BARRY Caulfield and his restyled Mack truck at the premiere of Pete’s Dragon in Rotorua. Photo supplied
LEGENDARY Hollywood actor Robert Redford is the man behind the wheel of the big truck in Disney’s latest movie, Pete’s Dragon. But Hollywood has a way with illusion. The real life driver of the big Mack was in fact Eastern Bay man, Barry Caulfield.
Barry spent 14 months working for the makers of Pete’s Dragon after being tracked down by Peter Jackson’s Wellington-based Stone Street Studios, which had been contracted by Walt Disney Pictures to create the movie about imaginary dragon, Elliot.
“A colleague of mine had a relative working at Stone Street,” says Barry. “They’d gotten the go-ahead for the movie, and were looking for a couple of trucks, and specifically a truck that would be a big feature in the movie.”
Being well-known as an avid collector of classic trucks, and having a 40-year history in the forestry-contracting business, all roads led to Barry.
Before he knew it, he was signed up and contracted to assist with the procurement of trucks, as well as heavy machinery related to the logging industry. But first he needed to come up with the right truck to play the big role.
“They actually didn’t know what they wanted,” says Barry. “So I suggested the Mack because it was made popular after a character in the Cars movie, so the kids are familiar with it. I have one of those trucks so I showed them, and that’s how it all happened.”
Barry drove his trucks to Wellington where renowned Weta Digital set about turning what he considers to have been “great paint jobs” into “damn awful ones”. The trucks were made to look rougher and older, fitting in with the theme of the movie.
One of Barry’s early tasks was the modification of the Mack so it could appear to be a left-hand drive vehicle. Pete’s Dragon is set in America, and while many vehicles were transported to New Zealand, any vehicle already here needed modification.
“I soon fixed that issue with the truck,” says Barry. “We tracked down a Mack steering wheel and bolted it to the heater on the left hand of the cab.”
When the scenes were shot, a stand in person would be put there to appear as though they were driving, with Barry, at the real wheel, not visible. Close up scenes in the truck were all done in the studio, he says.
But Barry’s role didn’t finish there. As well as his primary role of driving the truck for all of its motion scenes, he was in make-up”every morning, being readied for onscreen appearances as a car driver, or as the deputy sheriff. He was the “back-up” for these roles, and while he also did plenty of filming as a logger in the background of an argument scene, which had to be repeated 23 times, none of his scenes appeared in the final cut. “It was understood that that scene was a bit too heated and might have been a bit scary for the kids.
“That’s the way it is,” he says. “They say about 90 percent of what is originally filmed for a movie ends up in the finished product.”
Barry does however have his moment in the film but says “you’d have to be quick to see it”.
“It’s been lots of fun and a fascinating insight into the movie industry,” he says. But the glamour wears off pretty quickly.
“Those people work really hard. They’d be on location in the forest every morning by 6.30, and most days were 12 hours. Filming on the Rotorua, Tokoroa, Kinleith Mill and Atiamuri locations took two to three months.
Barry was also on hand to offer general advice with practical things that others weren’t familiar with; how to hold a chainsaw or an axe and how to use forestry equipment.
“Those Weta Workshop people are out of this world,” he says, citing an example of how he’d procured and rigged up a load binder with chains to be used in the scene where the dragon is tied to the truck. But the chains were too heavy for the nine and 10-year-old stars of the movie to handle.
“The Weta guys just made a 3D image, and created them in plastic. You’d never know the difference,” he says. Another example of their expertise was the Kevlar socks. The two child stars needed to appear to be barefoot in the forest.
“Maybe American feet aren’t as tough as New Zealand feet. The Weta people made these Kevlar socks for them to wear, and the word was that they cost $17,000 a pair. If you look closely, you can actually see them when the kids are climbing a tree.”
“Working with movie people was an experience. Fanatical cameramen, people who looked down on you, people who were heaps of fun. It was all part of the job,” he says.
But Barry seems most amused by the dapper Disney representative who was present for every day of filming. “The most immaculately dressed man I’ve ever seen and he somehow managed to never get a speck of dirt on him.”
His role was to ensure that Disney protocol was carried out at all times and this even extended to the model of a digger. “They needed an American digger so we thought, ‘Well, that has to be a Caterpillar’.” Arrangements were made and Barry got the digger to site only to have the Disney man say “there’s no way we are using that.”
”We were never completely sure, but rumour has it that Disney and Caterpillar were on opposite sides of a court case long ago, and that they won’t allow Caterpillar vehicles in any of their movies. We did end up using it though,” says Barry. “We painted over the Caterpillar brand. He seemed happy enough with that.”
Pete’s Dragon premiered in New Zealand earlier this month in Rotorua and is now screening at Whakamax in Whakatane.
by Lorraine Wilson