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John E Clark

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  1. John E Clark
    I agree... it is difficult to get various 'work' visas, and even in the case of 'marry a US Citizen', it is not a cake walk... the citizen has to show they are financially capable... over some number of years, via tax returns, employment history, etc... further, one is interrogated over a period of months, and heaven help you if you don't know the 'intimate' details of your spouse's behavior. In the "IT" world there is a lot of concern about the employment of various foreign tech people and offering less than average pay, despite some controls on the offer, such as 'must be with in a certain percentage of some 'average''... but how does one calculate that average... 'entry level'... for someone who has been working in IT in their home country for years??? Or even taking such things in consideration always low balling the offer to the lowest 'legal' value... And... there is discrimination against 'single females'... no matter their tech c.v.
  2. John E Clark
    Probably affected by run off from abandoned Uranium mines and processing plants in southern Ohio...
  3. John E Clark
    Yes, you may have to pay some amount. Perhaps you can find cheaper some where... but also recall... from your bio brief, you are in the UK... I am in California, and Richard is in Canada... All three places are different... and if you were to contact Troma... They are a New York entity... which may have different law than California in certain respects... In the US Federal law governs some aspects of 'entertainment law' in regard to copyright etc. but each state may have different 'contract' law and attendant precedent... For example, most contract have a passage about where conflicts are to be resolved... for California... the contract reads 'California law and courts are to be used'... like wise for New York, where NY law and courts are specified... What this does is supply lawyer's kids with funds for high priced colleges and universities...
  4. John E Clark
    No. If I made a film that matched up with Troma's general genre requirements, I'd be banging on their door... And... I'd find out about how to get an entertainment lawyer involved, because as noted, a film sales may not mean cash in your bank. I think authors of books have had the same problem, where a publisher will give the author an 'advance' then tally up costs, such that 'advance' dwindles to virtually nothing. Of course the author has to declare that income for tax purposes... and so a good accountant/lawyer is required to make sure the author is not 'paying' to see their book in print...
  5. John E Clark
    Well... no... but they do give that impression... There was this time that a certain physicist was a Principle Investigator, aka Project Manager in other companies... who decided to use a large stock of green wire for everything in a large 10 ton lead lined inspection machine... and I mean everything... signals, power... I think green wire was used instead of zip ties or similar for dressing the cables... ok... the video used coax... but that's about it for most of the machine... Why... because it was there, and he didn't have to put the cost into the project... of course... when safety came through to inspect before final delivery they rejected the whole thing... Why was such wire used... because this physicist had been making devices that were used in nuclear bomb testing, and so, the only requirement of the equipment was to take data in the 100 ms or so before the concussive blast blew everything to bits... so it didn't matter what wire was used... as long as it lasted long enough.
  6. John E Clark
    The LA River is one of the most filmed entities in the world... It usually a standard in action films set in LA that at some point there is a chase scene along the concrete waterway, or the various large tunnels, or the several bridges crossing it. It's fortunate for film making that it doesn't have any water in it... except for a gutter's worth in the middle...
  7. John E Clark
    As far as I can tell, any 'art' directed study program will essentially end one up in the same place. I entered college as an art major, with photography my medium. In So. Cal, there are a couple of 'named' schools, such as Brooks in Santa Barbara or the Art Center in Pasadena. But I could neither afford the tuition, nor living accommodations. So I settled for San Diego State College (upgraded to University in the early 70s...). I unfortunately didn't notice that 'photography' as an art medium and attendant classes were completely lacking from the SDSU art dept.... and photography was placed in the "Industrial Art"... aka for those intending to eventually become 'highschool shop class teachers'... Eventually I came out with a salable trade of computer programming by way of the Math dept. So my advice to the young person is come out of whatever 'college' with a salable trade... and anything in art is not in such a class... unless of course one wants to end up teaching Kindergarten thru 12th grade or perhaps Junior College if one gets an MA in Fine Arts or the like (MA being a general requirement for teaching at a junior college in many places...). Many of my peers who stayed in the Art dept. ended up in 'social services' where at the time an BA/MA in almost anything qualified for application for the job... In the early 80s there were many psych/social science majors who jumped ship for programming as well...
  8. John E Clark
    It is my belief that one of the reasons why we don't have great 'noir' or similar is because many creative people, or would be creatives, avoid such places... their resulting work has no sense of grime that doesn't wash off, because the shower/tub in the communal bathroom doesn't work... and even if it did... it would be an opportunity for an assault of some sort or another... With inner city gentrification... 'noir' is disappearing... mind numbing suburbia doesn't quite have the same feel... in grit or hopelessness... unless of course one is shooting in Xenia Ohio...
  9. John E Clark
    Don't worry, there is a movement afoot to reintroduce bears, lynx, and wolves to England... these having been hunted to extinction in ancient times... How about a spot of tea?
