Please contact us
with corrections
or breaking news
Blogger-at-Large
Crew Call June 11 It seems like we can finally say—or shout from the rooftops—the #$%* recession is #$%* over!
It may not look that way, from where I sit in Oakland, but my producer and equipment-rental friends here and around town tell me the joint is popping! Albeit only for production—the same is not true for postproduction.
At one point recently, there were four major features shooting by the Bay. They included "Untitled Western Movie," "The Master," with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix, and directed by the quirky Paul Thomas Anderson of "There Will Be Blood," (2007) fame—who apparently pulled to shoot in the Bay Area—and "Knife Fight."
"Knife Fight" was written and directed by William Guttentag, a big time doc maker out of Stanford ("The Cocaine War," 1992, "Soundtrack for a Revolution," 2009, and many others), and is currently being edited by the very sweet Robert Dalva working out of a suite at Video Arts in The City.
There were also a some smaller features, like "Five Year Engagement," filming in The City and Sonoma, and the indies are cooking. Re the latter, Rob Nilsson and his Citizen Cinema Brigade are pumping away in the East Bay even though he is taking a break for an award and retrospective at the Moscow Film Festival, see "Bezerkely Indies: Alive and Expanding Worldwide."
Meanwhile, the car and computer commercials were off the hook.
In the smoking hot shorts department, the Oaklandish artist supreme Kreayshawn was hired to do the first video for the Red Hot Chili Peppers' long anticipated tenth album, "I'm with You." The song is called "The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie."
Despite the sound of jaws dropping along Mulholland Drive, the wild and crazy rapper as well as filmmaker (graduate of the Berkeley Digital Film Institute) beat out a host of more seasoned LAers. A mere 22 years old, the ever-modest and kooky Kreayshawn, also known as the female "Lil B" or "based goddess" (although her real name is pretty sweet, Natassia Zolot), couldn't believe it herself.
There's also been some young guys netting big fish in the doc rivers. Four Northern California Emmys went to 30 year-old Torin Simpson (out of Lompoc) and his SFG Productions for “Inside The Clubhouse: The Journey,” a behind-the-scenes look at the San Francisco Giants as they hustled their asses for and won the 2010 World Series. The film, initiated before the Giants won their title, has been lauded for its look at sports luminaries as ordinary, even eccentric, guys.
Alas, reports from the postproduction trenches are not as stellar. Our main informant on that scene, Kim Salyer of Video Arts, says, "Things are as lumpy as ever and June was pretty slow over all. There is always stuff going on and people are always talking about stuff (of course!). I think production has been doing better if you look at all the little houses doing corporate."
In fact, even Video Arts, one of the The City's premier postproduction houses, is doing production, servicing their corporate clients as the prime contractors.
"That is what everyone has be these days," Salyer says, "In front of the creative. One way or the other, you have to have control of the job, pitch the ideas. Then you run the show."
Of course, no one does that better than the elephant in the room, which we had to leave out of our Berkeley Gala Issue simply because there was not enough room: Pixar.
Admittedly the golden boys and girls at Pixar finally got their come-uppance on "Cars 2," their 12th feature (at least it wasn't their 13th) when they got a less then perfect score from the critics. I guess it had to happen eventually: 11 megahits in a row is uncanny by any measure. Indeed, last year's "Toy Story 3" made everyone's top ten list, including Quentin Tarantino's! But this will probably just rile them up to get out in front of the creative even more!
Pixar's new building in Emeryville is almost complete, meaning they'll soon be switching to a two-film-a-year or more schedule, much like a regular Hollywood studio. But even before those doors open, there are rumors of a secret project hitting the screen that is a little racier than their regular Disney fare—and I'm not talking "Cars 3."
For almost five years, Pixarians in the know have been intimating they would jump to live action with "1906," about the days surrounding the earthquake, which they bought years back from author, Marin resident and Academy of Art professor James Dalessandro. Instead, it seems like the big surprise is a more adult and realistic animated version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "John Carter of Mars."
Announced some years back, it disappeared under the avalanche of accolades for "Wall-E" and "Toy Story 3." On top of this, the trades tell us Disney has scheduled an untitled original 3D movie from Pixar for fall 2013: "1906?"
Meanwhile, nearby the East Bay Professional Filmmakers Meetup (Facebook: ) started recently and is going great guns with monthly networking, folks helping each other and classes. For another angle on this sort of stuff, check out Making Movies Throughout the Bay, which meets every 2nd Saturday or the good old standard in the field, the Scary Cow Indie Film Co-op.
So, as we can see, from small artists to large enterprises, the Bay Area is booming, the summer shooting season is upon us—see CineSource's "The Many Locations of Northern California," if you need location ideas, and staying in front of the creative is growing.