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.

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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.

July

                                  Burgess Meredith in Time Enough at Last

For many workers in Hollywood -- and certainly the vast majority of those I know personally -- the past year and a half has felt a lot like this image as they look around at the destruction of a work life they once knew, all the while wondering WTF went wrong?*  As I walked around my old home lot during a recent two-day visit to LA, it felt like a ghost town. With sixteen of eighteen sound stages empty and just two shows working (one of those being "Big Brother," which seems to have been running forever), I could almost see tumbleweeds rolling through the lot.  I spoke with one of my former co-workers who told of being unable to afford rent on his apartment, then having to move his wife and baby into his mom's house, and another with whom I'd done many shows, now nearly fifty years old, confessed to being just a hop, skip, and jump away from homelessness.

This is real. People who've invested decades into their film industry careers are hurting badly.

A confluence of factors brought all this: the WGA/SAG strike, the looming threat of an IA strike, the implosion of an economic model the streaming networks thought would work but didn't, and the ongoing scourge of runaway production. There wasn't much of a pilot season this spring, but returning shows traditionally begin rigging and lighting stages in mid to late July for the new fall season, and indeed, a recent missive from the 728 call steward indicated that the tide might be starting to turn.  Although the IA hammered out a new contract with the producers (which will have to be ratified by the rank and file), the basic crafts contract is still up in the air, and until that's settled, the potential of a strike hangs over Hollywood like the Sword of Damocles.

So, fingers crossed.

June carved another chunk out of our collective hide, taking Donald Sutherland and Martin Mull, both of whom left their mark on Hollywood and our shared culture.**  I only worked with Sutherland once, when ABC trotted out the stars from their 2009 television lineup for a week of filming promos featuring everyone from the wonderful Ray Wise (Reaper) to the entire cast of Lost minus Evangeline Lilly, who -- from what I hear -- had a problematic relationship with the acting profession.  It was a week I remember mostly for reuniting with Paget Brewster and Anna Ortiz -- two lovely, talented, and very gracious actresses I'd befriended in the sitcom world*** -- and for inadvertently planting my index finger deep into Josh Holloway's late-morning cup of coffee. Holloway, who played the role of "Sawyer" in Lost, put his white styrofoam coffee cup on an apple box near the camera just before we began to film his segment. Ducking back under the lens after adjusting a light, I stumbled slightly and my finger somehow sank all the way to the bottom of his nice warm coffee without knocking the cup over.  Holloway's attention was focused on the camera while everyone else on set was looking at him, so nobody noticed.  

Well ... almost nobody.  The key grip on that project was one of those guys who misses nothing, and as I surreptitiously shook my finger dry, I noticed him grinning at me while shaking his head.  

Sorry Josh, but hey, shit happens on set.

My other memory from that week is of Donald Sutherland, who was then starring in Dirty Sexy Money.   He walked on set looking very distinguished, as usual, but clearly was not happy.  Ours was the last in a gantlet of four promo units all these actors had to run that day, and apparently three was his limit.  I couldn't blame him for being sick and tired of the promotional circus.  He was my age now at the time, and if I'd had such a storied career as Donald Sutherland, I sure as hell wouldn't want to waste a day of my life playing Fluff-Boy for the network publicity machine.  He was doubtless there due to contractual obligations, but signing that contract didn't mean he had to like it ... and he didn't.

Sutherland took his place in front of the big white backdrop, then glanced at the camera and stiffened.  

"That's a twenty-nine-millimeter lens," he said. "You can't film me with a twenty-nine-millimeter lens."

All the action on set stopped.  The DP tried to reassure him that due to the chip size of his video camera, the image produced would be the rough equivalent of a fifty-five-millimeter lens on a 35 mm film camera -- the format Sutherland was accustomed to -- but the old thespian remained unmoved.**** 

At that point it became clear that this had little to do with lenses and everything to do with a veteran actor being understandably weary of this promotional dog-and-pony show.  Once he blew off some steam -- and after the DP put a stand-in in front of the camera to show Sutherland the image on the monitor -- we all got back to work.  No harm, no foul.  

Like the rest of us, actors come and go -- there are no exceptions to the rule of life ending in death -- but unlike most of us, their work lives on.  Donald Sutherland's performances on screen will be enjoyed and appreciated for a long time. He was one of the really good ones.

