One of the great things about living in Los Angeles is the opportunity to attend shows that offer a Q&A with its filmmakers.  In a time when most people watch movies at home or in some way the movie going experience has become such an ordeal- crowded theatres, rude patrons and not having to deal with traffic this unique setting with the filmmakers has renewed my interest in the movie theatre experience.  For film lovers, it’s a chance to hear about how a film gets made, and since it is a live experience, it certainly lends itself to some really good off-the- cuff and occasionally, off-color remarks you’re not likely to hear on a film’s commentary track. There’s nothing quite like a live forum to showcase the spontaneity of random chance and awkward answers.

One of the more notable Q&As I’ve been able to attend recently was a screening of Josh Whedon’s, “Much Ado About Nothing”.  After the show, Whedon and several cast members spoke about the making of the film and answered a few questions from the audience.

It was a very lively and intimate event.  At one point, a member of the Q&A panel grabbed the bag of popcorn of a lady in the audience.  He helped himself to some of the popcorn, and then shared the bag with the rest of the panel and some of the other members of the theatre audience.  The laughter this sideshow elicited did not detract from the discussion about Shakespeare, and the film making experience of a small group of friends who shot a movie in Whedon’s house in twelve days during a break  he took after filming 2012's The Avengers.

Whedon’s parents were teachers who loved Shakespeare.  They would have friends over and they would read and perform Shakespeare’s plays in their house. Whedon and his wife carried on this tradition in their own home. Somewhere along the way, the idea of making a movie and filming theiractual house came to be. The film itself is a well- crafted tale and was reallywell done.  It is probably the best produced family home video ever made.  It was a neat experience to see how Whedon utilized his home for the various locations called for in the play.  Which worked for most of the film. The only odd moments was the probably downstairs utility room he used for the Police Station ( but again the home made movie aspect  of it carried a weird charm) and the exteriors of the house which doubled as a city street. But by this time in the film the performances are so strong  and the film was so much fun it wasn’t that bothersome.

One of the great Q&A series is usually presented by American Cinematheque.  They show films at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica.   Recently, at the Egyptian Theatre they had a presentation of the Sensurround version of 1978’s “Battlestar Galactica”, preceded by a Q&A session with several of the SPFX artists and the film’s creator, TV producer legend, Glen A. Larson. Looking a lot like Stan Lee, Larson was the center of attention as he
  explained some of the origins of the film. He made sure to include all of the
accomplishments of the other members of the panel with him that evening.  He also spoke about some of the inner politics of the 1970’s film and television industry, including the seemingly universal interference of television network bureaucrats, as well as the rivalry of various studios trying to cash in on the SCI-FI boom of the late 1970’s. I would have gone to this without the gimmick of "Sensurround." But again this is one of the things that can make these Q&A experiences just that little bit more memorable. In this case the re-creation of this theatre environment sound effect that runs along with the film in key scenes. Originally developed for the 1974 film Earthquake. And it makes a lot more sense when used in that film as it's basically a whole bunch of speakers with a loud rumbling bass track. Makes perfect sense for a California earthquake scene. Not so much for space battle scenes. After awhile I found it annoying and I'm glad Universal didn't use this system for long. Sensurround was created when most theaters had only stereo sound systems at best, now with most theaters having extremely sophisticated 7.1 speakers or more, sound systems- an average movie goer today will probably also find the Sensurround experience lacking.

Panel is a silly word, as in both cases, the Whedon and the Larson
Q&As, the filmmakers and a moderator are casually sitting in chairs in front
of the audience.  It’s very relaxed and engaging. 

There was no opportunity to talk to the creative forces at great length in either cases.  Yet, for the 30 minutes or so of the Q&A, it felt like a small dinner party of like minded film enthusiasts discussing films, film making and the politics that play into these.  Being there with like  minded folks of a particular film really does enhance the experience of watching the film as opposed to a regular theatre, where most folks really don’t care how the film was made, but only if it’s entertaining and whether or not their shoes are sticking to the theatre floor from a stray piece of gum. 

Going to these types of events with filmmakers whose films have influenced me in
one form or another has become one of my new favorite hobbies and for me has
made the film theatre experience memorable again.

2013 appears to be the year of the sequel reboot: Evil Dead, Superman and Star Trek, to name a few. It’s not the first time a bunch of sequels have dominated the movie marketplace, after all there are a ton of Charlie Chan mystery films. When studios find something that has appeal, they milk it to death. However, the idea of the reboot has taken hold. A few decades ago, studios would, at most, recast, a change of actors like when Sean Connery left the highly recognizable and profitable James Bond franchise. Audiences came to accept the change. This later happened in television as well when Gene Roddenberry launched Star Trek: The Next Generation. It took awhile but Trekkies eventually loved the series.

