Jim Redmond worked in TV news for 22 years, 18 of those in Denver at KMGH-TV as a reporter and anchor. In 1993 he became the first person awarded a doctorate by the School.
He accepted a job at the University of Memphis Department of Journalism, where he was recently notified he will be granted tenure. An associate professor, he also was recently promoted to associate chair.
He has written a graduate-level textbook about media management -- "Balancing on the Wire: The Art of Managing Media Organizations" -- co-authored by Professor Robert Trager and published by Boulder-based Coursewise. It is being printed and distributed by Houghton-Mifflin.
He asked if I’d be interested in auditioning for the part of a CNN reporter. I laughed, and suggested he call the theater department here at the University of Memphis, since that’s where the actors hang out. He said, no, the director, Francis Ford Coppola, preferred to use people as extras who were professionals in their roles because it adds authenticity. They arranged a time for me to meet the casting director and read some of the script.
On the appointed day I went downtown to an old bank building they were using for the production headquarters during the location filming. The location casting director was a nice lady about my age, and we chatted a little bit about the film. Then she gave me a copy of the script for the CNN reporter part and asked me to look it over and said that when I was ready she’d tape me doing it. I just read the script to her video tape camera like you’d read news copy in a newscast.
She had me do three or four takes at different speeds and inflection. She then thanked me for coming down to audition and said, "We’ll get back to you." I smiled, we shook hands, and I figured that was that.
That night I was home in my office working on a manuscript, having put my excellent adventure auditioning out of my mind, when the phone rang. It was the same lady. She said they just finished looking at the days rushes and she showed my tape to Francis Ford Coppola. He’d said I was perfect.
We set up the shoot for a few days later when I didn’t have any classes in the morning. I was supposed to look like a reporter, so the day of the shoot I went down there in my old trench coat I’d used as a reporter, including a week-long stint at the Reagan-Gorbachev summit. The wardrobe manage thought I looked too nice, so she put another wrinkled up trench coat on me and decided that was better.
I sort of chuckled to myself. Obviously they’d never been around modern TV consultants who worry more about the fashionable appearance of TV news people than what they actually say.
After they put a bunch of hair spray and theater makeup on me a van took me down to the headquarters building where I met the film crew.
The shoot was at a downtown plaza. I was there with a photographer, a director of photography, a lighting technician, sound technician, script person, a couple of other people and the dramatic director, Francis Ford Coppola’s son Roman. This, I learned later, was the "second unit" that shot all the extra scenes not involving the main actors in the film.
We then did about 50 takes against several different backgrounds downtown, with me signing off "Jim Redmond, CNN reporting."
It was fun, and I enjoyed myself. To my surprise, the Hollywood crew, including Roman Coppola, were very nice, middle class-type working folks just like you’d meet anywhere. No big-ego stuff or any of that. I don’t know what I expected, but what I got was a nice morning with some very nice people who seemed to be working hard and trying to do a good job helping each other out.
A year later when the film was to be released I got an invitation, one of those form-type things, to attend the Memphis screening for all the locals who’d helped out in the location filming. I figured I got the invite because I was on the crew list, sure there was no way I was going to be in the movie. I’d heard the rough cut of the film was about five hours long and they had to chop a lot out of it to get down to theater length.
My wife Diana and I went to the screening, had a glass of wine with the hors d’oeuvres and watched the movie. Toward the end I saw the setup of the scene I’d shot. I knew the plan was for the CNN reporter to be in the TV the main actors are watching when they find out the company they just nailed had filed for bankruptcy. But then the scene showed them starting off watching a local TV newscast giving part of the news.
I knew I’d ended up on the cutting-room floor. But then, bang, I was there -- full screen and about 30 feet high in the theater, doing my CNN reporter thing in that wrinkled trench coat.
I was flat amazed. I wasn’t only in the movie, I was full screen. And they even left me saying my name at the end in the reporter sign off. I was in the credits by name, too. It blew me away.
When we walked out of the theater they had tables set up with free Rainmaker posters. But by the time we got over to them they were all gone. A former student is the PR director of the local theater chain, and she later got me one.
The aftermath was interesting. My kids thought it was "pretty cool" their dad was in a movie, and I heard from people around the country I hadn’t talked to in years.
My sister took my 80-year-old mother to the movie up in my hometown of Billings, Mont. Mom was very impressed. Kept talking about me looking like Humphrey Bogart in that trench coat.
To me what is really interesting is this. In my television news career I was always nice to the technical folks who put me on the air, thanked the crew after every newscast, and liked to hang out with the people behind the camera who really make everything happen. I like people who work for a living more than "celebrity" types who too often don’t.
So one day one of those working people, who liked me because I wasn’t an egoistic jerk in the TV business, said to someone, "Hey, I’ve got a guy who’d be perfect for that part," and I ended up in a movie.
I guess the old saying that what goes around comes around is true. And there is some irony in that I was pretending to be what I really was for over 20 years, a TV reporter.