The Courier-News from Bridgewater, New Jersey • Page 7

his month I pay this bill next month that And it doesn't have to be expensive, she stresses. "We went roller skating on Saturday, and Christian likes movies. But in the summer and spring we spend a lot of time at Duke Island Park. "And I like camping. We camped at Spruce Hun for four days over the Ubor Day weekend.

Being outside is terrific and it doesn't cost anything. "The kids have been saying they'd like to go for a train ride and I think we'll try to do that. But you know Just going on a bus is exciting to them." Like most parents, Terry often feels pangs of guilt about spending money on herself, but she admits realistically that she is a priority too. "If I don't feel good about myself, I can't be any good for my family. Luckily the things that make me happy don't cost a lot of money." MUSIC playing the guitar is This is Ik hist iu a sales of articles on how the present economic crunch is affecting various Individuals aud families in Central Jersey and across the United States.) i By GWENN WELLS ON Staff Writer SOMERV1LIJJ "You Juggle.

You say llils month I tan pay tliis bill and part of that bill. I'm never more than a month behind, but people are always waiting. Tliat's uncomfyi table for me." Terry Fink ban expert at juggling. She has to Juggle to suppoit lier two children on a salary of $1H) a week as an aide at the state Division of Youth and Family Services officii here. Hut that doesn't make her any more comfortable about having to put off one creditor to pay another.

When her separation finalizes into a divorce wiUiin the next few months, Terry expects child support payments from her husband, which have been erratic since their scpat ation at best, will add a steady $.15 or so a week to her budget. BUT NOW, Willi four year-old Jennifer and five year-old CI ir Lilian settled down to sleep after their day at the Somerset County Day Care Center and an evening Willi their mother, Terry talks easily about coping. "If you go to a borough council meeting here, people get the idea that Somcrville is a town filled with middle class people. But it's Just not that way," str esses Terry who even as an aide, handles a caseload of 30 to 35 families because of understating at the bureau. "There are children here who arc really hungry." "I'm lucky.

My advantages may not be all that much in terms of financial tilings, but I'm better educated and I know where to go for tilings." Formerly a receptionist for an oral surgeon and a credit investigator for a bank, Terry turned to her present job "because the educational benefits really turned me on." She can lake up to 14 hours of classes a family's nutritional needs have helped a lot, she says. "Tliis isn't just a question of filling stomachs so people aren't hungry, I'm very interested In nutrition and food additives." She's fond of quoting a friend, a nutritional psychologist, who says the best way to buy food is to read labels if you can't pronounce it, don't buy it. ANOTHER MONEY worry is her ailing G7 Pontiac. "The car eats gas terribly and doesn't run very often. I often wonder what I'll do when the car gives up," she says.

"That's the one thing that keeps me moving to work, to school and the day care center." Her son Christian seems to be growing out of the hyperactivity which required medication in his younger years, but medical expenses can throw an unexpected wrench into Terry's budget. 1 mm in. -Vv -'V' coping VIII week within her normal 35 working hours and be reimbursed for tuition expenses. "The Job Is a valuable experience. Social work is really based on what you learn In the field.

But I have to have my degree and I knew this was a chance for me to go somewhere." She presently is taking 12 credit hours. "MY FATHER OWNS this house and I pay $150 a month rent," says Terry, explaining that the rent for the other half of the double house on Grove Street was recently raised to $175 to help cover taxes. "My father feels strongly that people can't afford to pay excessive rent, lie didn't raise mine because he knew I couldn't handle an extra $25 a month. "I have the security of knowing that if I were to get behind on my rent my father isn't going to put me out on the street." Until June, Terry shared her house with a cousin and another friend. "They were both single and really liked children.

We kind of looked at ourselves almost as family," she says. "We divided not only the expenses, but the housework and caring for the children." Things have been more difficult keeping up the house alone. "This house is not well insulated. It cost me $90 a month to heat the first winter. Now we're on a budget plan and it's usually about $00.

"Of course food is my biggest expense other than rent. That's a dead giveaway," says Terry, who shops weekly after she gets paid and can't get by on less than $40 a trip. "Every time I go to the store and think, this week it's going to be less, but it isn't. That astounds me. We don't have a lot here.

