lazy sundays

Sorry about the recent lack of posts. It's the holiday season and I've spent a shocking amount of time away from the computer. Also, until yesterday I had nothing to blog about.

I was eating with a few good friends at a dim sum buffet in Chinatown in San Francisco yesterday, when my cell phone rang. It was a (310) number I didn't know. Immediately I knew that could only mean one thing: Hollywood was calling.

I sprinted outside into the crowded street, and answered just before it went to voicemail. Just like that, a woman (who didn't actually introduce herself) told me I'd been offered a part-time job as production assistant on a new reality TV show for VH1. It was the job I'd applied for two weeks ago by sending in my resumé-- and they were finally calling back.

I'm going to work Sundays, again twelve-hour shifts, for $120 a day.

The show is a dating "boot camp" where eight women live in a house together and learn from a professional matchmaker about what men want. I'll go ahead and say the name of the show-- it's called Tough Love, produced by Drew Barrymore. When the action starts I obviously won't be able to blog much about the specifics. There are several pages of confidentiality agreements I need to sign. I feel like I'm joining the FBI.

So all in all, a minor success. I got a new job-- for one day a week. Most of the other PAs are full-time. Meh. I have almost no experience, so it makes sense.


I also hooked up with my old friend All About the Hamiltons over the break, who's a full-time film student at San Francisco State. He's about to start shooting a new project, and we both want me to be involved somehow. Right now it looks like I'm going to be the assistant director! Unfortunately my Sunday gig might be a pretty serious conflict, so this might all go down the crapper. Bleh.

If you ever get a chance to take a drive up PCH, take it. It's literally the world's best road. California beaches are beautiful.

And that's the word, for now.

question.

Is it a bad sign when they ask for your resumé, then tell you a phone call is coming on Monday, and then Monday comes and goes-- without a phone call?

credit number two?

At around 4 pm today, Key PA from, uh... "Marriage Castle" called me. He told me about a position on another movie-- a production assistant job, someone "with experience in post".

Luckily for me I spent my first hours in the "Hollywood" school of business as a go-fer at Dogmatic Creative Production. The little editing/production house in Venice Beach. I sat around in an editing room, listening to Bruce Springsteen on my boss D-Dog's computer speakers, talking about Rock Band and/or doing homework. Oh and I picked a couple things up about Final Cut, too. I think.

Back to today. Key PA sounded deadly serious when he gave me this offer. He told me "Don't say anything about being an intern." He wanted me to get a paid position. I was touched... he was delivering on his promise from a few weeks ago.

Then he said "Don't fuck me on this, Flood." And, ah yes-- I felt familiar ground again.

So I had my buddy Diego copy down a name, phone number and email for a prospective new boss. Another potential H-wood contact. I went home, touched up the ol' resumé and sent it off to her inbox. Then I called and left a voicemail on her cell phone.

Half an hour later, I got a callback. She apparently didn't get my resumé attachment the first time-- but she said that was only a formality, and that I'd most likely be getting the job.

They're going to call me back by next Monday to fill me in on the details.

rambo

Let's pause for a minute and reflect on the sheer ballsitude of America's manliest actor-writer-producer-director: Sylvester Stallone.


OK, maybe "roid-itude" was the better word. Look at that ARM. You could take a dirt bike and do jumps off those veins.

I had the privilege (today) of watching his latest dream project come to life: the newest Rambo. A couple of friends and I had time to kill and an HDTV at our mercy, so we popped in a Blu-ray copy and settled down to watch. It was just barely ninety minutes long. These days, most movies are closer to the magical two-hour mark. I knew it was supposed to be gory, but I thought, come on... even Willy Wonka was longer than this. It couldn't be too bad.

In the opening scene-- before the name "Rambo" even crossed the screen-- nine people were shot. Civilians.

Some Burmese soldiers had captured them, and for sport they set them free to run away. As the soldiers laughed and jeered the poor stumbling innocents, one of the civilians stepped on a land mine and exploded in a shower of red. Then the others were gunned down, one by one.

This happened before Sylvester Stallone even stepped on screen. And you know when Rambo comes on, it's gonna get worse.

Rambo kills people with pistols, machine guns, machetes, rocks, a BOW AND ARROW, 50-cal sniper rifles, gatling guns, and of course... his fists. (In one scene, he actually rips a man's throat out with his bare hands. He does this right in front of his main leading lady, as she cowers in fear and horror. I think some of the blood actually sprays onto her. Bridge to Terabithia this is not.)

The thing about Rambo is the absolute ridiculous, needless lengths it goes to for the sake of being badass. People were just constantly dying. Not just bad people either-- literally hundreds of civilians were wasted. And Stallone didn't hesitate to show it all on camera.

Children were brutally executed. Women were beaten and raped. Even animals got the Burma treatment. No one was safe. (Except Rambo, but he can't die ever.)

There's an old moviemaking rule: Never kill a child on-screen. It's just not something you do. Stallone knew that rule, because every director knows that rule... but when making Rambo he apparently decided to say "fuck that". Because Sly is too tough to play with the pansy pants on. I think his motto for making the movie was "if it breathes, kill it".

I will say this, though: after all the shit the Burmese soldiers did, it sure felt good to watch Stallone open a ten-gallon drum of Whoop-A on them at the end. For me it was the bow and arrow that did it. I mean, come on. That's just cool.

Then there was a sequence where Rambo was being chased by over a hundred Burmese soldiers-- and he found a chain gun. Suddenly I thought I was watching somebody play Halo.

And Stallone did show some directing, uh... talent prowess skill moxie from time to time. There was a dream sequence filled with fire, rage, and body parts exploding-- it was using footage from the first three Rambos, I guess. Sly really edited the hell out of that thing. The acting was over-the-top ridiculous, so of course it fit perfectly with the rest of the movie.

This movie really got me thinking. You know those T-shirt guns they have at baseball games sometimes? They should make a gun like that, except that it shoots live cobras. You could disguise it easily-- just hide the snakes. That would really liven up the next Jonas Brothers concert.

Also, I think it's possible this movie may have warped my mind a bit.

of elephants, millionaires, and milk

Fuck, I used to get comments on here. What happened??

----

I saw Milk earlier tonight. First things first-- Sean Penn knocked it out of the park. That bro can seriously act. Gus Van Sant's direction was decent. It was really a character-driven story, so the best way to service the story was for the director to get the hell out of the way and not make things too fancy. Van Sant is an expert at that.

A few years ago he made Elephant, a super-low-budget indie film about the days leading up to the Columbine massacre. It basically consisted of about fifteen to twenty tracking shots, following random students as they walked through hallways and around the school grounds. The film was about as tense as the Great Chevy Malibu Race. We all know what happened at Columbine, but that doesn't give you the right as a director to simply show PEOPLE WALKING AROUND for ninety minutes and expect instant drama.

Plus, the kids' conversations with each other are completely inane. Yes, you say, but at least it's realistic. I could make a nine-hour-long movie about the average day of a mail sorter and have it be fully realistic-- would that also make it compelling?

Then just as the tragedy is finally about to unfold, *spoiler alert* the fictional Harris and Klebold have a gay love scene in the shower. Uh..................... What?!?

Of course, Elephant went on to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2003. (No lie. Look it up.) Van Sant also won Best Director. I think a movie doesn't have to be good to win the Golden Palm-- it just has to be indie enough.

Milk has no such problem. Van Sant couldn't add tension to a paintball match on the Gaza Strip, but luckily for him the story doesn't need it. It's an inspiring true story about a gay businessman (Harvey Milk) in San Francisco who ran for public office in the 70s, eventually succeeded, and helped protect the rights of homosexuals by leading a grassroots movement to strike down Proposition 6 in 1978, before being assassinated days later.

It's too bad Van Sant wanted to hold this one back for awards season, because there are some real eerie connections with a certain California proposition that ended up passing this year. If Milk had been released two months ago, who knows how things might have been different?

James Franco really surprised me with a great turn as Harvey Milk's oldest lover. Although this isn't the first time this year he's put out a great performance. Saul the pot dealer in Pineapple Express was brilliant.

And Saul the pot dealer was just recently nominated for a Golden Globe. Woah man. That's like... wait, what?

I also saw Slumdog Millionaire this week, which I won't get into very much. But that film could seriously win Best Picture. It was THAT GOOD. Electric, perfectly paced, whirling with emotions and colors. I can't recommend it highly enough. In fact I won't give away anything else-- because you need to see this movie, and you need to see it in theaters.

You'll thank me. You'll be all like-- "That Iggy really gave me a good tip about Slumdog. I'm glad I visited that silly website of his. What was it again?"

http://iggysquest.blogspot.com

Now start commenting! Goddamn it. Do I have to get over there with a rubber hose and--

thanks for all the fish

And just like that-- it's over.

Saturday of last week I was at a football game. My esteemed university was taking on the evil Rival University Douchebags, and I'm an alto saxophone in the school band. It was kind of out of my hands... I had to skip work that day.