  10. John E Clark
    Nah... at least in Vancouver the biggest danger is getting parked in during the riot after an important hockey game or some such... And given the accent in Vancouver I wouldn't even have to change how I say 'about'... For me, in regard to LA, the 'best' case for relocating is if you have some proven skill, a 'real' contact, and almost a guaranteed job waiting... One only gets that sort of thing by having some contacts with some one who has some connection with the industry here... For acting talent it is a manager or agent (there's a legal distinction...). While I would imagine that a person working in some other 'high profile' trade, such as 'director' or 'cinematographer' they also could use the services of manager or agent. For under the line work, having a friend/acquaintance in a trade union would be advantageous... etc. The worst case would be show up at LAX (or in the olden days Union Station...) with naught but a pocket of dreams... If that is the case... have enough money in that pocket of dreams to live in LA for 2-3 years, while those contacts mentioned above are made. Lottery winners happen all the time... so who knows... one's first 'smooze' party attendance could pay off with a good gig...
  11. John E Clark
    I'd have to excavate material from some 3/4 Beta tapes of the Wife's 'video' installations... but she tried to have some sort of 'story', or at least concept statement for a work, rather than just 'pretty... shiny... my precious'... oh, wait... wrong tape... There was the time I reused a VHS tape for her material, but didn't erase that tape completely so the museum visitor was confronted with some portion of a porn movie, which I had apparently copied... purely for academic review mind you... The accident I of course thought was rather avant garde.. but the Wife did not view that mishap with the same humor... Anyway, every thing that I had taken hours to program hardware for the simple video effects that I put into her projects, could be done today with using just Photoshop's 'video' features, limited thought they may be... in a few minutes... the biggest amount of time would be taken finding the photos on the archive disk... or disks... or finding the disks in the closet...
  12. John E Clark
    You of course need to choose what you do... but I'd recommend starting right off with negative stock, unless you are going for the reversal look... but in terms of exposure and what use to be called 'latitude', negative stock can stand more of a contrast ratio, and sill look 'ok'... Revseral is more like shooting on limited DSLR digital... in fact when the Wife and I transitioned from still film to DSLRs, we basically began to expose like we were shooting reversal film, which is 'protect the highlights at all cost'... and for the event/wedding business she was doing, we often needed some fill flash to lower contrast when outdoors. Both of us never shot much reversal outside of school courses, so for us it was required a 'new' way to look at a scene or lighting situation.
  13. John E Clark
    The 'music use' rights for film... aka 'synchronization' rights is abysmal. If the various rights owners wanted to make a big difference, they could organize licensing buros to become nickel snatchers for the mass of 'small' production use. And by the way... I have my own midi keyboard... nice Yamaha using acoustic piano mechanism (Yamaha makes a line of acoustic pianos as well...)... thank you...
  14. John E Clark
    I realize there are 'tax' incentives... but those only work because one is spending money... so I have to spend $300K to get a 'tax rebate' of $100K... that may allow me to impress an investor(*) or perhaps a person willing to 'loan' a production money (aka throw it down a rat hole... never to be seen again...). But for the small budget such incentives have no actual value... *While not in the Film Business, I do have some experience pitching products to 'investors' and it is amazing how skitish they are about almost anything that isn't an absolutely 'sure deal to make them billions' there are a few unicorn/angel investors... but for the most part, most investors go with 'tried and true' with just slight variations to make a slight market edge. That seems to hold for the Film industry as well from all that I have read. Since I've lived in So. Cal all my life I can comment on the large number of people I have known over the years who have either gone to "hollywood" and returned disappointed, or 'gone' and just... disappeared... without even leaving a trace on IMDB... for some 70s vintage sexploitation film... even... So, I can see why some people would like to avoid LA but still some how be successful in making 'hollywood' style films... as opposed to doing local commercials or event, aka wedding, photography or 'video'... What it takes is infrastructure, and as mentioned, New Zealand (to pick a place that is about 14-16 hour plane ride from LA and so is about as far form LA one can get and still be on planet Earth...) had little infrastructure in the late 80s early 90s... enter Lord of the Rings.. WETA... and some dedication on the part of Jackson to use the dollars that came in from LoR to build that infrastructure. I also used an example of Rosarito Mexico where Cameron built a production facility to shoot "Titanic"... and because of the lack of developing a filmmaking infrastructure in the Tijuana/Rosarito area (they are about 30 or so miles apart) the facility has languish... Are there Lottery Winners... sure Jackson and Rodriguez are definitely winners, and both have taken the effort to create the infrastructure they need to continue. Does that hold for someone in Bugtussel Oklahoma? In general no... I think digital will democratize where content is made... but it will still require a great amount of effort outside of the big city centers that have been part of Hollywood production in the past.
  15. John E Clark
    Like I said, some of Adams' Zone System may not be applicable to motion picture film... but the concept of previsualization, and calibrating you image system from lightmeter/camera to final presented image, is the 'take away' message. In motion picture film processing one may be limited in the sense that you have to have all the frames on a reel chemically processed to the same time, there may be ways to 'time', that is change the printing lights based on 'cuts' of the resulting negative, etc. or if you go to a Digital Intermediate, you can use an NLE to adjust color/density, etc., but definitely creating 'zones' of adjustments is tedious or impossible for film... in the case of a still film... at the very last one can 'burn and dodge' to correct... Power Windows/Masks are much easier in the modern digital world... But the main thing is calibrate, and 'know' that with that calibration a certain image will result.
