Mom's Visit...

Let's take a break from film and talk about more important things: family. My Mother flew in for the weekend and had a wonderful time. If memory serves me correctly, she has not visited LA since my graduation in 2007, so after much pressure and pointing out how many times I have gone to Phoenix, I got her to come out.

Mom at the Korean Friendship Bell in Ft. MacArthur in

San Pedro.

She arrived earlier than I thought in Burbank, so I got to leave work early (darn!). We came back home and she finally got to see where I call home. I cooked pork chops with spuds n' carrots, and served 'em up with cottage cheese, bread, and apple sauce. Delicious dinner.

After, on a whim, she decided she wanted to see just a little of LA on her first night. Apparently her nausea from her vomitous flight in had subsided. I did her one better and showed her the whole city.

We drove up to the Griffith Observatory, which is up there right by the Hollywood sign. You may know this place as where James Dean has the class field trip in Rebel Without a Cause. It was an unusually clear night and we could see all the way to Long Beach, including Catalina Island. Unfortunately, it was too dark to take a picture, so the memory will have to do.

Mom and I at the Pacific in San Pedro.

On day 2, we rose early and I took Mom to get the Dairy way out in Montebello. It's farmer fresh and much cheaper than the grocery store; despite the distance. We got back home within an hour and made a huge breakfast.

Mom was starting to get a little freaked out by the city and wanted to see "beautiful California." So I took her North to Lake Elizabeth. I had been on a shoot there some time ago and had been meaning to go back. What was truly shocking was that I remembered how to get there by memory.

When we arrived, I took some pictures on my large format camera and enjoyed the scenery for a while. Then we went to the Rock Inn and had a very greasy lunch. Before leaving, I noticed they had an Addams Family pinball machine in the corner, so I hit that up and finally got my pinball fix. We drove back and I developed the negatives while my Mom read. We turned in relatively early.

On Sunday, Mom's last day in town, she was starting to get kind of tired and wanted to vegetate. But she hadn't seen the Ocean yet so I said, "no way." I drove her down to San Pedro, which is just next to Long Beach, to Fort MacArthur. The view is truly stunning, and I took some more pictures on 35mm; this time with a near-infrared film stock called Ilford SFX. It gives you that somewhat dreamy quality you're seeing with the pictures on this post. Unfortunately, they don't scan very well so this really isn't doing them justice.

The Vincent Thomas Bridge.

There was also an NA meeting happening at the park, and Mom stopped to listen in for a minute. So no matter where she's at, if it's Sunday, she will find a meeting. That's all there is to it. After that, we headed to the Port of Los Angeles, right under the Vincent Thomas Bridge.

The main point was for me to photograph the bridge, but we also stopped to admire the trolley that services the port (though we did not ride it) and look at the enormous cruise ships that were docked there.

Me in front of the Sea Princess at the Port of Los Angeles

We were about to pack it in when Mom noticed the SS Lane Victory, a navy vessel that was docked literally right under the bridge. We realized it was a museum, so we paid the admission and hopped aboard.

Needless to say, memories of Wampa immediately took hold, especially when we found the companies' piano near the radio room. It was quite something to see how these sailors must have lived. The quarters were quite cramped, and the boat could be a bit difficult to get your bearings on. But there was also an incredible freedom to it as well. Just you, the boat, and the Ocean.

I snapped a bunch of pictures before joining Mom starboard. It was about Mid-afternoon and we had to get back to my place in North Hollywood. On the way back, we saw a near-fatal car accident, and judging by the look on Mom's face, I think she had enough of the Los Angeles freeway.

Mom on the S.S. Lane Victory.

Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro.

On the way back, we stopped at a Mexican restaurant called El Torito in Burbank. It was right across the street from NBC studios where the Tonight Show with Jay Leno is taped. We stuffed ourselves silly, then headed back to my place.

Mom finished up the book she was reading and then I took her back to the airport. We said our good-byes and discreetly gave ourselves the family "shalom." The weekend really flew by, but I was glad she got to see a lot more of LA then just concrete. In fact, we didn't watch a single movie, didn't go to Hollywood, and watched all of maybe 60 minutes of TV. There's a lot more to life than all the distractions that seem to dominate our daily existence. It's definitely hard to live so far from family, but we definitely made the most out of it while we were together.