Well, it turns out Saturday was the last day of production on Wedding Palace.

And five days later, here I am: the Iggy formerly known as a production assistant. Now just an unemployed Iggy.

Yes, there was a wrap party. Yes, I missed that, too.

Not exactly a storybook ending to my first real Hollywood job.

I did get a call a couple of days ago from my boss, Key PA. He told me he'd be calling me sometime in the near future with a new job. And hopefully I'll get paid for this one.

In some ways it kind of sucks that it ended so abruptly, and that I had to miss the payoff for all the hard work. In other ways... I'm still just happy I got the job in the first place. I feel like this gig really opened up a lot of possibilities for me. I met a bunch of producers, writers, director-hopefuls, and if I keep working with them I can give them material and such. This PA job was really a blessing, and I can't look past that.

So Iggy's Quest is going to take another turn. Now that my foot is "in the door", I have to start pulling together stories and ideas. I need a full script (that doesn't suck) and a few new concepts. It isn't about getting the job anymore-- or even keeping the job. It's about making the absolute best of this opportunity. No more wasting time. I have to start writing. TODAY.

I'm not gonna let this slip away like I let everything else slip away. Iggy isn't phoning it in anymore.

The good news is, I would definitely have to call my first Hollywood job a success!

scattershot post #2

I feel so weird, skipping three full days of work to take finals. And part of a fourth.

I'm almost worried that I'm staying away too long, and my boss will realize I'm still just a student, and decide to say ixnay on cash moneys for the near future.

Oh well-- it's Friday morning. Right smack dab in the middle of the filming-schedule weekend. I don't have to think about work right now.

Although I might consider thinking about sleep.

I watched The Cameraman the other night and was quite impressed. Every time I see a new Buster Keaton film, it reminds me how he was absolutely one of the great comedians in the 20th century. His timing, his facial expressions (or lack thereof), his genius for physical comedy and stunt work-- honestly. Brilliant. The man is a pure entertainer.

He's paired up with Marceline Day, one of his longtime leading ladies, and here the chemistry is at its best. There's a true romantic center to this movie. But the real heart is in the laughs. Every scene in The Cameraman is entertaining, and several are truly hilarious. The poolhouse changing room scene is a classic.



I also watched the first half of The Conversation. It's a Francis Ford Coppola film, made right after he finished The Godfather. Accolades streaming his way, along with millions and millions of dollars from the huge box office-- he was the most powerful man in Hollywood. He could handpick his next project, anything under the sun. He could've made a film about a group of gang-raping nuns if he wanted.

He ended up with a strange little character piece about a surveillance P.I. (played by Gene Hackman) who's obsessed with his own privacy. The investigator's company eavesdrops and records a conversation for a mysterious client, and he becomes obsessed with figuring out the meaning of this conversation.

We watched it in film class as an example of good sound editing. It was well edited, and Hackman's performance in the movie was weirdly affecting. I'm intrigued, and I want to finish it.

Let's see. What else can I talk about?

Oh-- I don't know if I mentioned this:

'Flood'

...Yep. I'm legit, bitches.

One credit on an obscure movie that may (or may not) be released in theaters sometime next winter.

The Oscars are in February-- I'd better start getting ready.

day seven/eight/nine: Expediency

I can tell by the looks on your faces: these daily trip reports are going into oh-my-god-long territory. But I can't help it. It's all so damn cool to me.

Anyway I'll keep this one super brief, and hopefully talk about some more interesting stuff than how I spent two hours today setting up tables, chairs and popups for lunch.

Day seven was filmed at a local "hospital". It was really more like a block of medical offices than a real hospital, although we had a bunch of extras dressed like doctors who made it look otherwise. Ms. Cho was back on-set that day (oops, I said no names didn't I?) so we PAs were charged with keeping her happy. But she was already happy, so our job was done!


My favorite part of the day was watching the first scene-- where the main character's grandma has to hitch a ride with some bangin' Latinos in a low-rider, so she busts out with all-Spanish jive talk. Just like the scene in Airplane.

The actress who played Grandma was so nice in person, it was too weird to hear her talk about "bitches" and "ese's" and "scrapes", which due to my whiteness I didn't even understand. (a scrape is a lowrider fyi)

Oh yeah and that day, I officially got a job offer from Key PA. If I keep up the good work, he's going to bring me on with him for his next project-- as a fully paid production assistant.

SCOOOOORRRREEEEEEE!!!!!1

Yes, the one was necessary. I'm still frickin' elated.

Day eight of work came three days after day seven. The way our schedule works is this: we shoot Saturday through Wednesday, twelve hours a day, and then take Thursday and Friday off. On Wednesday everyone says "TGIF", and on Saturday everyone asks how your weekend went. It's very weird. But I'm getting into the rhythm and it kinda works in an off-balance sort of way.

The first thing we filmed was a main character (I won't say which one) getting hit by a car. It's played for laughs, so don't worry-- there weren't fake bodies and pools of blood. Unfortunately. What we did have was a stunt double, Simon Rhee, whose resume is incredible. He worked on Charlie's Angels, Rush Hour 3, Blade, Tropic Thunder, Heroes, 24, Collateral, and Escape from L.A., to name a few.

He seemed like a pretty intense guy. I didn't really talk to him, but I don't think anyone else did either. And when the car hit him, and he flipped through the air, it was coooooooool.

Day eight was spent in a parking lot outside the Galleria at Wilshire, using the lowrider from day seven (as the homies were dropping Grandma off at a wedding), and a limo (for the bride and groom of said wedding).

I met a new PA intern, a kid from Temecula who is already leagues better than The Fellow Intern. His voice cracked at the end of the day and I called him Peter Brady... the name stuck and now everyone on set calls him Brady (or Brady Bunch). I'm proud. I gave a nickname. When was the last time you nicknamed somebody? hmm?

Day nine we hung out in the same parking lot. Sunday. The big deal that day was the arrival of our product placement car: the Hyundai Genesis. I'll take a moment for you guys to ooh and ahh at the beautiful new Genesis.


oops, I mean


Just kidding. Don't fire me, corporate Hyundai overlords.

Here's my thought for day nine. There was a big flat-screen TV over the entrance to the mall. It showed ads for Quantum of Solace constantly throughout the day. After about the fifth time, I knew every action sequence and crappy, self-aware Bond quip by heart.

My question to you (readers? hello? ...bueller?) is whether or not I should actually shell out twelve bucks and go see 007 in theaters. It looks entertaining enough, but I bet there are a few better movies I could see instead.

Yeah, that was pretty much the day. I left early and missed the next day of work for a midterm.

But I already booked my next gig, so it doesn't matter how much I miss from here on out! It's official: I found my first "in"!

score!

Dead Stars Love To Help Celebrities With Matching Initials

Since my full name is actually Ignatius Iggleston III, this is huge news! Looks like it's all meant to be.

day six: Short and Sweet

(one - two - three - four - five)

Our call sheets for day six-- a Tuesday-- listed the weather as "Smoky". Twenty miles away, wildfires were raging through suburbia. Somewhere a mother of four was standing in a street, silently holding her children, watching her last hope for an easy life billow, drift and curl up into the ashy sky.

When I arrived on set, people were lighting up cancer sticks and commiserating about the air quality.

In Los Angeles, self-absorption is the drug of choice. But instead of funneling through back alleys and creeping out of seedy apartment buildings, it's sold on billboards and television screens. You deserve this... you need that. You aren't cool if you don't talk like him, wear those jeans, watch this show, look like her. But don't worry, because you probably do. You're part of an elite. You live in L.A. after all.


Self-absorption is the only drug for which the most helpless addicts are rich, famous, and powerful. If you aren't high on self it's tough to succeed in this town-- because the junkies have the keys to the city.

So when I spend time on set with Hollywood pros... getting coffee, bringing people water, picking up dog shit, pointing fans, fetching jackets and feeding parking meters... it's tough to feel like I fit in. I'm just Iggy, after all. Nothing altogether special or deserving about me. I'm doing work that I should be doing, with no experience, and I can't get too full of myself about that.

But every day I spend with Key PA is a day to gain his trust and move up the ladder to handle bigger, better tasks.

After the end of day five, we were all on edge hoping that we'd be allowed to film inside the house that day. Luckily for us, our enterprising locations producer had gone to Ralph's and bought a large "gift basket" for the family who owned the house. I think it was the gift basket that did the trick. It didn't work for Michael and Dwight, but somehow it worked for us: we were in.

To be honest, not much interesting happened on day six. It was the first day of work for our (arguably) most famous cast member, a stand-up comedienne who did "vulgar" way before Sarah Silverman made it awful. I got a picture with her on my cell phone camera. Right after I did, Key PA called a full production-assistant huddle.

"Guys... no pictures with the cast. For the love of God. Are we tourists?"

Then we all had a good laugh at Flood's expense.

