More Smog To Go Around!

Episodes of the web series: It's Always Smoggy In L.A. are now available on veoh.com and funnyordie.com

Also check out the official website: smoggyinla.com

Let us know what you think!

Copyright 2009 by KLiedle
Official Logo: It's Always Smoggy In L.A.
Photo by KLiedle

Picture Perfect

As anyone who reads this blog knows: I believe in learning new things ~ things that are both fascinating and frightening at the same time. Film projection is one of those things.

TCM and AMC were my film "discovery" channels. Like a big dork, I used to watch documentaries about film preservation and the digitally remastering process for old films. It was a painstaking process, sometimes taking years-- as was the case with The Wizard Of Oz, but it was fascinating that it could be done and there were people willing to do it. Seventy years later, the technicolor in The Wizard Of Oz is now as rich and layered as it was upon its first viewing-- enough that I can actually see the texture of the burlap on the scarecrow's face!

In concept, I'd love to have a hand in film preservation-- but in reality, I'd go bat-crazy if I just sat in a little room, digitally removing dust for hours. Instead, I turned to the "fascinating and frightening" prospect of film projection. Since the rest of the industry has been slow, I'm now working part-time as a projectionist. After some spits and starts (and lots and lots of threading practice,) my projectionist status became official.

Doing projection for a larger movie house takes patience, attention to detail, time management, and a lot of hustling from projector to projector. When you're sitting in the movie theatre, do you ever think about the little person behind the theatre? No, it's not the Wizard Of Oz, it's me: the projectionist. Your movie doesn't just magically show up on the screen-- I have to put it up there.

Where I work, we have 16 screens which I split up with another working projectionist. During a typical shift, I thread up and start anywhere from 24 to 32 films. The fascinating part is that from this LONG stream of individual photographs, the projector and I can make your movie happen like magic. The frightening part is that a lot can go wrong very easily: If I don't thread the film with the soundtrack facing a certain way, your movie won't have audio. It could also jump off its sprockets, be out of frame, out of focus, get scratched, have garbled or muffled sound, or somehow end up spilled onto the floor like spaghetti. The movie could get also get tangled up at the source (aka a "brain wrap,") at which point an alarm goes off {hopefully}, all hell breaks lose... and your movie stops dead in its tracks.

And then, for a few moments I'm no longer fascinated, I'm just plain frightened, but at the end of the day, the show will go on. And as you settle into your chair with a popcorn tub on your lap, magic will appear to happen.

Copyright 2009 by KLiedle
Photo credits: flickr/the42ndfl00r, flickr/maraid, flickr/vemsteroo

Dreaming and Awakening

Too many times, my day off evaporates like a droplet of oil on a hot griddle. I know I should've planned something, but before I know it, time's up. Likewise, time was almost up for other things, too...

It was closing this week... last chance to get my butt into gear to see The Academy's landmark Fellini exhibit, Fellini: Book Of Dreams. A showcase of Federico Fellini's massive dream notebooks, this is the exhibit's first appearance in the United States. With the cooperation of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Fondazione Federico Fellini and the Fondazione Cinema per Roma, it is available for viewing and astonishingly enough-- free. Two days before the close of the exhibit, I finally made it!

Well worth the wait (and the drive) the Fellini exhibit was more expansive than I'd imagined. Fellini kept records-- sketchbooks, really-- of his dreams for the better part of thirty years (1960-1990.) He not only wrote out the details as he remembered them, but he illustrated his dreams whenever possible. His illustrations are vivid, fantastical, colorful, imaginative, and often circus-like. Many of Fellini's illustrated dreams seem familiar-- as a number of the images and/or themes later appeared in some of his films.

Fellini's actual "dream notebooks" are housed in a glass display, meaning the general public (for obvious reasons) cannot flip through them. Alternatively though, there is a computer touch screen that allows you to scroll through as many as 250 pages of Fellini dreams. The sheer volume is daunting, but extraordinarily intoxicating.

After viewing many of the articles on display, I scrolled through a handful of the digital notebook pages as well. Fellini's dreams ran the gamut from men on stilts to elephants, big-busted women, and firebursts of exploding blimps. I laughed aloud after reading Fellini's expressions of an erotic and wildly humorous, imagined romp with Sophia Loren. Men will be men... On the other side of the spectrum, I snickered at an illustration of a rather mundane dream: a horribly plugged toilet. There stands Fellini in front of the constipated throne-- overflowing with toilet paper and feces and "even a little Fiat!," as Fellini proclaims. Indeed, a little car is zooming its way out.

