- Welcome back to another segment
of "Behind the Scenes of The Waltons".
Today I'm taking more of your questions
in a segment of "Ask Judy."
If you have questions you'd like to ask me,
then put it in the comments below.
That is where I pull these questions from.
Recently, there were a couple of questions
that were asked that I didn't
totally know the answers to,
and I said that I would perhaps see
if our friend John Dayton could share some answers.
So John saw those questions,
and indeed I now have some fun things from John
that he shared including the answer
to a couple of those questions.
So, John said, "Stage 26 was 10,600 square feet
and the ceiling was 35 feet high.
To the best of my recall,
our sets remained in place over the hiatus
and this made perfect sense
as there really wasn't time to strike
all our sets, lights, et cetera
and then have to totally reset
for the next season.
And if another show were to come in
during the break,
they would have the construction, et cetera
and then have to strike theirs
before we could move in
and start construction of ours.
Also, to consider is if we struck,
we would have to deal with any damage
and repair, et cetera.
So it just made sense to keep the sets remaining.
By the way, we did have a set on Stage 26
of the front of the house,
the front porch, et cetera."
So yes, we did use that for outside the house
but sometimes we would shoot the front porch
on the house.
And I've talked about that sometimes
when you could see through the windows
and see into the living room.
Maybe somebody was at the piano,
maybe all a bunch of us were leaning
over the couch watching outside.
So when you could fully see into the living room
or kitchen that was shot on the porch
on the actual actual sound stage.
Let's see.
So John continues to say,
"As for company moves from the back lot
cause someone asked how long that took to do.
I recall the fastest move we ever made was 20 minutes.
Unheard of today.
And I was very proud of that.
We did move fast, we just had to.
One day while shooting on 26,
we made a move to another area of 26
where there was an auditorium set replete
with a stage where John Boy was to give
out diplomas to Walton's school graduates
and seats for the audience which were occupied
by extras and Michael and Ralph.
I believe it was the "Career Girl" episode."
I'll have to look at that episode and see
about covering it and see what we have there.
"Anyway, the point was that we were moving so fast
that when we moved to that set,
the crew was still finishing up.
Harry Harris was directing
and asked me to quickly get into wardrobe.
I quickly took a seat next to the podium
where Richard would give me a diploma.
Well, I, being aware of the need
to get the scene shot quickly simply sat
in the chair while lighting was being set.
When we rolled film, I got up to do my thing.
I had been sitting so long that the paint
which was still sticky, had attached
to the bottom of my shoes.
And when I made the cross to the podium floor,
they came off with each step.
I broke out of character, got the giggles
and we had to cut.
Richard looked at me and began laughing
and said, 'Was it something I said?'
I pointed to the bare floor footprints
and the paint on my shoes and we just lost it.
And sometimes when actors get the giggles,
you just can't stop.
Long story short, which is too late,
we worked very fast.
One more thing, although the house
on the back lot was only facade,
there wasn't a day when I didn't imagine
it was the real thing.
Oh, and I also recall there being ladders
behind each of the windows.
The cast would have to climb
if they needed to deliver from a window.
Judy, do you recall this?"
Yes, I absolutely do.
Thank you so much, John
for sharing those cute little antidotes
and the information.
And for those of you who have seen John
as a guest before, I have reached out to him
and we have been in contact and we're looking
at shooting another segment sometime soon
to share more of John's memories
of "The Waltons" and also about some
of the interesting other projects he has worked
on in his career that I think you might
also find fascinating.
This question is from Scott.
Were the items on set spiked
as they would be on stage in theater?
Or were props people responsible
for putting things back in the original spot
if they got moved for the camera angles?
When he talks about spiking things,
like when you're working on the stage,
if there's going to be a couch
or there's gonna be something,
cause often pieces of furniture move,
set pieces move when you're on stage.
You see that they move from scene to scene
and things move.
Well, what they do is they put marks
where the different pieces go so that
when they come back, they are put
in the same place so that the lights
that have been set will be in the right place
for the actors to be lit.
On sets, we did not spike things because those
would have been seen plus
through the camera, you could adjust things
before you said roll, or if something wasn't quite right,
you could make adjustments.
So it wasn't quite so critical.
But yes, there was a combination
of prop people would pay attention,
the script supervisor would pay attention,
the actors would pay attention
and when things needed to be reset.
Sometimes the actors would
just move something back.
We were allowed to do that.
If it was a prop we were working with
or the prop people would come back in and reset.
It would be like, "Reset," and people would step
in and do that.
They also took Polaroids sometimes to keep track
of what was going on.
A question here from Tractor Monkey with JL.
During the time with the show,
were all the crews such as camera
and sound people, directors, et cetera,
full-time employees of the studio?
Or were they contractors that came
in to do the work as needed?
They were not contracted with the studio.
They were hired by our production company, Lorimar.
So they might be contracted for the season.
A director was an independent contractor
so they would just be hired per show.
They were not a full-time employee,
but otherwise the crew was hired.
They may have been paid
via the Warner Brothers payroll.
So that I'm not entirely sure about.
Another question we might ask John Dayton
when he comes on again.
Today, it depends who's producing something.
So if Universal Studios is doing a number of shows,
they might have people that are
under Universal's payroll
or Warner Brothers payroll.
But, oftentimes a production company has people
that they like to work with,
producers, directors, things like that,
and films certainly work differently.
That's what I have for you
for this segment of "Ask Judy".
I will be back with more of your questions
in "Ask Judy" and more
of "Behind the Scenes of the Waltons".
Thanks for watching.