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I’m really not that political, but reading about SAG’s internecine fighting is a little shocking. Sometimes, really shocking (update: sometimes really, really shocking). When your union leadership is perennially incapable of holding meetings without Blagojevichian obscenity-laced tirades, maybe it’s time to reassess.

Everyone wants the actors to get a fair deal. But there must be a better way for SAG to achieve its goals.

6 Things I learned at the SAG Rally:

*When you hold a rally, crazy people will show up
*A person’s craziness is directly correlative to their loudness
*If you’re at a rally, it’s okay for people to walk up and start screaming at you
*It’s best not to reason with those people
*Twenty out of twenty loud crazy people favor a SAG strike
*The pro-SAG strikers honestly don’t look like they do very much acting, anyway

Then at some point, maybe 2005, Taco Trucks entered the ambit of the hipster palette.  This was the year great taco blogs emerged like LATaco.com and The Great Taco Hunt. Avid foodies began meticulously ranking and debated the merits of neighborhood Taco Trucks. Perhaps it was because hipster turf had encroached on Latin-American turf (i.e., Silverlake, Echo Park, and Downtown).  Or perhaps it was because Taco Trucks are about the only way to get fresh eats for under $2.  Or perhaps it was simply because the best taco trucks are so mind-bendingly amazing.  Regardless, Prometheus-style, a vanguard of bloggers, hipsters, and assorted trendsvestites have spread the good news to the rest of us.

Carne Asada Taco from Wikimedia Commons

Victory of the Taco Truck

The East Los Angeles Taco Trucks fought years of legislative battles. Considered a nuisance by non-mobile businesses who don’t want their sidewalks blocked, Taco Trucks were required to move every hour or risk up to a $1,000 fine and/or six months in prison. Because of these laws, part of the fun of getting a great taco used to be finding the darn truck. Analogous to how the best clubs often have no sign out front. When you found a good truck, you really felt like you were in the know.

For years, various lobbies and city officials repeatedly tried to ban Taco Trucks altogether, as they are considered anti-competitive to sit-down restaurants that must pay rent, waitstaff, insurance, city taxes, etc. It wasn’t until late 2008 that the bulk of these measures were voted down, allowing Taco Trucks to stay in one spot all night and generally exist with some semblance of brick-and-mortar detente.

Enter Kogi BBQ

A few weeks ago I tried Kogi BBQ, the new Korean Barbecue fusion Taco Truck. They serve a truly mind-blowing spicy barbecue chicken taco garnished with cilantro-green onion-lime relish and crushed sesame seeds. The Kimchi Quesadilla is an acquired taste; saltier than anchovies, it packs a mean punch. Their five dollar burritos are also a flavor explosion, spicy meats mixed with scrambled eggs, chopped onions and cilantro, romain and cabbage tossed in Korean chili-soy vinaigrette.

Kogi Tacos (image is from their website)

Slick Marketing

The brainchild of a Filipino restaurateur, Kogi follows the traditional model of a Taco Truck by traveling around town throughout the night. However, Kogi employs a top executive chef, is backed by a slick PR company, and regularly posts locations and updates to Twitter. There is something almost ouroborosian about a Taco Truck for hipsters, by hipsters. Kogi’s already been covered by KCRW, K-CAL 9, and LA Weekly. They even have a fan page on Facebook. Kogi has only been around since November and the cat is already out of the bag.

If you want to try Kogi, be prepared to wait in line. I tried to go last Friday in the rain, in Silverlake. Jay and I planned it to the minute, arriving first in line at 5pm. The Kogi truck arrived an hour late, two blocks south of its announced location. When the hour-long line turned and sprinted south toward the arriving Taco Truck, I found my first place spot became the last place spot. People who arrived last got served first. Total time for Jay and I to get our Kogi tacos: two hours.

Los Angelinos have a near-Soviet level capacity for waiting in lines. But I have to admit, going to Kogi is like buying a taco at the DMV. And because the truck consistently shows up an hour late, there’s really no way to outsmart the lines. Kogi reminds me of when I thought I discovered Cold Play, and eight months later they were all over Leno and Letterman. Try Kogi if you want to taste one of the most original tacos you’ll ever eat in your life. But if you want fast service, no lines, and a truck that’s always there when you need it, have a Suadero taco at Taco Zone on Alvarado.

*Yes, I am choosing to capitalize Taco Truck throughout this post.

In my defense, I read some doozies this year.  “Das Capital” isn’t exactly a page turner, and you have to turn 1,300 of them.  Regardless, here are some books I read in 2008 that I think are worth a mention.