For Fellini, this expansive Book Of Dreams brought about a better understanding of his own subconscious as well as ideas for his films. For us today, it's also an incredible and inspiring look into the intimate workings of a vastly creative mind.

GO >> Fellini's Book Of Dreams-- through April 19, 2009 in the Academy's Grand Lobby Gallery: 8949 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills CA 90211

*Also through April 19 in the Academy's 4th floor Gallery:
GO >> Douglas Fairbanks: The First King Of Hollywood exhibit displays rare costumes, props, articles, and correspondence from the actor's career-- including his commemorative Oscar and a telegram from Charlie Chaplin.

Copyright 2009 by KLiedle

A Downward Slope Can Be An Upward Battle

"Uh, No."

That was my answer-- out of fear, out of 'thinking' that it just wouldn't be my thing. Snow, flat surface, skates... OK, I can do that. Snow, being strapped to what appears to be a skateboard while staring down a mountain? Yeah, I don't think so... BUT what if? What if it's really as fun as my brother says it is? I don't even have a huge fear, just a little dinky fear-- enough to make my brain want to say no.

In other words, I didn't really have an excuse so I decided to transcend my natural fears and give snowboarding a shot. It's hard to believe that just over a week ago, I was driving with my brother and a friend to Breckenridge, CO to hit the slopes. It was their 19th time of the season and my 1st time of all time... I guess I could say.

I was feeling just a bit anxious about the whole experience when I was being fitted for my snowboard. "It's harder to back out now," I thought. "After all, I've rented the equipment. "

On the ride up to Breckenridge, I started having second thoughts... "what if I break my leg or I hit my head or God know what else?" Before I knew it, we were on the shuttle, I'd gotten a lift ticket, and we were headed up the neverending gondola to the sky. "There's no going back now...," I thought as I looked at how far we'd ascended into the sky and how much that damn lift ticket cost.

When it was all said and done, I was astounded by how much fun, yes fun, I had on the slopes my first day out. I thought it would be so painful, so frustrating, and so awkward that fun would never be a part of it until I actually knew what I was doing. I didn't break my leg, or an arm, or my head... I wasn't especially sore afterward ( a little bit, yes, but not alot.)

Yes, I lost count of how many times I fell or ate shit in the snow, but each and every time, I got up again. In the beginning, it was mostly due to Barry, my snowboard instructor, making me try again... even though I wanted to quit. I didn't think there was any hope for me (or the nonexistent snowboarder inside of me.) By the end, I kept getting up because I knew I could conquer that damn mountain-- OK, I'll be real: majestic slope-- and I realized that I was exhilarated because I'd tried (and succeeded) in something I was fearful about.

My advice to first-timers: Take a 1/2 day lesson. It's worth it, even though you'll see 6 year olds snowboarding better than you and old people skiing faster than you can walk with your ski boots on. I'm convinced that taking the lessons helped me get the basics down in time to actually enjoy myself.

Thanks, Barry for being my snowboard muse last week and not laughing in my face, even though I'm sure you were tempted quite a few times during that day, especially every time I ate shit coming off the ski lift which was oh, every time! And thanks to my brother, for taking me up to the mountain and making me find my way down and giving me a unique experience to take back home. Snowboarding's something I wouldn't have attempted without a little prodding, but now, well, I just may go again someday!

P.S. There's a Beaujo's pizza in Idaho Springs, CO. So, if you need any other incentive to get down the mountain, deep dish pizza with thick, bready crust is a good one! And after skiing/snowboarding all day, you can afford to down a lot of it!

Copyright 2009 by KLiedle
Photo credit: "Doll Snowboarder" rockymountainroz/flickr
"Breckenridge" kavy2/flickr, "No Snowboarding" maureen/flickr

It's Always Smoggy In L.A. -- "Sugar"

*Click above to view the episode*

"Sugar" / Episode #104 starring Alisha Nichols, Padriac Culham and Brandon Alter
Created by Scott Vogel and produced by Kendra Liedle and Scott Vogel, IT'S ALWAYS SMOGGY IN L.A. episodes can by kooky, they can be dark, and they can be twisted, but they are all unquestionably L.A.