But I spent the rest of the day nailing everything else I was told to do. I helped corral cast members into the house for their scene (which was filmed entirely in Korean) without being asked, and got big thanks from not only Key PA but our first assistant director as well. (The 1st AD is my boss's boss's boss. Score.)

Stand-up Girl's scene involved lots of ritual dancing, loud drumbeats, and a baby. I read the script for this movie, by the way, and I'm still not really sure why some of these scenes exist. It's a pretty weird story. I almost want to say that, but the truth is it's actually a super conventional story with weird trappings.

After that scene I had to leave for practice, so my day six came to a short, but sweet end.

day five: One Scene, Twelve Hours

This is what I get for slacking so much on these updates.

It's been five days since "day five" and a lot of what actually happened has faded into the gray aether of my terrible memory. I'll do my best to put together the story but it's like a chronic drinker trying to describe what he did last Thursday... after the two Jaegerbombs, it all gets a little fuzzy.

I remember a name, though. It was "Blood" or "Crud" or something like that-- and people were shouting it all morning. Actually no, I'm pretty sure it was "Stud". That must have been it.

Check out days one, two, three and four if you need a refresher. Hint: It's always best to start at the beginning.

(And welcome to you if you're visiting for the first time-- here's a link to my very first post, explaining what this mad blog is all about. Plus, this update won't make much sense unless you read the other days' posts too. Feel free to leave comments and hang around!)

Okay, let's give this a shot.

----

Call time was 6:30am, and I showed up at 6:10. Hey, not bad, I thought. I'm twenty minutes early and nobody's paying me to be here.

Then I walked into the production trailer with a couple other PAs, and Cosa Nostra's favorite production coordinator casually tossed this off: "Hey PAs, let's try to arrive ten minutes before six, not ten minutes after." Oops.

Most people are pretty friendly on set-- surprisingly so, given all the horror stories I've heard about working in Hollywood-- but there's definitely some passive aggression.

I remember my first day at work, I was standing next to the script supervisor on set (a Hungarian woman who seems to wear red clothes every single day) when she was called on to feed lines off-camera to the actors. I wanted to make casual conversation, so I said "You get lines... Lucky." Harmless comment, right?

She didn't even look up from her clipboard. She waved a hand in my face and said "Please don't."

Seriously. "Please don't"?

That's cold, man.

Speaking of temperature, another thing I remember from this day is that it got hot. Really hot. The first four days of work were bitingly, stingingly, hair-raisingly, nipple-hardeningly cold. It was so cold, in fact, that I had to invent a new word ("nipple-hardeningly") to describe it. But on day five, the inside of the house where we were shooting was absolutely sweltering.

My job for the first hour of the afternoon that day was to turn on a fan and point it at the actors and head honchos. As Key PA wisely told me, a cooler director was a happier director. Yep, another hugely important job for Flood.

But being inside the house with Key PA meant I could watch the action up close, and it also meant I could jump on things and try to impress him with my "work ethic".

I remember one time where the call came over the radio: "Anyone have eyes on [Lead Actor]"? Key PA heard it and started looking for him; I did too. I found him in the kitchen, watching a take on the monitor.

"Yeah he's in the kitchen," I replied into my headset's mic. I turned around and Key PA was standing right behind me. A grin broke out on his face and he clapped me on the back. "Alright Flood! That's what I'm talking about. Way to jump on that."

There were a lot of hours spent in the house that day. Only two scenes were scheduled for filming: a family gathering with ten(!) characters in the same room, and a gossip scene with three of the women, which was to be filmed entirely in Korean. We only got through the first scene that day. To keep the lighting consistent, grips had set up massive spotlights outside, pouring 80,000 watts of "daylight" through the windows. It was a really strange effect; when the hours started to pile up and the sky grew dark, it still looked like daytime inside. Pretty cool.


You could feel the heat from the lights all throughout the house. It was like being inside an Easy-Bake Oven. If only there'd been people around whose special job it was to point a fan at the PA interns.

After the shoot was finally over (around 6:30 pm), we started to pull up all the layout board that we'd laid on the floor of the house to prevent damage. That was a long process. But it was interrupted when the locations crew came in with deathly grave looks on their faces.

Apparently, the old Asian woman whose house we were completely owning-- tracking dirt, moving furniture, and shuttling almost a hundred people through constantly-- had been so afraid of getting in our way, she'd stayed locked in her bedroom all day. She hadn't eaten, drank, or even gone to the bathroom in twelve hours. Ohhh shit.

When the rest of her family got home that night, they were, uh... a little pissed. They'd all piled into a car and taken off with the old woman, without saying a word to any of us. The locations people had tried calling them, but they weren't answering their phones. And we still had another full day to shoot at the house.

Would they even let us in the next morning? Or would we be, as they say in Korea, completely and utterly 성교하는?

Tune in next time to find out! Same Iggy-time, same Iggy-channel!

day four: Trial and Error

Get caught up: day one, two and three.

-----

6:10 am:

I'm a commando in the jungles of Vietnam. The air is sticky and bugs are everywhere. I'm leading a POW through the warzone, chopper blades beating overhead as my team gets ready to extract us from the shit storm. Suddenly gunfire erupts. My vision swims red. I hit the dirt and my eyes snap open. The gunfire dissolves into a steady beat of vibration-- it's barely light outside the window, and my cell phone alarm is pulsing under my pillow, against my eardrum.

Time to wake up. Work starts at 7.

6:47 am:

I pull into the crew parking lot. Everyone else is already gone. Turns out when they tell PAs to be there half an hour earlier than call, that isn't a goddamn suggestion. I get chewed out by the one remaining guy, a production coordinator who wouldn't look out of place in the back room of Vinny's Pizzeria with a few members of Cosa Nostra. Then I get loaded into a passenger van and make the four-mile trek to our location: a two-story house, in a quiet neighborhood in K-town.

8:02 am:

Stress level on set is high. The locations people are frantic, because the house is full of antiques-- the rug in the living room by itself is worth more than the entire budget of the film. We don't want to damage that.

Our principals are setting up a scene in the bedroom upstairs. I'm talking shop with the casting director, whose career was made a few years ago when he discovered a major star in a shoestring-budget indie movie that went on to become a pop culture phenomenon. Without naming names, I can tell you that you're a freakin idiot if you don't get who I'm talking about... GOSH.

Then without warning, Key PA is breathing down my neck. I'd been told to "lock-up" the front door during the rehearsal, basically to keep it quiet and make sure nobody passes through-- so I know what's coming next.

"Flood. Pull your fucking head out. When I tell you to do something-- what, you think I'm just full of shit? I'm a bullshit artist, right? Do your job or I'll find someone else who will. Get moving."

9:37 am:

I'm setting up tables and chairs in the backyard. PA Nation is helping me out, along with the other intern, who I'm honestly starting to dislike more and more as the show moves on. Whenever anyone talks to him on the radio, he responds with "Copy copy!" in a ridiculous sing-song tone. Plus it's the way he tries to suck up to Key PA, thrusting himself into situations he doesn't understand so that he can "take the initiative", and inevitably making things worse along the way.

Naturally, Key PA is impressed with the other guy so far. As for me?

"Flood!" He motions me to his side, drilling me with a thousand-yard stare. I jog over.

"What the hell is this?" It's a director's chair, folded correctly and stowed correctly-- or so I thought. I tell him as much.

Key PA has a way of sighing and rolling his eyes that makes you feel like the biggest flooding idiot on the planet when you screw up. He calls over another PA. "Kurt... please show Flood how to fold up a director's chair." He strides away. Over his shoulder I hear him mutter "Jesus Christ."

The PA heads over, barely hiding his smirk. Yep, the intern screwed up again. Thing is he can't really lord it over me too much-- see, his name isn't Kurt. It's Kyle. Oh well, close enough.

10:12 am:

Things start to look up. I'm standing in the back room with "Tina", Bobby Lee's fake wife. Despite my failures thus far, I've been given the task to cue her when to enter the scene. I nail it every time and don't screw up a single take.

By the way, almost every Hollywood actor I've met so far has been similar in some strange, indefinable way. It's a quality they all have-- a strong self-confidence, a powerful "persona" that they project even while not on camera. "Tina" was no different. She was drinking water out of a bottle with a little straw. Her assistant glared at me when I moved her sandals out of the walkway, and quickly moved them to a different spot as if to say "I decide where Tina's shoes are going to sit, damn it."

This scene is pretty funny. I'll enjoy this one when I actually see it in the movie.

12:46 pm:

Lunch. The past few hours have helped repair my damaged rep, but it's still tough to win over Key PA, who seems to be on a mission to baptize me into Hollywood with napalm.

2:23 pm:

"FLOOD!"

Hearing that simple word makes me spring to attention. I run down the street, where I've been posted on a lock-up, toward the crew. Our 1st assistant director is motioning toward me, and the whole crew is looking on. I'm preparing myself for literally anything.

"We need a PA to open the door for Brian when he walks up and rings the doorbell. I'll cue you when he gets there." I notice that she isn't asking me-- she's telling me. "You got it" I respond quickly and head into the house.