A few years ago a friend asked me what I thought of the then new JJ Abrams reboot, 2009’s Star Trek.  On one hand I didn’t want to like it as it seemed to dumb down Star Trek. Don’t get me wrong, Star Trek in it's long history has had plenty of dumbed down moments, but in general it was a mix of action and mind bending concepts.  Trek at it's best pushed the viewer to be in engaged in the story. But if a studio is going to throw a huge budget at the franchise, you want and expect a certain level of artistic production quality. Some people loved Abrams version of Star Trek. I thought it suffered from huge story telling flaws and it was visually uneven. The now infamous“lens flares” were distracting, and some production choices like shooting at a Budweiser Brewery in Van Nuys, California and using this as the starship’s warp engine room, I thought displayed a lack of serious vision. Sticking computers and people in front of vast vats filled with brew was very B-movie. You do that when you’re making a student film, not when you are working on a multi-million dollar budgeted film about mankind’s future. Even on a limited TV budget, Gene Roddenberry and his staff did their best to create something new and interesting visually in the service of a good and well told story.  

There were, however, some great production ideas in the film and it hinted at a nod to the 1950’s impressions of space travel. Most of the production design seemed to be inspired from the pages and covers of sci-fi fiction pulp magazines. Which could be really cool with today’s movie magic technology.  

I liked how Abrams seemed to take in the criticisms of the first film and in the sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), he made a really good effort at creating a vast re-imaging of the future and upping the production value. The sets are interesting and look great. 

There were still major plot holes in the sequel from the minor like Doctor Marcus sneaking aboard the Enterprise, to the major: why didn't Khan simply wake up his 72 Eugenic super-men army and take over the base? He apparently had enough time to stuff them in super hi-tech photon torpedo tubes. And nobody would notice those missing? 

When news leaked out that Spock was to die in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Nicholas Meyer came up with the ingenious Kobyashi Maru scene at the begining of the film to distract the fans attention for when the actual Spock death scene occurs at the end of the film. Here's the lost opportunity for Abrams and creative crew: when the web was a buzz that Into Darkness featured Khan as the villain.  In this alternate Abrams Trekverse  it is revealed  that John Harrison is actually Khan, who instead of being revived by the Enterprise crew, is revived by Admiral Marcus ( the other baddy in the film) cruising along in deep space one day and discovers the Botany Bay adrift.  So originally Abrams cast Benecio Del Toro. A great actor and resembles Ricardo Motalban enough to be seen playing the role of Khan.  The web is buzzing: "KHAN! " Something changes in pre-production and they re-cast Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan, presumably because he is a great actor, and who ended up stealing the movie.  

Besides the obvious objection, that the character of Khan is an Indian Sikh and Cumberbatch looks nothing remotely like an Indian Sikh, here again is another lost opportunity to create something new. There were 73 super-eugenic people aboard the Botany Bay from the TV episode.  Since JJ Abrams established that the timeline had been changed, why not just let John Harrison be John Harrison? It would’ve been a great reveal at the end of the film if we see John Harrison sleeping in the tube, and inside the cyro-genics tube next to him, oblivious to the events in the new time line, lay Khan.

Reboot simply means a change with the times. Which is totally fine and necessary if a story is to be relevant with other audiences. What can be tiresome for audiences is the constant re-telling of the “Origin”story, and what’s even worse is if this is done poorly, if nothing new is created or added. I used to read tons of Superman stories. Stuff from the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and on. Characters adapt to the needs of each generation and usually for the better. Man of Steel, the new Superman film retells what is probably the 100th version of the battle of General Zod VS Superman. Taking a cue from the 1970’s Superman and Superman 2 films, based on the trailers, this one promises to be a jam packed explosive “Super-duper” adventure and it doesn’t seem to be dumbed down as opposed to what seems to be happening in other reboot films like Star Trek Into Darkness, where the rules of the Movie universe are set and like the Prime Directive you’re not allowed to ever violate the rules you create just to take a short cut or as it seems taking a cookie cutter approach and just taking a selection of scenes from other films and just re-telling them. 

I enjoyed Star Trek Into Darkness, but it lacked inspiration and a new and original twist, so it’ll be sad to see it collecting dust one day. Maybe instead of terming these types of films re-boots they should call them re-prints.

