Sierra Mountain Times

Life Behind the Lense

Josh behind the lens of a Red 1camera with a $100,000 angenieux 24-290 lens.

When war rages on a foreign land, there is no telling in which way it might affect you. The ripple effects of war are felt from its epicenter to the edges of the earth and no one can guess what they bring. Often they bring grief and suffering but they also bring change and opportunity. When a war broke out between the small country of Georgia and its bordering neighbor Russia in August of 2008, Josh Turner had no idea that it would have any affect on him. However, about a year later he found himself in the war torn country of Georgia behind the lens of a camera helping make a movie to document this tragic event. For nearly three months he lived in this unfamiliar nation, experiencing the people, culture and picturesque countryside. He witnessed this land by foot, quad, truck, tank and helicopter and mixed and mingled with the poor, the movie stars and even the president. Yet after seeing everything from poverty-stricken towns to the presidential palace, his overseas adventure was eventually over, and he was grateful to be back at home.

“It’s good to be back in Twain Harte,” said the Sierra Village native, who recently returned to his beloved hometown. “No matter where I’ve been, this is where I look forward to coming back to.”

Josh, who worked on the film as a camera assistant, has been working in the Hollywood film industry for the past several years.

“I’ve been working in L.A. for a little over three years,” said the 27-year-old. “But I started shooting web videos and skate videos three or four years before that while I was going to school in San Diego.” 

As a talented musician, Josh’s original intent was to make a career in the music industry and studied Audio Engineering while working on his AA at Grossmont College in San Diego. However, his art of music transitioned into the art of film when he transferred to San Diego State.

“It was here that I realized I could do Audio Engineering for movies and I had a blast as the foley artist, creating the natural, everyday sound effects as well as making other sound effects,” he said. “I got into the film production classes because they were part of the major, and I excelled at the production side. A lot of our projects were to wipe a film track and put in all our own sounds and dialogue. Whenever I worked on class short films with friends, I would do all the sound.” Unfortunately, although he attended several of the film-based classes, he was never officially accepted into the major.

“They never actually let me into the major, but I would just show up to all the classes,” he said. “Eventually I only needed one more class to graduate – but because I wasn’t in the major, they wouldn’t let me into the class. So I went to talk to the head of the department and said, ‘Look, I have 11 letters of recommendation from your faculty and a 3.8 GPA in the major. Can’t I get into this class?’ His response shocked me. He said, ‘Well, I am the head of the film department and I don’t have a degree. No one is ever going to ask you if you have a piece of paper or not, they are going to ask you what you’ve done. So why are you still here in San Diego? Go to L.A. and get a job.’ I was taken back. ‘Ok, really?’”

So in February of 2006 Josh dropped out of film school and headed to the entertainment empire of L.A. to try out this new advice.

Josh at the controls of  a Georgia military tank.

“I knew some people who I had made films with in college that were working in the city so I called one up and said, ‘Hey, remember you said I could sleep on your couch when I came to L.A…is that offer still good? Know of any jobs available?’ My friend said, ‘I’m working on a pilot right now. I can get you an interview for an office job, but it will get your foot in the door. So I said, ‘Ok, I’ll be there tomorrow.’ She called me back a little later and said, ‘Be here tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. for your interview.’ The next day as I was driving up I called to tell her I was almost there and she asked, ‘Did you bring a resume?’ I said, ‘I don’t have a resume for this stuff!’ So she directed me to Kinkos where I quickly typed up a resume and rushed over to Raleigh Studios across from Paramount Studios. I arrived at the interview, dressed how I normally dress. I figured I wanted a job where I didn’t have to get dressed up and impress anyone with a suit.”

A suit wasn’t needed to impress his interviewer, or a degree for that matter, and Josh received a call shortly after.

“About a half hour later they called me back and said I have the job,” recalled Josh. “But they also noticed that I had done camera work and made videos and was told that the Director of Photography (DP) was looking for an apprentice and an assistant, would I be interested?’ ‘Yes I would!’ I said.”

