LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – From Miss Congeniality 2 to Avatar: The Way of Water to the latest Mission Impossible installment, a Las Vegas local has had a decades-long career in movies—as the self-described “pool guy.”
FOX5 met with Glen Heffernan, the maker of “Bottom Feeder” pool equipment and lifelong professional pool cleaner and expert.
“I’ve sort of created my own little niche in the movie industry,” Heffernan said.
FOX5 has been covering the many types of jobs needed for movie sets, the economic boost that films bring to local businesses, and the lesser-known workers and services needed by film crews at any time.
Before Miss Congeniality 2 was released in 2005, Heffernan’s business got a cold call from a Google search: “‘There’s some 2-million-gallon tank or something at Warner Brothers Studios. They’re having a problem and want somebody. ‘ Tell them I’ll be there in less than an hour,” Heffernan said, recounting the story.
“That’s how I started in the business: I was ‘saving the day’ guy,‘” he said.
Filming in pools can be high stakes work that, with daily crew use, can put daily production at risk: camera operators cannot properly film with cloudy pools. Costumes may leak dye or debris in the water. Steel in tanks causes the water to turn orange. If the chlorine levels are not right, workers and actors can get sick or experience burning in their eyes.
“Basically, it’s a Petri dish pretty fast,” Heffernan said.
Movie studios eventually started putting Heffernan’s service in their budget. He has received a movie credit as “the pool guy” in Deepwater Horizon.
He spent two years working on the Avatar: The Way of Water at the Manhattan Beach Studios Media Campus.
After spending a year in the U.K. to work on Mission Impossible’s eighth installment, his brother and his “Bottom Feeders” are still there, wrapping up work.
He’s ready for movie studios to move to Las Vegas.
“I moved here from Los Angeles, watching sort of the center of the universe shift to here. I think we’re ready,” he said.
“The fun thing is, when there are studios around, it sucks in a lot of people into the industry,” Heffernan said.
The Nevada Film Office shared with FOX5 an extensive list of jobs and services needed by films.
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