  16. John E Clark
    I'd suggest you look at some of the web info on The Zone System. While some of the applicability may be outdated, relative to shooting on still film, vs motion picture film or now digital stills or digital motion pictures, there are some general concepts of 'previsualization' of the final presented image, calibration of equipment and processing from image capture to presentation. I personally have found that using my NLE(Premiere) waveform monitor allows me to do calibrations fairly quickly using one of the number of grey step wedges or just a the standard 18% grey card, as well as determining the limits of a given digital camera. In the olden days one had to use a densitometer and take measurement readings from test negatives to determine the response curve of a given film for one's lightmeter, chemical processing, and the like.
  17. John E Clark
    Speaking of that... Peter Jackson did do several low budget slasher/zombie type films... He also did get NZ funds to finish one of his films early on. This sort of thing is quite lacking (sure there are some types of grants, perhaps even government grants...) but in the US getting grants for films is rare, and these days, especially for 'dangerous' topics... like "KIssed"(1996) which get some press at Tronto and Sundance... Also the other 'lottery winner' of Rodriguez, he was shooting "Mariachi" for Mexican TV distribution, and again equivalent to the lottery winner, got noticed and the film pickedup... and after a million or so of reposting... distributed. Newfoundland... where's that... I know of Vinland...
  18. John E Clark
    The usual 'difference' between the dome and the disk is 'angle of view' of the meter sensor. Dome... 180 (or so...) disk 35-40 (or so...). One can take incident readings of the whole scene, or find 'ratios', which involves pointing the dome/disk at a particular light source or shading from a light to determine the complementary light value. These days I use the incident to evaluate my basic exposure, and a spot meter for 'contrast' check.
  19. John E Clark
    While I don't know what Carl may be referring to, I was making equipment to digitize analog video signals in the early 80s. The hardware ranged from 'really expensive' to 'expensive'... One brand name that still exists is Matrox which made processing cards for several then standard computer 'buses', but I think they standardized on the PC in the 80's.
  20. John E Clark
    Here in my neck of the woods, about 45 miles to the south of me in San Diego a major motion picture in part was shot... and was at the time the biggest success in the almighty box office... big outdoor stage, big crew... lots of locals hired as extras... then the production closed down... and as time went on fewer productions made at the facility... etc... till now its a 'filmmaking ghosttown'... on the website associated with the facility the last entries are around 2012... for films that were far less than block buster... The point being, just because a Hollywood production comes through, perhaps several over some period of time, does not mean the infrastructure is built for local filmmaking to continue after the big productions move to other regions because of one reason or another... There is a debate whether Hollywood productions 'help' a region in developing a filmmaking infrastructure or because of the episodic nature of the location selection, sort of boosts expectations, but never realized. In the case of Rosarito Mexico and the production facility built to support the making of "Titanic"(1997)... the beautific vision didn't happen.
  21. John E Clark
    We have tons of Kanuckistanians around here... the older ones fleeing cold winter and the like head for places like Yuma Arizona or Quartzite, turning the desert communities with average population in the 10's into thousands.. The younger ones head for various tech places and of course apropos this thread, to Hollywood... We also have a large representation from Australia, and not just a certain US export and reimport... as well as New Zealand... Climate wise, So. Cal is about the same as Melbourne/Sidney or New Zealand, although New Zealand has more rain, so it may be more like Northern California...
  22. John E Clark
    A quick check at the site referenced, theeventhelper.com, indicates that for a 2 day shoot, 5 people (ie the weekend...) in California, it would be $196... for a 10 day shoot it would be $225. So, one would probably plan for 2 weekends, if one was making a 'short'...
  23. John E Clark
    In the US, how one enters, that is what type of visa, indicates whether one can 'work' or not. There are specific work visas, some are more limited than the 'permanent resident' visa, aka The Green Card. If one enters the US with a visitor visa, implied(the US doesn't require an 'actual' visa for some number of countries, Canada included...) or actual, or a 'student' visa, then 'volunteer'( I don't know exactly, but I think a foreign student who obtains a non-paid internship may have to get an adjustment to their visa) as well as 'paid' labor is prohibited. For artists there is a special visa, but it is really only granted to well known proven artists... I wish "NAFTA" had also included actual humans being able to easily cross borders for 'work'... sort of like the EU, at least as far as I can tell... Of course the law is circumvented daily... and some joker wants to put up a wall...
  24. John E Clark
    And if you happen to be in LA, and see an actor ad for 'authentic canadian accent'... and don't have a Green Card... don't show up...
  25. John E Clark
    Porn didn't lead into HDDVD becoming the defacto standard for HD disks... but porn has lead the charge into on line streaming... but of course... who in this august group watches tawdry porn... or even high class porn...
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