Later that day he met who would become his new boss, as well as his friend, Cinematographer Checco Varese.

“He’s a Peruvian guy and as soon as I met him he said, ‘Tell me what you have done?’ imitated Josh in a Peruvian accent. ‘Well…I’ve done this, this and this…’ I was trying to tell him anything I could think of. He said, ‘Ok. Very well. Follow me.’ I followed him down the hallway into the Upper Production Manager’s (UPMs) office and he says, ‘This is my new apprentice/assistant. Figure out his pay. I will see you tomorrow at 5:30 a.m.’ I couldn’t believe it. Ok! Cool! So I show up and help him at the office a couple of days and then the first day of production comes around for a pilot of a show called Life on NBC. I had set two alarms…but I woke up to a phone call. ‘Josh, where are you?’ ‘Oh, @%$*!’ I thought. It was the worst way ever to start off a career! But I showed up and I have been working with him for the last three and a half years. So as far as camera work goes, I really just fell into it.”

Since his ‘fall’ into film, it has been a very interesting ride. After working as a camera production assistant on Life, he continued that role into numerous shows and films.

“After Life I worked on Prom Night, a horror film, and then a movie called Street Kings with Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker,” said Josh. “Forest Whitaker was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met and Keanu Reeves was an interesting character. Then I worked on three episodes of a show called True Blood on HBO.”

After having shoulder surgery from a snowboarding accident, Josh found himself working in different areas of film.

Inside of a military helicopter hanger in Georgia.

“While I was doing recovery my boss flew me to South Carolina where he was working on a film called New Daughter with Kevin Costner,” said Josh. “I spent two weeks there training a guy to do my position while I was all busted up. When I came back my shoulder had frozen, so I had to have a second surgery that put me out another couple of months. But my boss got me a job in post production for the first season of a show called Castle on ABC. I was the post production coordinator for a season. I did a lot of runs – worked with the editors, was involved with producers and directors and made sure everything got to where it needed to be.”

While in the post production field he was able to learn tricks that would make him a better cameraman.

“When I first started I used to ask my boss questions. What did I need to know? One of the things he told me, ‘Learn all that you can while in post production because then you’ll know what you can do better when you’re filming. It will save you time and it will save them money.’ This is very true because some of the days they’re spending $40-$50,000 every 20 minutes for one shot…so if you know you can get away with things in post production, then you can shoot for it and save time and money, making you a more desirable hire. It was a good experience and taught me a lot.”

Once his shoulder had healed Josh was back with the camera crew and worked on an episode of Melrose Place. 

“I did the underwater camera for the first episode,” he said. “That was fun. I also worked on a couple of commercials. One was for Coke Zero and another for some extremely expensive high-heel shoe company. After that I started prepping for the movie Georgia.”

This was by far his biggest project yet. 

 Josh with the President of Georgia MIkheil Saakashvili during the film crews wrap party.

“This is my first international film,” he said. “It was a huge résumé project. This is the biggest film I’ve been on…it wasn’t the biggest budget I’ve ever worked on, but if they finish the cut in time it will be at the Cannes Film Festival in France.”

The film also offered him a more prominent role and he moved up in rank as the assistant camera on the aerial unit and the second assistant camera on the “b” camera.

“I was responsible for a lot more,” said Josh. “The camera being built, the media (to make sure there is enough film), running the slate, footage counts, notes on the film, lenses, filters, heights of the camera etc. and marking the actors.”

The film, a drama centered around last year’s military conflict between Russia and Georgia, focuses on an American journalist (portrayed by Rupert Friend) his cameraman (Richard Coyle), and a Georgian native (Emmanuelle Chriqui) who become caught in the crossfire. Other stars include Val Kilmer and Andy Garcia. 

“It’s an anti-war film,” said Josh. “It really highlights the tragedy of war and the bad things that happen. It’s a big action film.” 