For 2009, I am particularly looking forward to fewer books about holocausts.  And more books under 1,000 pages.

The Communist Manifesto – Marx & Engels

Last year I read Harpo Marx and Groucho Marx.  This year, I switched to Karl.

“Working men of the world unite!”  Terrifying, and rigorously rhetorically effective.  Tremendous logical fallacies throughout.  Probably helps that the working men of Russia and Asia didn’t have high school educations.

Notes From Underground – Dostoyevsky

Very ahead of its time!  The first literary anti-hero I can think of…  A century before Holden Caufield!

Riveting arguments on Free Will.  Very, very first person.  Forerunner of existential thought.  Memorable quotations and really ground-breaking in every way.

For Dostoyevsky, this is a quick read.  And well worth it.

Five Essays on Philosophy – Mao Tse-tung

A historically fascinating albeit nearly philosophically useless collection of essays.  Probably Mao’s attempt to equal Lenin and Stalin in adding to the communist cannon.

“Where do correct ideas come from” was written three years before the Great Famine that killed 60 million Chinese through Mao’s insipid agricultural policies.  Mao expounds on his philosophy of “Let 100 flowers bloom, let 100 points of view collide,” while outlining how dissidents must be eliminated by the state.  Very eerie.

Almost all the logic of this book is confident but absurd, much like Marx.  The only interest I found is the symmetry between Yin/Yang Chinese philosophy and dialectical materialism, not that Mao was very explicit in this analogy.  A disturbing man.

I Wake Up Screening – John Anderson and Laura Kim

Really a terrific source of information on the independent film market as told by the community of buyers, filmmakers, producer’s reps, publicists, and press.

The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

WONDERFUL.  Swashbuckling, romance, betrayal, vengeance, smuggling, pirating, dueling – just great.  And with serious themes of God and Free Will.  A fantastic adventure story with a great main character trapped in impossible situations.  Tore through this book in just over 24 hours.  Brilliant dramatic situations – every chapter is a self-contained adventure, forcing you to turn every page.

Musicophilia – Oliver Sacks

Interesting info and anecdotes about music and the brain; basically, music is really good for you.  This is the psychiatrist who wrote “Awakenings” and “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat.”

Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious – Sigmund Freud

The first 200 pages are like Aristotle’s Poetics – dryly defining categories of wit.  Then, at page 200, it gets interesting.  Freud asserts that jokes occur in the unconscious from conscious stimuli just like dreams.  And therefore wit – in its puns and absurdity – speaks the language of dreams.  And is therefore a direct window into the unconscious.  Pretty impressive book.

The Painted Bird – Jerzy Kosinski

Devastating portrayal of the decay of human decency in WWII.  Gut-wrenching display of Polish peasant life in all its cruelty, bigotry, and superstition.  Makes it easy to understand how the holocaust happened.  Really gripping writing.  All that said, the story is more than a little fantastical, and of course is not the true autobiography Kosinski claimed it to be.  Still, eminently readable; a good (albeit disturbing and nihilistic) book.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer

Virtuosic Brilliance.  Ultimately, I’m not sure how much lasting emotional power the book will have over me, but from page to page, the narrative cleverness is absolutely brilliant.  He infuses every sentence with astonishing cleverness and sensitivity; in my opinion it takes way more IQ to write this than a Hemingway novel.  Safran Foer is easily one of my favorite novelists.

The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

Pretty enjoyable.  Monte Cristo I much preferred.  Making it all about the female villain was interesting and more cerebral, but prompted no big sword and gun battles at the ending.  Also, a surprising amount of lead characters kick the bucket; the second half of the book was slow.

Also I never actually saw the words “all for one and one for all” so that was confusing.  Fwiw, I was reading an awful translation.

Iron Jack – Johnny Rosenthal

This is a screenplay that sold this year for $1.25 against $2 million.  I mention it only because of all the million dollar scripts that have sold in recent years, this one really made me laugh.  The first act is truly inspired.  Look for it starring Sacha Baron Cohen in the next few years.

Aspects of the Masculine – Carl Jung

Some neat, albeit heavy ideas.  For instance, the belief that women become more masculine as they age, while men become more feminine.  The trouble with this sort of reading is that six months later, I can only remember one or two sentences about the book.

Walden – Thoreau

Some great moments of inspired prose.  Some fireworks close to the end.  A revolutionary and inspiring piece of work.  Like Moby Dick, many parts are boring naturalism.  But many passages are transcendent (Well, I guess, “transcendental”), even when he’s simply describing the formation of bubbles in ice.

