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Some cool Wardrobe Department secrets revealed!

How Costumes Are Destroyed For Movies And TV from Entertainment Insider!

Steven Spielberg's "The Exorcist" (1973) - When Visual Effects were done "practical"!

So much has been said of the "perks" included in being a part of any one of Michael Landon's projects. We'd like to share this post with permission from Rick Farris on Facebook!

"The Dude"

What was it like working with Michael Landon?
"Little House on the Prairie" & "Highway to Heaven" . . .

The most important thing of all is how he treated us every day. Michael would arrive on set in the morning with his Producer & best friend, Kent McCray.

He'd almost always start the day with a joke, or funny story.

We used to shoot every scene in one take. Not only was Mike & co-stars prepared, but also the guest stars who were often well-known veteran actors such as Dick Van Dyke, Leslie Nielson, Eli Wallach, etc. His guest stars were also pros who could do things in one-shot, then we'd move on.

We were paid "over union scale" for 12 hours a day (4 hours of OT), but we rarely worked eight hours. Mike also did very little night work during a season, as he wanted us all to be home from work by dinner time, so we could enjoy our families, which is very rare in the filmmaking world.

If he knew a crew member had a personal issue, he would often approach us privately and let them know if he could help in anyway, to be sure to let him know.

He would promote within his ranks. I knew a set medic who became a cameraman, somebody who worked in his office became an assistant director, and many more experienced the same rise in responsibility.

He'd rent set lighting equipment from the chief lighting tech and even use his signature to purchase new equipment which would be paid for out of future rental fees.

At the end of every season Producer Kent McCray would walk up to each of us individually, shake our hands and say: "Thank You". He'd also hand us an envelope with a very large bonus check that would equal a month's pay.

He wanted us all to succeed, he was kind and had a heart! He also was no-push over, he'd stand up to anybody.

Just a few little things that were very big things to those of us who had the luck to be a part of his crew.

The financial perks were legend, however, his treatment of those he depended on were unequaled in the history of filmmaking.
We were blessed, he was our angel!

-Rick Farris/Lighting Tech
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Sony Drones are truly positioned to take over the market!
Exhibit A:

More: https://sonycine.com/articles/sony-airpeak-s1-and-fx3-put-to-the-test-i…

Is this the future of Objective Cinema?

Thanks Sam 😎

Courtesy of Roy H. Wagner ASC

This 8th anniversary of my daughter Sarah’s death brings with it yet another tragic death in the film industry. On October 21st of this past year, cinematographer Halyna Hutchens was fatally wounded in a shooting incident while working on the film ‘Rust’. Another senseless death brought on by negligent actions and a disregard for safety precautions.

This does not need to happen again. The film industry, thru the non-profit Contract Services, has developed many of the guidelines necessary for productions to manage a set safely through what is known as the Safety Bulletins.

If Safety Bulletin #1, “Recommendations for Safety with Firearms And Use of "Blank Ammunition", had been attached to the call sheet, discussed in safety meetings, and followed, Halyna Hutchins would likely still be alive.

If Safety Bulletin #28, “Guidelines for Railroad Safety”, had been attached to the call sheet, discussed in safety meetings, and followed, my daughter – Sarah Jones -- would still be alive.

What’s missing is enforcement. And consequences.

If safety protocols are ignored, there should be consequences so that the violator does not move on to yet another production only to put other crew members’ safety in jeopardy.

Those who are known to have ignored or willfully violated safety protocols perhaps should not be given the honor of being a member of their prospective Guilds. I’m sure there are additional appropriate consequences that can be implemented.

Crew members are dying and/or being horribly injured time after time. Tragedy is always just one bad decision away. When producers try to save money, they often hire unqualified crew in positions of authority who can affect set safety. With time and budget constraints, safety issues can be overlooked or even ignored.

To avert an on-set accident, crew members must sometimes stand up to a producer, demand change and explain to them why the decisions made by the production company will put their crew in grave danger.

Because of Sarah’s death, more crew members have felt secure enough to speak up, but as we have seen, much more needs to be done.

Above-the-line producers are hiring the production managers and UPMs, who, in turn, hire the 1st AD, Key Grip, Prop Master, Armorer and other critical department heads. Those department heads are expected to adhere to the established best practices and safety guidelines.

But what are the consequences if they do not? OSHA fines? Those are surprisingly low.

I challenge the Guilds, studios, networks, film and TV production companies to make safety the number one priority.

I propose that like-minded individuals join together in establishing a Safety Coalition to help the industry come up with a solution – a better way forward.

The Film and Television business comprises a remarkable group of crafts and skilled persons who can create the impossible. It’s now time for them to help create the possible.

Together, we can help ensure that no other family will be destroyed because of someone’s lack of care and/or disregard for set safety. Having consequences will help with the enforcement of the Safety Bulletins.

Richard Jones
Father of Sarah Jones

#SafetyForSarah

Something worth sharing from Actor, Kathe Mazur

Actors, as a group, get a bad rap. Mocking them is so easy. They’re the ones who love to “hug”, who break out into song at parties, who are “over-dramatic”. They’re the ones who get made fun of for working as waiters, even though basically every actor fawned over by the public today did, at some point, serve them their coffee or their wine spritzers, or painted their walls. The expressions “Never date an actor” and “Never date an actress” are time-worn and immediately understood by all. Actors are at once “Narcissists” and “over-affectionate”, “Divas” and “pathetic”. You don’t want your child to be one or marry one.