Completing this documentary and series has been a quest for me.  An odyssey and a legacy that began with a conversation about Alaskan
 Baseball between my Dad and me as we sat behind home plate at Mulcahy Stadiumin the summer of 1999. I still remember that hot summer so long ago, the smell of burning pine trees from a huge forest fire just north of Anchorage. We talked about how the American sports
media had really overlooked baseball in Alaska, and all the amazing talent that had come through the Alaska Baseball League. The list of talent that played at one time or another since the Pilots first took the field in 1969 was incredible: Mark McGwire, Randy Johnson, Mickey Hatcher, Suguru Egawa, Dan Boone, Randy Jones, Chris Chambliss, Dave Winfield, Tom Seaver, Bump Wills, Graig Nettles, and Rick Monday, to name a few.

 So, in the summer of 2001 with a camera in hand, my one year old son, wife and I
set off to follow the Pilots around the State on what I thought then would be a
small short film on the history of the Glacier Pilots. This “small film” grew into the colossal story of the Champion 2001 Team with the inspiring personal stories of young baseball players and the last days of one of Alaska's greatest baseball coaches and personalities: Jack O'Toole.  Jack's health was declining and had suffered a stroke and the Pilots asked me then to talk with Jack and record his tales about Pilots baseball.  I knew of Jack as most Alaskans did, seeing him every year Coaching the Pilots, but I had never really met him before.  As a kid growing-up in Anchorage, the Glacier Pilots were like the New York Yankees to me. My own Father's health was  starting to decline at this time also, and I felt a kinsman ship to Jack's son, Patrick O'Toole, having also spent a greater part of our childhoods in the ball park, and both of our Dads were Coaches. So I spent some time with Jack and preserved some of  his stories for the next Pilots fan. Those stories became the 1st documentary I did about the Glacier Pilots.

 "Lefty & Jack"  was released in 2004, a 49- minute documentary (available for purchase on DVD at www.glacierpilots.com) with then Pilot's Coaches: Jack O'Toole and Lefty Van Brunt, reminiscing about a lot of really funny and exciting moments of playing baseball in Alaska. The film met with great reviews. 

On to the rest of the series! Problem was the next two films’ scopes are so large it really became too much for one person to do all alone, and, like most documentaries that you believe in, it was a labor of love. I wasn't able to tackle what became the huge, complex and fascinating story of the Glacier Pilots before my father passed away in 2011. 

Now though, with your help, it is possible to get it done.

The funding of this project (through Kickstarter.com) will allow
me to finish the story, BUT it won't be just one film! With your support, this
project will also include a web series of the 2001 Pilots – premiering this
year, and a separate documentary on the History of the Pilots and a final
feature film documentary on the 2001 team for film festivals and project donors
(1st BASE LEVEL and higher).

The funding is key as this will make it possible for me buy music clearances, additional editing and post production services that this project deserves, along with paying for film festival fees and other promotional items. When this project is launched, word of mouth and friend promotion will be crucial to get the word out and network and raise awareness and urgency.

I hope you can help by donating and/or contacting your friends, the media -
including social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) - and news networks of associates and whoever else loves baseball and a great story!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1898797771/anchorage-glacier-pilots-legacy-project-3-films

and

www.glacierpilotslegacy.com

Ang Lee is one of my favorite filmmakers. Although, I’m not a
fan of every movie he’s done, he, like most people, have had his hits: Eat, Drink, Man Woman, The Ice Storm, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,and his misses, most notably:  Hulk.

Hulk, which in my opinion really wasn’t Lee’s kind of film, is really more of an action/monster movie with dramatic elements. I personally don’t think action is a film genre that plays to Lee’sstrengths.  Even Crouching Tiger, which emulates flying combat scenes from Hong Kong martial arts films, Lee’s version of the flying action sequences was a pale imitation of the Hong Kong films which achieved more
excitement, despite greater budget limitations. What does work in Crouching Tiger are the emotional scenes of the characters. Lee’s strength is emotional - family dramas and not the action blockbuster he was pushed into after the commercially successful Crouching Tiger. 
 
The role of the “father” is often a dominant theme in Lee’s better films. Whether from a personal or cultural view, Lee often explores the relationship with great success. His first major stumbling on that subject would be the first major Hollywood summer blockbuster offered to him to direct.

"I applied to study film at theUniversity of Illinois, my father vehemently objected.He quoted me a statistic: ‘Every year, 50,000 performers compete for 200 available roles on Broadway.’ Against his advice, I boarded a flight to the U.S.” Lee and his Father barely spoke to each other after that.

The Hulk script, already dark before Lee was brought in, explored Bruce Banner as the victim of  child abuse from his father.  Apparently this appealed to Lee, who with his producer, re-wrote much of the script focusing on this dark family subject matter. There is an overwhelming sense of hopelessness in Lee’s Hulk. No matter what Bruce Banner does, he seems to be overpowered by his own father’s plans for him. 