Known for movies such as Diehard 2, Cliffhanger, Nightmare on Elm Street 4, and Deep Blue Sea, Director Renny Harlin hopes to capture what took place in this distant land and bring it to the theatres. However, for nearly three months, Josh had the privilege to witness this country’s people and culture first hand while working on the film.

“The Georgian people are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met,” he said. “When we would go out people would say to us, ‘You are a guest in my country, let me buy you a drink. It’s a very small country…it feels like everyone knows everyone. It’s like being in Twain Harte – a really big Twain Harte. While I was there I ate some of the most amazing food.”

 Josh filming a Mi-28 attack helicopter from the “Huey” helicopter in the background.

However, during Josh’s first few days in the country, he had to survive without food.

“The first two days the camera crew didn’t get food – and we weren’t in a town where you could go get something to eat,” recalled Josh. “We were in a bombed out village on the Russian border. The first week there was really rough and they were pushing us hard. I landed at 3 a.m. after a 28 hour flight, and I had to be at work at 7 a.m. It was ruthless. We worked really, really late the first couple nights. Plus we had to sleep in 1950s railroad cars with coal heaters and the guys who had to put the coal in them would walk up and down the train car arguing all night. My camera operator and I were sharing a car and only one of us could get up to get ready at a time because there wasn’t enough room. Then it was a race to get to the showers because there would be no hot water or no water at all. A few times I even snuck over to the hostel where all the girls were staying so I could take a hot shower. After the first week it was a huge bonding experience with the crew because everyone had endured such horrible conditions.”

Although even as conditions improved, Josh admits that it was still a lot of long days and hard work.

”We were often doing 15 hour days, six days a week,” he said. “I lost 20 pounds while I was there. Usually we would have call times at 6 a.m., except when we did a week of night shooting, which was rough and really cold. There would be days that I could wear shorts and a tee shirt and then there were days that I wore seven jackets, a thermal and a tee shirt and thermal pants, pants, wind pants, army boots, gloves and a beanie.” 

Josh quickly learned to appreciate his Sunday day of rest where he could take shelter from the cold and relax from the long week of work.

“We had one day off and although everyone was exhausted on Saturday night, as soon as it was a wrap everyone would be like, ‘Quick, clean up – what bar are we going to?’” said Josh. “My crew is a bunch of alcoholics…so we’d go out and have a good time at the bars and spend Sunday recovering. It was the one relief. The hotel we were at had a day spa and massage, so I would take advantage of that.”

But Monday morning always came, and for the next six days Josh would get up early and build the cameras needed for the day of filming.

“Because the cameras can’t travel while built, every night we break the camera down to just a body and put the parts back into their cases,” he explained. “They are extremely expensive. We use a lot of different accessories depending on what type of shooting mode they will be used for. They have to be assembled fast so we can start shooting. My crew is really fast and for the whole movie they only waited on cameras a few times for technical problems.”

Once the cameras are set up the camera crew goes through block rehearsal with the actors.

“The actors would come in and we’d put down marks for them, which allow the cameraman to know where they need to be so the cameras can set focus marks,” explained Josh. “After marks and camera rehearsal, we make the adjustments we need to and then start shooting. So we were usually working from 6 a.m. until the day was done…which was basically until we were out of light. Plus there were a lot of places where we had to drive an hour and a half to get to which meant we would leave at 5 a.m. Then we would get there, set up and shoot our first shots by 9 or 10 a.m. and shoot all day.”

The half hour break for lunch was never long enough.

