To Movie Credits

Never in my life have I heard someone say their career goal is to be a grip. I never, as a child, played with the neighborhood kids when one of them asked to build all the lighting mounts, even if it was just pretend. 

But there, at the end of the movie, on the silver screen is someone’s name, tagged as “grip.” Then someone tagged as “key grip” and literally almost no one outside of the industry knows who they are and what they do.

The foley artist gets a line. Anything with “artist” sounds expensive. The food artist, the set artist. “Wrangler” must be worth a few thousand. “Snake wrangler,” “child wrangler.” Wrangling is more exotic and skill-based than “sitter.”

Jimmy-jibs operators, gaffers, colorists, loaders, concept artists, boom operators. All the assistants and associates. 

All there. They worked all those days and into the long nights. They suffered the snubs from the stars. They endured the sheer boredom, the hours spent that will get edited down to a 2-hour, $9 per-ticket movie, during the end of which, people will be turning back on their cell phones and chatting about where to go to dinner. The audience never reads the credits.

But I’ll bet their parents do. I’ll bet their parents see movies they would never ordinarily go see, pay the $9 just for the last 123 seconds when the credits roll. They see the name they’ve been waiting for. 

Yes, the lighting was perfect. The sound effects brilliant. I heard every step.