“Some years later, when I graduated film school, I came to comprehend my father’s concern. It was nearly unheard of for a Chinese newcomer to make it in the American film industry. That year, I turned 30. There’s an old Chinese saying: ‘At 30, one stands firm.’ Yet, I couldn’t even support myself. What could I do? Keep waiting, or give up my movie-making dream?”

I suppose Lee was going through a dark artist period in his career starting with the very cold and well-named 1970’s dysfunctional family drama, The Ice Storm. Unfortunately his dark drama style was a mismatch with the expected summer blockbuster, and audiences did not respond to it. 

Lee, who had spent so much of his life following his dream of becoming a big and successful director, really considered quitting film making and retiring after the lackluster reviews of Hulk. Despite having 19 Academy Award nominations (5 wins) and 7 major films completed, Lee was still riddled with great self-doubts. 
By this time Lee and his father had reconciled, and he and his family encouraged him to stick with film making, after all this was one set back after many years of battling with the system and his own demons about being a film maker.

Lee, after graduating school, struggled for six years, raising a family, writing scripts
and making films while they lived on his wife’s income. This bothered Lee greatly:

“This kind of life felt rather undignified for a man. At one point, my in-laws gave their daughter (my wife) a sum of money, intended as start-up capital for me to open a Chinese restaurant – hoping that a business would help support my family. But my wife refused the money. When I found out about this exchange, I stayed up several nights and finally decided: This dream of mine is not meant to be. I must face reality.”

Lee enrolled in a community college computer course at a nearby community college, planning for a new career in programming. Lee’s wife noticed one day his unusual lethargic demeanor and discovered a schedule of classes tucked in his bag.  The morning after, as she got in her car to go to work she said to Lee: ‘Ang, don’t forget your dream.’

“And that dream of mine – drowned by demands of reality – came back to life. As my wife drove off, I took the class schedule out of my bag and slowly, deliberately tore it to pieces. And tossed it in the trash.

“Sometime after, I obtained funding for my screenplay, and began to shoot my own films. And after that, a few of my films started to win international awards. Recalling earlier times, my wife confessed, ‘I’ve always believed that you only need one gift. Your gift is making films. There are so many people studying computers already, they don’t need an Ang Lee to do that. If you want that golden statue, you have to commit to the dream.’”

That golden statue being 2 Oscars for Best Director, most recently for the Life of
Pi.  What I like about Ang Lee is that he is a very talented yet flawed director. Not every one of his films is a blockbuster or fantastic, but he works hard.  And like all of us, when facing the challenges of life, he wants to give up sometimes, but through it all, he creates art about life. And that is why he is a great filmmaker and
one of my favorites.

People like to say that the book was
better, and in most cases that’s probably true like in Stephen King’s case where his style of horror doesn’t seem to translate well to the screen. But every once in awhile the film is much better than the book, as in the example of Ian Fleming’s 7th Bond novel- Goldfinger. 
 
Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli chose this to be their 3rdfilm following the successful Dr. No
and From Russia With Love Bond films. While, essentially the same story the book has notable differences and can be looked upon as a really good first draft that the producers and their screenplay writers-  Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn vastly improved upon the story in the book and solved a major plot hole that somehow escaped Fleming when he wrote the book.

The biggy is that in the book Auric Goldfinger really was trying to steal the gold
from Fort Knox. Even with the huge American Mafia team he’s hired there is simply too much gold in quantity and weight to be burgled in a day out of Fort Knox. Another plot problem was the way Goldfinger disabled the Fort’s populace in the book- he poisons the water supply- and it will kill everyone in the town as well as the Fort. In the book the Army and U.S. Government are supposed to have a lackluster response to the situation allowing Goldfinger and his men to have free
reign.

This scenario is pretty unrealistic ( yes, I used that word discussing a Bond movie,)
that the Army and Government would completely stay away. It pushed the believability boundaries too much. I can imagine that’s probably what the producers discussed and actually came up with a better idea that Goldfinger uses a team of airplanes to spray a nerve agent that only effects the base and not the town as a whole in a surprise attack. 

The other plot problem was Goldfinger’s use of a small tactical nuclear bomb to blow open the doors to the gold vault. Even if there such an incredibly small scale
nuclear device that only effects several feet thick metal doors and doesn’t wipe
out the surrounding quarter mile, then the gold inside the vault would be either  vaporized, melted or radioactive.

Which led to a brilliant plot change in that Goldfinger, is not going to steal the gold at Fort Knox but is going to “kill” what he loves the most: the gold. The practical answer is also that distruction of the U.S.A. gold supply will vastly increase the worth of his own gold elsewhere. Since, Fleming’s use of the nuke had changed and in the 1960’s a new and scary technology emerged: the laser.

