JOHN J. GALLO 1970-2009

I haven’t blogged in about six months. I had planned to return to the blog soon as I had recently gotten over the swine flu. An event has occurred that has brought me back to my blog a little sooner than I had planned.

On the night of Thanksgiving, in the middle of the night, my good friend and co-producer at Pendragon Pictures, John J. Gallo passed away from a sudden bacterial infection that had gone to his heart and lungs. John was 39. No words can truly express the grief John’s shocking departure has left his myriad loved ones, though I will attempt to express some feelings for this extraordinary man. John was a rare soul on this Earth. The kind of man you could ALWAYS depend on. His loyalty to all people was a lesson for the rest of us as to how to treat one another. His balance, advice and compassion were inspiring.

John leaves a deep hole in many lives. He was the one of the raison d'etre for myself and many others. He was giving and loving toward others in a way that was true and without hidden motive. His creativity was bottemless, as was his sense of humor. His jokes were kind, but he had a way of hitting the mark. Always ready to smile, always ready to see the positive, John helped many as they attempted to find perspective in difficult times. Always ready to help someone in need, John changed and progressed the lives of most everyone he met. John had a deep and solid laugh that would easily flow.

John, I cannot believe you are gone. John, I will miss our several times a week calls about everything from the life problems at hand to aliens, the super collider and movies. I will miss your special and kind spirit. I will miss your honesty and loyalty and fellowship to all you met. I will miss you at our premieres and at the island celebration we were all planning. I will miss you at all the major life events I expected you to be at. I will miss sharing news with you and getting or giving advice on how to get past a hard life moment. I will miss you in my old age and for all the time I have left. You were the best of friend anyone could have asked for and the most loyal human being I have ever encountered. As a producer, you held it together. You were the glue and the strength that our productions ran with.

You were ripped away from us far too soon and yours is one passing I will never fully accept. And you were wise as well as educated, but you never held your intelligence over anyone. Amongst the many things you brought to your close friend Ezra Hamill, one of them was a love of reading. Ezra said you were the only friend who actually read books he gave you to read and shared discussions of their tales with him. You always tried to bolster one’s enthusiasm and help one find the highest level of perspective. You saw the vulnerability in people and could express your compassion for their plights. You were a kinder, more giving and wiser man than I have ever met.

I will carry you in my soul to my own end, John. I am and always will be your loyal ally. Though the hearts of many are shattered at your loss, on behalf of a world that you leave behind, a world that is a better place that you walked with us in it, I say goodbye old friend. Adieu until we meet again beyond this world. Silence the drums and take down the stars for a time. It is a time for deep grief and reflection.

I have linked to a production photo. John Gallo is the smiling gentleman with glasses in the upper left corner of the photo.

John J. Gallo. 1970-2009. Producer, friend to all, humanist.

MEMORIAL DAY

It's after midnight here, still Monday for me. Went to see my mom and dad at the national cemetery for Memorial Day today. There were children running around. My mom and dad would have loved that. I am one of ten brothers and sisters. In World War II, one of the wars my father served in, his ship was attacked 96 times in 23 days by Kamikaze raids. Ate a sandwich, cried and sprayed my mom's favorite perfume on her stone before I left. Lots of flags and flowers out. Very many people there. Comforting to share the grief.

-Later~

WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

Still down with the flu. But here is an important article in the New York Times about how our lives are shaped through randomness and our responses to it.

-Later~

NOT THE SWINE FLU

I haven't written in some time as I have been laid up with the flu. Not swine. But I had to write today as I just found out that a good friend, who has suffered from a mysterious brain electrical disorder has suddenly made a miraculous recovery. It is truly a miracle and I just had to share. Way to go B!

-Later~

ARLEN SPECTER SWITCHES PARTIES TO JOIN OBAMA

Well, with all the talk about swine flu, it should be noted that pigs flew today and snowballs didn't freeze in Hell.

What am I talking about?

28 year Republican Senate veteran Arlen Specter switched parties today to strengthen the Democrat's lead in the Senate. This happens at a time when health care reform is within the grasp of becoming reality. Mr. Specter was quoted as saying, "“I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.” Specter went on to say, "Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.”

Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, who also supported the Obama administration’s economic stimulus legislation, said Mr. Specter’s decision reflected the increasingly inhospitable climate in the Republican party for moderates.

“On the national level of the Republican Party, we haven’t certainly heard warm, encouraging words about how they view moderates, either you are with us or against us,” Ms. Snowe said. She said national Republican leaders were not grasping that “political diversity makes a party stronger and ultimately we are heading to having the smallest political tent in history for any political party the way things are unfolding.”

Mr. Obama telephoned Mr. Specter within seven minutes of the news, offering him his full support.

As I have been blogging about my affliction, Sarcoidosis, an ailment that sometimes has cost me around $16,000 per month at its worst, not counting surgeries. I woke up today and the world changed. I believe, without question, that we all have a right to health and all should have access to the same medicine.

Selling us our health is the same as if air were scooped up and sold back to us. For thousands of years, medicine was about alleviating suffering and saving lives. Since the Nixon administration, medicine has been increasingly about profits until it has reached the breaking point. The world must change if it is to survive. Greed and gluttony needs to be taken out of the equation. We need a giant rework of how we have lost our way of compassion and consideration of others well being and this, today, may be one small step toward that end.

I wish Charles Dickens were alive to write about this. I can imagine what his pen would have brought.

Good luck to all in politics in rediscovering our humanity chip.

-Later~

EARTHDAY

Today is EARTHDAY. Picked up litter in a park for an hour. If you missed your chance to do something for the Earth today, the Earth will still be here tomorrow. So think about giving back to the planet that gave us and gives us life.

-Later~

HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

TIME FOR BLOGGING AND SPACE WEATHER

I have just not had the few minutes needed to write my blog about my conversations with Sasha Harari, producer of the THE DOORS. This week things are looking better for me to have the time to rap out a few blogs. So instead I thought, just for fun, I would point people to a website that measures the daily solar radiation and tells us when we are going to be engulfed in the next solar storm that affects computers and cell phones. The site also counts how many Near-Earth Asteroids are shooting by us as any given moment. It's called Spaceweather.com.

-Later~

SHORT BLOG - FILMED MINIATURE PICKUPS FOR CHROME

Filmed miniature 1/6 scale pickups for CHROME today. For a shot where CHROME bursts through a plate glass window, we filmed a window with the Sony HD camera pointing upward. The glass was pre-scored and additional tiny bits of broken glass and wood debris were placed atop the scored glass. The background (which was above) was a green screen and a sharpened dowel painted with Ultimatte green paint was used to burst the glass. Arriflex HMI Fresnels with diffusion were used as side lighting and caught the glass fall away nicely. A sturdy piece of mounted 15mm thick plate glass protected the camera as the debris rained down.

Also various miniature debris piles were exploded with black powder, miniature money, books, silverware, etc., to add as layers for specific explosion shots.