The director calls "action". Outside, the lead actor nudges his Hyundai ten feet forward into the frame, gets out, helps his new girlfriend out, and heads up the walk toward the front door. I'm sweating buckets, my knuckles white from unconsciously gripping the door handle. Lead Actor is on the front porch, and 1st AD still hasn't cued me.


I'm staring through the peephole at the two actors as they shuffle uncomfortably-- then Lead smiles and rings the doorbell. Still no cue. Did I miss it? Time seems to stop. In slow motion I see Lead bend over and pick up his new girlfriend. He's holding her in his arms and I'm completely confused. Maybe I should have read the sides--

"Okay Flood, open the door" comes the whisper over my headset. I immediately swing the door open. Lead steps through the threshold carrying his "gf", pretending to greet a loud Korean family, when it's only me staring blankly back at him. "Shut-shut-shut-NOW" comes the order, and I'm not ready for it, but I'm not an idiot either. I shut the door. Lead and I look at each other a few long seconds. Was that it?

Then I hear "Cut! Perfect. Going again."

So we do it again for the next hour and a half. I don't mess up a single take. I'm not sure if Key PA notices, but I know the AD definitely does.

5:08 pm:

We're moving a block down the street to another house, just for a couple of quick exterior shots. Nothing too complicated, so I stay behind to firewatch. It's the last time I'm going to see Key PA and my other fellow on-set bitches. He comes by my chair, shakes my hand and thanks me for stepping up the second half of the day. I tell him I usually start slow in the mornings. He tells me to fix it.

The trick to pleasing him, I think, is to convince him that you understand exactly what he says, the first time he says it. As long as you can pull that off, you can still go ask someone else for help after he leaves, while avoiding looking clueless in front of him.

These Hollywood types are all about getting things done ASAP. "Right now" is a phrase that makes a lot of people happy on set. If something is being delivered you don't say "It's on the way"... you tell them it's "flying in". The PAs are mostly responsible for making sure things move quickly on set-- thus the reason why Key PA is constantly in my grill. And I get that.

In fact, I'm starting to like it. I love rising to a challenge.

6:33 pm:

That's a wrap for day four. It's a Sunday evening, and I have to be back here the next morning at 6:30 am. Ugly, but that's how they roll in this business.

day three: Lather, Rinse, Repeat

I know all of you guys are waiting with bated breath for each update. Sorry this one took so long-- I've been busy, you know, working.

Here are the links to my first day and second day as a real live PA.

Sadly, day three's report isn't going to be a barnburner. Actually, I could probably write it in one good sentence. But lucky for you I'm going to spend twelve paragraphs on it.

My call time was 8am and I showed up at 7:45, keeping my streak of "not being late" alive. For those of you who know me well, it's already impressive enough that I've gotten the streak to three days. Within half an hour, everyone was on their way to a small restaurant in Koreatown's most stereotypical district, for a massive dinner scene with most of the main cast. One PA was sent to base camp at the local mall to keep a firewatch on the expensive shit.

I will give you one guess which PA they picked for that job.

It wasn't all bad. I did busywork for a couple of hours, set up the lunch area with a bunch of tables and chairs. I helped the 2nd AD with a fun little task: went through the entire script and marked down all the instances of product placement. Any car was a Hyundai, any drink was Hite beer, and any beauty salon was the Face Shop.

Then I sat around for a couple more hours. Finally they finished the big, epic, probably hilarious and memorable restaurant scene, and the crew headed over to my location for lunch.

Lunch ran until about 3. Finally it was time to shoot in the city market. Art department had decked out the lobby to look like an airport security checkpoint-- they had a metal detector and Korean Air memorabilia set up in the very center of the mall. I went around with the AD and DP while they took a quick walk around to each shot location, and took notes for the other PAs.

Then they were all set up and ready to film. The actor was in place. Lights were up. Mr. Key PA was getting that "shoot is about to start" anxiety in his eyes, and the director was calling out for last looks.

And it was 3:45, so I had to leave to go to a class.

That's how the day ended. Pretty much a sequel to day two: hours of waiting for no action. I managed to sneak in a couple important things, but for the most part I felt like a retarded albino howler monkey could have done my job, and also had enough spare time to bang out Act I of King Lear on a typewriter using only his forehead.

Don't worry, readers. Day four was far better and more fun than this-- and that report is coming up next. Keep it real and keep it here.

day two: Great Expectations

My father's family name being Iggir, and my Christian name Ihgien, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Iggy. So, I called myself Iggy, and came to be called Iggy.

For my first day's adventures, go here.

Day two began an hour later than day one-- at 7:30am. It seemed like child's play to get up at 6:15 that morning. Probably because I'd knocked out around 11pm the night before.

Given that my first day had smashed all expectations for being a PA on a real movie, my anticipation level for my second day had been steadily rising ever since the director called "wrap" the night before. I was pumped and ready for another incredible experience behind the camera.

We were in a different random parking lot than yesterday, still in the middle of K-Town. I met some other production assistants and various crew members, got my "name" out there and such. By this time, "Flood" had caught on. The uninitiated would have thought there was some kind of disaster on the way every time I was called.

I grabbed breakfast (delicious eggs and ham) and got set to load up the steakbed truck.

And then suddenly, everything ground to a halt.

There was drama on the set. People threatening to quit. Some major shakeups seemed inevitable... PAs were talking about allegiances. Politics were in the air big-time. So we waited for the situation to resolve.

And we waited.

About an hour passed... during which nothing happened. During which time I had the bottom-of-the-barrel job of feeding the meter where the 80-footer truck was parked. Hey, that's what they pay me for. Not.

Then the crew left for a driving shoot. I guess things were gonna press on for the moment. And with that, The Fellow Intern and I were sent off to base camp to "firewatch". I didn't know what it meant either, but I thought it sounded pretty cool.

Well, you may be able to tell already-- "firewatching" is far less exciting than it might ordinarily sound.

It basically involves standing around (or sitting) and watching something expensive, in the hopes that said expensive thing will not be stolen or harmed.

So TFI and I sat by a grip truck for nearly four hours, while all the filming was going on somewhere far away from us, in the Koreatown ether.

Finally the crew showed up at base camp. We ate lunch. And by the way, lunch on set is DELICIOUS. Really high-quality stuff, and they serve it on actual dishes, with actual silverware.

By now it was 4pm-- and I hadn't seen a millisecond of action. That would change soon as the crew began to pack up, sucking on last-minute cigarettes that are an absolute staple on set, and piling into vans bound for City Center on 6th, where we'd firewatched for half the day.

The entire crew was on its way. All except for one PA, whose godly mission it was to watch the crew parking lot until security showed up at 7.

Which one do you think it was?

7:30pm, the van pulled up by the mall and I hopped out. My earpiece crackled "Okay guys, let's go once more!" Ahh-- Action! I quickened my pace. The entrance to the mall was on the other side of the damn building, and I still can't see why the driver dropped me off way back there.

I finally hit the double doors, burst into the lobby and headed straight around the corner, following a trail of wires and just-milling-around department interns. In my earpiece I heard "MOS please." What the hell does that mean, right?

Well as I found out about three seconds later, MOS means "if you don't freeze right fucking now, rook, you're never working in this town again."

So I froze.

And the director's voice came over the walkie. "Alright, good take. And that's a wrap!"

People around me began to clap. The interns started shuffling towards the doors. Grips packed up their rigs. And all I could think about was how great my expectations had been for day two.

After PA Nation helped pack up tables and chairs, and fed the entire crew by bringing everyone pizza, that was the end of my second day on a movie set.

No word came down from any key players about the drama that had nearly derailed the entire production that morning. We didn't know anything, and didn't want to ask. The days that followed would serve to bury the crisis as though it had never happened. 

But I did discover that The Fellow Intern knows how to hypnotize people. What a random ability to have. And yet-- I must put this knowledge to use somehow...

day one: Iggy in Filmland

Before I get started with this series, here's a quick disclaimer:

I'm not going to name any names, and I won't go into too much detail on the day's actual "work". Only because this project is still in production, and even though I'm not under any kind of contract or gag order, it's really the only prudent thing to do. Don't worry, though-- there's still plenty of cool things to talk about.

So here we go. Day one of my first real experience on a movie set.

I woke up bright and early at the inhuman hour of 5:30 am. Call time was 6:30, so I probably should have been up even earlier. I stumbled out of bed, ran a comb through my hair (or not) and jumped into my car to make the jaunt over the 10 freeway to a random parking lot in the middle of Koreatown. This parking lot was known as "base camp".

For those who are unfamiliar with filming terms, like I was, base camp is the place where all the production trailers, wardrobe/makeup, flatbeds, and catering are located throughout the day.

I grabbed a cup of OJ and a cold donut, and milled around with a few other bleary-eyed crew members until about 6:45. The 1st AD (aka the first assistant director, who's responsible for scheduling and organizing the entire crew) called a meeting for everyone, and we quickly went over the schedule for the day.