In the book Bond is tortured by Oddjob and Goldfinger for information with a saw.
The producers changed this to a laser, which has become an iconic image in
cinema.  James Bond strapped to a metal table as a red laser beam slowly burns the metal advancing towards his crotch.

“Do you expect me to talk?”-Bond asks nervously.

 Goldfinger smiling replies, “No Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.”

It also provided the perfect answer to opening the gold vault doors. Use the laser
to cut open the doors. There are numerous other changes from minor characters
becoming major characters like Pussy Galore who in the book was a gangster for
hire to being  Goldfinger’s #1 pilot and flight commander on the attack on FortKnox. 

These are just some of the differences between the book and the film and is a great exception to the rule that the book is always better than the movie.

Editing and censorship. A dreaded combination and to many an
artist as it usually represented an oppressive authoritarian regime trying to control the minds of the masses or protect the social norms or any given society. There’s also a lesser used version of censorship and that’s to protect military or strategic secrets. I’m not going to debate the pros and cons of censorship as it is a part of life as an editor, most likely it will happen to
change the rating of the film being worked on from an “R” to a snazzy “PG-13.” 
  
Back in 1942, World War 2 was raging and a great many
  studios were “enlisted” in the war effort then to make informational and propaganda films for servicemen and the American public as a whole. This
partnership between Hollywoodand the American Government produced hundreds of films. One of the more interesting stories from that time is what happened at the Walt Disney Studios. When the war started, the Hollywood Studios lost a lot of their European and lesser extent Asian box offices. The Studios were hurting for revenue and especially the Disney Studio which had just built their large Burbank Studios and increased their man power.

The Government was afraid of growing NAZI sympathies in
South America and wanted a good will tour of American celebrities. Walt Disney needed income and so he and some of his creative staff set off to South America, and by many accounts it was a great success. Years ago I was working on some Disney video materials as they were being prepared for the 2000 DVD release of Saludos Amigos.  One of the bonus materials was a short 33 minute documentary for the Office of Inter-American Affairs titled South of the Border With
Disney. Which chronicled their adventures across the southern continent and
at around the 20 minute mark as the airplane is flying over the high Andes, and whenever people looked outside it was cut to a wartime censorship card and I recall the narrator mentioning that photos of the pass were top secret. 

Walt Disney: “The flight across the Andes into Chile over the highest mountains in America. Plenty to see and remember on this spectacular trip. Since no cameras are allowed here the boys have to cover this from memory and sketches. Impressions of Uspallata Pass from 16,000 feet.”

 This puzzled me as I live in a world now where everything is googlemapped.  But in the 1940’s it made sense as planes could only fly low altitudes and this was the
only real pass to travel from Chile toArgentinaas later the Disney Studios
expanded on in their cartoon short: Pedro the little Chilean air mail plane. The point was the War Time Censorship office didn’t want to give away any possible visual information to an enemy power. Paranoia? Maybe, could the Axis powers already know the route? Probably. Then again better safe then sorry. So in 1942 this made sense. Fast forward to the 1950’s and this was included in Walt Disney’s TV program and that Censorhip card and wartime narration are now out-of-date and an annoyance. Has to be fixed. Answer: editing. Insert shots of the Andes replacing the Censorship cards and edit out the wartime references in the narration. 

If you get a chance and are interested in Walt Disney’s
trip to South America, check out Walt
and El Grupo on DVD. It’s a bit nostaligic overall but it does a pretty good
job of capturing the feel of that era and what Walt and his friends experienced
on a good-will trip in war time. Also if you ever find a pre-DVD version
(laserdisc or vhs) of South of the Border With Disney rumor has it has
the original wartime censorship cards in it.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming. A sleepy ski-cattle ranch town hidden
a mile high deep in the Rocky Mountains, may surprise a lot of folks as one of  America’s great undisclosed locations for filming movies. Hollywood has known about Jackson for a long time. It is probably best known even today for the 1953 western classic, Shane. For me, when I visit there every year, and I’m out on the upper Gros Ventre River looking for our Christmas tree to chop down, I can’t help but think of the Siberian landscape in RockyIV (1985). I keep expecting to see Stallone running down the road followed by a KGB car. Or when we’re in the Jackson City Square, I wonder if I’ll have to dodge Clint Eastwood brawling and wrecking the town as he did in Any Which Way You Can (1980).