It's Always Smoggy In L.A. episodes are currently running exclusively on Cocoa And Caffeine Hollywood Travels and Smoggyinla.com

For future episodes and more information about the show, please see the official website: smoggyinla.com

Copyright 2009 by KLiedle

Tunnel Vision: Diving Bell And The Butterfly

When my imagination does horror, dreams turn to nightmares and suddenly I'm drowning. Beauty extinguished. Life washed away.

Or I look at the sun for a moment too long. A razor blade slices the vision out of my eyes, a la Un Chien Andalou. I'm blinded and <<whoosh>> I'm in a Bunuel film, chased by a Minotaur and unable to find my way out.

I think of death and I accept the inevitability of it... I just wish I could predict how and when. It would just make things a little more convenient-- planning-wise. What I don't think about often... nor do any of us... is what if death didn't come, but instead my life ( or your life ) was forever altered in some tragic way. What, then?

For me, the nightmare would be blindness after a lifetime of gazing at the beauty and pleasures of this world... the movies I love, the places I've been, the artwork I've created, the people I've known. I'd never again be able to experience them fully.

Or the nightmare would be experiencing the feeling of drowning: water slushing up my nose, free-falling deeper and deeper, struggling briefly and giving up silently... and then waking up-- deep breaths, coughing, and magnificently terrified.

For Jean-Dominique Bauby, then editor-in-chief of French Elle Magazine, it was a massive stroke that put him into a coma. When he awoke 20 days later, he was paralyzed from the neck down. Although he was conscious and mentally aware of his surroundings, he was unable to communicate with anyone. He'd lived the high lifestyle of fast cars, women, fashion, travel... And in a flash <> it was gone. He'd become a lump of clay, a 'living vegetable'...

“What kind of vegetable?” Jean-Dominique wondered. “A carrot? A pickle?”

He was experiencing 'locked-in syndrome,' a claustrophobic life in which a person retains mental alertness, vision, and hearing, but is unable to communicate with the outside world. It is like being buried alive, but Bauby wasn't ready to be buried. He was going to live, albeit in this strange, altered world.

Bauby triumphed against his circumstances by doing the seemingly impossible: He wrote a book. With help from a transcriber using a common letter alphabet, he blinked his left eye to write the experiences of his internal world-- how a life forever altered was affecting him and those around him. His book, published in 1997, became The Diving Bell And The Butterfly.

Jean-Dominique's unique story became a movie directed by Julian Schnabel, a painter turned film director. The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, originally released in 2007, is an masterful achievement in both directing and cinematography.

In an instant, we're transported to that moment... the moment we weren't ready for, the moment that came up too fast...

Suddenly I'm drowning. Beauty extinguished. Life washed away.

From the first frame of Schnabel's film, I'm Jean-Dominique. The camera won't let me see anything beyond this tunnel vision. I see doctors and nurses and people from my past. They look at me and shrug. They look at me and cry or apologize. They look at me as though I'm not there. I speak. No one listens. I shout. No one even flinches. It's like I'm in a coffin, but I'm not dead. I'm caught up in my own head. It's a nightmare. It's painful, it's claustrophobic, and at times, it's downright terrifying: The thought of never being able to escape this fate.

But I keep watching, transfixed by the vision being presented to me. The film opens up and I'm momentarily released from Jean-Dominique's prison to discover his past and the people around him. I'm introduced to the person he was before life altered itself. I'm reminded that any of this could happen to me or someone I know or anyone for that matter. The unthinkable. I experience heightened sensations, beauty rising through the ugliness, the magnificent in the ordinary. I hear Jean-Dominique's poetic view on his circumstances, spiked with sarcastic tone and dark humor and hope (of all things, hope!) I learn that art can come from tragedy, passion can be exhibited in a multitude of ways, and film can be life-altering as much as anything I can experience directly. It is a beautiful film, a life-altering film, that I highly recommend. It will change how you experience every moment thereafter...

"And so, curiously enough, a movie about deprivation becomes a celebration of the richness of experience, and a remarkably rich experience in its own right." (New York Times Movie Review)

Diving Bell And The Butterfly: Let your imagination set you free

Copyright 2009 by KLiedle
Photo credit: flickr.com/emster214 (eyeball)
flickr.com/{amanda} (woman drowning)

It's Always Smoggy In L.A. -- "Women Are Scum"