Long before my unwilling transition from the lucrative world of commercials to the low-rent but user-friendly cloister of sitcoms, I did a three-day job filming Martin Mull at The Magic Castle in LA. I'd first become aware of Mull when he appeared in Mary Hartman, Marty Hartman, Fernwood 2 Night, and America 2 Night, three droll-but-innovative comedies that hit the airwaves shortly after I arrived in Hollywood.  What I didn't know until recently is that he'd come to LA as a guitar-playing comedian -- and a pretty good one at that -- or that later in life he became a painter.

As you can imagine, that job at the Magic Castle was fun (as were most of the gigs I did with comedians), despite a director who was entirely too full of himself. After lunch on the final day, some asshole broke into Mull's car in the parking lot to steal what he could, which put Mull in a bad mood ... and by then our director had really gotten on his nerves. Sensing this, the director had a PA run out to buy a jeroboam of chilled Moet and Chandon Champagne which he presented to Mull at the end of the day. Rather than grab the bottle and head for home to call his insurance agent, Mull popped the cork right then and there and shared it with the entire crew.  The director put on a happy face, but he was clearly miffed -- which I'm pretty sure is exactly what Martin Mull intended. 

He was a good man and a very funny guy, and I liked him.  

RIP.

(For your viewing pleasure, here's a brief taste of America 2 Night)

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

June was no sooner in the rear-view mirror when July brought another blow: the death of screenwriting legend Robert Towne.  Although most well-known for Chinatown, he wrote a ton of movies, including 70's classics The Last Detail and Shampoo.  While recovering from surgery one unemployed summer in LA, I saw him give a fascinating talk at the WGA theater.  After discussing Chinatown, he talked about other films, including Greystoke: the Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, recounting that the script he turned in didn't have a single line of dialog until page 80 ...  and I've always wondered about the reaction of the first studio honcho to read it. Needless to say, changes were made in an attempt to turn the script into something more commercial, the details of which -- and they are many -- are in that Wiki link. It's worth a read.  

As for Chinatown, it's interesting that the ending Towne wrote was completely different from what became the finale of the movie. Apparently he and Polanski fought over the script for two months as they worked on the final draft, and in the end Polanski won out -- hey, he was the director. Towne was pissed, but in later years admitted that Polanski had been right.  The ending of the movie is undeniably wrenching, but that's what made it the last truly great film noir ever made in Hollywood.

And so another icon of my relative youth is gone to the Great Beyond.  

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The New Yorker Radio Hour recently featured a half-hour interview with Kevin Costner covering a range of subjects, including his new film Horizon: An American Saga, the first in a series of four westerns he's long wanted to make.  It's not a puff-piece to publicize the movie, but a serious wide-ranging conversation. Costner had to violate the first rule of Hollywood to get his movie made -- always use other people's money -- reportedly investing millions in the production. As usual, the subsequent media focus has been on box office returns, which thus far have not been good. Although I won't see it unless and until the film comes to a streaming service, I have to give Costner credit for doing something few people in Hollywood have ever done: he put his money where his mouth is. 

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

Not to get political here -- Dog knows we get too much political crap shoved in our faces these days -- but I recently stumbled across a theory that was brand new to me: The Wizard of Oz was not a mere story about a little girl being swept away by a tornado into a long and complicated dream, but an allegory about the political/cultural struggle that took place over the gold standard back in the 1890s.  If that sounds nuts -- as it did to me at first -- check out this Wiki page on the subject.  

Hey, who knew?

Finally, another look at my favorite TV commercial of all time. (Note: the original link I posted has since become inactive, so it's now been updated)  

Now that the calendar has turned to July, with much of the country in the sweaty grip of a fierce heat wave, summer is well and truly here --and to me, this commercial embodies the essence of what being young in the summer is all about.

Stay cool, kiddos.

* Yeah, I know -- the character Burgess Meredith portrays in this episode is actually quite happy in this photo because he now has all the time in the world for the one thing he truly loves: read books ... but in life and The Twilight Zone, things are not always as they seem.

** The world of baseball also lost Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda in June. June was a brutal month.

*** Translation: I had a massive crush on both of them.

**** A 29 mm is a very wide angle lens that can distort facial features -- not a flattering look.