The New Year

                                 Need a few good laughs?
 

Welp ... here we are: 2025.  Forgive me if I don't stand up and cheer the arrival of a new year. 

Remember this? Although I didn't have a crystal ball a year ago, I wasn't remotely optimistic about 2024, and things turned out worse than I'd feared ... a lot worse.  As we take our first tentative steps onto the thin ice of 2025, the situation in Hollywood remains bleak for many who depend on the film industry for their livelihood. A few shows are in production, but too many people are still waiting for their phones to ring, while some have given up and moved on. Our governor wants to provide a major boost to the California tax incentive program, but given the budget deficit, it's unclear that the legislature will cooperate in a year that promises -- for many reasons -- to be extremely challenging.    

So what to do while the world burns at home and abroad ... chew the worry rag, doom-scroll on social media, take long depressing walks through the frozen winter where some texting-while-driving fool in a giant SUV is likely to run a stop sign and blast you into the Great Beyond? 

I don't know about you, but I'm looking for reasons to laugh through the darkness, and found exactly that in Ed Driscoll's new book Cracking Up.  I got to know Ed during my years on Melissa & Joey, where he worked on the writing staff while I toiled on the lighting crew.  A veteran of the comedy wars who's done everything -- stand-up, sitcoms, and countless television specials -- Ed Driscoll is a good guy with a book full of  stories to tell, and Cracking Up shares them with the rest of us who've long wondered what goes on behind the scenes of the laugh machine. It's a good, fun read, so do yourself a favor and buy a few laughs ... you'll be glad you did.

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Back when I was working my last show in Hollywood on Stage 18 at Paramount, our digitech man -- "Bob from Jersey" -- pointed me to the writing of his good friend Andy Romanoff.  Bob was right -- I loved his stories. Somehow surviving a very interesting early life, Andy landed in the world of movies, and after settling into Hollywood, was responsible for importing the Louma Crane -- the grandaddy of every hot-head crane that's come on the scene ever since, including the Technocrane -- from France in the very early '80s, then operated the Louma on Steven Spielberg's WW 2 comedy 1941. He ended up working at Panavision, rising to an executive postion -- but despite the nice office, he never lost touch with his roots as a young motorcycle mechanic, DP, and member of Ken Kesey's wandering tribe back in the halcyon days of the '60s.  Andy is a terrific writer, laying out his life journey with compelling prose in Stories I've Been Meaning to Tell You: the good, the bad, and the ugly.  As they say down in Texas, Andy "don't paint his own fence," meaning that unlike many who tell their own stories in public, he doesn't try to make himself out to be the hero: instead he just tells the unvarnished truth -- and the truth well told is always a fascinating, entertaining story.

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As for 2025 ... the Hollywood Reporter weighed in with some prognostications on the effect a new administration -- led by our recycled president-elect, a human hammer who sees the rest of the world as a nail in his conviction that tariffs are the solution to every economic problem -- will have on the film and television industry. Maybe THR is right, maybe not -- we won't know 'til we know ... and then we'll know.

The LA Times has a few thoughts on what the new year might hold, which amount to cautious optimism for the short term tempered by a realization that the go-go days of the early streaming boom when everybody and his brother was working are unlikely to return anytime soon, if ever, thanks to the retrenchment and ongoing consolidation of the streamers, the ongoing evolution of AI, and the relentless flow of productions overseas. 

In his recently rebranded Agent on the Loose over at Substack -- now Radio Free Hollywood  -- Steve Jacobs offers a few predictions for the business of Hollywood in 2025.  Although his take on the new year is not all gloom and doom, neither is it sweetness and light. Those polar opposites will walk hand in hand through the next twelve months, but which will prevail remains to be seen as the year unfolds. One thing we can count on is the greater presence and influence of AI, which is still in its infancy -- but like young Damien in The Omen, its capabilities grow by the day, for better or worse. This is already happening, and as AI evolves to become better and better, the digital sky really does seem to be the limit.

And speaking of reaching for the sky, check out this camera drone.  

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In other news, the moving van is loaded and the engine warmed up, ready to haul Blood, Sweat, and Tedium over to Substack, where all the cool kids are playing these days. Blogger has become an increasingly glitchy platform, seemingly determined to make writing and posting a total pain in the ass. The stupid, time-wasting hoops I had to jump through to edit and publish this simple post were ridiculous -- seriously, I spent more time doing bubble-gum-and-bailing-wire fixes to varous formatting issues than writing the damned post. 

I won't abandon this space ... yet ... but all subsequent BS&T posts will go up over there as well, along with other offerings.  If you'd like future posts to drop into your in-box (a feature that stopped working a long time ago here at Blogger), subscribe at Substack -- and don't let the word "subscribe" scare you off, because it won't cost a penny. Besides, there's a ton of good stuff over there, where lots of smart, thoughtful writers are doing good work, including the OG Queen of film industry bloggers herself, Peggy Archer, under her traditional Totally Unauthorized brand. Peg took a hiatus from her Wordpress blog for a couple of years, but is now back -- and that's a very good thing.

