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Ready When You Are: Jerry Ziesmer's Seminar
By David Hakim
Photo by Frank Zamacona
Jerry Ziesmer (center) with class.
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It was a beautiful spring day at San Francisco's Presidio as more than a dozen DGA members gathered for Jerry Ziesmer's day-long Educational Seminar "Ready When You Are, Mr. Coppola, Mr. Spielberg, Mr. Crowe" on Saturday, April 28.
The redoubtable Jerry Z, of Apocalypse Now AD fame, recently collected into a 'can't-put-the-darn-thing-down' book his spellbinding tales of working with the likes of John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock, Sylvester Stallone and John Frankenheimer, among other directing greats [including the three directors of the book's title]. While many will think that the book birthed the seminar, actually the reverse is closer to the truth: Ziesmer has been active for more than 20 years in working with younger DGA members in both the Retraining and the Mentoring Committees, as well as in personally mentoring or advising hundreds of members through their careers.
Zeismer has the uncanny ability to be liked--he does not 'make people like him,' nor does he especially go out of his way for acceptance. But people trust Jerry Z, and that has been a large part of his success as an assistant director. He possesses a calm and quietude that many admire but few can emulate. In the midst of the chaos of a movie-set, such attitudes inspire confidence and hope, so it isn't surprising that his co-workers and colleagues want to be friends with him.
Having started as an actor [he once starred in Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. after years in summer stock with some of the greats of the stage], Ziesmer is a born storyteller. But while the uninitiated might have only seen a grinning guy in denim shirt and trousers spinning war stories from his days among the famous, the rapt group listening to him in the converted Army barracks discerned simple but not-so-obvious truths behind the amusing anecdotes.
A master at handling large groups of background players, he used video clips and football-play diagrams to illustrate some of his techniques--little tricks for getting thousands of extras to move randomly and on cue. Following lunch, Ziesmer offered many tips such as building a surefire résumé [clue no. 1: cut down the number of credits] and finding a mentor to help you make those critical decisions. His common-sense approach comes from years of working, hiring, getting hired and watching others do the same. His distilled knowledge is invaluable to all members who take their work seriously.
Zeismer and his wife Suzanne [his high school sweetheart and with whom he has worked on the set for many years] still mentor scores of industry professionals, now using e-mail as well as the telephone to reach his charges in far-flung places around the globe.
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