting location? why?

-For me it's always the beach. Everything is harder and slower then normal, you need to bring extra equipment and tents and chairs, sand gets in all of the equipment, it's hot, you get sunburned and everyone else there is having a great time. it's the worst.

20.) what keeps you from taking an accounting job?

-It's just not for me. I can't sit in a room behind a desk and pretend to care. I get no say in counting numbers, there is only one way to count them. In this I can at least put a small part of my creativity into it.

21.) favorite crafty treat?

-Gotta go with Rice Krispie Treats

22.) longest day ever...

-My longest day spanned 23 hours and involved shooting, packing up gear, driving to the airport, checking the gear, flying to another city, unloading/preping the gear, shooting, traveling back to our hotel and packing up the gear again.

mark's expertise in rodents lands him a spot on a show...