So here we go, head-first into the cold dark depths of winter,where once again I march into a new year bereft of optimism ... but I still have a few shreds of hope. After all, hope dies last, so remember the words of Bruce Cockburn in his song Lovers in a Dangerous Time:

"Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight, you gotta kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight"

There's a big, nasty cloud of darkness coming, so get ready to do some kickin'.

December

                              December 11, 1944 – October 29, 2024

Hello. My name is Michael Taylor, and I'm ... well, I'm not an alcoholic -- at least not yet, although the  repercussions of Nov. 5 may yet drive me to the bottle.  No, today I stand before you to confess that I'm among the very few sentinet Americans who've never seen Young Frankenstein, Mel Brook's epic -- or so I'm told -- reimagining of the Mary Shelly tale and James Whale film.  The only explanation I can offer for this cinematic oversight is that I was still wearing a ridiculous straw hat and red-and-white striped shirt while working for minimum wage behind the counter of a Straw Hat Pizza Parlor in Santa Cruz when the film was released in 1974.  Money was scarce, and being young, dumb, and full of, uh ... enthusiasm ... whatever spare cash I had after paying the monthly bills was spent obeying the Prime Directive of young straight men: the relentless pursuit of attractive young women. When not slaving at the pizza factory forty hours a week or chasing girls, I was  editing my thesis film in the hopes of earning what would prove to be an entirely worthless college degree.  

Maybe that's why the post production process took so long...

At any rate, I missed Terri Garr's performance in the film, which put her on the map of Hollywood, and  wasn't really aware of her until 1982, when I saw One From the Heart during it's painfully short release. Although most of the world was unimpressed, I loved that movie. Truth be told, I should see it again to find out if it was reallly as good as I thought back then or if I just happened to fall in love with Terri Garr while watching it, but there's no denying that I was besotted with a crush that hasn't faded all these years later, despite the sad news of her recent passing.  Her girl-next-door beauty, quick wit, and down-home charm rang my bell in a big way.  

NPR's Fresh Air ran an interview with her a few years back in which she tells about getting started in the biz as a dancer who appeared in several Elvis Presley movies,  how she got the famous part in Young Frankenstein, and describing her obdurate refusal to let a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis end her career.  She soldiered on doing her job the best she could -- which was very well indeed -- until she finally retired in 2011.  I never had the chance to meet or work with her during my years in Hollywood, but people who were lucky enough to do so tell me she just wonderful ... and I believe them.

So long, Terri. RIP, and thanks for the memories.

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My local PBS station -- which runs movies every Saturday night, most of which aren't my cup of tea -- recently broadcast The Best Years of Our Lives, so despite my late-in-life distate for three hour movies, I tuned in ... and it was great. Directed by William Wyler and shot by the incomparable Gregg Toland, it won seven Oscars with a stellar cast: Frederic March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, and Teresea Wright, among others.  I'd seen it fifty years ago, but you never know how a film will age.  This one still delivers the goods, and then some.  If you can get through it with dry eyes, you're a better man than me.

Sure, it's a bit dated -- at nearly 80 years old, shot in black and white, and a long way from the wide screen, high-def films of today, it could hardly not be -- but it has more heart and honest human emotion than anything I've seen lately.  Everyone involved was a master of their craft, and it shows on the screen. This one is definitely worth seeing sometime when you've got three spare hours.

After watching, I googled Teresa Wright to learn more about her career, which was the usual good, bad, and ugly roller coaster ride taken by so many who grasp the brass ring in Hollywood.  She appeared in many teriffic movies, including headlining the Hitchcock classic Shadow of a Doubt.  Beyond all that, an interesting side note is an addenddum to her contract with Goldwyn:

"The aformentioned Teresa Wright shall not be requlired to pose for photographs in a bathing suit unless she is in the water. Neither may she be photographed running on the beach with her hair flying in the wind. Nor may she pose in any of the following situations: In shorts, playing with a cocker spaniel; digging in a garden; whipping up a meal, attired in firecrackers and holding skyrockets for the Fourth of July; looking insinuatingly at a turkey for Thanksgiving, wearing a bunny cap with long ears for Easter; twinkling on prop snow in a skiiing outfit while a fan blows her scarf, assuming an athletic stance while pretending to hit something with a bow an arrow."

Although I'm not quite sure what her lawyer meant by "twinkling in the snow," I must admit that he was remarkably thorough, and clearly  posessed a sense of humor.

This being the Christmas season in a year that's ending on such a dismal note, I'm not sure I can make it all the way to New Years Eve without watching another old classic, It's a Wonderful Life, with an equally magnificent cast directed by the inimitable Frank Capra. I've seen a lot of Capra's films, and like them all, but I'm a complete sucker for this one.  

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The Agent on the Loose, Steve Jacob, posted another thoughtful column over on Substack, in which he ponders what the coming four years will mean for Hollywood in particular, and the overall medisphere in general. Not much of what he says is optimisitc, but it rings true -- and there's no question that we're all going to experience "interesting times."  

