Oscar Prank Makes for Brash Student Video

Getting press credentials for a film crew to cover the star arrivals at the Academy Awards show is one of the toughest assignments in entertainment journalism. That is, if you actually apply for them.

For Jack Saltzberg, David Teitelbaum and Craig Davenport--film students at CalArts in Valencia--getting in was a simple matter of chicanery, patience and audacity. They pretended to be a TV crew and just walked in.

“We tried and tried to get in, and it was getting a little discouraging,” said Saltzberg, who got the idea of crashing the Oscars the night before the show and talked Teitelbaum and Davenport into joining him that day. “When we got to the side gate and the police stopped us for the fourth time, I wondered (if we’d make it). When the next guard just waved at us, I got so excited, I could hardly hold the camera.”

“No Press Pass” is the name of the 30-minute video that Saltzberg is now editing from the 120 minutes of tape his bogus KCIA-TV crew shot that afternoon. The 49-minute rough cut circulating among Saltzberg’s friends and fellow students at CalArts includes Teitelbaum’s hilarious running commentary and deadpan interviews with such stars as Eva Marie Saint, Jon Voight, Patrick Swayze and Dudley Moore.

“Here’s Phyllis Diller,” the slender, tuxedoed Teitelbaum says, as Saltzberg’s camera zooms in for a close-up of 78-year-old Ann Sothern. “She doesn’t look as good in person as she does on TV.”

When Swayze abruptly cuts off his KCIA interview to go inside the auditorium, Teitelbaum says, “You know, Patrick and I were in dancing school together and today he doesn’t give me two cents.”

Agreeable Jon Voight pauses to explain to Teitelbaum how he had tried to give his white scarf to Swayze and how being the kind of guy he is, Swayze refused to take it. The moment offers a rare glimpse into the personal integrity of Hollywood stars.

“No Press Pass,” which Saltzberg intends to enter in the American Film Institute’s upcoming video festival competition, is as brash as it is refreshing, and it may launch more than one career. Saltzberg deserves credit for pulling it off, but the emerging star of the video is the irrepressibly engaging Teitelbaum.

“David was brilliant, he never got out of character the whole time,” Saltzberg said. “The whole idea was to develop a character, a kind of ‘60s person who seems to know more people than he really does.”

Teitelbaum and Saltzberg are both graduate film students at CalArts, but they had not worked together until the day of the Oscars. Saltzberg said he thought of Teitelbaum as the Oscar show host because of the character Teitelbaum created for a campus radio show titled “My Pal Dan/My Pal Dave.”

The program’s put-on theme is of two guys who keep discovering talent, only to be forgotten by the talent after they become famous. Winging it every step of the way at the Oscars, Teitelbaum comes off as a sort of ego-free version of David Letterman.

Teitelbaum, 28, said he never expected to get to the front line in the arrivals area.

“I figured even if we got interviews with parking lot attendants, it would be funny,” he said. “The closer we got (to the stars), the more excited I became . . . When I realized I would actually have to do this.”

Teitelbaum said he wanted to ask questions that you never hear asked by real reporters, but he found himself blurting out, “This is pretty exciting, isn’t it?” just like the others.

“When you’re talking to Eva Marie Saint, it’s difficult to be nasty or funny. She’s so gracious.”

In the rough-cut video, Teitelbaum begins his running commentary on the freeway ride from the San Fernando Valley to the Shrine. The camera, operated by Saltzberg, continues to follow him down Figueroa and Jefferson as Teitelbaum attempts to interview people in the parade of limos stuck in traffic. (At one point, he asks Joan Fontaine if the TV crew can hitch a ride in her limo. She politely refers him to her chauffeur.)

There are subsequent encounters with the guards and police protecting the various access entries to the Shrine, but the video doesn’t really kick in until the crew makes its break-in at the 34th Street entrance being used by caterers for the post-awards Governors Ball.

Teitelbaum does some outrageously funny ad-libs about the food being prepared for the stars, and describes the red carpet he is about to step onto, then--bingo!--we are all right there with Army Archerd and the arrivals. Little Richard. Sean Connery. Michael Douglas. Billy Crystal. Nicolas Cage. Cher. And the beat goes on.

Afterwards, when the stars have passed and the show is on, Teitelbaum walks up on the podium between the two packed fanstands and waves. The fans wave and scream back.

“No Press Pass” would be good fun even if it looked as amateurish as it sounds. But Saltzberg shot with first-rate equipment (his camera, CalArts’ sound recorders) and Teitelbaum proved to be as glibly funny as an experienced professional comic.

What they have pulled off here is the Oscar equivalent of Caltech’s rigging of the Rose Bowl scoreboard. And cheap! Saltzberg laid out $10 for parking space in a Figueroa gas station, $42 for fresh videotape and the gas it took to get them there.

Saltzberg said he hopes to use the Oscar show as an entre for a series of short films and videos--or, better yet, a TV series--using Teitelbaum’s fictional character in various authentic situations. There is, for instance, a Bruce Springsteen concert coming up. And, of course, the 1989 Oscars.

“Next year, we will do it from a different angle,” said the heady Saltzberg. “We want to be inside for the show and end up at the parties and everything.”