“I would scarf down my food and then try to squeeze in a ten minute nap before going back to work,” said Josh. “It sucks to an extent because it’s very much a business and everything revolves around the money. The producers are trying to save as much money as they can. It’s very far from making movies with your friends because there are millions and millions of dollars on the line. When you overshoot for the day and the day goes past 12 hours, then you’re paying the crew overtime, which we like, but that’s costing the film money. This means that too much money was spent in one area and there won’t be enough money for another part of the film. For example, they can’t use a crane or the helicopter shot they wanted because it doesn’t fit the budget. It’s all very time sensitive. That is why movies are in preproduction for so long. The more you can plan for it ahead of time and get everything ready and set, the less time you spend shooting because you aren’t sitting there thinking, ‘Oh, maybe we should’ve thought about this. Oops, that was $10,000 mistake.’” 

While working on the film Josh witnessed a mistake that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

“The cameras we are using are not like the ones I worked with while in college,” said Josh. “The ones I am using now are a quarter to half a million dollars. The difference is in the quality of glass that is used. One of the lenses alone is almost $100,000! Unfortunately, we ended up destroying one of them while filming a car chase. We had a camera mounted on the back of a truck and we were filming a car chasing us. The road was pretty bumpy and the driver was a Turkish guy and no one on the set spoke Turkish. We had one translator but there were 11 to 12 different languages being spoken on the set. So somewhere in translation it got lost for the driver to slow down because they were going too fast. Part of the mount had broken and the cameraman tried to grab it as they yelled at the driver to stop, but he thought it meant faster…so the cameraman ended up dropping the camera. It was destroyed. It had a really fast $80,000 lens which has a one year waiting list to get a new one. Plus all the accessories were another $60,000 and the arm and head it was on was $400,000! It was a really expensive ‘oops’.”

However, filming the movie in Georgia had saved them millions and millions of dollars.

“Unfortunately a lot of films are going overseas because it’s so much cheaper,” said Josh. “This film was Georgia’s first big movie produced in the country, and it was hard because there was a lot of inexperienced crew and they don’t have access to all the equipment that we do. For example we had to build our own camera truck. In L.A. you rent a camera truck that comes with shelves and everything…but here they gave us a purple box truck and we had to put all our own shelves in it. But they are trying to draw the film industry there, just like Bulgaria has done. Production wise Georgia should’ve cost $150-$170 million, and we were able to make it over there for just under $15 million!”

Plus, because the film was pro-Georgia, they received a lot of help from the country.

“It’s a very pro-Georgia film so they were very willing to help,” said Josh. “Over 5,000 people showed up for our “money shot” to recreate the rally that took place. It was one of the largest crowd scenes we put together. It was crazy! The president was very supportive of the film and basically gave us access to the military to do whatever we wanted. We had 26 different tanks, three Mi-28 attack helicopters, three MI-8 troop transports, a couple of “Hueys” and 500 military men! We even filmed at the presidential palace!”

While the gold-pillared palace was beautiful, most of the movie was filmed in war ravaged villages and towns.

“We filmed in Tsalka, an old, tiny abandoned village that has people living in one out of every 20 houses,” said Josh. “Another town we filmed in was called Gori, which the Russians took over last year. There were a lot of mixed feelings with the locals because to an extent they were really happy we were doing a pro-Georgia film and on the other hand they were reliving what had happened a year ago. We had 25-30 tanks rolling through the towns. Often times the tanks were set on fire. For the smoke they were burning tires until we could get black smoke in from the states – it was disgusting. I had to wear a mask and would come back covered in dust from the tanks and black grime from the smoke. Another town we filmed in had been bombed out and landmines had been set all around the area…so we were careful not to wander too far off the path.”

Yet when Josh looked past the bullet riddled buildings and rubble the landscape spoke of ancient history and beauty.

“The landscapes were beautiful!” recalled Josh. “It has everything you can think of from desert looking areas to huge snowcapped mountains and forests. Plus the history of the area is just unbelievable! There are cool old churches everywhere; they are some of the oldest in the world. And there are still parts that have the old cobblestone streets.”

While Josh enjoyed taking in the landscape from on foot, tanks and quads, his best views were from the air while filming from a helicopter. 

