PREVIOUS MONTHS of What I Saw:

• June 2010
• May 2010
• April 2010
• March 2010
• February 2010
• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009

Some come here to visit our museums, art gallery’s, amusement parks, beaches…

Some come here for events like  Pride, Caribana, Jazz Fest, throwing temper tantrums (and projectiles) while the world’s 20 most powerful leaders meet…

Who hasn’t fallen for a tourist from time to time? A little summer lovin’, only for them to vanish from your life.

To that end I have posted this:

(Click on image to view larger or view it at http://toronto.en.craigslist.ca/tor/mis/1830172764.html)

PREVIOUS MONTHS of What I Saw:

• May 2010
• April 2010
• March 2010
• February 2010
• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009

There’s a little buzz starting to build for a film by the name of Monsters. It’s by no means being eagerly awaited by a legion of comic-con pilgrimaging fanboys, nor are breathless Twihards counting down the days till it’s release.

Let’s be honest, Snakes on a Plane had a bigger internet presence than Monsters… but it’s early days yet, the buzz is slowly, steadily growing.

Having been screened (out of competition) at the recently concluded Cannes Film Fest those who saw it seem to be in universal agreement, this is one to see.

Outlined (Monsters from my understanding was improvised, not scripted) and directed by Gareth Edwards, the film is being described as “Lost in Translation” meets “Jurassic Park”, a description that instantly piqued my interest.

The story is that prior to the film NASA discovered signs of life in our solar system and sent a probe to investigate, without incident. On the return home though the probe crashed in Central America, unleashing new life forms. Now, six years later, half of Mexico is quarantined as the US and Mexican governments struggle to stop the spread of the aliens.

Our protagonist is a photographer for an American newspaper whose been covering the incidents that occur within the infected zone. As it happens his editor’s daughter went on vacation in the area and he is saddled with the task of finding her and bringing her safely home.

As a writer I am always excited by original takes to well tread territory and Gareth Edwards’ goal of grounding a monster movie in the most realistic world possible does just that. I haven’t yet seen the film and unfortunately there’s no script to get my hands on but by all accounts the story is more “Lost in Translation” than “Jurassic Park”, a structure unique to attack of the monster films that I am told makes the scenes when these aliens do attack a hundred times more scary sheerly for the fact we actually care for these three dimensional character rather than just caring about the three dimensional monster animation.

But the CGI is a big part of why this film is gaining buzz. Rumours suggest the film was made for the minuscule budget of $15,000 and with the smallest crew possible.

To hear how this was done, in the director’s own words, check out this video:

A lot of people in the industry are taking notice, as they do every couple of years when an outsider makes an excellent piece of cinema for a fraction of the normal Hollywood budget.

There’s no doubt that the current business model of this industry is up for evaluation and Monsters is starting to be bandied about as maybe one to learn from, maybe, they say, it’s the magic bullet that solves the unsolvable problem we all seem to know is right around the corner: film industry profits will dramatically drop while the astronomical price tag of production will stand frozen.

Let’s be honest, Monsters sounds like an excellent film but it’s no magic bullet. Read on and I’ll tell you why…

Visual Effects are not cheap, bottom line.

There is this prevailing mythology ever since the dawn of computer effects that says because computer processing power, hard drive sizes, et al gets cheaper and cheaper according to Moore’s Law, there should be a trickle down effect in film budgets.

And there is, to be fair. Computerized background performers (the term extra isn’t PC these days) are cheaper than paying for the time, wardrobe, and catering of the real flesh and blood versions. It’s cheaper to paint a wall green and build the set digitally than to have your carpenters, painters, and set decorators build you a physical version. The problem is Moore’s Law cannot account for man hours.

Not that long ago I was working full time as a Visual Effects Coordinator. My job was to oversee a department of artists from assigning the shots to ensuring they met the producers expectations before sending them off to the editors.

I worked on high budget television productions and big feature films alike and let me tell you the cost of a skilled artist or animator, not basement bargain value cheap.

Is it cheaper for a show like Fox’s “Fringe” to shoot in Vancouver rather than New York? Yes. Is it still cheaper when you add a matte painter creating the New York City skyline? Yes. Is it still cheaper when that shot the skyline has to go into is a crane shot, requiring a 3D animator to ‘track’ the camera movement before the matte painting can be put in? Yes. And when the 2D artist is finally brought in to be the one who seamlessly inserts the painting into the shot, still cheaper.

That’s three employees and maybe a week – week and a half of work. But also don’t forget you’ll be paying for not only their time but the time of the immediate supervisor (Visual Effects Coordinator), the visual effects studio manager (VFX Production Manager), and at least one Visual Effects Producer. If that same shot required some digital smoke or maybe a 3D building your now bringing in more artists who specialize in atmosphere for the former and 3D set construction for the ladder, plus now your going to need someone who will light your 3D generated graphics to match the lighting of the scene that was shot.