-Later~

PASSOVER, EASTER AND THE STAGE OF LIFE

For all of those celebrating Passover, I wish joy, and that you find your sense of freedom and rediscover your foundation of faith. I am not affiliated with the sites connected to this link to learn about Passover, but these pages seemed pretty informational for those who want to learn more about this celebration.

Happy Easter to the Christian world.

I haven’t blogged in almost a week and this one is going to be short. There I was dancing across the stage of life, talking in my blog about a health crisis as if it had passed. I was a bit premature with that so this time I will say I am doing much better. My core strength and energy are returning and life and workflow can once again continue.

As an original original STAR TREK fan, I really wanted to blog about the sneak Star Trek movie premiere. It was a very theatrical introduction. The fans believed they were going to see a print of, STAR TREK II, THE WRATH OF KAHN, by one of the most gifted writer -directors out there, Nicholas Meyer. But the film burned away and Leonard Nimoy walked out on stage and announced that the crowd would instead be watching the new STAR TREK movie, 3 hours ahead of the world premiere in Australia. The article is here and wonderfully titled, "GEEKS GONE WILD."

Soon I will share pursuing Leonard Nimoy for the movie CHROME and thoughtful insights about interactions I had with Mr. Nimoy's representative, legendary agent, Phil Gersh, who passed away in 2004 at the age of 92.

In my last blog I talked pretty extensively about how trying to get CHROME made created the little campy sci-fi soon to be a TROMA release film, BUG WARS. I had the trailer put up on Youtube. Though the film exists in both an R rated version and a PG version, the only trailer I had in HD was the R rated trailer.

I put it up with all kinds of warnings and, doh, I couldn’t find a box to check that would make people have to do automatic age verification. So I uploaded the clip and flagged it myself, thinking Youtube would put the appropriate warning up. Nope. They axed it without a glance. I should have realized this would happen as they have to take down hundreds of thousands of videos a day. Rather than kvetch about it I had little black boxes pop on over the nude bits and CSI level gore. This fixit version has been re-uploaded for all ages.

Tomorrow I will reflect on conversations and meetings I had with Sasha Harari about WAR OF THE WORLDS and CHROME back in 2001-2003. Sasha Harari was producer of Oliver Stone’s THE DOORS, and a close friend and associate of Paula Wagner, Tom Cruise’s long time partner.

Additionally, I plan to share some calming thoughts on Tom Cruise, Scientology and some inside interactions our two respective camps had concerning our versions of WAR OF THE WORLDS.

One last private note to a new found friend: Please do a video of your Neil Young impression and put it up on Youtube. I have awoken from my sleep laughing. The world could use more humor right now and Neil Young, I’m sure, would find it hysterical as well.

-Later~

HOW HAWKING CHROME GOT BUG WARS MADE

In the late 1990s, I shopped my screenplay for CHROME to virtually every studio and producer in Hollywood and New York. Everyone liked the script. Several producers wanted to make it or tried to get it made. For instance, I worked with John Bertolli for some time at Destination Films. Things were looking good for a while. Bertolli produced RETURN TO ME with Minnie Driver and David Duchovny. He was in production with GANG RELATED, starring rapper Tupac Shakur and CHROME was looking promising. Then Tupac was shot and, as they say, things changed.

Anyone working in Hollywood knows how many times a deal almost happens and then doesn’t. In fact, if you were an alien looking at the activities of Hollywood, you wouldn’t think they were in the "movie making" business, but the "putting together of movies for no reason" business. People have no idea how much effort goes into turning an idea into a script and then actually getting it made into a move, even a bad one. The number of movies that producers or directors labor over that never see the light of day far outnumber the pictures that actually get made.

As was the case with CHROME for a number of years. As I said, many in Hollywood and New York wanted to make or get the picture CHROME made but I kept running into a major snag. The script was set approximately a 130 years in the future and was populated by a world of robots in settings that don’t exist today. Action in every scene with a near-decadent scale. The fast pacing of CHROME is the antithesis of my WAR OF THE WORLDS. So the thing I heard again and again in various forms was something like, "It’s a great script but only about five people in the world could afford to make it and they probably won’t because they’ve got their own epic scale projects.

Jumping ahead for a moment, when my planned large scale modern day version of WAR OF THE WORLDS fell apart on September 11th, and I was left sitting with a studio that I had set up south of Seattle converted from a former school where the gymnasium became our soundstage and the classrooms became our art department, props department, woodshop, materials casting rooms, costume and wardrobe, actor’s dressing rooms, etc, I convinced the money interests that were left, to roll it over into CHROME. I’ll talk in detail on that production at a later time.

But this story, surprisingly, is not about CHROME, but about BUG WARS (Reviewed in CFQ, issue 165 - Vol 33). The way BUG WARS came to be was that I had exhausted my leads and myself temporarily in my quest to get CHROME made. Two years and countless meetings and trips to Los Angeles or New York, only to come back to Seattle, wiser but empty handed.

It was on one last trip to New York, that I stopped by TROMA to see if Lloyd Kaufman might want to get involved either as a producer or in some financial capacity. Lloyd was distributing my movies, HOUSE OF THE RISING and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM at the time, though I believe only MIDSUMMER is still available. That may change soon. Incidentally, Lloyd mentions my movie A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM in his book, ALL I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FILMMAKING I LEARNED FROM THE TOXIC AVENGER, where he laments that my movie didn’t have nudity in it.

Now before I go on, I want to clarify, I wasn’t coming to Lloyd for CHROME to be a TROMA movie, but to Lloyd as a producer. Now not many people know that before Lloyd Kaufman made the TOXIC AVENGER and was rocketed forever into camp-sexy-fantasy movies, Lloyd was a straight arrow production manager and producer. In fact, Lloyd was the production manager for Sylvester Stallone’s ROCKY and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, starring John Travolta. He also produced THE FINAL COUNTDOWN starring Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen and Katherine Ross.

When I met up with him, Lloyd had read my script and thought it was great. Impossible to shoot, but great. I pitched my idea about him coming on board and he, without missing a beat, counter pitched that if I could make a much much, did I say much, smaller sci-fi film in the hundred to two hundred thousand dollar range, with TROMA putting up $17,000 dollars of it, he would distribute it. At that point, it struck my funny bone. The business is crazy and I was practically jumping out of my skin with exhaustion from the business end and wanted to do something creative. I think many of Lloyd’s films are funny and watchable…like a train wreck. His sense of the macabre blended with a joyous, don’t-care-tongue-in-cheek approach is often very entertaining. I will never forget when the TOXIC AVENGER yells, "Yo, villain, into the blender!"

Also JAMES GUNN, writer director of SLITHER, and writer of SCOOBY DOO, cut his teeth at TROMA.

