Lift A day in the life of Otis (Dominique Pinon), the elevator operator who has never set foot outside his elevator. Here he shuffles a myriad of characters to and from their various floors. The operating elevator doors were one of my contributions. K (Claude LaValle), who prefers to walk to her job on the twentieth floor, and has never set foot in Otis' elevator, types during her lunch hour at her steam-powered workstation. I built and installed the 10-foot high illuminated clock. My early sketch of the geared elevator control, which played significantly in the action of the film. Otis must finally confront his long infatuation with K. I also designed and built the vertical floor indicator. The magnifying glass rotates as it ascends and descends, enlarging the number of the current floor. The illuminated "20" indicates that someone on twenty has called the elevator. My sketch of the "ferris wheel" action in the fantastic mail-cart that friend, colleague and welder Ben Carter helped me to construct. Inset is the original conceptual sketch by Producer and Cinematographer Jeff Garton. The magnifying glass is a theme of "Lift." Here Otis slips a secret letter into K's mail basket, while the half-blind mailman (Jay Keenan) sorts the mail. The floor indicator above the elevator doors is an entertaining mechanical design. The arrow actually follows the elliptical contour as it rotates. In a moment between takes, Dominique mischievously held my beard, saying (in English), "You grab my beard, I'll grab yours. The first to laugh loses." After 15 or 20 seconds Director Hughes Dalton stepped in (he snapped this picture) and broke it up. Later in the shoot Dominique autographed the photo for me.