Aldric La’Auli Porter photo by Tracey Bennett

“The 1st AD is a leader who has to push the show up the hill no matter how many obstacles,” Porter says on the way to the set of his current project, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, directed by Dennis Dugan. “It’s about organization, communication, and, most of all, creating a sense of confidence so they’ll follow you up that hill.”

Case in point was Ridley Scott’s Black Rain, shot on location in Japan. After extended negotiations, Porter was given permission to shoot from dusk till dawn in an Osaka train station. However, on the day of filming, Japanese authorities fretted about offending passengers, and abruptly changed the arrangement. “They cut the shoot down from 12 to six hours, with no early setup of equipment,” Porter recalls. “I’ve never worked so fast and so hard to ensure everyone knew the new game plan and was on the same page.”

Battling transit bureaucrats halfway around the world might compare favorably to wading through a sea of muck on Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning. “Alan Parker is a stickler for the texture of everyday life,” Porter recalls with a smile, “and nearly every scene was on a practical location.” One intense moment featured a Klu Klux Klan member chasing a black man who must leap into a pig trough to evade his tormentor. “We were standing there knee-deep in our waders and all I could think about was the poor stunt guy. I turned to the art director, saying: ‘Please tell me you remembered to disinfect the trough, because the stunt person will be jumping in full force.’”

Occasionally Porter is the one leaping in. For Ron Howard’s Backdraft, made years before a fire effect could be inserted by a digital keystroke, Porter ran into a burning room to check on an actor. “Kurt Russell was in this smoke-filled set that the effects team had just ignited with 50- gallon oil drums,” Porter remembers. “After about four minutes he hadn’t come out, so I just rushed in after him—without a respirator.” Porter felt his way along the wall with his hands, as he had been trained, through the intense smoke and heat, but couldn’t find Russell. Fortunately, the actor had already gotten out through a rear exit door. “It wasn’t the smartest thing to do,” admits Porter. “But instinct took over, and I wanted to make sure he was safe.”

Porter’s do-or-die work ethic has impressed the toughest of taskmasters, even if it has sometimes taken awhile for them to understand his easygoing manner. “Early in the making of True Lies, James Cameron said he was very unimpressed with my laid-back approach with the crew,” Porter laughs. “But by the end of the film, he was calling me ‘the rock.’ Yelling or bullying is just not my style, and directors who get that tend to hire me.”

Rob Bruce-Baron - photo by Brian Davis

These days it’s Bruce-Baron who’s giving the warnings, usually to talent to prepare for cameras to roll. Working for the same director, Mark Gentile, for the last 18 years, Bruce-Baron has guided talent and crews through a handful of live TV shows, including Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, The Power of 10 and The View. “Mark uses his floor people very much like 1st ADs,” says Bruce-Baron. Along with co-stage manager Phyllis Digiglio, “we’re placing cameras, blocking movements and cueing talent, while the AD is running the control room and building effects.”

Sometimes being on the floor is a trying job in unexpected ways. “On Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, there was no time limit for the contestant to answer the questions,” Bruce-Baron explains. “We were held hostage by one contestant who sat there for an entire hour trying to come up with an answer. I won’t share the headset banter, but suffice to say it was not a very hard question.”

Personality-driven shows like The View present a unique challenge for TV stage managers. Nevermind the backstage turmoil that preceded Rosie O’Donnell’s departure, the show’s hosts rarely, if ever, rehearse segments with their guests. “We have to coordinate stagehands, electric, carpentry, camera and the producers,” says Bruce-Baron. “It’s our job to make sure the segment is perfect when the host sees it for the first time on-the-air.”

Earlier this year, Bruce-Baron switched places to the other side of the headset when he appeared on a segment of The View with two animals from his thriving side business, Rosehaven Alpaca Farms. “My wife and I got into alpaca farming through our attorney,” notes Bruce-Baron. “I’d say the caregiving skills I use in television have been easily transferable.”

Elena Santaballa - photo by Brian Davis

Elena Santaballa

Quiet on the Set

Stage Five at Warner Bros., where Santaballa, a 2nd alternate on the DGA National Board, worked for seven seasons on Raymond, followed by two on The New Adventures of Old Christine, was her longtime home base. Unfortunately, the dressing rooms are directly behind the main set, and once, while working on a Christine episode, Santaballa tried to quiet a group of supporting actors. They later complained that an AD had been rude to them. “It was during a show taping and they had no idea how loud they were,” she recalls. “When they told our producer she just laughed and said, ‘Oh, please, Elena shushes everyone.’”

Santaballa’s passion for “wrangling grown-ups” began as a DGA trainee, and then later as a Key 2nd AD on features. When the Washington, D.C. native heard about the laid-back pace (and the daily yucks) on sitcoms, she moved over to multi-camera work. “Sitcoms are a lot like theater because you spend your entire week prepping to shoot the show once through, live in front of an audience,” she says.

Understanding the sitcom vibe is a big part of Santaballa’s job. She recalls once hiring a 2nd 2nd AD she knew from features on Everybody Loves Raymond, and the cast was mystified by the new AD’s urgent, high-energy approach. Dealing with extras is another area where multi- and single-camera shows differ. “In features they hire a 2nd 2nd to handle extras, but that’s the most creative part of my job,” Santaballa explains. “With four cameras covering the action, there’s no place to cue onstage. So I run each cue line-by-line with the script in advance with each extra. Having a background player waltz through the scene at the wrong moment can blow a comedic moment that took all week to rehearse.”