Greetings from Hollywood!

Our first week in LA officially ended a couple of hours ago, and if you’ve been reading our blog, you would know that we had a pretty packed but exciting week. As much as I want to go back to some moments in this week (our meeting with Krista Smith, or the time when we were at Venice Beach and I didn’t get fish and chips for dinner), I know it’s impossible. However, we are able to go way way back in the time of cinema (we actually just went in to the talkie era of filmmaking in our class): meeting Mary Pickford, staying in an abandoned beach house with Doris Kenyon, and driving down Sunset Boulevard with William Holden.

It is quite amazing that we can view films from over a hundred years ago. I’m sure none of the “actors” from Workers Leaving Lumière Factory realized that millions of people from 122 years later would see their faces and spend time studying them. However, a lot films from the early time of Cinema were not as lucky- many of them are damaged or completely destroyed over years. That’s why film preservation and restoration are extremely important for our study.

On Thursday, we visited the Academy Film Archive (also known as the Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study), and had a chance to meet with some film restorers who have been working on film preservation/restoration for a very long time, and brought many old films back to life, and to a broader audience. Because of their work, we now are able to watch a quirky trailer for the 1961 horror film Konga, a 5-minute clip from Stan Brakhage’s experimental films, or The Ocean Waif by Alice Guy (the first female director). Alice Guy directed and produced over 1,000 films (many of them single reelers) during her film career, however, not many survived. The Ocean Waif, one of her only surviving feature-length films, was rescued and brought back to life by many film restorers. Although 15-20 minutes from the film is missing, it still is a great resource for us to study the early silent film era and her aesthetic style. It also provides us with an rare opportunity to understand a female filmmaker’s perspective and approach to a somewhat repetitive romantic storyline from 1916.

I read a very angry review about The Ocean Waif the other day – the writer was very upset that he paid for an “uncompleted film” and asked what’s the point of restoring it. Well, the point is – this is an extremely valuable resource; and because of many films like The Ocean Waif, we’re able to have conversations with characters from decades ago, to study the history of film and to learn from it. And none of this would happen without the film restorers.

Today we experienced Pandas on the biggest of screens, walked down Venice Beach, attended a double feature of Philadelphia and Brokeback Mountain and listened to the writers answer questions about their films.

It was interesting to hear what Ron Nyswaner had to say about how his own personal experience shaped the characters of Philadelphia. He spoke of listening to opera and crying in his own home and going to a place called ‘the love shack’ where he would go hot tub with his ‘straight friend’ (the director, Jonathan Demme). By talking through the story they would bring their personal experiences to the characters and in a way become the two main characters of their film.

Philadelphia was released in 1993 and was one of the first major Hollywood films to delve into the topics of homosexuality and AIDS. It was cool to watch the movie and then listen to Nyswaner talk about writing and handing over the screenplay to the studio for the first time. He was hesitant to compliment the studios, but in the case of Philadelphia he said he did not experience any push back. Instead, they actually loved everything about his script and said something along the lines of ‘this movie has to get made’ after reading it for the first time. Tom Hanks even came to them, because he heard about the film and wanted to be a part of it.

Earlier we watched pandas play, cuddle, eat bamboo on their backs and be adorable in the most state of the art IMAX theater in the world. The experience of just being in a theater that state of the art was unreal. The CEO of IMAX Entertainment, Greg Foster, showed us around the place and was the first person we met with so far who was wearing a suit. He was described as ‘the best in the business’ by his colleague.

Also Venice made for some great people watching. Everybody was riding these electric scooters that you apparently rent using an app on your phone. I know, sounds made up.

-Micah

Hello whoever reads this besides Clay and Dylan!

Yesterday was our first day in Los Angeles! We had a pretty packed day but it was very doable. We started our morning exploring Union Station and the Los Angeles Plaza. We got some dank food and then met with Krista Smith from Vanity Fair. Krista was incredible! She’s so funny and has a good head on her shoulders. It was really interesting to hear about what goes into an entertainment magazine and how it’s changed with the digital era.

We ended our night at the Oscars screening of Sunrise. Going into it, I knew I didn’t like the movie. The glitz and glamour of the Academy didn’t change anything. I will say it was pretty cool to see the giant Oscar statues but throughout the entire movie I was hoping they’d come to life and put an end to my misery. I mean seriously, the film was filled with violence against women as a source of humor. That’s just not funny. Now, I understand that Sunrise is a huge deal in American film history (dream sequences, tracking shots, expressionism and realism, etc). However in a time where the Academy claims to be championing the voices of women, I found it peculiar that the president didn’t at least recognize the problematic nature of the subject matter. Rather than saying times up, this kind of felt like time’s running out but let me just get one more word in. Can we just bring up the music and play these men off the stage? I’m tired of people presenting violent images without recognizing their impact.

Okay, I didn’t mean for that to turn into a mini-rant. Sorry!

Welp, have a good day I guess!

-Olivia