That’s a lot of employees, and specialized employees at that (pay for the best right?). They’ll be getting paid by the hour and you’ll need that shot fast since it’s episodic television.

And what if as the producer we sent it back to you and you weren’t happy with the height of the Empire State Building in contrast to the other buildings? It happens, it’s a visual art not science, most shots require revisions. Now your paying for the matte painter and 2D artist all over again.

The fact is it’s still a significant enough saving to justify not uprooting the crew and setting up shop in New York City, but does it make that episode of “Fringe” so financially cost effective that it can survive the seemingly inevitable profit drop the industry is bracing for in the next five to ten years?

Not even close.

Even if I shot a DIY straight to Youtube version of Fringe with just a crew of 1 camera man, 1 sound recordist, and an editor the cost of the visual effects alone (ignoring we haven’t even solved budget for actors, locations, props, etc) would clear me out of my personal savings long before I reached 22 episodes to conclude the season.

My costs in that scenario too will far exceed the profits.

Simply put visual effects take time and manpower and neither of those things are getting any cheaper in North America.

The small budget is the red herring of Monsters. Gareth Edwards, a Visual Effects Artist prior to becoming a Director, did all his effects himself, for free. He put in time on a labour of love.

This isn’t the story of a new business model, just of one excellent employee.

Back in 2008 the Guardian newspaper over in the UK ran a story on Edwards hailing him for creating the first big budget sword and sandal battle spectacle on a considerably small BBC documentary budget for the aforementioned network’s doc on Attila the Hun.

His effects heavy film didn’t usher in a renaissance of Lord of the Ring’s scale battle sequences on the small screen at small screen prices for the simple reason that Gareth Edwards created all the effects in his bedroom again, the BBC wasn’t paying for those.

The same holds true for Monsters. I’m excited to see it, from what I hear it sounds like an excellent film and Gareth Edwards sounds like an incredibly talented director that I am sure will be helming some big budget spectacles in no time.

As for the solution to Hollywood’s income woes, we’ll have to keep looking.

For now enjoy the creative ingenuity of Mr. Edwards:

PREVIOUS MONTHS of What I Saw:

• April 2010
• March 2010
• February 2010
• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009

A selection of crew passes from some of my earliest jobs in the industry.

When I look at them now, to embrace a cliché head on, they feel like badges of honour to me…

Though yes I was paid, and never to badly, for each job when I look at those crew passes I think about the amount of sweat equity behind them all and I am left with a sense of pride.

With the exception of So You Think You Can Dance Canada, where I moved up to Assistant Production Coordinator, I was a Production Assistant on each. We came in first, left last and it was not uncommon to spend some twenty straight hours on your feet.

When you are freelancing there is no job security and I suppose what makes me proud of something like a collection of crew passes, which ultimately just hang off a light in my bedroom just gathering dust, is that I gave my all to each of those jobs and one led to the next, and the next…

I reflect on this because I find myself talking to a lot of people who, like myself, went to school for film or television but whose careers have never really snowballed. They find themselves marred in the slush unsure where to go.

I try to give advice because these are people I care about, friends more times than not, but I find it is often ignored. There is a sentiment within our generation of being better than the bottom of the totem pole, of being owed more. I get it, but please, if you are trying to break into this industry don’t snub the idea of paying your dues.

As schools have wound down and graduation ceremonies pop up all across this continent it seems like an appropriate time to try and impart advice, there must be someone out there willing to listen.

I was accepted into a post secondary program that only took about 100 people, by the time of my graduating class our numbers were down to 30, just about the size of a large elementary school class. I can name you about eight of us who are regularly working in the industry.

It’s the cruel irony of the industry. You’re lured by the glitz and glamour of working in Hollywood but school, if done right,  makes you realize it’s actually hard work. Then for those who don’t drop out colleges, universities and specialized trade schools turn out more graduates than work. While you are in those schools you are the top dogs on set, you are the editors, the camera operators, the directors, producers… there was not a single course or class within a course dedicated to discussing the in’s and out’s of being a production assistant. At least not where I went to school.

So you get that degree, you are wearing that robe having conquered the realms of rack focusing and three point lighting, your family are all there snapping a million photos, you and your friends are throwing grad parties. You are a truly a conquering hero, you are on top of the world. Watch out adulthood here you come!

Then someone offers to pay you $125-$200 a day to, say, clean out garbages and pick up coffees from Starbucks or make sure that only the red M & M’s are served to some long out of touch producer and you think, “garbage? Seriously? I’ve got a degree buddy.”

Stop… don’t turn it down!

I promise you the job will not be fun on a whole range of levels but if you really love this industry, if you aren’t just here to get famous, I also promise you the one thing that will get you through the day is being on an actual set, surrounded by people who (one hopes) are the best in the business. So you are doing a job that is beneath you, and it sucks, but most of the people on that set or in that production office with you have done the same and they’ll appreciate  those who give their all to such menial tasks and soon you’ll be turning one job into another and, hopefully, before long you are moving up that totem pole.