This is one is definitely worth a read.

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If you've seen the Blade Runner -- the original, not the sequel -- you probably noticed the glowing eyes featured by some of the replicants: notably, Rachael and the artificial owl. I assumed it must have been done with an Obie light over the camera, but it was actuallly a very old technique called the Schüfftan Process developed in Germany by cameraman Eugen Schüfftan back in the 1920s.  With a little time and effort, you can see for yourself -- as this demonstrates -- but it's probably more worth your time to dig into the importance of eyes in the narrarative of the film.  Not having a giant analyltical brain, I hadn't thought about this before ... and now I'm gonna have to watch Blade Runner again.  Hey, it's fine with me: that movie is one of my favorites.

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That's it for 2024, kiddos.  I wish you all a wonderful holiday season, and the best of luck in the New Year to come.  

We're all gonna need it.

November

 

                                    The future ain't what it used to be.

The latest offerings from Steve Jacob's excellent Agent on the Loose Substack  -- Part One and Part Two -- discuss the troubles Hollywood is currently enduring and how the situation might be remedied. What's clear is that the production bonanza Hollywood enjoyed during the streaming boom will likely never return, for a lot of reasons. There are still a few shows going on in town, and the level of production will gradually increase as the shakeout from the streaming wars resolves, but the go-go days of full employment for everyone -- including many who flocked to the film and television industry over the past ten years -- are probably gone for good.

Things are very bad in Hollywood these days, where the future just ain't what it used to be.

I recently had a phone conversation with a former co-worker, a dimmer-op who was smart enough to get out of on-set production a few years ago and move with his wife to a more affordable region of the country where he now focuses on digital services supporting the film industry wherever production is happening. His analysis of the current situation echoed what Steve Jacob and others have said: competition for movie-making dollars is no longer just between Hollywood and other tax-subsidy states in the US, but has gone totally global.  Modern technology and increasingly widespread digital know-how allow production to happen just about anywhere -- there's no longer a compelling reason for many projects to film in Hollywood -- so producers go wherever they get the most bang for their buck. If that means filming in Canada, Spain, England, Hungary, or any other country offering financial incentives and/or lower barriers to production, so be it. 

When I moved to LA in 1977, the rent for my two bedroom apartment was $250/month. That would be around $1300 in modern dollars, which might rent a bare bones studio apartment in a sketchy part of LA these days, but a newbie hoping to get started in the film industry on PA wages still has to pay for utilities, food, auto insurance, cell phone, internet service, and all the other basics of modern life.  The relatively low cost of living back in the day allowed me to work for free on my first job -- a micro-budget feature that kick-started my career -- but without a significant bankroll, I don't see how a newbie fresh off the bus in Hollywood could go that route today.  Without solid professional experience or gold-plated connections in the film industry, young people will be hard pressed to land a paying job, so how can they afford to get started?  

More to the point, with the industry  -- and opportunities -- contracting as they are, why come to Hollywood at all?

As Jacobs points out, Hollywood's production drought could be eased by a massive increase in California's tax-subsidy incentive program -- currently capped at $330 million a year -- and federal tariffs on projects filmed in other countries for release or broadcast here.  In comparison, our incentive program lags far behind the $750 million dangled by New York, and Georgia boasts an unlimited program that offers financial perks not available in California.  Although Governor Newsom recently proposed boosting California's incentive program to match that of New York, I have to wonder if the legislature will support spending an additional $400-plus million dollars of taxpayer money at a time when the state's deficit has already slashed social programs to meet the constitutional mandate of a balanced budget.  Their political opposition would gleefully run a blizzard of ads in the next election cycle trumpeting this as "Robbing the poor to pay Hollywood fat cats!" -- a battle cry that would doubtless resonate with many in our fractious socio-cultural landscape.  The idea of federal tariffs makes a certain sense: if a producer decides to shoot a production film out of the country to save money, then make him pay for the privilige of releasing or broadcasting that show here.  Protecting domestic industries are what tarifffs are all about, provided those tariffs are carefully designed to even the playing field rather than stomp to death any and all competition.  

Newsome can lead his legistlative horses to water, but it remains to be seen if can he make them drink. As for tariffs ... I dunno.  Those will probably depend on the winner of Tuesdays electoral contest.  Trump seems to hate California in general and Hollywood in particular, so he'd be unlikely to help, and although a President Harris would be more willing to throw a lifeline to the film industry, she'll have her hands full for a while dealing with bigger issues than the plight of Tinsel Town.  But if enhanced incentives don't take effect. and tariffs -- or some kind of economic braking mechanism to slow the pace of offshore production -- are not enacted, Hollywood will continue to bleed out, forcing older workers into early retirement, driving younger workers and their families to other states or out of the industry altogether, and drastically shrinking the local workforce as Hollywood decays to a shadow of its former self: a tourist destination theme park much like the Universal Studios Tour. There will always be some level of television and film production here, but nothing like the industry I broke into nearly fifty years ago.

Fingers crossed.

