Masters of Production...opening

Here's one I've been meaning to post for a while...the opening segments of my PBS doc on Production Design: MASTERS OF PRODUCTION. I think this is the thing I'm most proud of from my years working on arts/cinema docs: wrote, directed and edited this one myself in association with KCET (in the person of the wonderful Joyce Campbell) and with the unflagging support and excellent counsel of Citzie DeMille Presley.

My idea was to use the movies that everyone really had affection for: CHINATOWN, CITIZEN KANE, GONE WITH THE WIND, BLADE RUNNER, THE GODFATHER and so on...and to explore that Hollywood art that's hidden in plain sight.

The interviews were the most enjoyable ever: bar none. Production Designers are, as Jack DeGovia says, "The ultimate dilettantes...." They have to master everything, and they have to make it all fit. They tell the story in amazing and surprising ways.

The film is dedicated to Dick Sylbert...like I used to tell people on the project, "It's Dick Sylbert's Hollywood...we just work there." We spent a whole day with him, shooting all over L.A., and I learned a great lesson from that. The next day he wanted to know if we could get together and just record some audio: he had more stories to tell. I was up to my neck in production, and I begged off. Maybe later?

He was dying of pancreatic cancer, and that shoot was the last chance I had to talk with him. What had I missed by not taking him up on it? By not stopping and taking the time? I'll never know.

Karim's Bug Camera

For Christmas, we gave Emilien and Lucien (our neighbors) a little Praying Mantis hatchery...and the critters popped out the other day!

Their father Karim, who's done some amazing motion graphics for me, saw it as a golden opportunity to shoot some bugs! We added some crickets to the mix a little later in the evening...

SAME-O ... Extended!

Great (and wholly expected) News! SAME-O has extended!

For those of you who haven't heard of this phenom, director/writer/choreographer Ken Roht is mounting his SEVENTH "99 Cents Only" show: SAME-O! The sets, props, and costumes are all constructed from items from the 99 Cents Only store...only this year, Ken's shooting for a wholly sustainable/recyclable show.

I'm very pleased to have the chance to join the spectacular creative team Bootleg Theater has assembled...Ken gave me a giant screen upstage to shoot all sorts of interesing stuff at...and I've got video a few other places as well. Here's a little promo I just did...

SAME-O ... Extended!

99 Cents Only Show research: CicLAvia!

I'm working on the next edition of Ken Roht's 99 Cents Only show, and (like always) I've gotta do something new. That was always going to happen on a show involving Ken, but now that he's decided it's got to be totally sustainable/recyclable...well, that's really interesting, no? The 99 Cents Only show is the height of plastic and plasticity ...

Video is, of course, an analogue for plastic: it's bright and hard-edged. So how do you create theatrical video that is at once video, but also somehow speaks to the feel the show is now reaching for?

Here's one avenue I went down...I shot a stroll through CicLAvia last week with my wife Risa, our strolling buddy Jeann Young, and a whole mess of Angelenos. It was a spectacularly pastoral event on streets usually ruled by autos, and I wanted to do something with the video to capture that sunny mood.

Here's that video...using CartoonR and Sony Platinum to give it just the right heightened reality. Seems like it might work for some aspects of Ken's new show, SAME-O.

CicLAvia 10-10-10 in Los Angeles... from John Flynn on Vimeo.

John Joseph Flynn ... a short for the Memorial Convocation

This one pretty much speaks for itself, I think...

John Flynn - April 10, 1936 to Aprl 11, 2010 from John Flynn on Vimeo.

No No Boy Projections

I was cleaning up some old projects and came across these great photos from NO NO BOY...including the way the prouduction team used my projections.


See the Flickr stream here!

Working on video for NO NO BOY...

This has got to be my busiest year since creating Story Tactics: half a dozen projects in theater/opera/film, and half a dozen new multimedia commissions for various other clients.

First up is NO NO BOY, a project I have been working on and thinking about for over a year. Ken Narasaki has done a wonderful adapation of John Okada's groundbreaking novel about a Japanese American draft resister from WWII. Everyone knows about the internment of Japanese Americans during the war, many people know about the famed 442nd "Go For Broke" batallion that was covered in honors during WWII, but not so many people know the story of the people who resisted the government's loyalty oath because their freedoms were taken away. The scars within the Nisei-Sansei-Yonsei community are still there: I'm very intrigued to hear how people inside the community react.

So I am creating a lot of video for the piece, mostly video to set scenes and moods, but I'll also be doing a couple of pieces like this one. I'll be updating it when the (inevitable) good reviews come in...it is a first-rate cast and crew, and Ken's script is fantastic.

No No Boy, The Play from John Flynn on Vimeo.