cast

Hatchet          Manny Gonsalves

Al                     Tony Zurica

Jive                  Ed Coby

Doc                 Rick Cluchey

Director          Rick Cluchey

and

the San Quentin Film Workshop

SAN QUENTIN NEWS           

January 5, 1967

The CAGE - The Making of a Teleplay

    San Quentin’s Film Workshop began mid- April, 1965

with shooting of the ’65 Sports Film, directed and filmed

by inmates of the prison. The group sponsored by Dick

Queirolo of KPIX-TV, chose the sports activities of San

Quentin for its first production. The half-hour film, a free-

wheeling documentary, merely whetted the appetite

for bigger and better things happened to be “The Cage.”

    Two years ago, inmate playwright Rick Cluchey wrote

a play which he entitled “Le Cage.” Cluchey, a member of the San Quentin Drama Workshop, directed and acted

in the two-hour prison play. In September, 1966, The Inmate Film Workshop made plans to film a half-hour teleplay

and called for scripts. Cluchey’s “Le Cage” was accepted and he agreed to revise the work to conform to a tele-

vision format. He had one week.

                                                                                          As the re-writing progressed production details were handled

                                                                                    systematically. A suitable location had to be found for the set as

                                                                                    no “studio” was available for shooting. With permission of T.L. Baker,

                                                                                    supervisor of recreation, the workshop took possession of an unused

                                                                                    section of the old gym.

                                                                                           The “sound stage” was a filmmaker’s nightmare. Housed in a

                                                                                    building constructed more than 70 years ago, its wooden interior

                                                                                    and inadequate electric power for equipment were serious pro-                       

                                                                                    blems, made to seem less so only by still another problem: The room

                                                                                    was low-ceilinged and hollow. It might as well have been a barn.

                                                                                            Electric power was the first obstacle to be tackled. Electricians

                                                                                    installed circuits to carry enough power tools needed to construct the set. Ron Hunter, stage manager for the Drama Workshop, designed and built the set with the aid of Jim Roberts

and Al Sebastian, also members of the drama group. Working with Bill Lawhon, director of photography Hunter was

forced to plan the construction according to the needs of the camera. Lawhon asked for ample room in which to move the camera for any desired angle at any time. He got that

and more; the set was built on rollers! The walls could be moved

simply by pushing them back. Their solid concrete look was

achieved by a generous use of spackle, paint and burlap. The

bars of the cage were metal tubes cut to size and painted black.

    A scene called for guards to enter, escorting a new prisoner so

a door of heavy steel was borrowed from drama and added to

the set with a heavily-constructed frame.

    Lighting “The Cage”: There was no budget for lighting. Drama

Workshop, with a play on the boards, could not loan the film

group its lights. Queirolo contacted Barry Brown, a lighting tech-

nician  from KQED-TV. brown not only got the loan of five key lights for the film group but, also volunteered to advise

the film group on the various lighting techniques used in commercial television. Inmate lighting technicians Ron

Lambertson and Ed Davis were to have the use of two Sun Gun Photo-lights with SV-9 Sylac controls owned by Queirolo. Dick Scott, a crack film editor from KPIX-TV, advised the inmate film makers on continuity and sound. The sound men, Mickey Barbara and Glen Elliot, were presented with a big headache right from the beginning. Blankets and thick curtains were finally hung from the low rafters to deaden the echo from this giant “rain barrel” of a sound stage. Halfway through the filming of “The Cage,” another problem arose, 60-cycle hum on the sound track!

    Working with only two lavalier microphones, it was discovered that if the microphone lines were placed anywhere near the maze of power lines, a buzz recorded on the magnetic sound strip. “Bridges” were constructed to keep power and sound lines apart.  They wanted it “Le Cage” was rewritten within a week to conform to a half-hour teleplay. The set was built in four days and the play was shot in five.