That's when I met my immediate boss, the key PA (production assistant). Really great guy who knows EXACTLY what he's doing, despite having been a PA for only three months. He wrangled up the other interns and briefed us on a few things we needed to do.

Each of us was presented with our own official walkie-talkie and headset, along with a packet of sides, which are basically the script revisions for the day's shooting. We were also given two fully-charged walkie batteries (referred to as "hot bricks"), with the knowledge that any PA must be prepared to swap out a battery for any crew member who needs it.

We also learned some other cool filming terms: (translated into whitey English)
"What's your 20?" - What are you doing right now?
"I'm taking a 10-1" - I am currently using the restroom.
"Copy that" - I understand.
"Standby" - Remain stationary and wait for a signal.
"Flood, go to 2" - Flood, switch your communicator to channel two.
"Rolling rolling" - The camera is rolling. Please do not fuck up the take.

After barely having time to digest all of this information, we were called out to set.

The first set-up (or location for one camera shot) was at a Tofu House. I didn't do much here; moved coolers and directors' chairs around, searched the flatbed for an extra set of sides (didn't find any), and froze my ass off in the 60-degree L.A. air with a wind chill of -42. God it was cold on Sunday.

The next set-up was across the street, and here I got a lot more to do. I was given the special intern task of moving the monitor from location to location, and setting it up so that it got live feed from the camera. This put me literally RIGHT next to all the action. I was feet away from the DP and the director, and often stood right next to the lead actors as they watched their own takes on the monitor.

After watching one of his better takes, Bobby Lee got excited and hugged me. "I did good!" he shouted, beaming at me. I flashed him a thumbs-up and said "Cool". Because I'm a smooth guy.

At another set-up I was called in to be a stand-in for Mr. Lee, sitting on his mark as they adjusted the lights and focused the shot. They weren't filming, but I still sat there thinking "God I'm on camera right now. The director and the DP are staring right at me. Just be cool". Then Bobby came over and they kicked me out.

He was a totally nice guy, by the way. Seemed to be in great spirits, and plus, during lunch he couldn't stop talking about Fallout 3. Apparently he's a huge gamer-nerd. He gets props for that.

Okay, here's my last Bobby Lee story: at the end of the day they had to paint his thumbs flesh-colored because he had all these bleeding cuts on them. I asked him "How did your thumbs get so bloody??" and he said "I bite them cuz I get so fuckin' nervous!" I had to hold the make-up paint set as the lady painted his thumbs.

But the last part of the day was, by far, the best.

It was after 5 pm; we'd been working for almost twelve hours. Finally, we were down to our last set-up. It was a street scene, filmed at the corner of Wilshire and Vermont.

Mr. Key PA had liked me from the start (as did most of the other crew members-- whether they thought I was good, who knows). I know he liked me because he'd already given me a nickname: "Flood". It wasn't a mysterious nickname. I was wearing a T-shirt that just said "flood", right across the middle, and so he started referring to me by my shirt. After three days of filming, most people on the set know me as Flood. Oh, well. The key grip calls me "Boy Wonder", but that one hasn't caught on... so it could be worse. At least I didn't get "Short Round" or something stupid like "Iggy".

So he gave me a pretty important job: wait around the corner and tell the background (extras) when to walk into the shot. I had to shout "Rolling rolling!" and "Action!", and then when the shot finished I had to say "Cut! Back to one!"

I did a good job doing that, I guess. So then I got to cross the street with the lead actor, and give him the signal to start. This job was even more important, for obvious reasons. While doing that I managed to talk to him a bit. He's a really enthusiastic, positive guy, and didn't laugh it off when I asked him what it was like to be "the big star". Every time I've seen him since then, he's greeted me warmly.

A few background actors came with us too. During one take, some of the background didn't hear the call to "Action", so I let them know we'd started. Key PA noticed and was impressed-- he had missed the call too.

After the shoot was over, he was telling everyone how "Flood came through in the clutch".

And that was the end of the day. 7:30 pm. Thirteen and a half hours after I'd showed up to work. Long day... but 100% cool.

Day two's update is coming up next.

coming soon

What's up guys. Sorry for the lack of posts over the past few days-- I've been insanely busy working 12+ hour days since Sunday. I would update now, but for two reasons:

1) There's way too much to talk about. That wouldn't be a problem, but
2) I'm goddamn exhausted.

So stay tuned, lots of new content is coming soon. I won't outright say "tomorrow" but you might want to check back, say, in roughly twenty-hour hours.

FYI: working on a film is crazy times. Completely fascinating, but also an eff-load of work. That being said, I wouldn't trade the experience for anything... It's been a blast. And I've only worked three days so far, out of 22 total. (That leaves nineteen days to go, for you fellow north-campusers.)

Bring it on.

live update from the field

Hi guys, Iggy here. Believe it or not, this is a first-- a special field report from inside the production offices of the movie I'm working on! Yes indeed. Can you feel the excitement?

So far today I've had one big, major task. The 2nd AD gave me a list of all the crew people involved with this movie-- probably about a hundred people, not even including the cast. I had to call each person and invite them to a special event tomorrow: the official Korean "blessing" of the film production, including lots of food and apparently, a pig's head.

I was on the phone for about two hours straight, but I did it. Called everyone. Even a bunch of people who were actually in the office while I was making the calls. Whenever that happened, we would laugh awkwardly and then hang up quick.

Clearly this job was life-or-death important.

The good news is I'm meeting even more people today, and they seem to like me well enough. I'm working hard, and that's what counts.

This could really be a big opening for me.*

I mean, I've already gotten a business card from one of the producers who offered me a job (maybe) after this project wraps. I'm getting phone numbers, and on top of that, most people here actually know my name.

Just now the art director walked in and took a picture of me smiling. It was for the dentist's office scene; they need a bunch of pictures of "customers" with big smiles, just for decoration. So I guess I might actually be in the movie now. Cool shiz.

Iggy's quest has officially gotten off the ground!

*that's what HE said.

a day which will live in infamy

Yesterday was an eventful day, both for Iggy's Quest and for the country as a whole. I'm going to assume that you, the reader, know what-all-went-down with the election.

What I'm most struck by, and encouraged by, is the sheer landslide of electoral votes that painted this country blue for the next four years. This truly was a youth-determined election. I didn't expect it to happen so soon, but I knew it would: our generation has The Power. We are the crucial 18-34 demographic... we are the lords of our culture. And we just showed our force by electing Barack Obama with over two-thirds of the electoral vote. Now let's hope we did it for good reason, and not just to prove that we could.

But it's not all good news from the polling booths. In California, what I thought couldn't possibly happen, happened. Proposition 8 passed. Activists in (where else?) San Francisco have already drafted a lawsuit to try to get the courts to overturn the amendment again, but all of a sudden I'm a lot less hopeful. I guess we like our Obama here in Cali, but not our homosexuals.

Moving on, to smaller and better things.

Yesterday was a GREAT day for my quest. I actually spent a whole day (and I mean an entire day) working on a movie. Not only that, but they all liked me well enough that I'm going to work on most of the shoot from here on out, until they wrap in December. :D

I showed up at their production office at 8:34 am. It was already a stressful day, as I'd left my apartment at 8 and had to fight retarded L.A. traffic down Wilshire-- and call time was 8:30. ("sharp".) I was convinced that I'd already ruined my "first impression"; but as it turned out my boss wasn't there until 8:45.

At 9 am (sharp!) most of the crew left to go on a location tech scout. What this means is, you drive around to all the filming locations with the key creative and crew people, and work out all the issues and preparations you need in order to shoot there. Luckily for me, my boss couldn't (or didn't want to) go on the scouting mission, so I was sent in his place.

It was me, in a 15-person van, along with: the director, a producer and a production manager, the art director, the director of photography, the head production designer, key grip, gaffer/best boy, and the location manager.

For those of you playing at home: that's a lot of important people. And here I was, a "location intern" on my first day, sitting in the back with a legal pad and pen, with my only instructions to "write down everything".

Luckily... I don't think I did too badly. We went to a lot of different locations-- mostly in K-Town, actually, but we also went to LAX-- and I took a lot of notes. My location manager said I did a really good job and probably got a lot of stuff that she missed. By the end of the day I was at least on speaking terms with the entire group of people. There was definitely a little bit of awkwardness (I got the feeling several of them didn't really understand why I was there at all, and I can't blame them for that) but fortunately, everyone was really nice.

One location they wanted to use was an old Asian woman's house. In order to go inside, we all had to take off our shoes. So the director and DP walked inside, clad in socks, while we all kicked off our kicks and pumps; the DP had his little viewfinder out so he could look at shots. Then suddenly there was a cry. Apparently the director had found some... doody. Turns out, yep, there was poop scattered all across the hardwood floor of this old woman's living room. It nearly made our DP drop his viewfinder. That would have been an epic disaster for the man, I think.