“The helicopter was insane!” he said. “It was a blast! I put in 42 hours in the helicopter. There were times I got to operate the camera out of it, and other times I was just hanging my feet out the side. One day the pilot asked, ‘You want to see something cool?’ Of course! So he flew combat tactics through this canyon and the canyon walls were above us until it opened up into this area where this big granite mountain had a small church on the top. It was incredible! I have no idea how they built it up there…and it’s been there for thousands of years! It was quite an experience.”

Every day seemed to offer Josh a new experience that would create a memory that he will never forget.

“I really got to see both sides of the coin while I was there,” he said. “There were times we were filming in bombed out villages and eating dinner with people who were squatters who had close to nothing…and then there were nights where I had drinks with the president.”

Of all the extreme highs and lows Josh experienced, meeting the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was one of his most memorable.

“When filming was finished we rented out a club for our wrap party,” said Josh. “And when we got there we realized that there were a lot of security and we were told the president was coming. Wow! Really? Sure enough he rolls in with a huge entourage of secret service…and he’s wearing a pink cardigan sweater. I guess if he’s the president he can wear whatever he wants. I noticed that not many people were going up to him so I went over to Renny and asked, ‘How approachable is the president?’ ‘Oh, he is very approachable. ‘Cool, can I get a picture with him?’ So we walk over and I introduce myself: ‘Hey, how are you doing Mr. President. Nice to meet you. Thanks for having us in your country…can I take a picture with you?’ And I got it! I’m the only one who got a picture with the president! I figured that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and besides, no one was going to believe me unless I had a picture.”

After the wrap party Josh’s last day in Georgia ended with one more final finale…a grand explosion of the leftover C4 from the film.

“We blew up all the leftover explosives – 300 kilograms of C4!” said Josh. “It was huge – bigger than any of the explosions we had used during the filming. We were a half mile away and we could see a big burst of flame and then watch the shock wave come down the hill and then feel it hit us. It was insane! What’s funny is that I almost went in the army because I wanted to play with cool toys, shoot guns, and blow things up…but I didn’t want to get shot at. I guess film is one way to do that.” 

Not only did Josh have unforgettable experiences, but he was also part of a crew who helped preserve history through film so others can learn of the war in Georgia. 

“That was the third feature movie I’ve ever done from start to finish,” he said. “It took us a little over two and a half months to film it. It was hard, but the end product was worth it. They showed us cuts of it and the footage is beautiful. Hopefully, it will be in theatres in May.”

After spending that much time on foreign ground, Josh was eager to return home.

“I had all kinds of delays and layovers on the way home which made me miss my flight and I had to stay at a hotel in Chicago,” he said. “Although I was bitter…at least I had real food! I was just stoked to be back in America! Especially once I made it to Twain Harte.”

Yet with his career, Josh knows that he will eventually have to return to the city.

“L.A. is what it is,” he said. “I try to take as much time out from it, but unfortunately I am stuck there. At least I’m close enough that I can drive home. But I love what I do. I don’t work in an office. The tools are always the same, but the job is never the same. The beauty of my job is that I don’t know where I could be next. My operator that I worked with in Georgia is trying to pull me over to Bulgaria, my DP (Director of Photography) is doing a film in Toronto, Germany and maybe France, and Renny is doing another film in South Africa at the end of summer I might get to work on.”

As Josh continues to make contacts in the business, his impressive résumé will continue to grow, and someday he hopes to be directing films of his own.

“It’s not a bad resume so far, and hopefully I can keep it growing,” he said. “I would like to do my own films and have a crew of all my friends. I know this is rare, but people like Clint Eastwood have been working with the same people for 20 years…so it’s possible. We will see where the road takes me. I’m up for anything, but I am just enjoying the ride. It’s been very fruitful so far. I am really lucky that my family is so supportive. I have been very fortunate. I mean, I still wake up in the morning and say, ‘Crap, I have to go to work,’ but at least when I am there I love what I do. I’m lucky I enjoy what I do for a living.”