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On a brighter note, I was recently pointed to a wonderful podcast on John Ford, who many consider to be the most influential director in Hollywood history. I've tuned in the first few episodes thus far, and they're terrific. This is not some dry-as-dust lecture or recitation of dates and film titles, but a fascinating dive into the man himself, what made him tick, and how he managed to become one of Hollywood's true legends. The story is told in part by people who knew and worked with him, and it's a good one.  Do yourself a favor and check it out.

On the subject of directors, here's an interesting piece in which James Gunn explains how and why any reshoots on his latest Superman movie will probably not be necessary.  Whether he can hold to that remains to be seen -- there are a lot of reasons reshoots can be needed for any film -- but the answer Gunn offered when asked how he approaches the task of directing a feature should be the manifesto of every director in Hollywood.

1) I over prepare.

2) Don't start shooting until I have a finished script my whole team is happy with.

 3) Hire actors and department heads I know can do their jobs.

4) Surround myself with people who will challenge me and not just yes-sir everything.

5) Ask myself daily -- are there any small imperfections in the script or what we're shooting that might end up feeling like huge imperfections when we cut the film together?

6) 1 and 2 again.

I've never seen a Superman movie (or anything by him other than a few clips from Guardians of the Galaxy), and thus have no idea if James Gunn is a good director, but I'm dead certain ours would be a  better industry if more directors followed his lead. 

I did one movie with a director who came to set prepared like this, a TV movie version of Neil Simon's Jake's Women starring Alan Alda, Anne Archer, Lolita Davidovitch, Julie Kavner, and Mira Sorvino, among others.  Our director, Glenn Jordan, did three weeks of rehearsals with the actors prior to filming, then walked on set every single morning knowing exactly what he wanted to shoot. His hard work allowed the crew to put in ten hour days on set, week after week, rather than the twelve-hour+ daily grind typical of features.  It was the easiest, least stressful, and most civilized movie-making experience I ever had, and all because the director was diligent in preparing properly.  I wish more were like him.

Appropos of nothing in particular, here's a terrific piece by Justin Chang on William Friedkin from the archives of the LA Times that I stumbled across while searching for something else. Chang is one of the smartest, most perceptive, and articulate film critics working these days, and always worth reading. If it's hidden behind a paywall where you can't see it ... well, sorry about that.

Sean Baker, who made Take Out, Starlet, Tangerine, Red Rocket, and The Florida Project, is doing interesting work.  I've seen Tangerine -- filmed on an iPhone -- and The Florida Project, both of which I liked, and will be interested to see his latest feature, Anora, which sounds like a good one. Definitely worth your time is this ten minute interview with Baker that recently ran on NPR.

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KCRW's The Business ran a two part interview with Gabriel Sherman, director of The Apprentice, a drama about the malignant influence Roy Cohn had on the then-young Donald Trump long before the latter entered politics. The interviews included a conversation with Tom Ortenberg, founder of Briarcliff Entertainment, which is distributing the move. After receiving a rapturous reception at Cannes,  The Apprentice got ... bupkis.  Nobody wanted to touch it, thanks a threatened lawsuit by Trump. After a prolonged perioud of silence, Ortenberg saw the film and decided to stand tall among the legion of  cowards to distribute the film.  True to form, Trump -- like most blustering bullies -- backed down when challenged, and Briarcliff has yet to be sued.  That could change, of course, if the election goes horribly wrong and Trump wins ... so think about that before you cast your ballot on Tuesday.

Part One and Part Two are around ten minutes each, and worth a listen.

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Another director of note is back in the news: Clint Eastwood, at age 94, has released a movie called Juror No. 2, which sounds like a good one.  This review, from the SF Chronicle's Mick LaSalle, is likely tucked behind a paywall, but if you can't read it, just know that Mick -- who can be a lethally snarky  critic -- loved the film.  His review closed with this appreciation of the director:

"Eastwood has used his longevity better than anyone else in the history of American cinema.  If he'd retired or died at 70, we couldn't say this, but by now we have to acknowledge that this is one of the greatest film careers imaginable.  Think about a legendary actor like John Wayne -- enormous, iconic, indelible.  Then a director like John Ford -- monumental, untouchable, profound.  Now imagine if John Wayne and John Ford were the same guy.  That's Clint Eastwood, two towering talents in one person.  Enjoy him while he's here. We've never seen anyone like him, and we'll never see anyone like him again."

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A pair of directors made the news this month, but not in a good way.  Paul Morrissey died after an up and down career that started with quirky 16 mm indendent films shot in New York, then moved on to collaberations with Andy Warhol in such memorable films as Trash and Heat -- both of which entertained me and my fellow film freaks in college -- before finally making a few more-or-less mainstream movies.  He was a strange guy who never managed to carve out a big career, but made an impact on the film scene in his own unique way.

