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CineSource Collective Narrative
Advancing the Arts in Oakland and America Impresario Rocco Landesman has been named head of the National Endowment for the Arts while, in West Oakland, a film-video professional group struggles for both existence and to build Oakland's media business, two ends of the all-important American art advancement project.
Rocco (what a name) is another brilliant Barack move, perfectly designed to endear American arts and his admin with:
• The Hayseeds (Rocco has southern roots and an interest in baseball and country music)
• The Jews (he’s a Missouri — pronounced “misery” — Jew)
• The New Yorkers (he owns the third biggest Broadway chain, Jujamcyn, with five theatres), and, last but not least
• The Berkeley Activists (he’s been called ''a wild man,” who’s militantly pro-art and says what ever is on his mind).
Some of the same could be said of Sean House. An ex-Navy NCO, House fulfilled his dream of getting into film by bartending across the street from ILM, getting to know some employees and eventually joining the massive model-making (and blowing-up) department — now split off as Kerner Optical, which seems to be defying the economic doldrums and doing well this summer. House is leading the charge for the Oakland Film Center, a group of some 30 filmmakers and below-the-line workers, which turned “swords into plowshares” by artifying the old Oakland army base.
In addition to House’s own company, Outhouse Productions (what a name), which specializes in props, models, creatures, weapons and blowing things up, of course, the Oakland Film Center includes:
• Freyer Lighting and Grip Trucks
• Ranahan Productions, with full gear, PAs and communication capacity
• Debbie Brubaker, an esteemed local producer, who did “La Mission,” “All About Evil,” and "The Darwin Awards," among many others, as well as counseled Oakland’s own Carmen Madden
• David Hakim, who used to executive edit CineSource and is an assistant director and all around man-about-set
• John Behrens, Robert Fujioka, Jonh McLeod and about fifteen others (see Oakland Film Center).
Speaking of Carmen Madden, she completed “Every Day Blackman,” her very pro and personal feature in May. She is premiering it at the Atlanta Peachtree Fest, in September, and she is finally doing her first private Oakland screening in ten days (shoot me a line if you want an invite). In fact, not only will the showing, at the Fantasy Building in Berkeley, include “Every Day Blackman,” about a seemingly average small businessman caught between the bankers, the Black Muslim Bakery extortionists and his own past, but a promo for "Shadow Fight," her next feature, which will start principle photography next June, in 2010. Evidently, Ms. Madden's CLM Productions is becoming studio and doing a film a year, right here in the East Bay, as reported in a long article or the Madden interview, both in CineSource's April 09 issue.
Now back to our other Oakland story, the Oakland Film Center, together with Ami Zinn and the Oakland Film Office, as well as CineSource (I might humbly add) is actively promoting and attracting film to Oakland. The Oakland Port killed the Wayan Brothers 2007 plan to turn the army base into a full blown studio by stating that port trucking had to continue unimpeded. Indeed, the Wayans could expect shipping containers stacked ten high around their property — an absurdity since they rarely go above five, traffic could have been shunted to the large 7th street freeway entrance and, hey, couldn’t we make just a little sacrifice for a @#*%$ film studio and the millions of dollars of incomes and taxes it would provide? Nevertheless, the city/port agreed to allow the Oakland Film Center to survive and it is carrying forth boldly.
After getting kicked out nicer warehouses on the base, the OFC moved to the funky but still serviceable buildings on the corner of Maritime (easily viewable from the West Oakland exit, first exit over the Bay Bridge). “We would be happy to put some money into refurbishing these spaces,” notes House, “If we had some security.”
A clause remains for the continued existence of OFC, after House and his buds attended a special Oakland City Council meeting, on July 28th, where the Council was deciding between the California Commercial Group or the Federal Oakland Associates. The Council went with the former, headed by Phil “The Great” Tagami, a small time Oakland developer who grew to head the Port, redo the Fox Theater, build the Oakland Rotunda Building, and much more. Tagami wants to put in a trucking hub, with an all night gas station — you may know the type from Little America, Wyoming.
Having the OFC in West Oakland is critical, according to House, because: “We are not the big fish — those would be the TV and film producers — we are the bait. We provide the one-stop shop for all your below-the-line needs. And we are centrally located, which is very convenient and can save your grip, soundperson or producer 20 or 30 minutes sleep in the morning,” (indeed, crews often rise at 5:30 to be set up to shoot by 7:30).
“The Oakland Film Center is a city treasure,” the City Council agreed, after House and his associates finished explaining. It remains in the Tagami development plan, with continue residence on the army base until spring 2010. Although trucking is naturally big in port town, film can be pretty damn lucrative — "The Matrix" brought in some ten million dollars and a bunch of permanent jobs. Indeed, the hardworking Oakland councilwoman Nancy Nadel is pushing as hard as she can to keep or grow as many jobs as possible, following her neighborhood’s marketing slogan, “West Oakland Works,” see the West Oakland Chamber of Commerce (webmastered, oddly enough, by CineSource’s production house, A Media).
“Art Works,” coincidentally, is Rocco Landesman’s non-Rococo (meaning ornate, 18th century, French) new slogan. It's a definite improvement over the Bush-era NEA’s, “A great nation needs great art.” If anyone can light a fire under bureaucracy’s posteriors, it is Mr. Landesman, who produced Tony Kushner's ''Angels in America,'' and brought Paul Simon's ''The Beauty Queen of Leenane'' to Broadway, both arty extravaganzas, the latter flopped miserably, but it couldn't happen to a nicer guy, according to Rocco.
Meanwhile, House is a good candidate to shake things up here. With his knowledge of blowing-up some things, like models, and building-up other things, like community organizations, he is helping keep film viable not only in Oakland but the whole Bay Area. Well aware of how Canadian tax incentives sucked the life out of Bay Area film a decade ago, now that California has finally instituted its own tax incentives, House wants to attract production back. To do this, “We need to build the teams and facilities able to do it.”
Tim Ranahan, also part of the Oakland Film Center, proposed the Production Assistant University to train local underserved kids and, thereby, help rebuild the IATSE teams, PA minions and below-the-line pros that a revived Bay Area film industry would need. Incidentally, the Production Assistant University plan is a bit like the Cultural Connections Institute, suggested for West Oakland by A Media in 1995, and mentioned in last week’s B Roll from Aug 4 09.
Perhaps, such a fantastic academic, media and business center would be more appropriate not in the Army base, especially after the massive truck stop goes in, but five blocks down West Grand at the even larger Pacific Steel site, owned by another film impresario, San Francisco's own esteemed Maurice Kanbar. While the vast, funky warehouse was recently rented to Dan Das Mann, of monumental Burning Man sculpture fame, there are plenty of other lots left in West Oakland where Das Mann could erect his seventy-foot wrought-iron female figures. Near the corner of West Grand and facing the lovely re-landscaped Mandela Parkway, on the other hand, is a perfect place for 30 film companies, the Production Assistant University, the Cultural Connections Institute, and a couple of cafes and clubs. Indeed, it could anchor for the avenue’s rebirth as a newer, hipper version of Emeryville. Oh please god, pretty please (I live down the street and need a place for morning cappuccino).