Captain's Quarters

S.S. Lane Victory

Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, CA

MOVIE REVIEW: GREEN ZONE

Jen got the hook-up for a free showing of this movie from the Producer's Guild of America. The screening was last Friday night at the WGA theatre in Beverly Hills and it was shown on 35mm. I'll just come right out and say it: This is a great movie. Much better than I thought it would be.

Green Zone takes place in 2003 in Iraq. The USA has just invaded, and Chief Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) is in charge of a group of soldiers who have been dispatched to find weapons of mass destruction.

As we now know, there weren't any. This movie makes a point that a lot of soldiers fought and died to secure weapons that didn't exist from bad intelligence. Miller begins to question who's providing this intelligence and why this person should be trusted after providing three bogus locations.

As the picture goes on, Miller finds himself in the middle of a military campaign quickly going to hell as the U.S. government makes a series of pivotal mistakes that puts him in grave danger. This is a thriller with a lot of brains, and I was really impressed with how good the plot was. Honestly, I was expecting more of an action film.

That's not to say the flick is short on that. It starts off with a big battle, and ends in a chase scene that as good as I've ever seen at the movies. Add to the mix one brutal villain in the form of a Special Forces Op with a license to kill (Jason Isaacs), and this one's a winner.

Unfortunately, the film is seriously under-performing at the box office. It is being labeled as left-wing and Un-American . I say B.S. to that; putting our soldiers in harms way without reliable intelligence is Un-American. This film made valid points about those first days in Iraq, how we lacked a cynical press to cover it, and what the effects were on the ground troops who had to carry out dangerous missions based on "bad intelligence."

My rating: """"

IT'S ALIVE!!!

Over the past few months, Jen and I have been ever more serious about getting in to post-production sound. Up until now, I've worked exclusively as a production sound mixer. In that role, it is my job to record good sound on set, as it occurs. Basically, that means getting clean dialogue.

A post-sound mixer is the person who would take my audio and go to town on it. First, they would repair any problems from the original audio, such as clicks, pops, spit, etc. Then they would EQ out any unwanted ambience like hum, echo, and reverb. If the dialogue is completely unusable, the actor would need to come back and record their lines again, in sync to picture. This is called ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement). This is to be avoided if at all possible, since it requires hiring an operator and paying the actor again.

After that, they do the fun part of making the sound sexy. Adding footsteps, punches, artificial ambeince, gunshots, explosions, gore, music cues, you name it. This is a painstaking process that can take months depending on the size of the film and the unique problems of the production. All of this is done digitally with a program called PRO TOOLS. It's very complicated, but the picture below shows you what a typical project looks like.

Notice that the image is on the top line. Underneath

are the various soundtracks. Other windows are

plug-ins that process the audio for a desired effect.

This is definitely Jen's dream more than mine. But I have found myself more and more interested in it lately. So much so, that I'm starting a studio with my tax return and some money I've been saving. This way, we can have both sides of the sound coin. I got a BIG head start when Columbia gave me a Digi 002 console. It's a digital mixer that interfaces with the program to make sound editing much easier. Very expensive piece of equipment that I won't have to pay for, so the studio will definitely be a contender when it's done.

The glorious Digi 002 mixing console.

List Price: $2,250. My Price: $0.00

To prepare for what will hopefully become a career, we have audited a class at Columbia for no charge (a perk for alumni). Our Litmus Test is a short film called "Dead Dog" that our friend Josh made but never finished due to bad audio. Significant improvements have already been made, but we have a long way to go.

Unfortunately, I'm forced to use an old version of the program on my laptop with the Digi 002 rack I got from Columbia. My computer simply can not handle what is necessary, and it will crash quite often. Still, Rome wasn't built in a day. And it's pretty freakin' incredible when you consider how sound used to be done: in a giant lab with lots of reels.