So I agreed and we made a deal. I went back to Seattle and wrote BUG WARS in about two weeks, smiling to myself the entire time. I sent it to Lloyd. He asked for some changes that were not surprising. "More gore! More nudity!" I gleefully obliged, understanding the comedic way in which he intended I use these devices. My story, BUG WARS, was quite simple. The last two women on Earth after a quantum war battle invading intelligent bug creatures. With a Twilight Zone ending, BUG WARS was wall to wall fun. Oh, did I mention, the world of BUG WARS is hot, very hot. Requiring little clothing. Oh and the women were scientists turned warriors. I am grinning still as I write this.

Having TROMA as a distributor, having a couple of films with them and having seen money from TROMA for those, plus a letter of intent from Lloyd, I was able to raise a hundred and fifty thousand dollars pretty easily.

So BUG WARS was shot in soundstages that were actually underneath the street level in Pioneer Square in old underground Seattle. More specifically we were beneath the old Buttnick Brassiere Manufacturing Plant. Yes, we had much fun with that. In the lead role is Darlene Renee Sellers, whom some may remember as the trembling Mrs. Elphinstone, in WAR OF THE WORLDS. The actor’s dressing rooms were actually under the sidewalk and at one time, the main stage had been part of the Underground Tour years before we got hold of it.

This space later was converted into a multi level nightclub called THE FENIX UNDERGROUND. You should check out the link. It has great panaramas of what they did. I went down there to see for myself and it was weird to see the soundstages we had filmed our movie in converted to dance floors. The owner asked me if he could play BUG WARS at a sci-fi themed party he threw at the club's opening. It was very cool how they had my movie running on a loop on screens throughout the club on several floors.

Anyway, to make the movie, we built future sets, a couple of collapsed stores and the collapsed lobby of a hotel. It was a kick. Producer Shefskie Paba hand sculpted life-sized skeletons to be strewn throughout the movie. We really enjoyed the production. Much of it difficult to figure out and visualize, but everyone laughed a lot all the way through. When the time comes, the bloopers reel will bare this out.

The movie was shot in 16MM film with Angenieux lenses and posted on MAC computers. The special effects were created with cgi on a toy program by today’s standards called Specular Infini-d. This was before MetaCreations bought it. The comps were done on an early version of After Effects using things like Puffin Composite Wizard to pull the mattes.

The movie turned out pretty darn good for what it was meant to be. It was fun and funny often and there is a spirit of irreverence to it that was infectious. So much so that it was at a BUG WARS screening in a community theater that some of the first employees of Microsoft showed up on an invite. They had been drinking and had a great time and it was that night that the first deals for my now abandoned large budget modern version of WAR OF THE WORLDS were struck. I was quickly introduced to many people with real money and a range of financial advisors. I will recount the collapse of that version of WAR OF THE WORLDS in another blog.

Now, it is to absolute naiveté on my part and not trusting my own inner feelings that I let some of these new money people talk me into going with another distributor with BUG WARS. The reasoning was all about prestige and it was stupid stupid stupid. I chose a new distributor offering cash up-front that was composed of a group people who had all worked in distribution on some level, but were woefully under-financed. Lloyd said, generously about them later, "Good people. They just shouldn’t have been in the distribution business." You see they had worked for Lloyd.

BUG WARS played at CANNES and got on the front page of THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER for a promo stunt involving girls in wet t-shirts with tricked out super-soaker squirt guns. A few deals were made but they fell apart as the film had been shopped wrongly. So, on better advice, I shelved it for a few years to let that pass by. I recently talked with Lloyd and BUG WARS is indeed going to be a TROMA movie soon, after all said and done.

So today I’m posting the trailer for BUG WARS. You can see by it that we all had fun making this movie. Also notable is that the music is by THE CRYSTAL METHOD. We made the deal just before they broke and now I hear their music in a range of movie promos and global advertising campaigns. But we were of the first. And the way it came about was proximity. My producer on that picture, LORA OLIVER, had grown up with the band members in Las Vegas. So I hope you enjoy. Don’t expect SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. BUG WARS lives in the TOXIC AVENGER vein. And we are all quiet proud if it, in its kitchy way. When it is released, I hope you have as much fun with it as we did making it. BUG WARS contains some nudity. Thank you Lloyd! The trailer is censored for youtube.

-Later~

NOT DEAD LIKE ME

Jeese. Okay. The irony is not lost on me that I'm writing THIS blog right after a blog called, SHORTER FUNNIER. It fits with, "You never know where life will take you."

I haven’t blogged for a few days as the workflow on post production of CHROME and health issues have sucked up my time like a Hoover vacuum cleaner. In an earlier blog I talked about having chronic sarcoidosis. Please see my blog on this.

Well, as of last week I’ve been in and out of the hospital for scary fatigue and breathing difficulties. The most notable hospital day was Sunday night, where I found myself in an emergency room on a particularly slammed night for the medical teams. It was a little surreal lying on a gurney separated only by the near tissue thin curtain, from a man next to me who was complaining of deep pain and crying for pain medication, but couldn’t pinpoint any specific area of pain. The doctor was asking why he tested positive for methadone and he, for the life of him, couldn’t understand why this would be.

On my other side was a woman brought in from prison, clad in an orange jumper, with an armed prison guard at her side. She also was asking for pain medication, though her complaint was ultimately verified as extreme intestinal cramping.

The next bed down was a man who had chest pains and hadn’t seen a doctor in years. Later, in the night, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and pneumonia. I heard the intern and doctor discussing how to inform him of the bad news. It was a solitary moment in time.

So what was my diagnosis? At first, as is usual with elusive diseases like sarcoidosis, I was told my weakness and shortness of breath were probably due to stress. They hear movie biz and, even though I have a deep medical history with a chronic condition, they assume stress. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this through years of misdiagnosis, only to have it verified later that, yes, there is a problem.

I have also lost count of how many people I’ve talked with who have chronic immune illnesses or mysterious seizures that have the same first diagnosis of, "must be in your head." It’s hard to explain how frustrating this experience is.

This is not a rant against doctors or their diagnostic proceedures. I would not be alive today if it were not for doctors. But there is a certain class of illness though, that at first appears invisible or is hard to verify. A doctor, when confronted with no evidence at first, in attempting to verify the patients claims of weakness or dizziness or serious fatigue, has to consider stress as a likely cause. Stress can sometimes ravage a body as bad as other serious illness. It is often only through time that diseases like MS or Parkinson or or other immune diseases like chronic sarcoidosis reveal the true underlying nature of their existence. Over time, the claims of the patient of these illnesses are validated.

And when the patient IS validated, the great triumph is…"Yes, there’s something seriously wrong with you." It’s relieving to have the confirmation, but hardly a feeling of triumph or winning something.

So when all the blood test and x-rays came back, it was, "Yes, there’s something seriously wrong with you." Oh yeah! Happy! In my case, it turns out that sarcoidosis flair ups had blown out my thyroid. Extreme hypothyroid can cause brain seizures and/or death. Triumph, I’m validated. Whoopdeedoo! I now have a new affliction to add to the heap of slow long-term ravages the sarcoidosis has left me to deal with. So I’ve been a bit distracted and preoccupied with, uh, trying not to die this week and hey I’m still here and very happy to be so. Yes siree! In fact, the world is a little more bright and and the food tastes a little bit better and I am more aware of the frailty of all humnkind.

