Needless to say, I could’ve used one of these around 2pm…

Also, you should out LAist’s photo essay from the shoot back in March.

Here are two of them (photos by me):

At left, 4th St bridge over the LA River, looking west.  And at right, the street below Grand, in Downtown (as seen in The Terminator and Repo Man).

We’re also shooting in Chinatown and in Boyle Heights. One of the potential locations included the beautiful Mariachi Square, but after scouting in that neighborhood I discovered that the Square is under construction and every street in a 1-block radius has been closed to through traffic.

Foiled!

So the question I put to you, faithful readers is this: What are some of the lesser known but no less interesting and distinctive East La/Boyle Heights/Downtown landmarks that might lend themselves to being photographed?

Or read this.

Or this.

What’s this have to do with Los Angeles?

It seems that in spite of all the negative reactions (including a somewhat dubious pilot script review), they’re actually shooting the damn thing. If this production sign is to be believed, then Little Tokyo is playing host to McSpaced as we speak. The picture was snapped as I drove by the intersection of Central and 2nd in Downtown this afternoon.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go find the set, jump in front of the cameras right as the director calls “action” and give everyone the finger, but you would be my hero/heroine if you did. 

In the recent past, no less than Quentin Tarantino, Edgar Wright, and Eli Roth have all taken control of the New Bev for a fortnight, subjecting privileged Los Angeles movie geeks to some really amazing films and awesome special guests. Starting tonight, director Joe Dante (Gremlins, Innerspace) brings us DANTE’S INFERNO.

The schedule looks something like this:

April 9 + 10 MONDO CANE and ZULU

April 11 + 12 HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD and TRUCK TURNER

April 13, 14, 15 THE SADIST and THE PRIVATE FILES OF J. EDGAR HOOVER

April 16 + 17 THE SECRET INVASION and TOMB OF LIGEIA

April 18 + 19 WRONG IS RIGHT and Mystery Movie

April 20 + 21 BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW and HORROR EXPRESS

April 22 THE MOVIE ORGY

As with The Wright Stuff and The Greats of Roth programs, Dante and other special guests will appear in person throughout the festival, and each film will be preceded by rare trailers from Mr. Dante’s extensive trailer collection.

You can find a more extensive description of the program from Mr. Dante himself at CHUD.com.

(photo by outapckt)

Seen taped to a paperbox outside of the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Los Feliz. I decided not to block out the email on the off chance any of our astute readers felt compelled to send this enterprising fellow some dating advice.

(edit: WTF does “inhale-to” mean?)

Many movies these days go through what is called a digital intermediate. This means that the movie is shot on film, scanned into a computer at two or four thousand lines of resolution, digitally enhanced or altered (the intermediate), and then captured back to film using a laser camera. The “old” way of doing things was to shoot the film on film, then using a series of red, blue, and green printer lights, a colorist would adjust the luminance and chrominance values of the picture, then print the results from the negative directly to film (for more information, read Richard Crudo, ASC’s “A Call for Digital Printer Lights”).

This analogue method of coloring tends to work more within the parameters of a particular film stock’s unique “look”, unlike the DI process which can extend the colorist’s reach beyond the boundaries of the original negative’s capabilities.

That being said, TWBB is a gorgeous film. Having now seen it I can see why Elswit won the Oscar. Each scene has its own look and speaks with its own visual language. I was originally going to see it at the Dome on Sunset when it was playing there a few weeks ago, because as far as I knew the Dome had the best picture and sound in Hollywood. I asked a friend at work if he wanted to come along. He shook his head.

“If you’re going to see that movie, then don’t see it at the Dome,” he replied. “The Dome sucks.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because every movie I’ve seen there looks like shit,” he stated.

 Find out why after the jump…

We’re both in the business of filmmaking. My friend works at a company that supplies high-end digital cinema cameras to big-name directors, and I’m part of a post-production company that specializes in digital intermediates. We care a lot about how a film looks both going into production and coming out of post. He’s more of a purist, I should warn you, but his wariness has yielded some interesting facts about Los Angeles’s only geodesic cinema experience.