They are revered while they're famous, but pitiable when they're not.
But I would like to say that I feel grateful every single day of my life that I have had the great good fortune to be trained as an actor, to have been surrounded by actors, and to work with actors. What actors do in acting classes and training programs, for starters, is unlike anything else. In any half-decent acting class in the world, actors learn to Connect: to other people, to their material (from the most banal writing) to some of the most exquisite in the world), to their imaginations and instincts, to themselves.

They are critiqued publicly and have to adjust instantaneously. They learn at every turn to think on their feet. One of the best descriptions I ever read was by the psychiatrist Brian Bates who spent a year observing at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and then wrote The Way of the Actor. He said this is the only profession that requires one to be simultaneously completely extroverted and completely introverted. This can be an occupational hazard, make them seem phony or “too much”, as well as highly sensitive and self-protective. And they are also, often, tremendously empathic, funny, insightful and welcoming.

Studying acting with good teachers is one of the greatest things anyone can do.

And actors are some of the most wonderful people I have ever known. We have a strange job. We are our own instrument; we are our own tools. We are always on display. We invite a lot of projection, and we open ourselves up to the world. It can bring out our insecurities. It is at best inconsistent and at worst heartbreaking, it pits us against each other and can pit us against ourselves. It offers no cover. But actors, for the most part, aren’t looking for cover. We didn’t get into this for cover. And every actor I know who went on to another profession has brought that sense of exploration and willingness to be exposed, that creativity, with them. They bring to it an extraordinary background that no one else has, and an ability to be open, connected, present, grateful, hardworking, open to criticism, endlessly creative, vulnerable, an ability to improvise, to collaborate, to read others, to CARE.

So, yeah, we get a bad rap. Much of it deserved. But oh, how grateful I am to walk among you, to be your colleague and your friend. To all the actors and former actors in my life, thank you for being on this walk together. You are a gift.

Kathe Mazur on IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0563383/

How Old Films Are Professionally Restored

From Movies Insider: https://www.facebook.com/watch/1565713960405733/1009671536046358/
Early films can be destroyed forever if not preserved. See how movies get repaired, reconstructed, and converted to digital form to avoid this fate.
For more from The George Eastman Museum:
https://www.eastman.org/moving-image
https://www.youtube.com/c/GeorgeEastmanMuseum
https://www.instagram.com/eastmanmuseum/

https://fb.watch/bg_YqfV8KB/

From James Grissom on Facebook:

Jane Campion believes in rigorous preparation. When directing a film, she works sometimes for years to ready the environment — and herself. Before she began shooting her new feature, “The Power of the Dog,” she returned again and again to the mountain range in New Zealand she had chosen as a location, checking what the light was like at different times of day, in different weather, across seasons. She went to visit the ranches in Montana where Thomas Savage, who wrote the novel on which the film is based, grew up. She sent Benedict Cumberbatch — who stars as Phil, a vicious, hypermasculine rancher — to Montana as well, to learn roping, riding, horseshoeing, whittling, banjo and bull-calf castration.
But in rehearsals, her approach tends to be more oblique. For “The Power of the Dog,” she gathered the actors for a few weeks to hike, improvise and do exercises. They ate together, cooked together or just sat in rooms, in character, not talking. She asked Cumberbatch to write a letter as Phil to Phil’s dead lover, Bronco Henry. Then she had him write back as Bronco Henry. She asked Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons, who play brothers, to waltz together, to help them learn intimately how the other’s body smelled, felt and moved, visceral qualities that boys who’ve grown up together would know.
Campion also tried something new: She went to see a Jungian dream analyst out of Los Angeles, hoping to more deeply connect with Phil’s psychology, and she suggested Cumberbatch do the same. Campion normally doesn’t dream much, but soon she began having the same nightmare over and over. She was riding a black horse, beautiful and skittish, down a steep, narrow pathway along the face of a cliff. As they went farther down the trail, she realized that the path was vanishing into nothing, that the horse’s hooves would inevitably hit an angle too sheer to support their weight. We’ve got to back up, she thought. But the horse, too frightened and not yet trusting her, wouldn’t listen. It pressed forward, toward the vanishing point.
Oh, this is certain death, she thought, and she woke up.
“Of course Jane Campion’s dreams are so rich in imagery,” Cumberbatch joked on the phone. “Sexual, fantastical, spiritual, just exploding orchids of blood. Whereas I’m dreaming that I can’t quite climb the tree.”
The Power of the Dog Netflix The Academy

Here's a little Gripping to go along with some Mechanical Effects for ya!

From: The key grip
https://www.facebook.com/The-key-grip-1519199625034359·
Trinity operator @samojet vs Godzilla. Walk on crane shot @pantherfilmequipment galaxycrane
Follow and tag @thekeygrip
#trinityoperator #arritrinity #arri #arriasia #arrijapan #steadicam #steadicamoperator #steadicamoperatorsassociation #steadicamoperatorsguild #steadicam_operators_guild #societyofcameraoperators #setlife #godzilla #japan

I found this TED Talk fascinating... Hope you do too~
The shared wonder of film
Speaker: Beeban Kidron
Movies have the power to create a shared narrative experience and to shape memories and worldviews. British film director Beeban Kidron invokes iconic film scenes -- from Miracle in Milan to Boyz n the Hood -- as she shows how her group FILMCLUB shares great films with kids.
https://www.ted.com/talks/beeban_kidron_the_shared_wonder_of_film

We just wanted to announce here a new feature where you may create a mini-album of photos in a post with unlimited images!

Please try to keep your images within one subject matter and describe that in your post.

For example here are some images that represent various Crew Photos that have been submitted over the years.

How many do you recognize?