Or as James Joyce wrote in his story, THE DEAD, "One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age."

There’s always something coming down the pike to try and take us out, a speeding bus, a flu, a slippery sidewalk, a meteorite or a toilet seat from a space shuttle as in the series DEAD LIKE ME.

So you can either pick your little bag of things to worry about or appreciate and celebrate what you have before you. I don’t care about my sarcoidosis. It’s not me. It’s a thing clawing at me and I intend to outlive it and beat it into the ground. As a villain it is elusive and sometimes confounding in its ability to slam my life to a halt. But it hasn’t considered the strength of my will and loving spirit. I will not be taken down by it. Today I struggle. Tomorrow I will triumph over it. What a difference a day makes.

-Later~

SHORTER FUNNIER

Hello all, very short post today. I added two new pieces of my 1989 comedy, SUNRISE ON ALPHABET CITY. It was suggested that I post pieces of this movie in small portions, which I have done here. Thank you for the constructive advice! Shorter, funnier. See yesterday's post to learn more about this movie. Hope you enjoy!

-Later~

NEW YORK FILM INDUSTRY IN THE LATE 1970s AND ALPHABET CITY

I got a call from AlphaCine lab in Seattle, that after many decades in the same location, the economy and development of that part of town, they are moving to new digs. The reason they contacted me was that my negative originals for my first feature film, SUNRISE ON ALPHABET CITY had to be picked up, having been stored there since the late 1980s. I went down there myself as I had virtually grown up having my movies processed or posted at AlphaCine lab and I wanted to see it one last time.

When I got the negatives, I paused for a moment to take in the film cans, larger around than the largest extra large pizza and stacked three feet deep. A digital feature, by comparison, depending on the format of its elements, could take up the space of a couple of hefty dictionaries. Film is an era fading away. One day it will go the way of the hatters and the buggy whip makers and it will be missed and sometimes cursed by all those who have worked extensively in the medium.

My first digital feature, CHROME, brought the freedom of Francis Ford Copolla take ratios and was so freeing as to be able to get exactly what we wanted as opposed to "just getting it" sometimes with the enormous cost of film. On a side note, with WAR OF THE WORLDS, I sure learned that affording a proper take ratio in the face of impossible scheduling could not save a movie.

I thought it would be fun to put up a few clips of this "first" feature film, SUNRISE ON ALPHABET CITY. In reality it is my second feature. The first, about a machine Thomas Edison invented to talk to the dead, should rightfully remain forever locked in a trunk in the cellar with a sign posted on the box that reads, "BEWARE THE TIGER." One for Douglas Adams fans.

I looked around to find my film transfer of SUNRISE and to my horror, they had become consumed in mould. All I had was the 3/4" film chain transfer. So, for now, I had that digitized anyway. Unfortunately, this transfer which was done using a film chain onto 3/4" tape, is not representative of the quality of the original image or sound. It will be a while before I go back to an editing suite to give SUNRISE a proper laser transfer so I thought I'd put it up, warts and all.

I think of SUNRISE ON ALPHABET CITY as my first feature film because it was shot on film, it was a feature and it had a run in several theaters. And by, "had a run," I mean I individually made deals with independent theaters such as the Grand Illusion in Seattle, The Red Vic in San Fransisco and the Millennium and the Film Forum in New York, etc. Sadly today, there is only a handful of indie theaters left. But back then, they were everywhere.

I would make the deal and ship the film myself along with the advertising or schlep it there myself and hide in the back of the theater and watch the audience. In one case in a small town, the projectionist was too drunk on whiskey to run the projector and I had to do it myself. There were about 60 or so people in the audience and they had no idea the director of the movie they were watching was sitting up in the sweaty little projection room, changing over the reels, next to a passed out drunken projectionist/enthusiast of serial killer trading cards. Don't ever let it be said that the movies are not glamorous.

SUNRISE is about my early days as a very struggling filmmaker coming to New York and Manhattan's East Village area known as Alphabet City. It was at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s. My beginnings in New York was to plunge into a series of jobs as bike messenger, waiting tables and eventually run-you-ragged entry level film jobs.

New York at this time was brimming with movie companies called mini-majors with strange names like SPECTRAFILM, GREYCAT, AVENUE, ISLAND PICTURES and SKOURAS PICTURES. I remember that MIRAMAX ran their film acquisitions out of the second story apartment of their acquisitions director, Mark Tusk. I was always trying to get him to buy my movies. I would tell him that great new things were coming out of Seattle. And he would joke, "Yeah, fresh young fellas," and laugh hysterically at his own joke. There was a band from Seattle, FRESH YOUNG FELLOWS, that had a hit at the time.

The movie is partly my story and partly the stories of filmmakers I met along the way who had similar shared experiences. I most assuredly shot myself in the foot by making fun of film distributors and poking comic holes in their thinking. Needless to say, that even though audiences found it light and laughed a lot and what critical reviews I got were positive, the distributors thought it was somewhat dark in its nature. Hmm. What I did was sort of like insulting the waiter that is going to serve you food. It was a hard lesson. I'm very slow sometimes.

The movie was shot on 16MM film and edited on a Movieola Upright which a century earlier were based on the sewing machine. Incidentally, this is no coincidence, as in the dawn of movie making, editing, or "stitching together film," was the same as stitching together clothes in their minds, so the jobs were handed to seamstresses. The role of the editor was not considered a "creative" job at all, but more like a position in a sweatshop making blue jeans. Indeed the first editing facilities set up for mass production were modeled after sweatshops. I cut the sound for the film on a 16MM flatbed editing table that appears as itself in the actual movie.

The lead actor, Tom Sunderland, told me later that he based his character on watching me, which didn't compute at the time. I couldn't be that nervous and shaky and wide eyed at everything like that, could I? Doh!

Alyce LaTourelle went on to act in several indie movies and has a fun major role in a Troma movie called TERROR FIRMER. I found this out when I was visiting Lloyd Kaufman, the president of TROMA. After Lloyd took me to lunch we stopped by one of his editing suites to look at some scenes from his latest gore fest and there was Alyce on the screen. I was pretty blown away. The universe never fails to surprise me. And Ms. LaTourelle is not missing an eye as she is seen in my movie. I came up with the eye patch having seen a beautiful model wearing one at a restaurant in Little Italy.

Wait a minute! Didn't Angelina Jolie have an eye patch in SKY CAPTAINS AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW? They copied that from me! It seems I have no choice but to sue and put up a website comparing the eye patch on Angelina Jolie in SKY CAPTAINS to Alyce LaTourelle's eye patch in SUNRISE, shot by shot. And then I'll start a site countering my own arguments called the Angelina Wars. On second thought...