There are no extras. "But we're probably eating things that are better for us. I've been on a limited budget for a long time," she says. "We cut out the nonessentials like candy and cookies and convenience foods a long time ago." "MY MOTHER GREW up on a farm and knows lots of ways to save money," says Terry, sitting at a big square oak table which she refinished. The table dominates her neat kitchen, giving it an old-fashioned air accentuated with the plants in the white ruffle curtained windows.

"We were really comfortable when we were growing up and we used to tease her that she didn't need all those money saving tricks. But I've learned how to put a lot of them to use." Stretching fresh milk with instant dried milk and paying extra attention to her DURING 1974, however, we were not exactly enchanted with the disaster smorgasbord, largely through inane story lines and watching a host of "name stars" just standing around listening to their arteries harden. But It was quite obvious that the special effects people had reached a new apex in their professionalism. And it is this magic and expertise that has captured the imagination of moviegoers everywhere, critics and reviewers not withstanding. They come and come, seeking emotional thrills, an escape from the nightly doses of television pablum and being lulled by recitativi.

And they have been getting what they have been paying for. PERHAPS IT'S stretching a point in labeling "Juggernaut" as a disaster spectacular, but since the moguls of United Artists so classify it, so be it. Anyway, it was the first one out in 1974, coming in the wake of the popular and successful "The Poseidon Adventure" and other sagas involving man vs. atoms vs. creatures vs.

beings from other worlds and whatever else God may not have wrought but enterprising scenarists could dream up. Director Richard Lester, normally not known for restraint, has fashioned a disciplined film out of the cliched screenplay provided by Richard DcKoker. It involves a luxury liner which receives a threat that unless half a million pounds are paid to Juggernaut in IiOndon, several large drums containing explosives and strategically placed throughout the ship, will be detonated by time devices. While extraordinary special effects are limited to a couple of explosions even while demolition experts Richard Harris and David Hemmings are tinkering with the drums some excellent photography is formulated with exterior special effects as the rescue team reaches the Brittanic in the midst of a storm. They yii Terry Fink, of Somerville, takes paper and pencil in the monthly puzzle of making and three mouths to feed.

She is making 'it, but confesses that it takes a Only Judgment Day film remains for 'disaster' crews perhaps her favorite diversion, but her well-loved Martin guitar was one of the things that stayed behind with her husband when they separated. "I miss my guitar. I saved for two years to buy that guitar." But growing up in Readington, Terry also took eight years of piano lessons. She recently bought a $15 piano which she is gluing back together piece by piece. But there are other things to think about today for this young combination mother, social worker, and student wearing faded jeans and with long hair framing her sensitive face.

Her cat Heidi prances about the kitchen, getting into an occasional scuffle with a puppy she's keeping for a young friend. "I'd like to have the puppy wormed for her. He might have to stay at the vet's overnight. I wonder how much it would cost?" 4 ends meet on $90 a week lot of juggling. trees, shrubbery, fountains and refreshment areas.

In the film's most awesome moment of suspense, the Promenade Deck set and its occupants were assaulted by almost a million gallons of water dropped from a height of 40 feet to simulate the blasting of water storage tanks in an effort to quell the holocaust. More than 200 stunt experts were employed as flaming bodies fell down elevator shafts and from the upper floors. Of the original 57 separate sets built for the film, only eight remained when Allen uttered his final "cut" last August and when the race began to edit the film into a Christmas present for millions of spectators. WHAT'S NEXT? Plenty more, according to spokesmen at various studios. Anotlier Universal project will be "Hindenberg," a film version depicting tlie destruction of the famous German dirigible which went up in flames years ago in New Jersey.

The studio also is preparing "Jaws," based on Peter Benchely's best-seller about a white shark that devours swimmers. Insects will be very big, too. Paramount will release "Phase IV," a science fiction movie about ants that threaten to take over the earth. Veteran thrill maker William Castle is preparing "The Haphaestus Plague," which will depict an invasion of giant cockroaches. Castle also plans to guarantee an audience reaction.

He is developing a device that will brush the legs of theatre patrons and make them think the cockroaches are coming. He's the same fellow who electrified theatre seats to give viewers a charge while viewing "The Tingler." But it is Allen who really has 'em talking for his future projects include: "Beyond the Poseidon Advanture," "The Day the World Ended," "The Golden Gate" and "The Swarm," the latter based on a new book about an insect invasion. "When are you going to film "Judgment Day?" a visiting journalist asked Allen. Others in the room chortled when Allen did not reply, but Instead made a notation on a piece of paper. We got the impression he didn't think it was such a stupid question at all, Friday, January 17, 197S A-7 "When I was first separated the tiling that frightened me most his medical expenses.

