Thanks, But I'll Take My Advice From The Womanizing Jackass With A Talk Show.*

On those rare occasions where I've gotten serious here, I've apologized in advance. Other people do a lot better job of it. They do research. They have credentials. They write better than I do. So usually, I've admiringly read someone else's well crafted rant and contented myself with a hearty, "What he said!"

This morning, I ran across two oddly contrasting bits of video and they've got me in something of a lather. First, from Deus Ex Malcontent, here's a bunch of people protesting Eric Holder's decision to hold Khalid Shaikh Mohamed's and five other accused terrorist's trials in Federal Court here in NYC. I'll cheerfully admit that I only watched about half of it. I have no intention of refuting each individual point (many of them pointless in themselves and others displaying jaw-dropping cluelessness about...well...everything). Go ahead and watch as much as you can stand. (Maybe a contest is in order? But I'm not sure if winning should be defined as turning it off the quickest or actually making it through the whole thing.)



A little while earlier, I was playing with Stumble and one of the random clicks brought me to this video. What you'll see here is David Letterman returning to the air on September 17th, 2001. Forgive him his few errors in facts; nobody knew the real numbers at the time. And there's no need to forgive him his praise of Rudy Giuliani -- it's what we all felt at the time and it's utterly accurate with regard to Giuliani's actions and statements in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.



This is the little piece of advice I'd like to take from Letterman:

"There is only one requirement for any of us and that is to be courageous. Because courage, as you might know, defines all other human behavior. And I believe, because I've done a little of this myself, pretending to be courageous is just as good as the real thing."

At the risk of offending any of the 9/11 families (who are well-represented in the first video), and at the risk of offending Rudy Giuliani who was so impressive in September of 2001, but now seems to think that some illusive sense of safety trumps everything else, I'd like to say, "Man up, you pansy-ass twits!"

The crimes took place here. The victims of the crimes were here. The trials belong here.

Traditionally, jurisdictions fight tooth and nail against a change of venue. Because we want and deserve our pound of flesh. If you're concerned about being a target for further terrorism, I've got news for you...you already are! If you're so scared, maybe you should consider living in Iowa...or Wyoming. (No slur on Iowa or Wyoming is intended, but face it, they're not terribly attractive high-impact targets, now are they.)

And I will respond to one of the idiots in the first video. I'm not going to search for the exact quote, but early on, there's a guy babbling about giving rights to people who aren't even citizens. OK, fine, the Declaration of Independence isn't part of the law of the land; it isn't codified like the Constitution is, but it is the document that announced why we intended to sever our ties with England and the impetus for everything that followed. The first sentence of the second paragraph is: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. It makes reference to all men. It doesn't quibble about where you were born or where you live now; it makes a blanket statement about how we view the rights and station of all men. I'll acknowledge that we have no power to extend basic human rights to citizens of other countries (something we actually strive toward all the time - uh, China anyone?), but we do have the power to live up to our ideals here.

Don't you dare mistake any of what I'm saying as advocating going easy on any of these people. They murdered more than three-thousand people here in New York, and I'm confident they'll be convicted and receive an entirely appropriate sentence for it. And I don't give a rat's ass how their friends back home view us; I don't have any illusions that they'll say, "Oh, look how fair and impartial the Americans are. Maybe they're not so bad after all." But I do care about how we collectively view ourselves in the mirror.

Man up and pretend to be courageous. It's just as good as the real thing.

---------------
* In spite of the title of this post and Mr. Letterman's recent, uh...difficulties(?), I really do admire the guy quite a bit. I just couldn't resist.

One Wake-up and One Oversleep To Go.

Tomorrow is our last day on location. We'll have a late call (11:00ish?), so oversleeping isn't much of a worry. Monday, we're in the Studio for one day. I'm needed like a fish needs a bicycle.

I'll probably sleep in that morning.

Almost done. WooooHoooo!

A Close Knit Community

The Film Business is a small world. We, at least in NYC, tend to mostly know each other...or at least of each other. So, we're a close knit community.

But usually, not this close knit. Yesterday, we were shooting on the very same block that Damages was shooting on. I can't remember the last time we published a set map that had sections devoted to telling the crew where "Not Our Trucks" would be parked. And you'll note that they were parked right in front of our location.


Well, we worked it out with them (and with the Film Office) in advance and managed to stay out of each others' way. They left us a gap directly in front of our location so we'd have just enough space to get our shots of characters coming and going from the house.

Just enough space. Aside from a couple of people who followed the wrong "To Set" signs, there was surprisingly little confusion.

And finally, there was one other thing I was struck by...and it leaves me with two conclusions.
1. Damages has what must be the ugliest Grip Truck in America.
2. The Damages Grip Crew must be supremely secure in their masculinity to be willing to work out of that thing.



Oh, BTW...all photos here were taken with my "crappy little camera phone", which turns out to be not crappy at all! w00t!

Color Me Impressed.

I'll be posting something else, but I just ran across this video of NYS Senator Diane Savino speaking in favor of legalizing Gay Marriage in NY.

Brilliant!

BOOM!

As you all know, last Tuesday, we got to run a train into a Cadillac. Yes, some days my job is tres-cool. As usual, let's begin with one of my nifty (and highly professional looking) diagrams.

You can see the train, and the car and the two cameras covering the shot. You should imply that the crappy curved black line is the track.

Before actually driving the train into the car (we'd only get one shot at it), we did a POV shot through the passenger side of the car at the train coming toward the car. In reality, the shot begins with the train practically touching the car and then the train backs up away from the car. Then, we'll just reverse the footage, speed it up, and presto -- it looks like a train is headed right at the camera.


Then, we set up for the real shot. Here's the guys setting up "A" Camera.

Here's "B" Camera setting up in their position. (I decided I'd want to hang out with them since I liked the idea of shooting the train as it went by me as opposed to toward me.)


Look. There's a dummy in the front seat!


And here's the crew hanging out behind the cameras. Nobody wanted to get into this shot. I can't imagine why.


This is "last looks" before we roll the cameras. Note the guy who runs the Railyard getting a front row seat up on the bridge over the car.


And here comes the train.

Boom! (We didn't want the car to get totally smashed to shit, since the guy in the scene is supposed to survive.)

When everybody saw that the car was going to be pushed until the train stopped, the guys running "A" Camera ran. (They would have been fine if they'd stayed put, but you can't blame them for thinking it might be a good idea to get out of the way.)



That missing back tire is under the train.

Poor Cadillac.

Trust me. This was fun!

Danger! Danger Will Robinson!

I'll be posting the pictures of us crashing a train into a car in a little bit, but in the meantime, I couldn't resist making sure you knew about this! You can now purchase your very own Robot B9 from Lost In Space!

And all for the low, low price of $24,500. Supplies are limited, so order yours today!

(I swear, I want one.)

Bad Blogger

I've been a bad blogger. Two days ago, we shot a scene for the show I'm working on that involved hitting a car with a train! Hey, most of what we shoot on any particular day bores me to tears, but hitting a car with a train is pretty cool beans.

And I haven't gotten around to going through my pictures and posting anything about it yet. I'm going to forgive myself, since I've worked 46 hours in the first three days of this week. I'll probably get around to it on Saturday.

In the meantime -- here, have a puppy!