This town is full of recognizable faces. We saw Mila Kunis in the American Dad office of Fox (from a distance). We saw Bob Saget at the Beverly Hills Film Festival (from the balcony). It was cool to see these people, but of course none of us said hi to them.

What’s more exciting than the celebrities are the new friends we’ve made who are writers, producers, editors, cinematographers, gaffers, actors and all sorts of creative people. In a lot of ways the cubicles and offices of studios like Fox look like any other corporate office, but unlike any office everybody we met sounded like they truly enjoy what they do.

The creative people behind the media are the ones who really run the film industry in Los Angeles, a city defined by the media it produces and sends out all over the world. The influence of this town goes far beyond the city limits, which makes it easy to forget what the landscape of this area has to offer.

When we aren’t going to film screenings, studying the history of filmmaking, meeting with incredible people or visiting studios, I spend my free time mountain biking in the hills that poke out above the smog. Within 20 minutes of the Oakwood you can be in the Verdugo Mountains or at a trailhead in the Angeles National Forest that used to be the beginning of an old railroad track that would bring tourists to the top of the mountain for a view of the city back in the 1890s. It seems that everything in this area has a deep and rich history. Many of the trails have been damaged by the fires and the mudslides, but every time I go back to these trails it seems that a community has been working on rebuilding them. The jumps are getting smoother and the banks flow better and the trails themselves are incredibly fun to ride mountain bikes on. To see some biking try this link: Biking I hope it works.

The Los Angeles sprawl is a resilient area. Geologically it is a nightmare of an area to have a town. The people seem to deal with a lot of emotional tearing down and then, like the trails, manage to rebuild their motivation.  I think if this town fell into the ocean these folks would find a way to build studios in the water.

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