Also of note, the set dresser on the film, Regan Haines later worked on the sci-fi THE CLASS OF 1999, which starred Malcolm McDowell and was Rose McGowan's first movie as a frightened teen. Regan's dad directed a classic version of STEPPENWOLF back in the late sixties or early seventies. I'm actually in the movie as the cab driver with my voice dubbed, (you can tell). I have the hat and dark sunglasses and am 20 years younger.

We took over a 3 story abandoned hotel where we shot most of the film. The owner allowed us to do what we wanted as the building was due to be demolished soon. Our rent was to haul away two tons of garbage left there, some of it for decades. More movie glam. It was a dicey part of town and our wardrobe supervisor actually fought off a would-be-mugger outside our main entrance until he fled. You would never know that she was that tough, but everyone looked at her in a new light after that.

I’m posting the opening bit of SUNRISE ON ALPHABET CITY. I’ll post bits and pieces of the film over time. So I hope you can get past the scratchy bumpy film quality because I think it is worth the nostalgic chuckle. Goodbye AlphaCine Lab in your old incarnation. Times, they are a changin’.

-Later~

OUT OF DARKNESS INTO LIGHT READING

I attended a fascinating book reading in Seattle last night where three co-authors read from their book, OUT OF DARKNESS INTO LIGHT, Spiritual Guidance in the Quran with Reflections from Christian and Jewish Sources.

The three authors are Jamal Rahman, a renown Muslim Sufi Minister, Kathleen Schmitt Elias, a former Roman Catholic Nun who is now a Sufi Jew and Ann Holmes Redding a Muslim and a Christian with a doctorate in Christian scripture. Ms. Redding is also an Episcopalian Priest.

It was an experience to hear them read and share the many crossover points and similarities of the major world religions. At one point Mr. Rahman, in talking about interfaith thinking said, "If one is flexible, one can never be bent out of shape." After the reading we were able to mingle with the authors and have one on one questions and answers.

Here’s what Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa has to say about the book:

"The writers of this thoughtful and wise book take us gently by the hand and show us, `Here is the one God, the God of us all, right here in the Quran.' This message is actually quite good news, although it challenges the assumption that God is wholly owned by Christianity, or any one religion. I hope that Out of Darkness Into Light is read widely and taken to heart so that we all can widen our circles of embrace and recognize the God of love and compassion in more people and places."

If you have questions about the validity of keeping Kosher in a modern age, or how your particular faith may fit with the world religions or if you are an agnostic with questions of the various faiths, this book is an excellent guide map.

-Later~

GOT A COPY OF THE PILOT I PHOTOGRAPHED STARRING LAUREN SINCLAIR AND LOU FERRIGNO

I promised, for amusement, that I would, from time to time, link or post works that I have made contribution to in the past. So today is the first.

I set up a page on Youtube to collect some of these. This is a pilot I was one of two cinematographers on. Due to running time it is posted in two parts. It’s called 555 Expose and was shot with a Sony HD camera. It stars Lauren Sinclair (Face-Off) and Lou Ferrigno, who will forever be THE INCREADIBLE HULK to my generation. Mr. Ferrigno is currently in a new comedy with Jason Segel, I LOVE YOU, MAN.

The pilot was directed by Peter A. Dowling, a writer/director whose credits include, Flightplan starring Jodie Foster, which was a number one box office hit in the U.S. and grossed over $223,000,000 worldwide. The piece was produced by John O’Melveny Woods, Mary Keefe and Ricco Distefano.

I had a creatively positive experience on this production. Also a fun time touring around with Peter Dowling and friends and wisecracking at the end of the shoot.

All I have time for today.

-Later~

THANKS TO RANDY FOR GYPSY KING, BATMAN SUB-ZERO, ANIMANIACS

Today’s blog is a quick thanks to good friend Randy Rogel for the tickets to his show in progress, GYPSY KING. It was very funny and entertaining. Great musical theater writing. This show is developing for Broadway. It’s just the kind of show we need in these hard times.

Randy Rogel is the Producer/Writer of the Batman animated movie BATMAN, SUBZERO. I’ve heard a lot of people say they really like this Batman movie. Randy also co-created the animated series, PINKY AND THE BRAIN and written many ANIMANIACS episodes for Steven Spielberg. A several time Emmy winner and winner of the Peabody Award, Randy is also developing a new animated series with Howard Kazanjian, STAR WARS and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK producer. His show GYPSY KING is testing in a few cities. If you get a chance to check it out, I highly recommend it.

Also, one of the producers of the Lou Ferrigno pilot I co-photographed contacted me and is giving me another copy of the screener. (See yesterday's blog.) I’ll put it up as soon as I have it.

-Later~

CAN SOMEONE HELP ME FIND A LINK TO A FOX PILOT?

Just for kicks, I plan to occasionally link to commercial productions I’ve worked on over the years. Commercials, features, industrials, etc. I have worked in nearly every position in film production in the last 30 odd years. And some might be interested and/or amused by my roles in these. Lou Ferrigno will forever be THE INCREADIBLE HULK to my generation. Mr. Ferrigno is currently in a new comedy with Jason Segel, I LOVE YOU, MAN.

So, today, I was going to put up a link to a pilot for a FOX television series called 555 EXPOSE, starring Lou Ferrigno and Lauren Sinclair (Face-Off). I was one of two cinematographers on the production.

However I couldn’t find a link to it on the internet, and for the life of me I couldn’t locate my copy of the screener and I ran out of time. So I thought somebody reading this might know where a link is to a clip or the actual pilot, (if its legal), so I could link to it for amusement. If I don’t get a quick response on this from someone out there, I’ll contact the producers to get another screener.

Ms. Lauren Sinclair, some may remember, in FACE OFF, was the FBI agent that Nicholas Cage forces to eat a peach with before he throws her out of the cargo hold of a plane. Ms. Sinclair had the palest blue eyes that were just vivid on the high def camera it was shot with. I see why John Woo cast her in his film. On the 555 EXPOSE project, I actually came on as an alternate. The prime Director of Photography fell ill and had to bow out, so I was called in for the second half. I lost track of the production and I’m not sure if it got picked up, though I do not believe so.

But in any case, it was a very good experience and I loved the state of the art studios at Microsoft where the project was posted for some reason.

If you find the link I'm looking for and want to share, write to with it here. Thanks.

-Later~

SHORT POST - THE BATTLESTAR ENDING

A short post today. Surprised to be on the phone for hours, but extremely pleasant and positive talk. Very good things. Tonight is CHROME, CHROME, CHROME posting. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA was very satisfying last night. Don't want to give it away for those who haven't seen it yet. The massive space battle scenes were top notch. Bittersweet and right conclusion.