My college required me to complete two internships in order to graduate. The second of which was excellent, it was with the once media powerhouse Alliance Atlantis (CSI, Weeds, The Crocodile Hunter to name a few). Though the corporation has sadly been bought out and dissembled they were a dominate force only years ago and they treated their employees, even the interns, well. I was offered work from several Alliance Atlantis programs after completing this internship.

Now my first internship was a different beast all together, it brings to mind the recent (very true) Hollywood Reporter article on unpaid production assistants. I was working, for course credit only, at a music video production house. A fairly successful outfit with offices in Los Angeles and Toronto.

This was the first real world taste I got of the film industry: a music video director from the United Kingdom was flying over to direct a video for a month. Instead of putting him up in a nice hotel the entire month the company found an apartment (in a low rent neighbourhood of Toronto known as Parkdale) where the landlord was willing to rent for a short term. Why? Because the previous tenant had skipped out on their lease overnight.

So they sent their unpaid intern on this hot sticky summer day to clean up the place.

It was the most disgusting sight I had ever seen. It was like someone had built an apartment around a garbage dump. I don’t know exactly how to give this justice in writing, I wish that you were there (not so much to prove what I am saying here but… I totally could have used the help). Imagine all the disgusting things a stranger could litter the floor with. Underwear, diapers, moldy food, broken furniture that seemed to ooze foreign diseases from the pores of it’s fabric.

That was my job, me the guy who had been directing my peers back at school a mere month ago, now I had to take some strangers disgusting mess, garbage bag it all, and walk down five flights of stairs to the dumpster all the time trying to avoid being stabbed or dripped on by God knows what in the bags.

Mid-day I took a break and wandered around until I found a sub sandwich place. I called my dad and complained. And complained. And complained. I told him I was going to quit, he supported whatever decision I made, my parents are good like that.

I was definitely going to, I was better than this, I did not go to school to clean apartments!

Something though, in the back of my head, said stick it out. See where this goes. This little voice won out and I suffered through the indignities of the day.

My next big job on the internship was working on the set of a big music video, twenty-four hours straight in the bowels of a meat packaging plant that reeked like death.

I couldn’t tell you what death smelt like until that day, can’t forget it now.

Twenty-four straight hours working for free. Next they assigned me to a commercial, five day shoot, longest day twenty-five hours, shortest twenty. All for free.

It was an abusive internship and honestly not something I should have put up with, no one should. It did teach me one thing though.

See I come from a very comfortable life, I grew up in a comfortable neighbourhood and have been very fortunate at every turn.

I was one of you, the ‘better-than-this’, the ’smarter-than-this’, the ‘more-talented-than-this’ mentality holders that make up most of our generation. A little voice kept me going though, I hate quitting anything and I guess that mentality made me see that internship through till the end.

Through the indignities and the twenty-four straight hours of slave labour (let’s call it what it is) I learnt to find the rewards in even the worst of jobs in the industry. The excitement of being on an actual set, the crew who have been where you are and who are more than happy to teach you things school never will, the opportunity to just be quiet and watch as the professionals do things you never imagined possible.

Oh, and I got to go to a modeling agency party where I met Scarlett Johansson and made her laugh… also a bonus.

I’ve never worked in such horrible conditions as my first job out, but I do value what it taught me. Even if you are doing something beneath you there will be people and events you can learn from that will help you get to where you know you rightfully deserve to be.

I haven’t stopped learning, I don’t think you ever do. I truly don’t think you ever stop paying your dues, no matter where you go or how high you climb in this industry.

I hope that maybe, if you haven’t already learnt what I needed to learn the hard way, you can at least learn it from my story instead of going through something similiar.

Or maybe like the group teenagers I walked past this morning, one guy turning to another and declaring, “some guys are gay just to get girls” you’ll over hear my advice and think like I did his: “what the hell are you talking about? Could you be more off base?”

I don’t know, it’s worked for me. It’s how I got each one of those crew passes early in my career. It’s something I am quite proud of.

From Top Left to Bottom Right: Castle, Human Target, Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory

With the feature script done a couple days before it’s due I am turning my attention to the coming weeks. I have notes I need to address from a producer for my script Aurora and I need to have an updated TV Spec done by next Friday.

With this last one in mind your input is highly appreciated.

Should the Spec be:

• Castle (Series Background via Wikipedia)
• Human Target (Series Background via Wikipedia)
• Modern Family (Series Background via Wikipedia)
• The Big Bang Theory (Series Background via Wikipedia)

Please weigh in by commenting below or tweet me @derekrob

And stop by this site next week, we’ll be posting an outdated (from the first season) script I wrote for Parks and Recreation.  If you’ve been a fan of the show since the first season (last spring) you might enjoy it, if you started watching it in it’s second season it might feel a little out of place (some pretty big changes between the first and second season took place tone wise)… if you’ve never seen the show at all, I don’t know what to offer you.

Until then though, let me know what you think re: Spec Poll