They were very high then. Hyperactive children are very accident prone and I think we were in the emergency room at Somerset Hospital five times within one three-month period. "Before I was likely to take the children to the doctor more often," says Terry. "We used to go for colds and things like that. Now we only go for more serious tilings and my pediatrician says it's better that way." The special activities she has with her children are Terry's main extravagances and yet perhaps the last thing that she would give up.

"I SEE SO MANY families who have broken down. The most important thing to me is us being close and doing things together." most difficult technical tricks is the fast dissolve that of moving from one character to another or one scene to anotlier in almost subliminal-like cuts, yet maintaining some exposure quality and avoiding audience awareness that something different has occulted. In this respect, "Airport 1975" is flawless and made it more palatable the second time around. A NEW DIMENSION in picture-making came to the fore in the latter half of last year when Universal unleashed its film adjunct process called "Sen-surround," a technique that gives viewers of "Earthquake" a sense of only seeing, but feeling, the action. It is integral to the stunts and gimmicks employed in tlie total production that truly creates a sense of realism.

There are numerous features employed by the social effects staff for this film. For instance, the exterior of a high-rise office building was constructed inside one of tlie sound stages. To do this, workmen had to excavate a 20-foot hole inside the building, then erect a seven story lower. A miniature darn (00 feet long and 40 feet wide) was built at a cost of $50,000. Eccentric motors one horizontal, another vertical were part of tlie tricks that special effects created to permit a man-made earthquake.

Ever wonder how the movies make a building topple (and many of them do in this film)? Director Mark Robson explained how simple it was: "It's plexiglass ginunickery The glass, reflecting the mockup of the building, is tipped forward while the camera shoots into it. It gives tlie illusion of the building falling." Miniature buildings were wired and pulled apart. On the screen, they are crumbling. When you see the surging water from the film's dam, the water isn't really moving. The camera, mounted on a platform, was being jogged.

In another scene, eccentric motors shook up a room, uprooting live wires and sending sparks all over. The frightening flickering was created by mounting a camera on a shock chord, and letting it swing erractically. To cause the earth to ocn up, an air bag was placed under a false floor covered with dirt. The pressure surging upward when the bag inflated caused the "ground" to rip open. The "Sensurround" process is, however, the icing on tlie cake, even though it did cause some concern among studio brass who felt it might cause viewer discomfort because it involves sound heavy bass notes on the sound track that make viewers vibrate.

In some theatres, extra sound equipment and adaptators accompany the prints to achieve an even greater ultimate In visual and sound effects. An electronic signal on the print sets off the huge speakers, making walls vibrate and sends waves of energy at the audience. Hie motion makes 4110 body shake p-sri parachute into the storm-tossed sea, later climbing slippery ladders while being whipped by Uie fury of the sea and wind in tlie film's most exciting sequence. In a time of hand-held footages, jump cuts, wipes, zooms, elisions and non sequilurs and of technique deliberately degraded for the sake of impact, "Juggernaut" stays within the basics of set-pieces and long takes in which the camera sits unobtrusively at rest, letting the actors do their things. Surprisingly, it still works and audience interest is maintained.

On balance, the film is several marks above the average PG-rated crop of films playing the second and Uiird time at area theatres. "AIRPORT 1975" was a keen disappointment, especially when viewed against the 1970 original, "Airport," a completely engrossing, completely captivating version of the award-winning and popular novel penned by Arthur Hailey. While success generally breeds imitation and financial success "Airport 1975" failed miserably In dramatic interest, causing reviewers to thumb the dictionary for choice adjectives to support their negative literary reactions. However, a second look at the film starring Charlton Huston, Karen Black, George Kennedy, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Gloria Swanson uncovered an overlooked area when viewed originally.

It's tlie matter of editing and the work done by the second unit teams, those crewmen responsible for shooting exterior footage both aerial and ground, sans dialogue. The continuity of storyline (despite writer Don Ingalls having remembered every miserable picture and Saturday afternoon serial he ever saw) with the film's basic plot that of a small, private plane crashing into the nose of a Jumbo commercial jet is, Indeed, a credit to the production staff. One of filmdom's iT" 4', violently. It's like being Inside a subway tunnel close to a train that comes roaring past at GO miles per hour. Preceding the film is a warning that the management and Universal will not be responsible for any physical or emotional effects caused by "Sensurround." Insurance company representatives, Universal technicians and municipal building inspectors have to be in total agreement that a theatre can withstand the resulting physical punishment before the extra-added equipment is installed.