Das Capital – Karl Marx

Interesting from a historical perspective.  The vivid descriptions of the mistreatment of factory workers in the industrial revolution make it easier to understand why communism arose, and why it took the form that it did.

I was particularly intrigued by his idea of “fetishization of the commodity.”  Only a commodity’s function is relevant.  Helps explain why communists aren’t much for aesthetics.

Nevertheless, all of Marx’s economic assertions here are just wrong, wrong, wrong.  From his first premises (e.g., equating a commodity’s value to the labor required to produce it), to the irrational math he derives from those first premises (I’m talking Wittgensteinian levels of post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacies).

His narrational voice is surprisingly whiny for an economic treatise, often resorting to ad hominem, and taking it at face value that anyone in power must be resented.  From page one, this book is a shell game of faulty reasoning.  It’s too bad billions of people went in for this stuff.

The Last Tycoon – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Minor Fitzgerald.

(NB: Fitzgerald is one of my all time favorite authors.  In his defense, he died before he could finish The Last Tycoon.  If I knew people were going to run around publishing my unfinished drafts, I would probably die, too)

Shopgirl – Steve Martin

Lots of cleverness and yet not a page turner.  All I could think reading this book was “show don’t tell.”  The height of New Yorker magazine hautiness – everyone is rich and into high art.  I love, love, love Steve Martin.  But I did not love, love, love this book.

Born Standing Up – Steve Martin

Read in one sitting.  Very fun and interesting.  It takes ten years to make an overnight success.

Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card

This has been recommended to me for years.  Zillions of people on Facebook list Ender’s Game among their favorites.  I liked it okay.  I think the window for loving this book is middle school.

Money – Martin Amis

Pretty much a masterpiece.  If I ever get OCD enough to compile a 100 best list for books, I will put this on it.

The anti-hero and subject matter are in the gutter.  But Martin Amis’s command of language is nothing short of astonishing.

The Kid Stays in the Picture – Robert Evans

Truly amazing life.  A very fun read.

Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut

Lots of neat ideas in a constantly evolving story.  Ultimately, for me the message of the book was a one-sided argument that religion is a joke and war is stupid, without really discussing alternatives, or real-world ramifications.  I think we all understand that war is bad; the interesting question is what do we do about it?

Nevertheless, an entertaining read.

The World’s Worst Book – Justin Heimberg

My roommate Justin has written a slew of coffee-table comedy books that you can find in the humor section of Borders or Barnes and Noble.  They’re all worth a read, starting with the “Would You Rather…” series.  Very clever stuff.

Save the Cat Goes to the Movies – Blake Snyder

Snyder has a lot of slap-yourself-on-the-forehead good ideas.  He’s the kind of writer I would give anything to sit down and have a cup of coffee with.  But I’m going to come right out and say I have a beef with some of his readers.

The sort of people I shake hands with in creative meetings who’ve never read a story structure book in their lives – until they read Save The Cat – and now they think they’re structure mavens.  It’s the exact same species of disdain I have for adults who haven’t finished a book since high school, and then start gushing to me about Harry Potter.  I think it’s great that you read a book, but it doesn’t make you Ravelstein.

Like any good theorist worth his salt, Snyder is standing on the shoulders of giants.  Joseph Campbell, Christopher Vogler, Syd Field, and Georges Polti leap to mind.  Also Carl Jung, Aristotle, Robert McKee, Terry Rossio & Ted Elliot, Denny Flin, Lajos Egri, and Linda Seeger.  Snyder is not the first story structure theorist to discuss these ideas and he won’t be the last.

This is why I get annoyed when a creative executive tries to tell me about “Blake Snyder’s +/- midpoint,” when Syd Field used that exact terminology thirty years ago.  It’s like loving Chris Tucker and having no idea who Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor are.  Note, my ire here is not directed at Blake Snyder – who has great new ideas – it’s directed at many of his fans – who often don’t.

I suppose the good news is that someone has finally written a story structure book that studio executives will bother to read.  And for that feat, Blake Snyder probably deserves his zillions of dollars.

Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand

Look, the first 100 pages I absolutely loved – the battle between the competent people and the incompetent.  The idea of telling all the incompetent people to go shove it deeply appealed to me.  Like, cathartically so.  My relationship with this book in week one was borderline anaclitic.

But for the next 1,000 pages Rand’s arguments are repetitive and often seem incomplete (e.g., the palaverous John Galt speech).  It’s a thought experiment that works on paper but not in real life.  Human beings are much more nuanced than they are in Ayn Rand’s fiction, where they exist simply to force her points.