There was another moment when he was setting up a shot outside an apartment complex, and this big, ugly, crazy guy walked into the shot and started doing a big, ugly, crazy dance. He then walked away, laughing maniacally. The entire crew had a moment of worry, mixed with "uh... wtf?" as you can only have when confronted with a big, ugly, crazy guy.

But overall I would call the day a complete success. I could talk more about it, but I think this entry is already pushing it for the interest/boredom ratio.

And in any case, this wasn't the last day I'll be working on this movie, by far. I go back on Thursday. :D

Oh yeah...

This is the movie we're making. I recognize a lot of names in the crew listings now. Obviously it's still in pre-production so it won't come out for a while... but when it does, GO SEE IT!

more quest progress

So it looks like I'm getting work on a feature film production. I don't know much about it (and it's almost certainly not a *major* movie, so don't get too excited), but I'm supposed to get a call tomorrow morning to let me know what's going on. I'll probably have to start working tomorrow, too. My official title, according to Craigslist, is "production intern".

That was fast!

a saucer? you mean from up there?

It's the day after Halloween and all I can do is wait for the Christmas season to start. By far the best time of year. The lights, the decorations, the weather, the overall feeling of joy and goodwill in the air. Plus if it were December, I'd have skipped a whole month of having no friends and doing nothing with my time. Let the Christmas bells ring!

In blog news, look for something new and awesome to appear very soon. Sound intriguing? Good. I have you right where I want you. Be sure to check back often-- you never know when I might drop the AWESOME right on you.

Anyways.

I'm starting to branch out and look for work on film productions. A couple months ago in this blog, I explained the whole purpose of a P.A. (production assistant), and basically that's what I'm trying to go after. It's not a noble line of work-- the typical P.A. spends his day waiting in line at Starbucks three times in a row because the director can't decide which mocha latte is right for him. And that's not too bad an assignment.

But you have to start somewhere.

I often wonder whether I'm really cut out to be a director. Running a small army of crew, making a thousand decisions a day, dealing with power-hungry stars who want to cut that brilliant (and necessary) rape scene because it would make their character less sympathetic. Sometimes I don't know if people would listen to me and respect me. I'm just Iggy, after all. Just some guy with wild hopes and a Blogspot.

Who knows if the films I'd make would even be any good?

I worry about that sometimes. Then I pop in "Plan 9 from Outer Space" and I feel a little bit better about things.



And remember, my friends: future events, such as these, will affect you... in the future.

the 90 percent rule

Last Thursday there was a foam party across the street at Sigma Phi. My roommate and I would have totally gone, totally. Except we had to catch the Midnight Express to San Francisco that night. Not a train... a bus. Charter bus, at least.

On our way to the Express, just outside the apartment, we passed two tall girls in dresses. One was covered in foam from the waist down. They were having a fairly intense conversation about something, but I couldn't figure out what. It wasn't a happy one, either. But that's par for the course where I live.

It's a fact: ninety percent of people you walk by in L.A. aren't smiling. And the other ten percent are probably jacked up on something.

The 90 Percent Rule even applies to a college community like the one I live in-- even on a party night like Thursday. Girls walk around wearing designer clothes and carrying expensive handbags, guys with gelled-back hair and probably-expensive-because-it-stinks cologne. If you took a snapshot of their faces, the scene would look like some kind of aftermath. Happiness is almost completely absent from the air. Bored looks, cool veneers, glares, sunglasses that are still being worn after 10 pm. And this is on a party night.

In San Francisco, every night seems like a party night. Jugglers, freak shows, fully grown adults in garish Halloween costumes, laughing and dancing and smiling. Music plays that seems to come from nowhere. In Berkeley, drunk band members walk the streets, haphazardly playing their instruments.

Still, it all felt a little bit "unapproved of". There were a lot of bystanders milling around that were definitely bemused by all of this nonsense. When my group of friends started singing band warmups a capella and put a hat out for tips, we were pretty much ignored. People would walk by, purposefully keeping their eyes ahead of them, not looking at us. Almost as if they were indignant that we would do something so blatantly "fun", right in public.

(edit: Yes, there's video footage of this awesomeness. It's on Facebook-- if you know my true identity of course...)

Those kind of people rule society these days. Happiness and acceptance of others is kept to a minimum. We're all too concerned with our own self-image.

Am I the only one who thinks our society needs to pull the stick out of our collective ass?

scattershot entry #1

Okay, I need to write a post today. I just haven't thought of what to write about yet.

-Sarah Palin was on Saturday Night Live this weekend. She was funny, in the same way that a fat guy in a Cinderella costume is funny. Sure, you laugh when he runs around shouting "Where's my carriage?! It's almost midnight!!!", but you probably wouldn't turn around and elect him vice president of the United States.

-Tina Fey honestly deserves a Nobel Prize for her Palin impression. She single-handedly made McCain's running mate into a national punchline, and in doing so, probably saved the country.

-Here's a nice way to kill five minutes: Winterbells

-As long as I'm getting political, let's talk for a second about Proposition 8. If you're a "Yes" proponent, and you think you have a shot of passing this proposition, you're crazy. Liberals own this state. Whether you like it or not, the "religious right" simply doesn't have the power that it used to-- at least not in California. So all your clever arguments about the specific wording of epistles written in Biblical times are falling on deaf ears. Gay people aren't going to lose the right to get married. It's 2008.

And don't even get me started on that commercial with the little girl who says "I can marry a princess! I learned it in school today Mommy" Aside from being extremely manipulative, that commercial misses the point entirely. It's not about what kids learn in third grade-- it's about the right of two people to enter a legally binding marital contract, in order to receive the same benefits that all married couples have. It's not even about religion. It's a matter of state. It's separate-- or should be, anyway.

Don't make it illegal just because your book says it's wrong.

(By the way, I do believe in the Book. I just don't think we have to force everyone else to follow it.)

Whew! That was fun. Let's move on to something lighter, huh?

-Rolling Bomber Special (Warning. This video is extremely awesome, and extremely Japanese. Also, I had no idea what the hell was going on at any point of this video, so there's that)

-I really wish I had a MacBook. I'm seriously considering taking out an extra student loan and buying one. Comment if you think I should do it.

-Think I'm going to take out a Netflix membership this year. There are a lot of great movies I need to watch, and I actually have time to do a little of that this quarter. I've never subscribed to something like Netflix on my own before... it's still a little bit strange being an adult. But I can afford it, so damn it, it's going to happen.

Okay, that's probably enough for a good post. Nothing to report on the "Quest" front, so I'll sign off here.

los angeles a.m.

Last week I drove down Wilshire Boulevard late. Somewhere on the other side of midnight. At that hour the city has a different population-- a different identity. Even the twilight is different. The sky glows with a pale yellow light, a glow that is tangibly man-made. It's a constant reminder of the millions of living bodies within ten miles of my car.

The atmosphere of L.A. at night is seductive to its target demographic: the young, lonely and scarred. It's electric, and it's ominous. There's a dangerous edge to it-- after all, it's the thieves who own the city after midnight, and the junkies and bad cops and all manner of scoundrels.

I was idling at a red light at Fairfax, and across the street I saw a girl in pumps and three layers of make-up, leading a doe-eyed john into the lobby of a hotel.

Less than a mile away, the club scene was in full swing, as a line of impeccably-dressed yups snaked out of a little door and down a narrow side alley. Beyond that little door, subwoofers shook and lights flashed. Out in the alley, cinder blocks and broken glass littered the concrete on which they all stood, shivering in their expensive shoes and shirts and dresses. They didn't seem to care.

And that made sense, when I thought about it. They weren't there to sight-see.

Five minutes later. A black Lincoln Towncar was in the lane adjacent to mine. The driver surveyed his surroundings with the look of a hardened mercenary. He monitored his speed carefully to make sure I wasn't driving next to him. The car's windows were tinted.

Every time we would pull up to a stoplight, he'd keep his cab five feet behind mine, giving me a hard stare every time I glanced his way in my rearview mirror.

I don't know what was going on in the back seat of that Towncar. A passionate affair... maybe. Could've been a big crack deal. Whatever it was, it involved someone who could afford a hired driver. A CEO, a movie star, a record producer, a high-ranking public official. Maybe a crooked lawyer trying to cop a bargain with the prosecution.

More likely, a forty-five-year-old married businessman on a joyride with a very friendly girl named Trixxie.

In this city, it could have been anything.

we don't need no talkin pictures

Had my first film midterm today. It was harder than I expected. I think a lot of people messed up on it, so I'm still probably okay.

I've been watching some silent films lately-- The General, The Navigator, and just tonight I watched City Lights. The first two were made by Buster Keaton, and the third is a Charlie Chaplin movie. If you've never seen a silent movie before, check out one of those.

Seriously. DO IT.

You'll be surprised-- I know I was-- how entertaining and moving a film can be without spoken word.

City Lights, in particular, had one of the best endings of any movie I've seen in a long, long time. I don't want to give anything away if you haven't seen it, but if you have, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I never thought I would resonate so well with Charlie Chaplin.