BECAUSE OF THE scope of "The Towering Inferno," two major studios 20th Century-Fox and Warner Bros. and two best-selling novels Richard Martin Stern's "The Tower" and "The Glass Inferno" by Frank Robinson and Tom Scortia were utilized to give Irwin Allen the working room he needed before putting a match to the world's tallest building, a golden monolith of glass and metal that climbs 138 stories into the clouds. Of the four disaster films, "The Towering Inferno" is by far the best and probably will lead the parade when Oscars for special effects are handed out this April. Creating the skyscraper that dominates the skyline of San Francisco was a monumental task. At Fox' former Malibu Ranch, five floors of the skyscraper were duplicated in full size for close camera work.

High-rise buildings in the heart of San Francisco doubled as the Tower's exterior mall and inner lobby. The basement of a Century City building, with its consoles and panels of electronic controls and check systems, also served as an important setting. A record-breaking four complete camera crews worked simultaneously. But the most impressive set was the skyscraper's roof garden area, the Promenade Deck, which was entirely destroyed before filming of the action sequences were completed. The set, one and a half times larger than the replica of the capsized liner built for "Poseidon," covered more than 11,000 square feet of sound stage area, its many levels raised from six to 12 feet above the stage floor and towering an additional 25 feet upwards.

A 340-foot cyclorama showing the world-famous San Francisco skyline encircled the huge set that also featured The Couflef-Neujs 2 -Jt Hy UON KLT1NCAM C-N Lutci tihuucut Editor "You will pay me lli pnillion dollars by dawn or tlie wi Id greatest luxury liner will lip open Lkc a ia'i of sardines and 1,200 men, which and children will die. Good day." (Signed) "Juggernaut." i The plane headed toward the actor, but then came much closer than prcai ranged. In ation, he took an uiu cheat scd dive to the flat deck of a fire truck, shielding hi3 head with las arms. The 747 came to a slu ieking stop barely tlir ec feet away, but shuck waves created by the giant jet cracked one of tlie truck's windows, sending glass flying in all directions. ThU 'country's largest plane had abnost run over filmdom's largest actors six foot-four, 230 pound George Kennedy.

During tlie filming of "Airport l'JV5." II On the fiist day that principle photography began on tlie spectacle, "Earthquake," a real quake measuring 3.5 on tlie Kkhter scale shook Los Angeles. Said one of the cinematogiaphers: you suppose someone is ti)ing to tell us something?" "It's the fast inatioti of ordinary people doing extraordinary feats in the face of great disaster. In oilier words, it's Walter Mitty time. Survival and tlie race for survival that's what separates the men from the boys." -j Irwin Allen, producer of "The Towciingj Inferno." A VACATION' during the holiday season is not particularly designed or recommended for woik tasks, but an extended absence from the daily routine provided the unique opportunity to view a score or more of l'J74's ldghly-touted motion pictures, including tlie four disaster spcctaiulais cited above. While some may consider tlie latter chore as being a classic case of futility or suffering a personal risk of being lagged as tlie original glutton for punishment since the deed was accomplished 'during successive matinees and evening pcrloi inanccs snouiu uc hvm-u outset that it was done in both a spirit of fair play and as an experiment that would concentrate on the technical aspects of the quartet of films.

The idea had its genesis during a tour of both coasts where one fact came to tie fore: Hie lines of patrons waiting for entrance into movie palaces are just as long in I)S Angeles and Las Vegas as they are in Boston, New York and Washington. While official 1W4 motion picture attendance figutcs and box office receipt totals are still unavailable, it's an open secret that there is considerable Joy in he i.i...ir.,'o Miuifinn houses at tlie studios, at the distributors and at hundreds a i.SLSi chain. Daily Variety repo. receipts In (Xtobcr marked the 11th rise, and observed that SJfttreBbterlli billion Uie box office And this before genera release of heir's two biggest blockbusters and "Inferno." oil IM SI Faye Dunaway and Richard Chamberlain provide the love interest in the all-star cast of "The Towering nferno.".