San Francisco's Blade Runner Ambience

I've have always thought that the postmodern City in Blade Runner looked a lot more like San Francisco than Los Angeles. No, my friends tell me - it looks like Tokyo! Oh yeah? Try this experiment. Pick a drizzly twilight night when there's a game on at SBC Stadium; stand on Columbus Ave. near Chinatown, and look up towards the pyramidal TransAmerica Building just as the Goodyear Blimp is flying overhead. Now squint your eyes. See? Besides, the novel which became Blade Runner, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was originally set in San Francisco. So there.

The author of "Do Androids Dream...", Phillip K. Dick, may just have been our 1960s version of Nostradamus. The designer drugs of his fervid imagination are the daily reality of the 21st century. And now, with new high rise developments going up on Rincon Hill and SOMA, San Francisco's city planners seem to be taking some big steps towards making Phillip K. Dick and Ridley Scott's dystopic/utopic (pick one) vision a reality. Maybe not right away, but give it a few years, the onset of acid rain, and some fancy digital media attached to the Goodyear Blimp. In fact, even as I write this, we are "enjoying" a record-setting year for the most rainfall in about a century.

I write about synchronicity, two vanishing SF neighborhoods, and what will replace them, in my editing blog, Rhizome.

Better Than Taxes

The 49th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival is almost here. How they manage to put this all together in the midst of tax time is beyond me. Let’s chalk it down to love and obsession. Or maybe Romance and Cigarettes.

Think about it: 97 features and 130 shorts from 47 countries. This is more than a smorgasbord, and it's more than a one night stand. And it will truly be a Citywide event with a series of house parties, filmmaker home stays, opening and closing night parties, an SF Film Society Awards Night and satellite screenings. An outreach program will enable thousands of Bay Area students to take part in the events. Tilda Swinton will give a state of the cinema address, and Werner Herzog will screen a new film, Wild Blue Yonder. The centerpiece presentation will be John Turturro’s Romance and Cigarettes, with a moment that I certainly won’t want to miss: James (Sopranos) Gandolfini, singing Tom Jones. A quarter of the films will be from the Pacific Rim. Festivities start on April 17th and official opening night on April 20.

It’s a big deal! See you there...

Hint

Germinate by Ben Makinen. It's a grey day here, as we near the eve of the eclipse, and the music seems appropriate.

Film Scoring

This is just a teaser. We've got two (maybe more!) interviews coming up with independent musicians who score for film and television...

Soon...

Is "Authenticity" Overrated?

Increasingly, the public demands that historical films be attentive to historical "authenticity." But how important is authenticity to the film industry, really? Back in 2000, Professor Kathleen Coleman, a consultant for the Dreamworks' film, Gladiator, reported in an Ohio State University forum that many of her suggestions were disregarded, so much so that she requested to be left off the credits for the film. And yet, in many ways all those carefully considered details are what help to make a film convincing and, one would think, more likely to attract an audience, to get them to suspend disbelief and become involved in the story.

Coleman warned her colleagues to let go of the illusion that their advice would be taken seriously. Apparently, in some cases consultants are hired primarily for their credentials. That seems like a waste of knowledge.

In "Historians and Film History," Sharon Howard makes a good point: "Insofar as a film does require suspension of disbelief, it is a temporary state. It lasts only as long as the film; the responses that follow--as anyone who has been to the cinema with friends and then spent the rest of the night arguing about the film could testify--can last much longer and may be hotly contested..."

Filmgoers are not just passive observers; they are critics, too, and their opinions will be reported to friends. It wouldn't hurt for filmmakers to give their audiences a little credit for critical thinking. The demands of budgeting and time may impose limits upon the kinds of details that can be included in a film, but there's still plenty of room for the brain-power and expertise of tech advisors and historical consultants to be used to better advantage.

Changes at Pixar

With the big news that Disney has purchased Pixar, I'm wondering how that will change the celebrated creativity of the Pixar animators, and their relationship with the Bay Area. They've invested enough in the Emeryville campus and in the community, in the form of education grants and involvement in local non-profits, to keep a strong presence here. Some of their resources will no doubt be drawn into Disney projects. But will their creative quirkiness (which I would like to think was nurtured in the Bay Area) also be funneled into the "It's all good" quagmire of the L.A. movie assembly line? Chief Executives Steve Jobs of Pixar, and Bob Iger of Disney, have promised to preserve all that's made Pixar so successful up to this point. Let's hope so.

Getting His Wheels

Local Josh Kornbluth has a way of making even taking a written driver's test seem like a Josh-in-Wonderland adventure.

Rebates for Feature Filmmakers

Last year, the San Francisco Center for Economic Development reported that feature film production in the City had declined 70% since 1996, and some 66 production companies had shut down, according to the Bay Area Film Alliance. Spurred by the bad news, Mayor Gavin Newsome revamped the San Francisco Film Commission in 2004, Treasure Island properties were made available for film production and $350 million was set aside for film promotion.

But no matter how hard we spin the Noir City, the bottom line for film producers is money. In an article from January 16th, Charlie Goodyear reports in the SF Chronicle that the City is ready to give filmmakers an offer they won't want to refuse. Read HERE.

The Invisible...Consultant (Made Visible!)

We've put together this blog to highlight the often unacknowledged "knowledge people" (also known as "tech advisors") in the San Francisco Bay Area, those who support the process of making films and television shows look, feel and sound authentic. In the process, we'll be passing on news to you about the state of the SF Bay Area film industry and posting related stories about the history of film and television in and around San Francisco.