Milk Studios - Twilight Fashion Shoot

So this was a big one. I got hired by Channel M again to do sound on a Nordstrom fashion show; a two day gig. This one was going to showcase a new line of clothing inspired by the Twilight craze. Big money was on the set, and that wasn't good when things started to go bad.

The gig was in Hollywood at Milk Studios. We were shooting on Stage 5. At first I thought my job would be a piece of cake since we were shooting on a sound stage. It wasn't. The place is for art exhibits and photo shoots; meaning it was built for picture and NOT sound. We could hear construction from both of the adjoining stages!

But the more immediate problem was that the driver with our equipment had gotten into a car accident. So we would be starting very late. Once we finally did start rolling, we could not get clean audio because there was just too much noise, including from within our own stage. It was a struggle to even get them to turn the music off. But the priority was to the photo shoot, so we'll see how post deals with that.

Luckily, we ended up taking so long the art crew eventually finished and we got some clean takes. We ended up braking after about eight hours, which in film is a very short day.

Day 2 started off with a shocker. On my way to the studio the director called me and said there were problems with the audio. I was puzzled by this because I hadn't surrendered the sound masters yet, so how could he have made a judgement call without hearing it? It turns out that when I brought the sound problems up, he had asked the folks to keep it down (this was people in our own stage, mind you). Apparently, someone high up had a problem with that.

I cut him off and asked straight out, "Excuse me, are you trying to tell me that I'm fired?" He replied, "You? No! I'M FIRED!" I was really caught off-guard by this. The director, from what I saw, was very professional when he asked for the crew to keep it down. He didn't tell anybody anything, he asked. I know this town is all about ego, but I was genuinely surprised that someone would have such a problem with that where they would go out of their way to have him fired. They could have just had him spoken to and put in his place, but I guess that's how it goes in this town.

I told him I felt bad that an audio problem brought all this up. He said not to worry, and he was sure that the firing was just for this gig and not with Channel M entirely. He even told me that I was his favorite sound mixer that he ever had, and he has worked on some BIG shows. But he closed the conversation with a warning: I would need to be "invisible" to the art crew since an audio problem brought this up.

I had to take a picture of this. Honestly, when was the last

time you saw Big League Chew?!

That's a lose-lose situation, folks. On one hand, if I bring up another audio problem, I could be fired next. On the other hand, if I don't, then post will get the audio and complain that the sound is bad. Word will get back to a decision maker who is unfamiliar with the problem; all they know is that the sound is bad and that means the sound mixer is bad. Presto, Channel M doesn't call me back. I would be doing a delicate dance today, it seemed.

I got to set early, and the replacement director immediately made it clear that sound would not be allowed to roll until after the photo shoot (some five hours later). He dismissed me from set with a new call time of 2:00pm. I decided to go to Location Sound Corp. in North Hollywood and get a rental straight for a gig in April.

I swung back home and hung out with Jen for a minute before going back to set. Lunch was amazing, but after that things got pretty busy. I did get them to turn off the music, and for the most part the sound was clean given the circumstances. One of the models did not like being recorded though, and started to bat at my boom microphone. Luckily she missed it, because if she didn't I would have said something to her. To hell with being fired, it's a $2,000 microphone and this gig wasn't insured.

We wrapped out the talent pretty quick and then we shot out the stage. It had storyboards from the upcoming Twilight film, and it turned out the whole cast and crew was next door for the premiere party of the last installment, Breaking Dawn. I ran into someone from the crew in the bathroom and asked if they could sneak me in. He said, "no way" without a laminate and informed me that security was armed. So I stuck to my stage.

We finished up a few hours later without incident. In fact, someone ordered champagne from us (and not the cheap crap either) and we all had a toast at the end. I was able to make a pretty clean getaway, and the whole day was done once again in about eight hours. I really hope to work for Channel M again. They are by far my best-paying client, the easiest one to work for, and the one with the biggest gigs. We'll have to wait and see...

P.S.: In case you're wondering, the t-shirt I'm wearing in this picture is from the North Carolina School of the Arts Film Conservatory. They had given it to me when I was being interviewed by them, and I very nearly went to that college instead of Columbia. I didn't even know I had the thing until I dug it out for this job (dress code was all black). Looking back on it now, I feel I definitely made the right decision to go to L.A. instead of that school. I questioned that decision many times before because it was an incredible film school. I'm glad I am at peace with that now.