The first problem with the Dome, according to my friend, is that the giant 86 x 34 ft screen is curved. This is of course, part of the design – both architecturally and functionally to accomodate the 3-strip Cinerama format - but will warp the picture depending on where you sit (ideally, centered and 1 1/2 screen heighths back). Word has it that when Evita had its premiere there in 1996, director Alan Parker had a flat screen installed in front of the curved one because he wanted his film to be seen under the most ideal circumstances.

The next problem, he says, is that the screen is too bright, about 1.2 points of gain over what it should be. I did some research on screen gain and this is what I found:

Gain is a measurement of the reflectivity of any screen or projection surface. The gain number represents a ratio of the light that is reflected from the screen as compared to the light reflected from a standard white (magnesium oxide) board. Therefore, a screen with a gain of 1.0 will reflect the same amount of light as that from a white board. A screen rated at 1.5 gain will reflect 50% more light as that from a white board, whereas a gray screen with an 0.8 rating will reflect 80% of the light from a white board. (from projectorcentral.com)

I mentioned this to Markland, and he said that he’s heard stories of film actually burning up in the projector. These two accounts didn’t really jive until i did some digging at cinematreasures.org. According to a lot of posts from cinephiles far more concerned than yours truly, it seems that the Dome screen is in fact, too dim. This could perhaps mean that the projectors in the Dome are using bulbs that are too powerful, but necessary to acheive a proper reflectance off of the screen. Hence, the film burns. (This theory is totally uncorroborated, and I’m going to try to follow up after speaking with an Arclight rep.) You can read all of the highly opinionated and somewhat repetitive technical reviews of the Dome at its dedicated cinematreasures.org page.

Supposedly, the rest of the Arclight “black box” theaters are right on the money when it comes to picture and sound. From what I’ve learned through my “research” is that the Dome’s history as something of an anachronism and a tourist attraction and its mishmash of old and new technologies hasn’t really endeared it to the discriminating filmgoers of Los Angeles. In any case, I saw TWBB in the downstairs Theater 3. It was in fact a gorgeous exhibition with crystal clear sound. But it’s three days since I’ve seen it and I find that it’s not the cinematography or the sound design that’s left an impression on me, but rather the gripping story of oil tycoon Daniel Plainview – from its beginning in a dusty, dirty mineshaft all the way to its final, horrible conclusion in the ruins of a crumbling mansion.  The moral of the story? When the credits have rolled and the house lights have come up, there’s nothing that can detract from the power of a truly magnificent film.

Los Angeles filmmakers and cinephiles will get their chance on Wednesday, February 27th, when the UCLA Film and TV Archive continues their “occasional series in which today’s leading directors, actors, writers and other filmmakers present the films that have most influenced their careers.

The Archive’s Honorary Chairman and series curator Curtis Hanson hosts.” (From the UCLA Film and TV Archive website.)

More info after the jump.

The film:

ARMY OF SHADOWS
(L’ARMÉE DES OMBRES)
(1969, France) Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Director Jean-Pierre Melville (LE SAMOURAI, BOB LE FLAMBEUR) spent 25 years bringing Joseph Kessel’s saga of the French Resistance to the screen only to see his screen adaptation dismissed by French critics as a “Gaulist” tract on its initial release in 1969. Since then, ARMY OF SHADOWS has emerged as a modern masterpiece of style and suspense, as well as the crowning achievement of Melville’s career.

The screening starts at 7:30. Deakins and Hanson will be there in person to discuss the film after the screening. Tickets are available from the UCLA Film and TV Archive website.

It looks like every AMC is running the same program with the same schedule. CLICK HERE to check out their full list of participating venues.

Thanks to CHUD.com.

Photo by myyearofnewthings.

Happy Monday.