-Later~

THE END OF BATTLESTAR GALACTICA AND THE UNIVERSE RESEMBLES A BRAIN

As tonight the final episodes of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (see related post on March 16th.) are going to air, I thought I’d post this interesting link to the measured known Universe. The discovery of the position of stars and planets in relation to one another has left the scientific world with many questions. Who would have imagined that the universe clumps together in a pattern the deeply resembles the physical structure of a human brain? There is certainly more going on in known existence than we can begin to comprehend.

-Later~

DC'S WATCHMEN, STAN LEE, SPIDER-MAN, AND DARK HORSE COMICS

I saw WATCHMEN.

But, before I talk about WATCHMEN I want to say that, concerning my legal actions with DARK HORSE COMICS, nobody knows what was said between myself, the top executives at DARK HORSE and our respective attorneys. And none of the parties involved are talking.

Anybody who says otherwise, or implies that they are privy to private legal conversations my company had with DARK HORSE, is lying. Outright. I was not FORCED, by any imagination, to apologize. The apology came out of a complex series of conversations between my company and DARK HORSE, who is the third largest comic publisher in the world. Through these talks, I became convinced that the people at DARK HORSE did nothing wrong and they did not plagiarize my film. People may want to keep this matter alive, but it is over. Water under the bridge.

DARK HORSE is a fine publication and one of the few outlets for the creative flow of today and tomorrow’s great comics and graphic novels. HELLBOY, for example is entirely unique and fascinating.

People should check out the DARK HORSE website.



Back in the late sixties, a time some now call the silver age of comics, when I was a boy, I had collected 8,000 comic books. My favorite comic series was THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. I had SPIDER-MAN issues 1-120 without a break in the sequence. Lots of number ones. DAREDEVIL, IRON MAN (in TALES OF SUSPENSE), etc. I used to love the old paper smell of the comics. I would study the staples and reread the comics constantly, finding new subtle nuances each read through. I still have a modest collection of some of my favorites to this day. Like so many kids from that era, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Johnny Romita, and Jack Kirby helped keep my soul intact during a time of tremendous unrest in the country. Kennedy had recently been killed.

The Vietnam War was raging and the civil rights movement was refusing to back down in the face of tyranny. It is only how the grace of god seems to protect many children from their own idiocy, that I survived dressing up in a painted sweat shirt and black mask and sneaking out at 3AM to meet up with my boyhood friend, who was also masked, to go fight crime. We basically crawled around rooftops and fire escapes looking for villains to thwart. Our weapons were nothing as mundane as a knife or gun, not that we had access to a gun, but screwdrivers and plastic medicine bottles of actual red pepper. Oh dear god, I think how absolutely horrible for us it would have been had we ever encountered a REAL criminal or police officer who might have seen us, with our masks and lurking around on rooftops, as something other than super-heroes.

But what Stan Lee was to many in our youth, was a secret second father. Stan Lee is a man who not only wanted to sell comic books, but knew absolutely that he had the minds and spirits of impressionable youth in his hands. Me and my fellow comics collector friends lived, absolutely lived by the codes Lee expounded through, SPIDER-MAN, THE FANTASTIC FOUR, IRON MAN, DAREDEVIL and others. The most important of all was, "With great power comes great responsibility." It was saying you just can’t do whatever you want. You have to consider others. And the stronger you are, the less bully-like you should be.

I had a particular obsession with what they called GOLDEN AGE COMICS. In 1971, Rod Dyke, became the greatest comic seller in Seattle, (still is), when he started Dyke’s Books and Records in a store deep in the Pike Place Market, later changed the name of his business to honor the classic period, GOLDEN AGE COLLECTIBLES. I’ve often wondered if the comic seller in the SIMPSONS was based on him. Rod mellowed over the years, but back then he ruled us kids with an iron fist in his store. I remember how he used to stop ringing us up while he ate his lunch. We mulled around until he was finished. That gave us time to look around a bit more and created more business for him. I have nothing but love for the man, Rod Dyke, to whom I’m sure I’m just one of the many faces of child fans that flowed through his world.

But the GOLDEN AGE COMICS, these were long lost super heroes mostly from the 1940’s. There were many costume crusaders that eventually fell by the wayside and are today largely forgotten.

That’s why WATCHMEN immediately resonated for me. The mix of sixties music and the way in which the back story was presented, somehow perfectly captures the excitement about comics that I never quite seem to have been able to recapture in adulthood. Most absolutely, the movie CHROME that I’m working on is my humble attempt at recreating the excitement I once felt about the super heroes of my childhood.

THE WATCHMAN, in spite of that it is a movie that makes you have to use your little gray cells and not just have it roll over you like a great wash of, as Shakespeare said, "thunder and furry signifying nothing." The ending to WATCHMEN will be difficult for some. The melancholy undercurrents will detach or bore others. But if you are a true fan of superheroes you will be moved by this movie. The action is top rate and, in a stylistic way, far more violent than the director’s previous work, 300. My hat is off to the creators of WATCHMEN and DC Comics. I thank you for reawakening something I thought lost in me. Thank you for redefining something that had become cloudy. That is that comics were about something to kids. For some of us, they were our life’s blood to surviving the perils of our adolescence.

One of the coming attractions before WATCHMEN was the new STAR TREK trailer. Likewise, I was a huge fan of the original STAR TREK with William Shatner as Kirk. I remember waiting with excitement as a promised poster of Spock next to some glass lab beakers was to come out in the newspaper, The Seattle Post Intelligencer. When the poster arrived, it was a full page spread. I had that thing on my wall until it disintegrated.

So when the new ad began, I could barely contain my excitement. Paramount has really outdone itself this time in reconstructing STAR TREK for ALL the fans…Us from-the-first-series original STAR TREK fans, the Next Generation fans and all those fans that followed. THIS was the movie I was hoping for when the first STAR TREK movie was announced. OMG. To see the Enterprise on the ground. Ahhhhh OMG! I used to have dreams about seeing the Enterprise launch from the ground. I can’t wait. People can talk all the crap they want debating whether or not the new cast looks enough like the originals or whether they honor the NEXT GENERATION too much or not enough, I cannot wait to see this movie!

Gooooo STAR TREK! Gooooo!

RUMORS AND SARCOIDOSIS

Condolences and prayers for Liam Neeson, the Redgrave family and loved ones over the loss of the beautiful and talented Natasha Richardson today.



******



From time to time in this blog, I’ll be debunking a few rumors along with occasional reflections on them.


First off, I never worked in an ice cream store, never owned one, never had anyone pick up my mail at an ice cream store. So what the?? Someone brought me this from the net and I laughed so hard I had a huge coughing fit. I do love ice cream! Very much so! Ben and Jerry are no strangers to me.


Though it has been 28 years since I have worked in anything outside of the media and entertainment industry, when I first moved to Manhattan as a young man, I worked a variety of labor jobs to put food on the table. I’ve worked as a waiter and bike messenger. I loaded scrap metal for two days. At 19, I worked a security job at a county hospital. There must be plenty of things to make fun of in that. This Halloween, I was going to go to a party as PENTIMBOICECREAM MAN. I had an elaborate costume planned with a giant ice cream cone sticking out of the top of my head. But, alas, due to work time constraints, I went as a MEN IN BLACK by placing a clip on letter "K" over the pocket of a black suit. The costume was complete with a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses. The suit was not Armani like in the movie.