What makes it a wonderful and  practical location to shoot are two things: major airport and most of the Federal and State park lands start just north of the town, preserving the rustic and wild quality of the wilderness. While a lot of films shot there have used the Jackson Hole area as a stand-in for somewhere else like Siberia, the mountains of Norway in Son of Lassie (1945) or usually some nameless western place like in countless westerns, it is when Jackson Hole has been featured itself that it’s been a gift to the local economy.  And also a problem as big money has moved into the area. Development is encroaching these areas, and for the locals that live there year round, it is a never ending battle with the new billionaire jet set who seemingly want to urbanize this picturesque valley with XXL sized weekend getaway McMansions. Downtown is filled with high priced art, clothing retailers and real estate offices that make Rodeo Drive look like a fast food court at the local mall.

For now though, the cowboys seem to be putting the brakes on the billionaires.

While the airport and several highways make it a lot easier to get production equipment into Jackson Hole, it wasn’t always that way.  It is a very remote area of the United  States to try to get into anytime of the year. Heavy snows still close off the valley during winter, shutting down roads and grounding the planes. I was fascinated as to why early film makers would want to spend the time and money to travel a thousand miles from Hollywood, when there were so many other closer mountainsin California that have doubled for places all around the world. With so many incomplete  records and papers lost from early silent cinema there’s no way to be certain of thier motivations, but the Grand Tetons are spectacular looking on film and that was most likely the reason to undertake such an expensive journey.

The earliest film shot in the Jackson area was possibly a film jumping on the popularity coat-tails of Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922), a film entitled Nanetteof the North (1922?).  It’s hard to find any information on this title as apparently there aren’t any surviving copies of the silent film and in one description I found, it  suggested it might have been a 1920’s soft “porn” or “stag” film. I use the term lightly as at this point it’s all hearsay and seems rather odd to go to the incredible expense to shoot something like this in such a remote area. Or perhaps it was an alternate title  for another film shot around the same time called Nan Of The North (1922.) This was a 15 episodic serial created by the Arrow Film
Corporation (1915-1926) and the film was classified as a“northern.”  A genre term not really used anymore but like its’ cousin the “western,” a “northern” usually referred to stories taking place in the Canadian wilderness or arctic regions in general. Instead of Sheriffs, there would be Mounties. There’s no doubt about the 5 reeler western:  The Cowboy and The Lady (1922) which was filmed in and around Jackson Hole. It was released by Paramount Pictures. Unfortunately, there aren’t any surviving reels only a few photographs from the production.

The earliest film that survives from that era is probably also one of the first major Hollywood spectaculars, Raoul Walsh’s The Big Trail (1930).  This epic was not only one of the first sound pictures, it was also one of the first to use the 70mm film format which enabled it to capture the adventure and romance of the American pioneer crossing the wild continent. The film is also the first leading role film for a young 23-year old prop boy, John Wayne. It would be almost another decade, however, before John Wayne’s big break out role in The Wagon Train. Despite being shot in black and white, the 70mm images in The Big Trail were so vivid that some audiences stood up and applauded at screenings set-up for the early Cinemascope at theatres in Los Angeles and New York.

Considering the technical problems they had to overcome, it’s really amazing the film was made at all. Outside of moving a production over 2,000 miles, they also had to wrangle the horses and actors,  run a 35mm and a 70mm camera at the same time, fuel noisy generators for light and sound, move bulky sound recording equipment, and immediately re-shoot for four different foreign language versions (German, Italian, Spanish and French) with four different casts.  In those early days of sound, they didn’t do voice over dubbing in the studio later or create subtitles. The most famous Hollywood film made like this is probably Universal
Studios’ Dracula (1931,) which shot an exact shot for shot Spanish version. In 2006 The Big Trail was selected to be preserved in the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress.

Every few years after that, a smaller scale picture or parts of a picture would be filmed in the area, one of the most notable films to be set in the area was Tex Ritter’s singing cowboy B-movie Down The Wyoming Trail (1939). Filmed in old town Jackson Hole and just north of town in the National Elks refuge, they made themost of the location for this goofy singing cowboy western/ Christmas/murder
mystery movie. It’s interesting to see old town Jackson in several shots.  The singing cowboy genre was very popular in the 1930’s and 40’s.  Even John Wayne made eight films as Singin’ Sandy Saunders after The Big Trail.  Luckily for him and us, that craze did not last long.

As World War II raged in the 1940’s, MGM needed a stand-in for Norwayfor the first sequel to their hit Lassie Come Home (1943). Parts of Son of Lassie (1945) were shot in around the Jackson Hole area featuring the beautiful lakes. It’s bizzare to envision Lassie and the cast run away from actors dressed as assorted NAZI soldiers, as Wyoming cowboys watched from afar at nearby ranches, but that’s the movies. It’s also notable that this was the first color picture to be filmed there, capturing the splendor of the Teton range.