Speaking of "unique," the one and only Dennis Woodruff has passed away after decades of trying to break into Hollywood as an actor, during which he made a low-profile name for himself producing and directing many of his own distinctive films.  Woodruff was a fixture in Hollywood -- I often saw him on the street selling video cassettes of his films or driving by in one of his astonishing automotive creations.  Late in my Hollywood journey, I ran into him at a laundromat one day, where he put me on film (well, digital chip, I guess) for a brief snippet that ran in one of his movies.  I posted this a couple of years ago to tell that story and showcase a few of his cars, because he deserved a little recognition beyond that which he'd generated for himself.  At this point I haven't found an obituary -- just this FB post notifying the world of his passing.  Dennis was quite a character, but had a good sense of humor and a real passion for movies.  Hollywood won't see the likes of him again.

RIP, Dennis.  

Don't forget to vote, kiddos ... then hold your breath and pray. 

October

“There are three sides to every story: yours … mine … and the truth. No one is lying."

 Robert Evans

I've spent the last few weeks immersed in the world of the late Robert Evans, who was the last of a dying breed: a major studio mogul.  Hollywood is a minor subsidiary run by vast faceless corporations now, which explains the relentless tsunami of comic book franchise movies that dominate the big screen these days. It wasn't always like this, kiddos,  

Having been plucked from the relative obscurity of the fashion industry by Norma Shearer, who -- on the basis of seeing him poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel -- insisted that he play the role of Irving Thalberg in her upcoming movie Man of a Thousand Faces, Evans did as he was told and become friends with the film's co-star Jimmy Cagney. Not bad for a young man who'd already given up his dream of becoming an actor, and since one thing often leads to another in Hollywood, Darryl Zanuck soon wanted him for the part of Ava Gardner's Latin lover in a film adaptation of Ernest Hemmingway's novel The Sun Also Rises. There were objections from much of the film's cast -- Gardner, Tyrone Power, and Mel Ferrer -- but Errol Flynn liked the young Evans and told him not to worry about it. Ignoring all this sturm und drang from the cast, Zanuck declared: "The kid stays in the picture," so Evans went on to play the role of the young bullfighter Pedro Romero and get the title for his eventual memoir. 

Through a series of unlikely circumstances, Evans eventually was named head of Paramount Pictures, which was then owned by Gulf Western and losing money to the point where the corporate board of directors wanted to sell the studio -- possibly to the Hollywood Forever cemetery right next door.  As this passage from the book's foreword says: 

"Robert Even's appointment as production chief of Paramount Pictures in 1967 was regarded by most of Hollywood's power players as utterly hallucinatory. Here was an actor who had never produced a picture, much less run a studio, being awarded sweeping responsibility over one of Hollywood's most fabled movie factories. It was bizarre!"

He managed to save the studio and his job by producing the monster hit Love Story, then went on to produce The Godfather and Chinatown, a trilogy that would put the grinning head of Robert Evans high up on Hollywood's Mount Rushmore if such a thing existed.  None of these movies came easy, though, and perhaps the best reason to read his memoir is to gain an understanding of what a real producer in Hollywood actually does. It's not a job for the meek or faint of heart.

As this passage from an article in The Guardian puts it: 

"Of course, there is only one Robert Evans.  When I call him at his home in Los Angeles, he is in good spirits. His words sometimes come haltingly -- he suffered a series of strokes in the late 1990s -- but the charm is intact and impressive. As is that deep, rich voice, both gravelly and sweet.  I ask what makes a good producer and he gives a wheezing laugh. 'That's a good question. Every success I've had has been for a different reason and every failure for the same one -- I said 'yes' when I meant 'no.' With very few exceptions, that's been the story of my life. Darryl Zanuck told me, 'If you can introduce your movie in a paragraph you'll make a hit. If you can do it in a sentence, you've got a blockbuster."

"I wonder what he sees when he looks around Hollywood today.  'Young people' he shoots back without missing a beat. 'However, I'm not into machines. I'm not into Mars.  I like feelings. How does it feel?  That, to me, is the turn-on. And story. If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the screen, or anywhere else.'"

There's much more in this book, which tips the scales at a hefty four hundred and ninety-nine pages.  I could have done without Evan's relentless bragging about all the gorgeous women he went to bed with over the years, and the overweening pride he took in his tennis game -- but those are my only points of agreement with this nasty little slash-and-burn review from the NY Times, which manages to miss the entire point of the book.  Some reviewers just can't get over themselves enough to see the forest for the trees.  

For me, the story of Evan's roller coaster ride in Hollywood was worth the effort of wading through his memoir book, but if you don't have that much time on your hands, there's an excellent documentary by the same title: The Kid Stays in the Picture.  I saw the film when it was first released in 1994 and loved it, so in preparation for this post, watched it again ... and it holds up very well.  Narrated by Evans himself -- and he really does have a great voice -- the documentary avoids the long-winded pitfalls of the book in delivering a great story.  Definitely worth your time.