The second rumor I would like to debunk is that I have lymphoma. I do not. This may not be a rumor as much as a misunderstanding incorrectly repeated. Fifteen years ago I WAS diagnosed at first with lymphoma, as was common back then. Many of the symptoms of sarcoidosis mirror the symptoms of lymphoma. Doctor’s knew very little about sarcoidosis or even its existence in a lot of cases. On the results of exploratory surgery, it was revealed that I did NOT have lymphoma, but sarcoidosis.


Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about sarc:
Sarcoidosis, also called sarcoid (from the Greek σάρκ–, σάρξ, meaning "flesh") or Besnier-Boeck disease, is a multisystem disorder characterized by non-caseating granulomas (small inflammatory nodules). It most commonly arises in young adults. The cause of the disease is still unknown. Virtually any organ can be affected; however, granulomas most often appear in the lungs or the lymph nodes. Symptoms usually appear gradually but can occasionally appear suddenly. The clinical course generally varies and ranges from asymptomatic disease to a debilitating chronic condition that may lead to death.


The whole article can be read here.


Unfortunately for me, sarcoidosis has been the dark specter of my life. Far outshadowing anything I have had to face, anyone I have had conflict with. I have the chronic form of sarcoidosis. I’ve had sarc on my skin, in my retina, my liver, pulmonary system and my nervous system. I now know that I have had this disease since I was a child. People know me as high energy.


The truth is, this has always been tempered by sudden and debilitating loss of energy to the point I cannot pick up a pencil. With this, insomnia will set in deeper than the usual insomnia that sarc causes continuously. Picture absolute fatigue, like you’ve been up for twenty four hours, mixed with the feeling that you drank a pot of coffee. In addition to the fatigue, the high doses of prednisone I have to take for the sarc necrotizes my bone endings causing an arthritis type ache throughout my body that I live with every day.


At least some of my failures are directly a result of sarcoidosis pulling the rug out from under me when I least expect it. I understand that like Bernie Mac, who died of complications relating to Sarcoidosis and the brilliant gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, whose life was taken as a result of sarc, that my life may be foreshortened. Karen Duffy, an MTV veejay and Revlon model, was forced to quite show business for a great period of time as a result of sarcoidosis attacking her brain.


Each time the disease flares up, it leaves scar tissue. This scar tissue builds up over the years and eventually may be my last end. In the meantime, I work and plan and plot to trick my way around these physical barriers and try to have the life of bliss that most of us hope for. I am not my sarcoidosis. It is something that plagues me physically, though
I’ve made spiritual peace with what I have been handed.


******


Internet rumors are weird to me.


I can understand people who don’t like me or my movies voicing their opinions and comments on the internet. Calling me out on my approach to producing and or the artistic aspects of my filmmaking is constructive to everyone. I certainly learn as I go.


But what I don’t understand are individuals that, instead of just commenting or debating about me and my movies, resort to making up twisted rumors and spreading them as if their life depended on it. What’s up with that?


Okay, I did this or that to create and market my movie, blunderously offended this person or that person along the way, ticked off the wrong guy over here or completely mangled relations with a collaborator or potential collaborator over here. And all of that is fair game. As I said before, I’ve made mistakes.


And with reflection, I think most people’s reactions were honest and straightforward concerning my movie and the way I made it.


But some…Some have a need to blur the lines and go beyond civilized debate. Some have a need to grab the reality and twist it into a story of pure fantasy where, in my case, I may have well brought down the fabric of western civilization. Labeling someone forces people to look at the label laid over the person and forget the human being. In such a case one can justify all manners of uncivilized behavior towards another.


It’s cool with me, if one so desires to wile away their time talking about my flaws and mistakes and one’s likes or dislikes about my work.


But what’s not cool is making nasty mean spirited shit up. It may be funny in the moment. I sometimes get a few laughs out of it. But what’s the point. It’s sad. It’s sad in the way Harry, of HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS was sad at the violence of John Lithgow’s character in defending him as much as Bob Hoskins' violence against him. It was all just coming from pain and the truth freed them when they all realized it together.


I’ve been around long enough not to see that most people don’t work their problems out. It’s time. The world is growing more aware. People are learning about themselves and others more than any other time in human history. We can all feel the rapidity of that change. Sometimes I see that it is possible for us to awaken ourselves into a world where actions based on our fears of loss of ego or fears of perishing will be overcome with enlightenment.


I’m not naive. I don’t believe this kind of sad crap is going to go away tomorrow, just like my sarcoidosis is not going to go away tomorrow. As long as I make movies I’m probably really going to chap some people’s asses because actions bring reactions. Their actions have brought actions of reflection to me. I am growing. And I will make movies, as I said in my first blog, for some time to come. I am open to reading anything anyone has to say on this subject. I may publish part or all of what you write in my blog. Write to" timothyhinesblog@gmail.com.


Next week, amongst other things I’ll recount experiences and people I encountered leading up to the creation of H.G. WELLS’ THE WAR OF THE WORLDS.


-Later~

THE MUSIC OF WAR OF THE WORLDS

When one thinks of WAR OF THE WORLDS music, the first thing, rightfully, that comes to mind, is Jeff Wayne’s brilliant and amazing stage production and album concert production of the book which has sold millions of CD’s and many thousands of concert tickets. The work of Wayne on this is so spectacular that one could say it is definitive. With narration from the book by the late great actor, Richard Burton, everyone should hear and own this music.

Jamie Hall’s score in my movie H.G. WELLS’ THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, aka, THE CLASSIC WAR OF THE WORLDS, is spectacular in its own right and is apples and oranges to Mr. Wayne’s labor of love. Haunting and immensely stirring, Jamie Hall’s score invokes a range of emotions. I’ve heard many say it’s the best aspect of the movie.

When Jamie and I sat down to plan the music, direction and themes, one of the things we wanted to achieve was music befitting the end of the world. The bringing of humanity to its knees required a full and powerful war sound, but also had to invoke deep tragedy. I knew from Jamie’s earlier works that Jamie had it in him.

A major concern was that we just didn’t have it in the budget for a live orchestra. We explored recording in Eastern Europe where you can obtain a full symphony on a budget and get great sound. THE RED VIOLIN was recorded in Eastern Europe on a budget.