The place where I really lost interest was when the female hero has relationships with three different men with no negative consequences.  Ayn Rand attempted this in her real life and it didn’t work out quite as well for her.

On the whole, my libertarian side is deeply, deeply sympathetic to Ayn Rand’s message.  But my understanding is that Fountainhead is the better novel.  It’s on the list for 2009.

The Princess Bride – William Goldman  (Also Buttercup’s Baby)

Really a delightful book.  There should be more books like this.  This is definitely one of my favorite books of the year.

Foundation – Isaac Asimov

Clever solutions to unsolvable situations; the only weak point for me is the story takes place over 300 years.  So everyone dies off every fifty pages and you have to learn all new characters.

Also, Asimov writes, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent” about seven times.  I have never understood this quote.  Wouldn’t violence be the first refuge of the incompetent?

Complete with fresh titles, I think we’ve finally got the movie we can send to festivals.  Now it’s time to take a well-earned break from The Last Hurrah.

Richie recording some new crowd walla-walla with Corey (above).

Many fun hours in the dub stage, but I think we’re finally wrapped.

We showed the film in a screening room at Raleigh Studios to a group of industry friends.  I’m thrilled to report that 29 out of our 30 comment cards were definitively positive.

Reviewing the cards, we are going to go back in to remix and sync ADR, polish up our front titles, and trim some run time from Act One.  Our whole goal now is to make the first ten minutes of the film as accessible as possible to a festival screener.  It’s this single-take concept that will either make people love our movie, or completely not understand it!

It was very gratifying to watch the movie in a live theater, and hear audience response.  And such a relief to hear laughter – in the places where we want to hear laughter!

Now it’s back to work on completing the final version of the movie and getting it out to festivals.

After bouncing around through several mixers, we are finally lucky enough to be working with the wonderful Corey Eccles on a state of the art dub stage.  She is bringing our sound up to a level of quality I didn’t think was possible for our movie.

Recording a one take movie, mostly outdoors, we were saddled with all sorts of honking horns, airplane engines, police sirens, lav mic pops and static, boom mic distortion, and more than a few flubbed actor lines.  After going through several sound mixers, I thought we were simply going to have to live with these issues.  But Corey has been able to rapidly erase many if not most of these problems.  I am, frankly, astonished at the speed and quality of her work.

Perhaps sound is like a tightly sealed pickle jar, where several people need to have a go at it before the lid finally pops open.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed until I get to spot the final output this week.  But I think we may finally have a completed movie on our hands.

And now it’s a question of finding a festival for our premiere.

Here is Chuck hard at work on reel four…

Color Timing a One Take Movie

Color is extremely important to our movie, because we have no cuts.  The way we differentiate mood between scenes is largely by color and sound design.  We assign different color palettes for each scene location, particularly in the nighttime shots where we have better control of the lighting design.

The Importance of Color Timing

Prior to color timing, movies don’t look like movies.  To give a sense of the importance of color timing, below is a deleted scene from The Italian Job.  Look how flat and overexposed the non-color timed footage is:

Pretty amazing, right?  Now keep in mind The Italian Job had a $60 million budget, closing off downtown Los Angeles to shoot these scenes.  Nevertheless, non-color timed footage looks like it was shot at a backyard barbecue.

Here’s another neat video I found that demonstrates the before/after effect of color timing:

Moving Closer

The Last Hurrah was shot in late afternoon, magic hour, and night.  So much of our original footage is grainy, low-contrast, and flat.  It is exhilarating to watch our footage come to life and blossom with color as we complete Color Timing.

(Mitch in his native environment – with The Last Hurrah playing in the background)

We knew we would encounter challenges shooting in one take.  What we didn’t anticipate is that the sound edit is the most challenging hurdle of all.  Our beleaguered sound team has to make sense of 16 lavalier and boom radio channels often distorted by static, production sounds, or even Spanish radio frequencies.

To further complicate matters, our sound designer’s band is away on another 6 week European tour.  This is his third tour in 2008, and this has effected our desired schedule.

All this being said, I do believe sound is very close to completion.  The remaining focus will be on Jay to complete visual effects and titles, and Chuck to do color correction.  I cannot wait to have this movie in the can, and begin to submit it to festivals in earnest.

Faith, our web developer, is really together. I showed her my design for the web site and it sounds like she can make it happen. I love having a strong team.

Here is Faith’s first mock-up of the web layout. I love simple, clean design.