If you're interested in semi-real-life drama based on Evans, there's The Offer, a "limited series" that purports to tell the story of how Evans, producer Tom Luddy, and Francis Ford Coppola got The Godfather made at a time when the world was stacked against it. The show is a blend of fact and dramatic fiction, of course, and although this article claims to reveal which is which, only Luddy and Coppola know for sure, and they're not talking. I liked the show well enough, but I'm not wild about it ... something about it just felt a little off, although I can't explain to you or myself exactly why.  Still, it's well done and paints a vivid portrait of the movie biz in the Hollywood and New York of that era.  Who knows -- you might love it. I watched it on Amazon Prime Video, but it's probably viewable elsewhere.

Robert Evans remains a fascinating figure in Hollywood, as demonstrated by the money quote from his obituary in The Guardian:  

"The most famous anecdote -- or at any rate the most revealing -- concerns his reaction to seeing the first cut of Coppola's The Godfather. He considered it too short. "You shot a saga, but you turned in a trailer. Go back and make a picture," he barked at Coppola, who duly went away and came back with the epic that made his name." 

Imagine a producer telling his director to make a movie longer -- has that ever happened before or since? -- but Evans was right: he followed his gut instincts and produced a classic film, one of the best of all time.  The last of the big studio moguls may be gone, but he's not been forgotten.

PS:  A late addition a week after this post went up:  a potential crackdown on the absurd practice of everybody and his/her brother getting producer credits. As anybody knows who's walked on a set to see a dozen or more tall director's chairs labeled "Producer," this fiction has gotten way out of hand.

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In the late summer of 1978, I was among a small crew gathered in the parking lot of an outdoor mall in Valencia, north of LA, to shoot a day of pickups for a low-budget movie called Van Nuys Boulevard.  It was my first feature as a member of the technical crew, which meant I'd never again have to work as a PA.  

"Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last..."*

Principal photography had been completed six weeks before, and the editor now had a list of shots he needed to complete the film. There we were, half a dozen of us in the early morning chill, sipping bad coffee from styrofoam cups as we prepared to go to our first location when, from out of nowhere, came a deep, mellifluous baritone we'd all heard before on the big screen.  

"Are you making a movie?"

We turned as one to see Darth Vader himself, but there was no menacing black mask, no flowing black robe, and no cohort of Imperial Storm Troopers.  The unmistakable voice came from James Earl Jones, a large bespectacled man with an imposing frame and a big warm smile, who was apparently doing some early shopping to beat the crowds. He chatted for a few minutes, then wished us luck with a big smile and went on his way.

Some things you don't forget.

                                               RIP

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Bob Newhart passed away in July at the ripe old age of 95.  After trying his hand at working as an accountant, he moved to an ad agency where he and a co-worker came up with comic bits just for fun. Fate and circumstance led him to comedy, and he eventually produced a record album called "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart" -- a monster hit that launched a career and eventually took him to the top of the television sitcom world. 

Yes, kiddos: there was a time in America when comedy LPs were a very big deal, and Bob Newhart was a star.

I was just getting a toehold in Hollywood when "The Bob Newhart Show" ended a six-year run, then was heavily immersed in the world of commercials during the eight-year run of his next big hit, so I pretty much missed all of his most famous work. Fate took a hand in the late '90s when all my commercial accounts followed the gold rush north chasing fat Canadian government subsidies coupled with a favorable exchange rate, and my only opportunities to keep paying the rent turned out to be ... sitcoms.  My fourth sitcom landed at the CBS Radford Studio, where both of Newhart's big hits were made, and one of our recurring guest stars was the wonderful Suzanne Pleschette, who'd been among the core cast of "The Bob Newhart Show."  Bob would walk on our stage every now and then -- which stopped everything -- to chat with Suzanne and regale the cast and crew with his dry wit. I never shook his hand or sat down to have a drink with him, but from what I saw, Bob Newhart was a good and decent man.  I never heard a bad word about him, which can't be said of every star in the sitcom world.  He brought light into the living rooms of America with smiles and laughter, which is always a good thing.

Back in 2019, Bob sat down for a conversation with Conan O'Brien in his podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, which is very funny.  At 90 years old, Newhart could still bring it: you've really got to hear that podcast to fully appreciate his lethally dry wit. This one is definitely worth your time.

Thanks for the laughs, Bob.

****************************************

Finally -- just so this post doesn't turn into a full-on obit page where all I see is dead people -- here's a great interview with Gary Oldman, star of Apple TV's "Slow Horses."   Truth be told, I never much cared for the younger Oldman on screen.  Sure, he's always been a terrific actor, but he invariably seemed to play smart, evil villains who never won in the end ... but now he's playing a guy I can relate to. Not in skill set, mind you, but in age and general dyspeptic disposition.  

Getting old will do that to you.

And on that cheerful note, have a lovely October, kiddos. Remember: don't eat all the Halloween candy in one sitting.

* With apologies to Martin Luther King...

September

For reasons I don't understand, the nice crisp photo of this manuscript transferred to Blogger in a decidedly fuzzy mode ... so what you may -- or may not -- be able to read is "Blood, Sweat, and Tedium: The Education of a Hollywood Juicer"

That's right kiddos, the long-promised book version of this blog is done ... sort of.  Put it this way: the first draft is done, which is some distance from a paperback you can leaf through at the airport while waiting for a plane, then forget and leave somewhere, after which a janitor will eventually pick it up, look at the title, and with a weary shrug of his shoulders, toss in the trash.