AMERICA'S MOST WANTED HITS EPISODE 1,000!

Last night, Jen and I tuned in to watch the 1,000th episode of America's Most Wanted. It was a special show to commemorate the series unusually long run (it is now the longest running program in FOX's history; beating The Simpsons!) and its many accomplishments. Throughout the episode, AMW was congratulated by the U.S. Marshalls, the FBI, and finally, Barrack Obama in a feature interview.

For over 22 years, John Walsh has been the sole host of this show. AMW has captured over 1,100 fugitives and found over 60 missing children. You really have to give the show its props. Unlike its long time lead-in, COPS, which arguably exploits its subjects and trivializes police work, America's Most Wanted aims to provide a public service and make a difference. It is motivated by a desire to help victims, or at the very least, provide closure.

Jen was in tears by the end of it. Although it is often made fun of for its sensational presentation, it really can be an emotional show at times. My lovely girlfriend was especially kleenex-seeking when the show had a look back at families being reunited with the children AMW had helped find.

Viewers also saw the real John Walsh. He's usually sports the "tough-on-crime, no mercy" demeanor on the show, but he was much more soft spoken during the interview with President Obama. He was notably shaky when discussing the death of his beloved son, Adam.

And that, in my opinion, is why I think the show has lasted. If it was just some host, I don't think audience's would buy it. But John Walsh really does have a credibility as a victim's right advocate and crime-fighter. He wants justice, and when you hear is story, you (the viewer) want to help him.

Million dollar ideas are rare in the entertainment industry, folks. Trust me. By today's standards, a TV show is a success if it makes it to season 2. In a time when TV was already expensive to produce, someone came up with a show that cost almost no money, could be made very quickly, and had a concept that really got the ratings: interactive TV. Minimum investment, maximum return: AMW wrote the book on that one, and it helped push the the new FOX network as a serious contender on broadcast TV. And true to its roots, by the time one of the profiles had concluded on this anniversary episode we were watching, a breaking news banner hit the screen announcing that the fugitive had been caught. Whoever came up with the concept of AMW, they deserve the paycheck.

But beyond that, the show really has made a difference. It's hard to believe looking back on it, but the show has solved some BIG profile cases including John List, The Texas Seven, and perhaps their most famous case: the recovery of Elizabeth Smart and the apprehension of her captors.

It seems like there hasn't been a real "American Hero" in forever. We don't really look up to our leaders anymore, and I think the same can be said about a lot of other public figures: athletes, movie stars, etc. But given his incredible contributions, it's safe to say that John Walsh is truly an American Hero that we can look up to. I can think of no other ordinary person that has done so much to help so many. When interviewed about the landmark number, Walsh admitted he never believed it would last this long: "I don't think anybody did," he said. "It's kind of mind boggling." It is indeed. So congratulations to him on this truly "mind-boggling" accomplishment.

One tough week at Columbia College Hollywood

It's been one hell of a week at work. There are two film festivals this week, including the annual Industry Film Festival in Hollywood. Payroll was due, and we continue to have an interesting time with our new computer system. Plus, there's always the day-to-day grind.

It's hard for me to believe that I have been working here, on and off, for almost six years now. I really don't know where the time has gone. It's hard for me to remember that I was ever a student here. Columbia has definitely become more of a job to me, and less an alma mater. But maybe that will change some day.

If one needs an illustrated picture of just how crazy work has been, just take a look at my office. It's like an I SPY or WHERE'S WALDO game. So let's play. See if you can find the following items:

* Lava Lamp *

* Kilroy *

* Replica of the Maltese Falcon *

* Wampa's old Winchester *

* Bottled Water (Can you find BOTH?!) *

So I'm really looking forward to this weekend. But it's only Tuesday. Still, I am very grateful to have a job and very grateful for the scratch it brings in. I wish Warner Bros. would give me a call already, but CCH will have to do for now.