The General was just absolutely classic from beginning to end. I'm so impressed by Keaton's ability not only to act and direct, but to pull off all his own stunts, which for this movie must have been extremely dangerous. The Navigator is also worth checking out, as it contains some classic scenes as well.

I have some more Chaplin films to watch, and I should probably check out Metropolis and Battleship Potemkin as well. There are a HUGE number of great movies I still haven't seen... I have a lot of catching up to do. But I'll definitely enjoy every minute.

wow

I completely fail at updating this blog.

Last week in Film 188B, we talked about genre classifications. You know the drill-- western, sci-fi, comedy, thriller, horror, musical. My professor brought up an interesting point about why genres are actually not confining to an artist, but actually liberating.

(By the way, I should probably explain-- this fall I'm taking a film class. It's called "Art and Technique in Filmmaking", and the purpose of the class is pretty much to consider film as an art form, and analyze what makes a film both artistic and, hopefully, successful. I love this class, because it's confirmed what I've already realized about movies-- they're ART. A very complex art, in fact.)

So anyway, back to the topic at hand.

I have to confess something: I've always hated genres. Why put a label on something? Why impose a bunch of overused clichés and structures onto an otherwise acceptable story? Some of the best movies are the ones that don't fit into any particular genre. (Eternal Sunshine comes to mind.) To me they've always seemed unnecessarily restrictive.

My professor said that genres are useful in a couple of different ways. First of all, they have a pre-established audience. There's an audience for Indiana Jones-type adventure pics, as much as there's an audience for the latest Judd Apatow production, the next Pixar flick. There's an audience for horror movies-- who will go see any scary movie that comes out, no matter how crappy. (how else could a movie like "Prom Night" have opened at #1? yeah, remember that one? no thanks)

The point being, one of a filmmaker's main goals is to get asses in the seats. Making a genre picture helps achieve that goal.

But the artistry has to be considered, too. That's where my prof's next point comes into play. He said that genres provide a set of thematic issues to explore, plots and characters to tangle with, over multiple films.

In westerns, morality can be dark and complex; in sci-fi, the ethics of technology and human advancement; in horror, our universal fear of death and the supernatural; even in comedy, we can question what makes us laugh.

Not only that, but genre films can allow a director to grow and gain skills, offering many technical challenges that are unique to each genre. If I were to make a musical, I'd probably want to use warm lighting, bright colors and fast-moving cameras; but if I wanted to do a film noir, I'd film black-and-white in stark lighting, and probably hire Billy Wilder to write the script. So making a genre picture can be a great learning tool for a director-- like me!

So I'm thinking my first big feature has to be a musical.

I have some ideas ("24: The Musical" anyone? Kiefer Sutherland faces off against a band of singing terrorists in a wacky real-time romp-- featuring Kristin Chenoweth as Chloe! Tickets on sale now, get yours before time runs out... *tick* *tock* *tick* *tock* *tick* *tock*)

But I think I'd better wrap this up before I give away the farm.

It's my birthday

and I'll blog if I want to

steppin up!

What up bizzitches? Iggy rappin at you from the WC holla!

I got another Hollywood job yesterday!

This one might prove a little more helpful than the Dogmatic job. I'm an assistant to a producer who's got several movie projects lined up. Yes, MOVIE projects. Instead of working on commercials I'm headed straight to the big time!

No, it's not paid. And no, I'm not going to do anything other than fetch things, organize files and otherwise be his bitch.

And unfortunately I'm busy most of the week with school, so I can only work Mondays.

But hey it's a step! If I can get in good with this guy, he might help me out with other things! Maybe someday he'll even help me produce a movie of my own!

Funny story: I went up for the interview and got a little bit lost/confused. I thought I was heading for an office, but there were only apartment buildings on the whole block. Turns out the whole production company runs out of a random apartment...

I dig that though. It doesn't have to be a big high-class building, when it's all about making the movies. You gotta start somewhere!

P.S. Here's the last movie he produced: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419749/

woah

It's September 11th.

The terrible day seems so far behind us, doesn't it?

we still need those extras

There's a seminar at a certain top-flight university this weekend. It's about making a career in entertainment, starting from the bottom as an intern or assistant. I saw the listing on Craigslist the other day... it was in between "Wanna be a HIGH-END HOLLYWOOD HAIR STYLIST?" and "(21+) Extras Needed for Adult Film".

I followed up on the seminar and discovered that it's a one-day event, or to put it another way, eight and a half hours of lectures from the VP of some production company. At the end of the day you get a sheet of paper with phone numbers on it, and a listing of companies with job openings in their bottom rung. The cost? $75.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by this. Hollywood has made an empire out of packaging and repackaging the same worthless stuff every year. Ironically the same place I found the seminar listed-- Craigslist-- I can also find job openings galore, as well as the phone numbers and email addresses I need to contact in order to apply.

So why would I pay $75 for the same information? Well... yeah I wouldn't.

I'm just gonna keep waiting for something from Craigslist to pan out.

since there's nothing going on with the quest...

I had a bad dream last night. :(

Actually, most of my dreams tend to be really intense and strongly emotional. Some of the time this happens in a good way-- more often than not, though, it's bad. Bizarre huh? I'm sure part of it is because I'm an intense person. Another part is just the nature of dreams. I think dreams are the place where we sort out the tougher webs of thought that tangle up in our heads.

So tell me what this means:

I'm driving my car up a long flight of stairs. For some reason this was a major road-- there are many cars in front of me and a traffic light sits at the top of the stairs. Flashy neon signs are all around me. The light turns red ahead of me, and the cars in front screech to a halt. I'm forced to stop halfway up the steps.

As I'm sitting there I notice the incline is getting steeper. The steps are becoming taller and taller, by now reaching about a foot in height. The light turns green-- the car in front of me speeds ahead-- but I'm gunning the gas and I can't make it any farther up the stairs. It's still growing steeper. I'm starting to panic as I slide backwards. The slope is nearly vertical by this point.

In the reality of the moment, I truly believe I am going to die.

Then suddenly I'm out of the car, and in a crowded room under one of the neon signs lining the staircase. But there's no time to enjoy my sudden freedom.

A crazed man is brandishing a pencil and stabbing people with it.

Another person hands me a garrotte-- I don't know why this is happening-- and tells me to go strangle the killer. I'm terrified so I head around behind him and pass the garrotte off to another man who's got him in a headlock.

That's when the killer breaks free, stabbing the Good Samaritan in the side of the neck with the pencil. He sees me and sprints straight for me. I can't describe how petrified I felt at this moment-- I'm running in circles around a tiny room as a crazed killer chases me, while a full crowd of people watch impassively.

Warning-- this crazy yarn is about to get graphic.

Somehow a pencil got into my hand, and I decide it's time to "kill or be killed". I turn around and shove the pencil up THROUGH the man's face. The tip stabs through the roof of his mouth and explodes out straight up, right between his eyes.

The crowd bursts into wild applause as the killer seems to lose all aggression and becomes normal. That's right-- he just got a pencil through the face and he's not dead. But now the crisis is averted, as he has become a regular citizen with no malicious intent.

You know how people say they wake up "in a cold sweat"? I've never woken up like that-- but I have woken up in a very, very warm sweat. Yeah, that's how I woke up last night. Right after that little episode.

Again, it's hard to communicate the intense emotions I felt while all the craziness was going on... but trust me, it was very real to me at the moment. And this is actually not an uncommon thing for me. I usually dream like this.

After lying awake for a couple seconds of confusion, my first normal thought was: "WOOOOOOOOOOOW that was intense."

Followed closely by "I wonder if I can put that in a movie?"

you can't fight in here-- this is the war room!

I think I've come up with a new concept for a movie-- one that seems to have a lot more promise than the first screenplay I wrote! Exciting stuff, it is. I'm still not too sure on the details so I won't get into it here. You can kill a story by trying to tell it before it's written.

Let's just say it's a mind-f#!&.

Here's another item of interest for me. I just bought this:

It was the best purchase of my life. I am absolutely in love with these movies, and I'm just in awe of Stanley Kubrick. Within the past year he's grown to become my favorite director.

If you can't see the titles, here's what came with it:
Lolita
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
2001: A Space Odyssey
A Clockwork Orange
Barry Lyndon
The Shining
Full Metal Jacket
Eyes Wide Shut
(plus a documentary about Kubrick's life)

The only ones I haven't watched yet are Lolita and Eyes Wide Shut-- the other six are unqualified masterpieces.

Honestly, if you've never seen a Kubrick film, you really owe it to yourself to watch one. In reality you should probably see all of them. I will let you borrow one or more if you ask nicely-- maybe I'll even watch them with you. :)

Seriously, this guy is unparalleled when it comes to making movies. The sheer craft and technique he used. Not to mention the great stories and characters. Pure genius. (And I don't use that word lightly!)

