Saturday, February 05, 2005
Now that I've got a regular gig for a while the weekends are feeling like weekends again and it's nice to have something to look forward to all week. Friday was particularly grueling since I started at 7am at work and then did another full shift somewhere else in the evening.
At the second gig, I spent the night removing a well-known actress's double chin for a 20 second lingering camera push-in designed to make her look all sexy. She's getting on in the years and although she's still quite attractive, I guess the producers thought she wasn't sexy enough (or she saw it herself and requested the digital plastic surgery). I've done a thousand of these fixes on actors, male and female. Some shows dedicate 90 percent of their effects budget just for digital wrinkle and acne removal. It's quite ridiculous. It's using visual effects for evil in the worse way (even worse than...I don't know...the American version of Godzilla). But although it doesn't really set a good example for real people, it's quite satisfying when you remove someone's cold sore or black eye or 20-year crow's feet convincingly. Unfortunately for the 21st century actor, in the age of digital television and film, they don't have bad film stock and crappy video resolutions to remove their blemishes for them.
It's a living.
Now...if you know me, you know I love movies and everything about them. I especially love being in LA, literally surrounded by real-life movie locations. Many of my childhood favorites were shot in and around Los Angeles so it's only a matter of a bit of research to find these locations. Last week, Breehn and I looked at a couple of the places used for the movie, The Karate Kid.
First up, Daniel Laruso's apartment building. It's located in Reseda, just like in the movie. And just like in the movie, the neighborhood's a bit of a dump. We wanted to get closer and possibly even go inside but the place had just enough shady looking characters to keep us away.
Here's a close-up of the place, the South Seas Apartments. It's not much different from how it looked in the movie. There was a guy up in that balcony blaring early 90s hip hop who was very suspicious of us, as he should be (two dorks standing around with a camera and tripod).
The view from across the street with the two dorks in question. We did a bit of car jockeying around the neighborhood to find parking and Breehn later revealed that the alley we turned around in around the corner was also in the movie, as was the vacant lot next to the building (vacant for 20 years?).
Here we find the school the production used as Daniel's high school. It's Charles Evans Hughes Middle School (which shares its name with the junior high I attended in Long Beach) and is now a rundown adult center/school thing. The place is locked up like a prison.
Here's a view of the outdoor lockers through one of the cage doors. These lockers were used in the movie as well.
And this scary looking street isn't a street at all but a sort of driveway that cuts through the school. It was used as the exterior shot for the Halloween dance scenes in the movie.
I'll try to get pictures of the dojo soon, which is only a few minutes from here, in North Hollywood.
Today, Linds and I plan on going to a little street fair here in Burbank. Tonight, a sketchbook session at Shane's. Tomorrow, I gotta work in the morning for a few hours but in the evening, Linds and I will be going to see Chicago at the Pantages Theater. Should be cool.
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At the second gig, I spent the night removing a well-known actress's double chin for a 20 second lingering camera push-in designed to make her look all sexy. She's getting on in the years and although she's still quite attractive, I guess the producers thought she wasn't sexy enough (or she saw it herself and requested the digital plastic surgery). I've done a thousand of these fixes on actors, male and female. Some shows dedicate 90 percent of their effects budget just for digital wrinkle and acne removal. It's quite ridiculous. It's using visual effects for evil in the worse way (even worse than...I don't know...the American version of Godzilla). But although it doesn't really set a good example for real people, it's quite satisfying when you remove someone's cold sore or black eye or 20-year crow's feet convincingly. Unfortunately for the 21st century actor, in the age of digital television and film, they don't have bad film stock and crappy video resolutions to remove their blemishes for them.
It's a living.
Now...if you know me, you know I love movies and everything about them. I especially love being in LA, literally surrounded by real-life movie locations. Many of my childhood favorites were shot in and around Los Angeles so it's only a matter of a bit of research to find these locations. Last week, Breehn and I looked at a couple of the places used for the movie, The Karate Kid.
First up, Daniel Laruso's apartment building. It's located in Reseda, just like in the movie. And just like in the movie, the neighborhood's a bit of a dump. We wanted to get closer and possibly even go inside but the place had just enough shady looking characters to keep us away.
Here's a close-up of the place, the South Seas Apartments. It's not much different from how it looked in the movie. There was a guy up in that balcony blaring early 90s hip hop who was very suspicious of us, as he should be (two dorks standing around with a camera and tripod).
The view from across the street with the two dorks in question. We did a bit of car jockeying around the neighborhood to find parking and Breehn later revealed that the alley we turned around in around the corner was also in the movie, as was the vacant lot next to the building (vacant for 20 years?).
Here we find the school the production used as Daniel's high school. It's Charles Evans Hughes Middle School (which shares its name with the junior high I attended in Long Beach) and is now a rundown adult center/school thing. The place is locked up like a prison.
Here's a view of the outdoor lockers through one of the cage doors. These lockers were used in the movie as well.
And this scary looking street isn't a street at all but a sort of driveway that cuts through the school. It was used as the exterior shot for the Halloween dance scenes in the movie.
I'll try to get pictures of the dojo soon, which is only a few minutes from here, in North Hollywood.
Today, Linds and I plan on going to a little street fair here in Burbank. Tonight, a sketchbook session at Shane's. Tomorrow, I gotta work in the morning for a few hours but in the evening, Linds and I will be going to see Chicago at the Pantages Theater. Should be cool.
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