I have no illusions about publishing this thing.  Truth be told, I have precious few illusions left about anything in life -- getting old does that to you -- but the plan is to find a printer/publisher who can do a decent job, pay for a run of 1500 copies or so, then see what happens.  Maybe fifty will sell, maybe a hundred ... or maybe I'll just end up driving around the country leaving a copy in every gas station bathroom and roadside rest.  I dunno, and right now I really don't care. I'm just playing it by ear and trying to finally get this thing done. 

Still, after all these years of promising that "the book is coming," this feels like a big step.  The next step is the second draft, of course, which is now underway: going through the manuscript line by line, page by page, cutting what I can, then sanding, polishing, and painting as I go.  It's a tedious, painstaking process that's a little more than half done at this point.  Once complete, I'll send the manuscript to a friend (who shall hereafter be referred to as The Reader) to plow through and offer her educated opinion as to how it flows, what needs to stay, and what -- if anything -- needs to go.  The oldest and perhaps most valuable advice given to everybody who writes is "Kill your babies," which means being ruthless in the quest to slim and simplify every manuscript.  Sometimes the parts you fell in love with in the early going turn out to be anchors that slow the forward progress of a reader ... and when that happens, boredom sets in and the book is likely to be set aside in favor of a snappier, more engaging tome. Regardless of what I hear back from The Reader, most of what's in it now will remain.  I'm not trying to craft a sexy best-seller here, but just want a book that offers something to industry veterans and civilians alike -- two wildly disparate audiences -- which is a tricky tightrope to walk. As someone much smarter than I once said, "You can't please all of the people all of the time," so it's fine if future readers skip past parts they find slow to get to the juicier bits, and I'm reasonably confident they'll find something more to their liking if they keep going.

Although I've already cut close to thirty pages in following Strunk and White's timeless advice to "Omit needless words," I've no doubt it'll still be too long once I'm done cutting -- but that's okay.  As the saying goes, "It is what it is" ... or maybe "Que será, será  is a more appropriate cinematic cliché.

We shall see.

The title is a modest change from the blog pointing to the underlying theme of the book: learning.  As I rewrote and assembled the posts into chapters, I was continually reminded that every day in Hollywood marked another step in my film industry education, a process that will never be complete.  Nobody hands you a degree when you "graduate" from Hollywood, and even in retirement, I keep trying to understand what's going on in the film/television business, a particularly confusing task these days.  

On that subject, a guy I used to work with at CBS Radford recently posted this on our union's FB page, an eye-opening dissection of what Hollywood is up against in the struggle to keep film and television production from following fat financial incentives elsewhere. It's not a pretty picture. Although I keep reading and hearing that shows of one sort or another are coming, there hasn't been much production going on in Hollywood thus far -- certainly nothing like it should be at this time of year or was in the not-so-distant past.  Are those days gone forever, or will the buffalo return?  I think they will, in time, but in what numbers, who knows?  All I know for sure is that a lot of people who work below the line are suffering terribly these days, which is not a humane or sustainable situation.

My fingers are crossed for all of you there suffering this dearth of work -- I hope it picks up soon for you all.

 Meanwhile, enjoy what's left of Summer as it slides inexorably into Fall ... and remember, Winter is coming.

August

 

                     Like it or not, the way things were is not how things will be.

First, a note for any film industry people in LA who are suffering from the lack of production these days: The LA Times recently published an article (free to everyone) detailing how and where to get financial help. If that's you, please read it and avail yourself of whatever aid that you can. Assuming the Teamsters okay the recent Basic Crafts Agreement, the threat of a labor stoppage will be over, and hopefully Hollywood will get back to work again, but even in the best of circumstances, that won't happen overnight ... and we don't know if or when the town will truly get busy.  Meanwhile, keep the faith -- I wish the best of luck to you all.

Now, on with the show...

Those of you who've been here for a while will remember Peter McLennan, a retired DP/Director who's written three excellent (and very popular) guest posts for this space in the last few years -- but if you missed them, you can rectify that oversight here and here.  He's a terrific writer who's probably forgotten more about the art of putting images on film than I ever knew, which is why I'm always grateful for his contributions to this blog.  A gifted photographer with a great eye developed during his long career looking through the viewfinder, Peter recently began experimenting with images manipulated by an AI program called Stable Diffusion.  He's been sending me the results for a while, so I finally asked "Why don't you write another guest post on the subject?"

It was a win-win proposition: not only would it be a good read for all of us, but it would take the heat off me for another month ... and so it has.

Peter, the floor is yours:  

         A Camera for my Imagination

A retired DP finds new avenues of creativity with Generative AI

Story and images by Peter McLennan

On a dark winter day in 2023 I typed the word “tree” into a text box and watched gobsmacked as an image of a tree appeared on my screen. It was a moment as memorable as when I first watched an image appear like magic in a darkroom developer tray.