But alas, budget AND logistics of the tight timeline pointed us toward synthesized orchestra. Jamie had many examples of where synth orchestras fail and where they succeed. He worked hard on not letting the format punch through and take you away from the score. What he produced was nothing short of instant classic. His music for WOTW makes the hairs on your arms stand on end at points. Here’s a review of Jamie’s score:

Film Score Monthly
Review of
H.G. Wells'
The WAR of the WORLDS
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
3 1/2 stars (out of 4)

Out of necessity, this is a low-budget score that makes use of high quality orchestral samples. If you accept the score on those terms, there is much to enjoy here. The opening "March of the Martians" features an excellent syncopated rhythmic drive and strong thematic writing. Hall is capable of writing memorable, lyric themes, and his love theme in particular is gorgeous. Some of the score's more horrific moments feature effective aleatoric clusters, and in "The Martians Come Out" Hall briefly throws in the effect of a large wordless chorus. In all, this is a diverse and rewarding listen despite the limitations of the score's electronic realization.

Jamie Hall is a good man. His soul shines through everything he does. Especially his music. Jamie’s now scoring a couple of other films and Jamie will continue his collaboration with Pendragon Pictures with a fresh wonderfu score for the upcoming robot pic, CHROME. This time live orchestra. I’ll talk more about CHROME soon. The music score for H.G. WELLS’ THE WAR OF THE WORLDS is now out at Amazon.com as well as Itunes. It is a definite compliment to your classical music and film scores collection.

Also keep an eye out on this blog for recounts of my many hilarious mistakes and uber-blunders in Hollywood.

-Later~

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA IS AT ITS END

This was published yesterday in the New York Times:

Arts, Briefly
‘Battlestar Galactica’: The Worldview

By PATRICK
HEALY; Compiled by JULIE BLOOM
Published: March 15, 2009

The United
Nations and the Sci Fi Channel will present a panel discussion Tuesday evening on the social and political issues raised by the Sci Fi series "Battlestar Galactica," which concludes on Friday night. Moderated by Whoopi Goldberg (a frequent guest on "Star Trek: The Next Generation"), the topics include human rights, terrorism, and reconciliation and dialogue among civilizations and faiths. Among those participating are "Battlestar" actors Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, above, as well as the show’s executive producers, Ronald D. Moore and David Eick. The event is invitation-only.

The article can be found
here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/arts/television/16arts-THEWORLDVIEW_BRF.html?ref=arts

Since the beginning, I've been a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica. Sadly, its coming to its conclusion Friday. The series is led by Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell. McDonnell was the first lady in INDEPENDENCE DAY. I’ve often felt that Battlestar Galactica is one of the most intelligent shows on the air.

Kudos to Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, Ray Cannella and the Sci-Fi Channel, and all the great talent that brought the show to life and kept it there. Based on a 1970s series that was a virtual copy of Star Wars. So similar that Lucas sued over it and lost. But by a hair's bredth.

One would never have guessed that such an in depth and well produced show would arise from such humble ashes. But it did rise. The show deals realistically with death, survival, government, religion and living with villains. And the cgi is very nice. The space battles are quite breathtaking. The effects are very carefully laid out and the Cylon Centurions have improved from season to season.

I’m taking time out from post-production on CHROME tonight to watch a one hour behind the scenes special on the making of Battlestar. When the show ends the show will leave a void.

-Later~

MY FIRST BLOG

This is my blog. It’s not a WAR OF THE WORLDS or CHROME blog, though I’ll probably talk about those pictures occasionally. Like today, for instance.

Also, I am not going to respond to obnoxious crack-addled letters from the demented minds of worked up cyberstalkers, some of whom have been at it for 9 years now. You know who you are. But I jest. Does that qualify them as career cyberstalkers? A lot of ball players have a shorter professional run than that. But I will wax on poetic about the internet cyber-crazies at some other time. For now, see Tina Fey’s acceptance speech at this year’s Emmy Awards.

Comedian Russell Brand has a great bit on persistent internet stalkers. I will, from time to time, respond to polite inquiries and comments.

I’ve always made movies. Or it feels like always. I have spent the majority of my time on this Earth creating/manipulating images and sound. I do not believe I’m entitled to make movies. I don’t have a childish impetuousness or sense of divine right about being in the movie biz. Movies are what I do. It’s what I am. How I express.

I’ve been making movies since I was eight years old. I came from a large family, the last of ten brothers and sisters. I have dozens of nephews and nieces, aunts uncles, cousins. My parents were depression era people, both born in 1917. I was a great surprise addition to a brood that started in the 1930’s. I grew up around a massive breakfast table, not unlike that in the book and movie CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN. I was always fascinated with the swirling energy of so much family and so many voices. My family spoke all at once. In this maelstrom I found expression through stories, art and film.

And as anyone who knows me knows I have always wanted to make THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. I have sketches and screenplay drafts dating back 35 years. I have worked hard to get WAR OF THE WORLDS made. Harder than most could comprehend, the time spent on getting this production to screen. So what went wrong? Why isn’t it the smashing gem of a masterpiece I envisioned and it started out as? Let me be clear on my thoughts about the film. It is flawed. Some parts or moments are so flawed that they undoubtedly deserve the label Ed Wood and Mystery Science Theater. But the film sold 600,000 DVDs and it is entertaining. And some of the film actually rises to the levels we intended, as thousands of viewers have written to tell me so. Nearly as many have told me to throw myself into an active volcano rather than inflict my movie making on them again.

So how did the film turn out the way it did? Well, for starters, if there was a mistake to be made, I probably made it…twice. It wasn’t as if the many talented artists weren’t aware that flaws were slipping into, or not being sanded out of the film. It wasn’t the artistry. It was how much time we had to perform that artistry. Mistakes I made on agreeing to impossible time limitations with distributors and mistakes I made with where to apply the budget affected what we were able to do. I’ve often thought I should have cut scenes, let those chips fall where they may, so to speak, and concentrate the production’s resources on the remaining scenes. I’ll go more in depth on this later.

But should I have not tried? Some have said that I shouldn’t have. Well, the universe was here arguably about 13 billion years, then the current generations were born. We’ll be here for such an infinitesimally small period of time that taken into account the life span of the universe, we don’t register. Not at all. In fact, looking at the life span of the Earth, our planet will have spent more time existing in a gaseous state than will be spent as solid matter. Life is fleeting. Like the Buddhist sand paintings. Blip, here and gone. The moment is too precious to let slip by. For better or worse, we must take risks. We must be brave and face our mistakes, our enemies and those we have wronged along with the successes and joys that life may grace us with. So, I have definitely made mistakes. Would I do things differently? Oh yes. But would I do it again? In a New York minute.

Over the years, I have encountered many people who have wanted to remake or make a version of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. Along with some praise and appreciation, I’ve received much public flogging as the director of the period version of WAR OF THE WORLDS. But I have something in common with Steven Spielberg, George Pal, Orson Welles, Jeff Wayne, David Michael Latt, C. Thomas Howell and Roland Emmerich. We all tried to bring the magnificent fantasy of H.G. Wells’ novel, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, to life. At the heart of it, there it is. I will learn better business and people relation skills. As I go forward, I will grow my strengths and work to reduce my flaws and vanities. One cannot have too much humility. But I will always take the leap. I will always take the risk to live out this life at its fullest.

– Later ~