Big Hollywood productions returned in 1952 with Howard Hawks’ The Big Sky, featuring Kirk Douglas as an 1830’s fur trapper travelling the Missouri river.  Oddly, this movie was filmed in black and white and on a standard screen format of 1:37 to 1. It is not considered to be one of Hawks’ best works, it was nominated for two Academy Awards and has an appreciated fan following.  This was the first major film to be shot entirely on location and not in studio.

And then there was Shane(1953). Based on the extremely popular novel by Jack Schaefer, Shane was mostly shot in the valley around Jackson.  Every year I still see the remains of the cabin used in the film slowly turn a little more into dust as the weather slowly claims it. I picture Alan Ladd and the rest of the cast, milling about in-between takes, the crew grumbling about production problems until the final call for the day and they all head back into town for some rest before the next
 day’s film shoot. Many movies were subsequently shot and filmed in Jackson after Shane.  However, it is this film that seems to still resonate with the locals and
western fans alike. The local Dairy Queen on the northern end of town seems to
be a shrine to Shane.  Aged publicity pictures are framed and on the wall.  The film plays endlessly, year after year on the TV monitors.  People I know there all seem to have a copy of the film, along with their best Sunday boots, a bible and the collected works of Louis L’Amour. The folks in Jackson are very proud of the movie, even though it wasn’t filmed entirely there. They call it one of their own, mostly because this was the first major modern film to actually be set in Wyoming. Everything came together as Shane was released at the zenith of the American Western cowboy movie craze, and that it was filmed in color guaranteed its’ continued release for decades on network television. 

It doesn’t hurt that the filmmakers made a great film, as well.

The film itself is gorgeous, having been shot in color.  Paramount released it in a
1:66 to 1 format as the studio was trying to get people away for the televisions. Loyal Griggs, the cinematographer, won an Academy Award for his work on the movie. The film became an instant western classic and iconic American cowboy film. In 1993, it was selected as to be included in the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry.  It is the first movie filmed in Jackson Hole to receive this honor.

I think what’s interesting about Jackson Hole’s film history that since filming there is not continuous as it is in a place like Hollywood, when movies are filmed there they become bench marks or snap shots on the current state of the  art of cinema, technology and a reflection of society and the films that entertain them. Films of all sorts and genres will continue utilize the beautiful sights of Jackson Hole, but it’s safe to say the area will forever by entwined with the American Western. The most recent western film to shoot there is Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012.)

This month we celebrate 50 years of James Bond, so I went and saw “Skyfall” and I noticed several things: first that the Shanghai sequences were beautiful. Sam Mendes did an outstanding job of visualizing the city and how could he not? The city is a sudden modern miracle with incredible futuristic neon buildings that makevthe skyline in “Blade Runner” look dated and ancient. Quite frankly while watching the rest of the movie, I was stuck on how incredible Shanghai looked, just ebbing and flowing with not-so subtle economic power, and that power has translated itself into a Chinese middle class 300 million strong (that’s almost  the entire population of the United States) who are looking to be entertained, and Hollywood has noticed and is responding in several different ways regarding content.

According to the China Film Producers' Association, by 2015 China will have built more than 7,000 new cinemas generating a whopping $5.9 billion dollars in sales
annually.

Hollywood Studios are increasingly adding Chinese actors and locations into blockbuster films:“The Dark Knight”- Batman goes to Hong Kong, “The Karate
Kid” remake moved to Beijing replaced Japanese Karate with Kung Fu. The “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” opens with a rampaging robot war in
downtown Shanghai. Seth Rogen's “The Green Hornet’s” Kato was Jay Chou, a western actor unknown, but a bankable star from China and next year’s “Iron
Man 3” brings Tony Stark to China also to wage epic battles  against his ultimate nemesis: The Mandarin being played by Academy Award winning actor Ben Kingsley. But some things have changed and this can be  attributed to the changing times. The Mandarin, essentially a mystical wizard,  the perfect foil to Tony Stark’s technology, was also a product of  20thCentury - Cold War- East vs. West attitudes. There has always been an underlying American-European superiority complex when it comes to the portrayal of Asian cultures in cinema.  Which Ian
Fleming’s James Bond is a perfect example. Fleming was very much a product of an Imperial- Colonial Society and his beliefs of European superiority are found in
his stories, and which are carried into the cinematic versions of his novels.

You don’t need to go further for an example than 1967’s “You Only Live Twice.”  While, this had the awesome ninja training school and super-duper cool SPECTRE volcano base, it is laden with underlying racism towards Asians. Really, dressing Sean Connery up in make-up to pass as Japanese? Bond asking his Hong Kong
lover in the beginning of the film; “Why do Chinese girls taste different?”  Really?  The Bond films did mature as time went on and moved away from the Fleming novels, in 1997 “Tomorrow Never Dies,” Bond teams up with a Chinese agent (setting the tone as rivals) to stop a rogue media monger from starting a war and in 2002’s “Die Another Day” he receives help from a Chinese Spy Agency in Hong Kong, to track down a mutual enemy.  Again, the perception being that of equals and not secondary as in previous films. 

