The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece

by Tom Hanks

Making movies is complicated, maddening, highly technical at times, ephemeral and gossamer at others, slow as molasses on a Wednesday but with a gun-to-the-head deadline on a Friday. Imagine a jet plane, the funds for which were held up by Congress, designed by poets, riveted together by musicians, supervised by executives fresh out of business school, to be piloted by wannabes with attention deficiencies. What are the chances that such an aeroplane is going to soar? There you have the making of a movie, at least as I saw it at the Skunk Works.

There is always a good conversation to be had on a movie set, around the Production Office, and during the Postproduction process because most of moviemaking is spent waiting. The question How’d you get started in this racket? prompts hours of very personal, improbable stories, each saga worth a book of its own.

The following is based on a true story. Characters and events have been altered for dramatic purposes.

Getting one’s calls returned, pronto, is the standard by which power is measured on Fountain Avenue.

“Making movies is about solving more problems than you cause.” Allicia noted the hope-filled, upticked arch of Dace’s right eyebrow. Pow. “It’s not for pussies.”

“I make movies because no other labor satisfies my quest to capture an unspoken truth, one so pure and undiscovered that the audience will slap themselves upside their heads for not having seen it long ago.

Fifty-some years ago, that was what it took to get started. Kenny Sheprock had met some folks. He’d been lucky and was never late.