The P3 Update Magazine Blog

by Iain Blair

Bumped into VFX wizard and Oscar winner (for “The Matrix) Kim Libreri at the Santa Monica Fine Arts Gallery annual open house. The ties between artists and VFX people have always been strong, notes Libreri, now a VP at Digital Domain, who was checking out the crowded art scene. He’s hard at work on “Speed Racer,” the highly anticipated Warner release due out next May. “There’ll be about 1500 effects shots and we’re staying very close to the look of the original comic. It’ll look amazing,” he promises.

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 by Iain Blair

When you’re an indie filmmaker, you need passion for your project  - and plenty of patience and nerves of steel when it comes to financing. “The bottom line is always scary,” says filmmaker Tony Porter, who told me he did “whatever it takes” to help finance his new feature “Prefab doc” which he shot on location in Europe and America. “You sleep in the cheapest motels, use frequent flier miles and so on,” says Porter, a former top editor whose TV credits include such hits as “Blossom,” “Empty Nest” and “Alf.” Scary as it is, “it was time to make a move – the sitcom market just dried up.”

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 By Iain Blair

I went to The Venice Media District’s 2nd Annual Fall Mixer at the Canal Club last week. Organized by Hype PR, the evening featured several speakers for the evening, including industry luminary, Scott Ross, founder of Digital Domain. Ross spoke at length about the problems of being in the service industry and how it’s almost impossible to make a good living doing VFX as the profit margins “are so low.” By contrast, he held up the example of Pixar as a company who realized that content is king. The VMD also celebrated the naming of Andrea Stern as Co-Chair. “Andrea Stern’s involvement with the VMD beganabout a year ago,” says Founder/Co-Chair Robert Feist (owner of Ravenswork Studios). According to Feist and Stern, the Venice Media Districthas been created “in response to the changing business landscape” in the beachside community, and the area has become a hot spot on the Westside.

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 by Iain Blair

Shared a tuna fish sandwich and fries with Julian Schnabel poolside at The Four Seasons hotel. The NY-based director and artist was bundled up against the cold but was in high spirits about his third film, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” which grabbed him the Best Director prize at Cannes this year. Miramax is giving it a big Oscar push.  Schnabel (“Basquiat,”“Before Night Falls”) said he partly chose the to tell the harrowing story of Jean-Dominique Bauby because his own parents both recently died. “It’s a universal story,” he says, although the tale of the high-flying editor of French Elle who was suddenly and completely paralyzed – except for his left eye - by a devastating stroke is unlikely to be hailed as “the feel-good movie” of the year. Shot entirely onlocation in France by two-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer JanuszKaminski (“Schindler’s List,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Munich”), the film was produced by Kathleen Kennedy and top independent producer Jon Kilik (“Babel,”“Pollock,” “A Bronx Tale,”)  Schnabel talked about the ups and downs of shooting in Paris andFrance. “I wanted to shoot a key scene in this Parisian place, Le Duc, and I asked the owners if I could use the place, and they said ‘We don’t let people film in here.’ Someone told them it was me, and they were like, ‘You mean that guy who walks around with a plastic bag? Yeah, he can shoot here!’ And I like to eat, so it was perfect.” Schnabel says “shooting in France is pretty easy, generally. The authorities are very helpful tho’ there’s lots of red tape to deal with.” The artist ended up “living in Paris for a year” while he made the film. Pas mal.

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by Richard D. Lewis

Last year Congress approved legislation that set a date of February 17, 2009 for the switch from analog to digital television. Managing that transition has already began. As of March 1, 2007, the FCC has required all televisions manufactured or imported into the United States to incorporate digital tuners. For televisions manufactured before this date with only an analog tuner that are still being sold, the FCC is requiring retailers to display a consumer advisory saying DTV is needed beginning February 17, 2009.

So this is a good thing, right? I mean, digital television provides more efficient transmission, not to mention better sound and picture quality. But what about all the 70 million TV sets which will be obsolete? Many of those outdated sets belong to the elderly or poor; people who may not fully understand what all these digital shenanigans are all about. Believe it or not, I know people in my native North Carolina who are still watching black and white televisions! That’s right: some folks have not made the switch to color yet! Still many others rely on over-the-air broadcasts and use rooftop antennas or rabbit ears.

Anyway, perhaps there will be some kind of giveaway from the government, for those too poor to afford a digital-to-analog converter box. Of course, if you subscribe to satellite or cable service, they will provide you with this service through the receiver or set top box they provide.

One great benefit of the transition is that once TV stations switch to digital transmission, they will return to the government a lot of the radio spectrum they currently use to transmit analog signals. Much of that spectrum will go to emergency service providers such as police, fire and public safety. With the Hurricane Katrina debacle still ever present in our collective conscious and ongoing concerns such as terrorist threats and even such things as the recent Southern California wildfires, our first responders need every advantage they can get.

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