My favorite film of his is Paths of Glory, which sadly wasn't included in the boxed set, but I went out and bought it anyway. What an incredible film.

I noticed I've thrown around a lot of hyperbole in this entry. Well I don't care. I'm still blown away.

These are the kinds of movies I wish I was good enough to make.

optimism

I just saw the American Jesus
He's huddled up against an old oil drum under the I-10 at Crenshaw
Blowing through a dirty harmonica
and dreaming

more reflection

Writing is like an itch... you have to scratch it.

Writing a blog is like having an itch under a heavy cast-- except the cast doesn't come off after six weeks. It stays on forever. Somehow you have to keep scratching.

So scratch I shall.

Thinking back over my life, I've always wanted to achieve big things. When I was six years old-- a wee Iggy if there ever was one!-- I couldn't think of anything better than being an astronaut. My grandpa was an engineer who worked on space travel equipment, and when he wasn't being a rocket scientist he was a professor. One of his students was a young Neil Armstrong. That is not a lie.

So naturally I wanted to go into "the family business". I bought a bunch of books about the universe, space travel, the moon, the solar system, you name it. Well, actually I didn't buy any of them. My parents did. I was six, remember. But I read every word, pored over every page, stared at all the pictures. For me it was a foregone conclusion: I would go to NASA and train to be an astronaut. I even had my mom sew a complete space-suit costume for Halloween one year. (The costume is still in my closet as we speak.)

I'm not sure when, exactly, but at some point over the next few years, the astronaut dream faded.

At the age of eleven I bought a book about becoming a video game programmer-- and suddenly, that was it. I'd found a new Shangri-La. Gone were my fantasies of exploring the galaxy... now I could sit in front of a computer all day, play games, and get paid tons of money! I immediately set about learning how to program in BASIC, knowing I would eventually work my way up to C++ and Java-- "the big leagues". Someday I would make a brilliant game that would transform the industry. And in the interim, life was certainly looking a whole lot more fun!

Wait a minute. You're telling me it's not that much fun to be a programmer? They have to deal with endless amounts of code, debugging and searching for tiny errors, getting paid in peanuts, and during all of that, they almost never get to play games?

Oh.

Forget it, then.

Looking back, it's interesting that I went straight from programming to the "engineering track". It certainly was never a dream of mine. I didn't lie awake at night fantasizing about AUTOCAD and corporate meetings. I just wanted to make some good money, and it was time I pull my head out of the clouds and aim for something I could realistically do.

So why did I give up on my dreams?

I remember being very disappointed by the reality of programming. As I gradually came to understand what it would really be like to make video games, there was a profound sense of letdown-- it was like finding out there's no Santa Claus.

Maybe that led me to think that I couldn't find a job that was fun, so I might as well go for a job that paid well. I stopped paying attention to my passions and buckled down for a long career in the real world.

Now my priorities are a little different. Passion before cash. Meaningful work before stability. Creativity before conformity.

Dreams before regrets.

If you're wondering why I spend so many posts talking about "the history of Iggy" and my decision to leave engineering, it's probably because I'm still scared to death that I made a terrible mistake. Nine months have gone by since I decided to make movies, and I'm still trying to talk myself into it. Having been on "the track" since I was a little kid, it's hard to step off and find my own way.

But at this point I'm more than ready to jump into the film business. Actually, I can't wait!

There is that little matter of "graduating from college", though. I should probably take care of that first.

After that-- the sky's the limit!

i do love the taste of a good burger

Another day, another page in the diary of Iggy's Quest! Today's blog entry calls for a little bit of reader participation, so maneuver your mouse on over to the "comment" button and wait for my signal.

I've realized over the past few months, as I've started to really analyze films, that I really don't know much about how to make a really good movie. Alfred Hitchcock once said that to make a great film, you need three things: the script, the script and the script. I think he's got a point-- actually, that's one of my favorite movie-related quotes. However, the real truth is that you need a lot more than just a script. A lot of different elements have to come together, in subtle ways, to really make a classic.

I don't expect myself to ever reach that level... but I can aim for it.

So, my awesome readers, if you can spare a couple minutes, give this a shot. Name your favorite movie-- or if you can't pick one, name one of your favorites-- and give the reason why you believe it's a great movie. If you can think of a particular scene or character to use as an example, go for it. Again, this is all for my own selfish benefit, so really try to get into it. Four to six paragraphs would be ideal.

In reality though, a sentence or two will do.

And so you don't feel alone I'll do one too! (Mine will be longer than yours, probably)

My favorite movie is probably still Pulp Fiction. I just can't get over how good the script is, and how unique. The bizarre structure somehow ends up seeming completely natural and flows with the arc of the story (non-story?) My favorite scene is probably the intro, when Jules and Vincent bust into Brett's apartment. Really, really smart writing by Quentin Tarantino, from the good old days back before he went completely nuts with kung-fu homages and stylistic mishmashes (a la Kill Bill). And Samuel L. Jackson gives the badass performance of his career.

"I don't remember asking you a god-damn thing!"

Ahhhhhh. Classic!

I almost feel like I can't quote a single line from that scene without quoting the entire back-and-forth dialogue. It's so brilliant as a whole. Go back and watch it-- the tension escalates subtly, almost underneath the spoken words, but it works to create an extremely intense payoff. I honestly can't think of a better-written scene in any movie I've ever viewed, and the actors completely carry it off.

(edit: i can't believe i forgot to post the clip! whoops)



Ok, now... your turn.

and we're back

Hi everybody. It's Iggy-- back on the blog wagon again. Regular updates are on their way.

You remember how I said I wanted to make a short film this summer, right?

Well, I apparently didn't account for the fact that I've never even come close to making a short before. Not even for a school project.

I also failed to account for Southern California's weather, which has been sunny and rainless for months. Originally my plan was to work around that by shooting in the early morning, when a marine layer should still be overhead-- but it's actually too hot for a marine layer this month. I've barely even encountered that before.

My script called for two-- TWO-- locations: a toy store and a shoe store. I went into a couple of stores around my neighborhood and asked if I could film there. They said "NO" so quickly, and so decisively, the force of the word itself blew me back out the front door and into the street. I guess there are corporate policies against things like that. Maybe they thought I was going to film all their secret, illicit shoe deals and sell the tape on the black market.

So I changed the script, and changed my plans. I'll have to find a reasonable facsimile of a shoe-store counter, so that I don't have to shoot in an actual store... and I'm changing the toy store into a pizza place. Why? If I told you that, I'd have to kill you. (Let's just say I work with what I'm given.)

Then I went up to the Los Angeles area to get a camera from my old boss. Turns out he didn't have the professional camera that day-- so he loaned me his personal camcorder. Extremely nice gesture on his part, but it definitely isn't a pro camera. I'll still get some good use out of it, though.

And on top of all that, I now have some severe scheduling conflicts that might mean I can't shoot the damn thing until September.

So basically, I fail at making a movie. Oh, don't worry-- it WILL BE DONE. But it won't be done soon.

I was hoping to do it in August, so that I'd have time to edit and then release it before summer's end. But a fall release isn't too bad. It's closer to Oscar season, so that's a plus. I should start it with a big "For Your Consideration" label.

Now then... Anybody know of any good production jobs?

anybody still here?

Just to show you guys I haven't totally abandoned this place-- here's a little essay I just wrote. Maybe to kick myself in the ass more than anything else.

I promise I'm going to reboot the quest. And it'll be sooner than you think.

"Bushisms"

How does it feel to watch your life pass you by?

I used to have one of those 365-day desk calendars next to my computer. "365 Bushisms". It was a gift from my uncle-- he's the type of guy who still gets his yuks from the daily Garfield. He thought it would give me a chuckle. I'm sure you've seen them before. They weren't even current in 2002. That's not why I got rid of it-- although that's a pretty damn good reason.

No, I got rid of it because it was too convenient of a metaphor. On a Tuesday I would rip Monday's page off the calendar, crumple it up and chuck it into the trash. Then on Wednesday, I'd rip Tuesday's page off and throw it away. Pretty soon there was a mound of balled-up Bushisms in my trash bin. And every day I would look into that bin and think about how many days I'd thrown away.

I'm a writer. Or at least, that's what I tell people. I'd certainly like to be a writer. I can't imagine anything better than waking up at noon, lounging around all day and tapping out a few hours' worth of garbage for a team of editors to pore through and rewrite, and getting paid for it. After all I already have the lounging-around part down pat, and sometimes I even wake up AFTER noon, so I guess you could call me an overachiever. But the funny thing about being a writer-- occasionally you have to write.

There's still a big pile of old forgotten calendar pages in my trash bin. One wasted day reads, "'My job is a decision-making job, and as a result, I make a lot of decisions.' -George W. Bush"

Well, I'm a decision-maker too. Today I decided I'm not going to let these missed chances haunt me anymore. I'm going to start something-- something BIG. But first I'm going to empty the trash.

Haven't really gotten around to it yet, though.

But I will. Oh, I will.