Saturday, November 19, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
An Open Letter to the Film/TV Crew That's Shooting on Park View St. in Los Angeles
Hi Team -You seem like a busy, industrious group of professionals, so I'll get right to the point. You're taking too long. I have no idea what film you're shooting, but you have been camped out at this single location for weeks now. If this is a movie shoot, that movie is going to be seriously stagnant. (Was it based on a play? I still recommend breaking up the dialogue-heavy scenes with more interstitial action, at this point, or you're likely to only get attention if you have some mega-watt stars in there and it opens in late December.) Unless Stan Kubrick has risen from the grave to make an "Eyes Wide Shut" follow-up, or the entire next season of "The Walking Dead" concerns the gang looking for Sophia on this one street (granted, this is a possibility), I can't imagine your project is really going to require this much coverage. We're talking about the entrance to one building and a side of MacArthur Park. Normally, this wouldn't really bother me. (Or, it might, but I'd keep it to myself.) But the frankly ludicrous amount of trucks, equipment, parked period automobiles and people standing around that you have brought with you are clogging up the nearby streets, and thus unnecessarily extending my commute home each night. One evening, I was at a dead-stop for over 10 minutes while you filmed some kind of shootout (probably to prevent anachronistic cars from appearing in the background of the shot.) As a cinema-lover, I'm willing to indulge a passionate filmmaking collective and put up with a certain amount of inconvenience... but I have my limits. Also, isn't this location kind of cliche and overused? I've seen MacArthur Park in a ton of other movies and TV shows lately. It figures prominently into this season of "American Horror Story." Didn't you see "Drive"? That's right where Ryan Gosling met Christina Hendricks for the first time. Is it just because there's that famous song about the cake in the rain set there? I gotta level with you - most people hate that song, and I'm betting the majority of you're audience doesn't even know what the hell I'm talking about right now. The point is, there are any number of interesting LA parks that are not directly on my way home, and thus would be preferable for you to use as a setting for your latest opus. If you're interested, I'd be delighted to take on the role of "emergency last minute location scout" and provide some helpful suggestions for a small fee. Which you can clearly afford because you're shutting down whole city blocks in Los Angeles for weeks at a time. In closing, let me just say that if this anything related to the next season of "Mad Men," the forthcoming "Batman" film or anything associated with David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, the Coen Brothers or any other filmmakers I respect and admire, I withdraw my argument. But I doubt it.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
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