Meanwhile back in 2012 China…

The Mandarin as the latest movie press releases state “(he’s) a more international
character,”so there are some obvious attempts here to distance the character
from equating Mandarin = China= bad guys. Which is going to be tough as the character’s name is The Mandarin. Sounds silly? Would a studio go to that much trouble in an attempt not to offend the Chinese movie going public? The answer is a big YES. Enter the “Red Dawn” remake of 2009.  The update of the 1984 Cold War Communist paranoia classic.

This type of film captures the underlying tension in a society, and the remake is no different. Shot in 2009 and delayed due to MGM’s bankruptcy, the film focused on a Chinese led invasion of the United States, and the film featured propaganda (akin to the 1984 Soviet invasion version) pamphlets, banners, and posters featuring the Chinese People's Liberation Army with slogans like: "Rebuilding Your Reputation", "Repairing Your Economy", and "Fighting Corporate  Corruption"

The film, despite not being released yet, did not go unnoticed in China, and
headlines there were "U.S.reshoots Cold War movie to demonize China"Global Times, (leading state-run newspaper) and "American movie plants hostile seeds against China". The negative press made the film producers nervous and with China increasingly becoming a bigger box office market than the United States, none of the major studios wanted anything to do with the movie, as it was possible that since the Chinese Government could retaliate against any studio releasing the film by denying the release of that studio’s films in China, as the Chinese Government threaten to do against Disney in 1997 over that studios release of “Kundun.” Still, the fallout was Universal Studios passed on distributing the film in China, and director Martin Scorsese, and other members of the production were banned by the Chinese government fromever entering Chinaas a result of making the film

In order to maintain access to China's golden box office, the “Red Dawn” producers had to spend over a million dollars to digitally change/reshoot the villains in “Red Dawn” from Chinese to North Koreans.  On one hand, it’s probably not a good idea to bite the box office hand that feeds you.  On the other hand, do you really want to bow to political pressure from another country? I think of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator,” released in 1940.  This was also was a product of it’s time, and did not get released in Nazi Germany. I’m not equating the Chinese to Nazis. But there are several discussions to be had. The sheer economic or political power of a market place which can force changes in art, film or publications. This struggle is not new. Shakespeare wrote many a play based in the political turmoil of his day, and set it in far- off lands. A more modernexample would be science fiction, which film makers in the 1960’s used to argue about the merits or travesties of the Vietnam War. Cinema is a snap shot of a society’s values and the ideals of its time. It becomes much more difficult when a filmmaker takes on a “political statement” head on as the “Red Dawn-2009” film makers did. Whether, their intention was exploitive or they actually saw the film as a political question for Americans to ponder is rather moot.  Hollywood’s primary driver these days is to make money and not art. But then again you can argue it’s always been that way.  I wonder what the original “Red Dawn” would have been like in 1984 if the Soviet box office was generating the nearly $3 billion in revenue that the Chinese box office is currently generating in 2012. Invasion from Canada?

Halloween Season is here and for me playing the "Keeping Up with the Jones' " game involves Halloween decorations. Which, is really hard as some of my neighbors work as SPFX artists, but giving it the old college try and never saying die, I  came up with these yard decorations. Having young children myself, I was concerned that most yard decorations were too much Friday the 13th and not enough Scooby-Doo. So I took inspiration from the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland and created a "scary" but not "horrific" realm for children to trick-or-treat. My TV crypts are modelled on the old crypts like those you'd see endlessly on a loop  in a Scooby-Doo episode as the Gang would run-by again and again chasing or being chased by a villain, On Halloween night I install old TV monitors inside them and play a clip edited on a loop. In this case the old "Skeleton Dance" by Walt Disney. Produced in 1929 and drawn by the amazing animator Ub Iwerks, it was the very first of the Silly Symphonies and in 1994 was placed at #18 of the Greatest Cartoons ever by a vote of  animators.
 
"Skeleton Dance" was shot on the aspect standardof the day then a 1.33:1 ratio and 35mm black and white film. Both the title card and ending card original music are  missing in later  re-issues, so music (and some efx sounds) were used from a later short cartoon,  Mickey Mouse's: "The Mad Doctor."

It's so much fun to watch the kids and families stop and be dazzled by the videos running inside the crypts. Last year I added a Digital Video Projector and turned the upper windows in the house into movie screens also running the "Skeleton Dance" cartoon.