My very first AI Image wasn’t much to look at.  In fact, looking back at it eighteen months later, it looks positively primitive.  But for me on that winter day, it was transformative. The image was generated not by a camera or a paintbrush or even by an artist. It was generated by a single word.

I soon discovered that a forest was as easy to generate as a tree, and an artistic rendering of a forest was as easy as adding the words “etching” and “art deco” to the prompt. As a constant stream of images appeared on my screen, a trap door opened on the floor of my office and I fell through it, not emerging until many weeks later. Day after day I spent hours exploring, working, making “just one more generation” until one day I realized what had happened. I had become addicted to Generative AI.

In a mad burst of creativity and discovery I began to explore a new world of images both familiar and novel. I made images that were horrifying and beautiful, intentional and accidental, disappointing and delightful and always, images that were surprising.  

I think it was the discovery aspect that kept me glued to the keyboard late into those winter nights, for I frequently had no idea what would appear on my screen. Many of the software’s controls achieved their results with completely new concepts using new and arcane names like “Variational Autoencoder”, “Denoising Strength” and “Classifier Free Guidance”. I had little idea what any of them meant, so the only way forward was to experiment. Consequently, many images were far from what I expected, and as it turns out, surprise and delight were what kept me engaged with Stable Diffusion.

My initial discovery process used what is called “text to image” where the images are generated solely by your skill at writing prompts.  For me, as a life-long photographer, this was challenging.  I was used to seeing images and recording what I saw in a viewfinder.  Now, I had no viewfinder. I had only my thoughts.

I tried without success to illustrate an ocean voyage I’d taken on a freighter as a teenager, but the images on my screen bore no resemblance to those in my memory. I failed completely to illustrate what I’d intended.  I felt I’d plumbed the depths of generative AI and found severe limitations.  Had I reached the end of my creative buzz?

In fact, I’d barely begun.

Soon, another technique presented itself: Image to Image.  Now, I could take existing images, my images, and operate on them using the same AI techniques as before.  Another new world opened up. For instance, this rather boring photograph of a door in Nevada …

… became this one.  Bearing only vaguely visible resemblance to the original, the camera image has become something completely new.

A photo I took in Sri Lanka…

... became this, from dog knows where. Who are those guys?

This image -- part photograph, part creative prompting, and part styles AI learned from artists who worked long ago -- started life as a simple photo of snowy trees in my backyard.

The “image to image” function effectively divides the image creation process into two components: The AI, and me. My photography provides the basic structure and palette, Stable Diffusion interprets my text prompts and adds its own creative seasonings as it sees fit.  

It is a productive and inspiring, if somewhat hit and miss, partnership. This image of confidence, youth, fearlessness and curiosity was generated from a photograph of some construction machinery in a grassy field.

The AI software doesn't need to work from a photo, drawing, or painting. These next four images were created entirely from my imagination using prompts to describe what I wanted to see, including the media type, image size in pixels, and aspect ratio. Most of these prompts resemble descriptions found in film scripts, but some trial and error was required to jump the gulf from imagination to screen image. The resultis were further controlled by several on-screen math functions related uniqely to the Stable Diffusion imaging software. 

“Oil painting, messy Victorian library, winter afternoon, dramatic window lighting, a body is on the floor, a man sits at a distant desk, volumetric lighting”

“High resolution colour photograph, night, interior truck cab, rain”

“Cartoon colour image of an orange cat flying a kite in a field of flowers”

“High resolution monocrhrome photo of a film set from the forties, smoke, movie lights, several crew members”

The astounding pace of AI development in the last two years points to an uncertain future. Although we can't predict exactly when and how it will impact the film and television industry, it’s already apparent that the creative skills in immediate peril are those of photographers and illustrators. But how will musicians, film crews, and writers fare in the new world of AI?  Repetitive clerical and administrative tasks are far more efficiently done by AI, and the writing is on the wall for copywriters and computer coders. If I was an office worker tasked with researching and writing reports, I’d be brushing up my resume -- presumably with the help of a bot of some kind -- and I’d be learning everything I could about the coming tsunami of AI assistance.

That’s the most important thing I’ve learned with my admittedly shallow-end dip into the pool of AI imaging: AI doesn’t do the work, it helps you do the work. AI doesn’t think for you, it assists you by doing much of the grunt work, freeing you to be more creative, more explorative, more adventurous. A far better term than “Artificial Intelligence” would be “Assistive Intelligence." I didn’t need to learn how to paint with egg tempera or do etching or lithography, my AI pal knew all that. I just had to tell it what I wanted to see and what artist’s technique to use. 

More impressive, AI seems to think for itself, drawing on resources I’m ignorant of and regularly coming up with ideas I’d never have considered.  The elusive muse we call creativity works in mysterious ways. As this technology becomes more adept and accessible, I foresee a bright future -- not for computer coders, storyboard artists. and report writers, but for audiences.  We’re in for a treat.  

Just you wait.

PS: This experimental clip -- not affiliated with Volvo in any way -- is a sample of what AI can do now ... so imagine what it will be able to do in five years.