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Thank you sir. His crew has been with him for thirty years or more. He moves so fast on the set. The rule of thumb for filming a movie is three pages in a twelve hour day. Clint will shoot 4 pages in 4 to 5 hours. If it’s a day shoot you’re told to get to the set by 11:00 a.m. if you want to eat breakfast be there by 9:30 a.m. You’ll be done by late afternoon, and home for dinner. The Studios love him because he’s always under schedule and under budget. One day I was talking to his sound guy Walt who told me working with Clint is good and bad. The good is you’re always going to work, the bad....you are never going to get any overtime. Plus the guy produces his movies, composes the soundtracks and most of the time records it. He plays piano. Where does he find the time?

Eastwood is a marvel; he has more juice on the fastball at 86 than most film makers have in their 30s and 40s. Obviously, you know him (and I don’t), but it’s no secret that Clint learned a lot from his two mentors, Sergio Leone and Don Seigel. Both men spent much of their careers working on B-list films with limited resources and tight budgets before achieving success and getting a crack a bigger films later in their careers. They knew how to “put everything on the screen” and stay within their limited budget, while keeping the production on track.

Clint is also a throw-back to some of the great directors from Hollywood’s Golden Era, including John Ford. Eastwood’s westerns and police dramas have a very spare, lean narrative with very little wasted time and energy. I know that Joel Cox has edited every Eastwood film for 30 years, but you can look at the finished product and tell that a lot of it is “edited in the camera” making it even easier for a pro like Cox to do his job.

The great irony, of course, is that it took Hollywood over 30 years to appreciate Eastwood’s talent. I’m hoping someday a film historian will write a book on the Eastwood company and the talented technicians and actors who have been a big part of his success.