Landing the Beds

(Note: this is a follow-up to a previous post that began to describe the process of hanging green beds on stage, and another chapter in an occasional series on my adventures as a grip many years ago - a journey that started here.)


The first time I watched a grip land a green bed was an eye-opener. A few days before, I'd helped rig a row of hangers on Stage 16 at Warner Brothers, but I didn't know what came next in the process. I was back on that stage later in the week, where I saw a grip standing on the steel frame of the first hanger in that row -- much like the grip in the photo above: arms out, hands grasping either side of that hanger -- except there was no green bed yet in place. The hanger he stood on was essentially a giant trapeze, forty feet above the stage floor, the first in a row that would eventually form an aerial scaffolding to provide a work platform for grips, juicers, and anybody else who needed it.

Hangers without green beds

I didn't see how he got up there, but as it was explained to me, two methods were used back in the day: a grip could shimmy down the chain from the perms to the green bed, or "ride the mule" up to the hanger using the block-and-falls as an elevator. With no fall protection back then, either method was a serious gut-check -- and if riding the mule was considerably less strenuous, it was no less dangerous.*  

As you can see in the photo above, hangers are usually much lower than the ones we rigged on Stage 16, but rather than following the walls and contours of a normal set, these beds were being hung to support a camera on an aerial track to simulate the POV from the front of an airplane swooping down low over a city. In this case, the set was of the rooftops of the city, which is why we were working on the second highest sound stage in Southern California.

No part of hanging green beds is easy, but getting the first bed in place was the trickiest part of the operation. Once it was secured to the hangers, the grip would have a platform from which to work (a highly unstable platform, mind you), but landing that first bed required him to stand on a two inch wide strip of steel waiting for the green bed -- a heavy wooden platform ten feet long, nearly four feet wide, and weighing several hundred pounds -- to be raised from the floor into place by a "mule" (an electric winch) using a block and falls.

While clinging to the hanger with one hand, he had to grab the near end of the green bed with his other hand, then push it up, forcing the far end down into slots on the second hanger. Once that was done, he'd yell to the man running the mule to "sink it!" -- and while keeping the upward pressure with one hand, slowly guide the near end down to slot it into the hanger upon which he stood. Gravity kept the bed in place until he could lock off both hangers, at which point he'd disconnect the "bridal" -- a short length of chain with a thick metal pin on either end, each of which fit into angled holes in the green bed -- and send it back down to the floor crew to load the next bed. 

One down, many more to go. 

Pulling hangers and landing green beds was a difficult, dangerous job with a very high pucker-factor -- a boot camp/training ground where young men (nearly all grips were men in those days) earned their Local 80 spurs while discovering if they had what it took to be a grip. Not everybody did.

Starting to hang the beds

Beds hung in a straight line would lock together by design, but when a section had to follow a curved set wall, wood planks were cut to size and nailed in place to connect each bed to the next.  Some sets are taller than others, which meant sections of green beds had to be hung up and over the high parts, with wooden ladders added so grips, juicers, boom men, and special effects crews could safely move around up there. Once the beds were in place, handrails would be added, followed by "high braces" -- two long two-by-fours nailed together -- running from the perms down to the beds.**

The first hanger and bed in the row, with handrails installed.  You can see how both chains that suspend this hanger run up to the perms, where they attach with perm hooks.

I only landed one green bed in my brief career as a permit grip, and it was an easy one -- nothing like what I observed that day on Stage 16. While working on a much smaller stage, we had to add a second bed right up against an existing (and fully stabilized) section of green beds. All I had to do was step off a very solid platform onto the hanger, then follow the procedure to land the bed -- but it still required my full attention. It was scary enough pulling hangers on Stage 16, and truth be told, I can't imagine sliding down the chain or riding the mule up to that first hanger, then putting in a row of green beds forty feet above the stage floor. That took experience and balls of steel, and although my brief career as a grip didn't last long enough for me to gain the former, I'm not sure I'd ever have acquired the latter. 

I haven't had a chance to watch a crew put in green beds for a long time, but things have changed. Scissors lifts make the job a lot easier now, and everybody up high -- whether in a lift or out on the perms -- wears fall protection, so it's no longer quite the do-or-die task of the old days. Still, venturing out on the perms remains a real gut-check. I've seen many a young grip out there, fully strapped into a harness and clipped on to the safety cable, sweating bullets in the air-conditioned chill.  The primal fear of falling is hard to overcome, but it's all part of being a grip.

As luck would have it, I finally managed to cobble together the thirty days required to join Local 80 and become a grip.  Planning to do just that, I went on down to the nearest Motion Picture Pension and Health clinic for a physical exam that would certify me as a viable candidate for membership in the IA. There, a doctor tapped my knee with a little rubber hammer to confirm the function of my nervous system. Satisfied, he asked me one question: 

"Are you an alcoholic or drug addict?"  

"Not yet," I replied, whereupon he sent me on my way. All I had to do now was file the papers with Contract Services, and once they verified my thirty days, pay the initiation fee to become a Number Three grip in Local 80. After five years of working low-budget everything in Hollywood, I'd finally be in the union.

I thought about it for a week, then didn't do it. Instead, I went back to juicing.

You might wonder why -- and indeed, sometimes I wonder myself -- but that's a subject for another post on another day.


* Many thanks to Kirk Bales, a veteran grip with whom I had the pleasure of working on my last full-season show in Hollywood. Kirk graciously filled me in on the details of landing green beds, since my own experience was very limited, and my memory after nearly 40 years something less than perfect.

** Sorry about the awkward formatting here -- for reasons I'll never understand, adding certain photos can fuck up the formatting of subsequent paragraphs, leaving odd gaps here and there that I can't figure out how to fix...and that pisses me off...