The L.A. Chapter, Part Two
A little note first. Before we sent Kevin Welch to the airport the day before, I managed to wrangle a viewing of his directing project U.F.O. out of him. It's really not too hard to do, since almost all directors are attention whores, including myself, and will show our stuff at the drop of a hat.
Anyway, it was the longer cut, and as such, wasn't all that tight. Still, it was kinda fun watching my sex scene in the forest. And Jingli didn't realize it was me till we told him later. Ah, the beauty of editing and camera placement. I hope I can see it again when he has it trimmed down, even though he has said that scene will probably be cut out.
Thursday 24 March 2005
No one was free to drive us around, so we had to do public transport for most of the day. Cameron dropped us off in Santa Monica to explore, and off we went.
The Promenade at Santa Monica is basically a street blocked off from traffic, lined with shrines to consumerism. All your typical retail chains are there, and even ridiculous things like dinosaurs spitting water.
Palisades Park is a park overlooking the waterfront from a bluff high up. There's a statue of Santa Monica herself in the middle of the park. She looks very phallic.
At this point, our batteries ran low for both cameras, and we cursed as we realized we'd forgotten to charge them the night before. There was no other option but to turn the screens off to conserve power and use the viewfinders instead. However, it didn't help that the viewfinder for my camera serves more as a rough guide than an actual viewfinder. I hate not knowing the actual composition of my pictures. Sometimes they end up pretty far off from what I want.
The Santa Monica Pier has an old-school carousel which looks pretty damn sweet. I kinda wanted to go for a ride, but Jingli didn't. It seemed silly to ride it alone, so I let it go.
The pier sticks out into the sea, like all piers tend to do, and from it you can get a pretty decent view of the beachfront. It was kinda grey, so the pictures didn't turn out very good. As such, they're not here. There's also a lame amusement park on the pier, Pacific Park, which we didn't go to.
We took a Big Blue Bus down to Venice after that. Big Blue Buses run from Santa Monica to a whole bunch of places, and they're cheap, frequent, and clean - altogether the best bus service I've been on in the US.
Venice was apparently modelled after, well, Venice, and at one point was covered with canals. They've been filled in, I think, because we didn't see any sign of them (not that we were looking though). It was used as the location for Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (woohoo!) and looked suitably grim and disgusting there. By now it's cleaned up, and is actually rather famous for its beach and boardwalk.
The Boardwalk was deliciously tacky, with stores lining one side selling touristy crap and beachwear and overpriced snackages. There weren't too many people since it was on a weekday and still a little bit chilly, which was nice.
On the other side was a wide expanse of beach which was rather empty. If it was summer though, it'd be packed. Unfortunately, this also meant that there were no hot, skimpily clad people walking around. Well, except for a bodybuilder type person at Muscle Beach, but he could hardly be considered hot, because he was kinda scary and bizarre. You can see him in the background here.
Muscle Beach is a portion of Venice Beach with tons of fitness equipment out in the open. There are also rings and bars and stuff like that should one feel gymnastic (and exhibitionistic). It feels like the kind of place where Arnie might feel at home. No wonder he's governor of California.
We took a long, slow walk down the Boardwalk, which turned out to be much longer than we'd originally thought. It felt great, enjoying the breeze, soaking in the relaxing, laidback atmosphere, swearing at the rich bastards living in their beachfront apartments and houses. We probably spent a lot more time there than we needed to, but it just felt so damn good.
As Magic Hour approached, we took another Big Blue Bus back to Santa Monica, where we transferred to an express bus to downtown L.A.
Which was a dead town at night, apparently, with not many pretty lights and buildings at all. The Disney Music Hall just looked disturbing. Dinner was at a lame chicken restaurant, after which we waited for Arielle to pick us up. She dropped us off along Hollywood Boulevard, where we got a quick look at the tacky tourist traps and the Kodak Theatre, home of the Oscars. But we'd be back tomorrow, so more on that later.
Anyway, it was the longer cut, and as such, wasn't all that tight. Still, it was kinda fun watching my sex scene in the forest. And Jingli didn't realize it was me till we told him later. Ah, the beauty of editing and camera placement. I hope I can see it again when he has it trimmed down, even though he has said that scene will probably be cut out.
Thursday 24 March 2005
No one was free to drive us around, so we had to do public transport for most of the day. Cameron dropped us off in Santa Monica to explore, and off we went.
The Promenade at Santa Monica is basically a street blocked off from traffic, lined with shrines to consumerism. All your typical retail chains are there, and even ridiculous things like dinosaurs spitting water.
Palisades Park is a park overlooking the waterfront from a bluff high up. There's a statue of Santa Monica herself in the middle of the park. She looks very phallic.
At this point, our batteries ran low for both cameras, and we cursed as we realized we'd forgotten to charge them the night before. There was no other option but to turn the screens off to conserve power and use the viewfinders instead. However, it didn't help that the viewfinder for my camera serves more as a rough guide than an actual viewfinder. I hate not knowing the actual composition of my pictures. Sometimes they end up pretty far off from what I want.
The Santa Monica Pier has an old-school carousel which looks pretty damn sweet. I kinda wanted to go for a ride, but Jingli didn't. It seemed silly to ride it alone, so I let it go.
The pier sticks out into the sea, like all piers tend to do, and from it you can get a pretty decent view of the beachfront. It was kinda grey, so the pictures didn't turn out very good. As such, they're not here. There's also a lame amusement park on the pier, Pacific Park, which we didn't go to.
We took a Big Blue Bus down to Venice after that. Big Blue Buses run from Santa Monica to a whole bunch of places, and they're cheap, frequent, and clean - altogether the best bus service I've been on in the US.
Venice was apparently modelled after, well, Venice, and at one point was covered with canals. They've been filled in, I think, because we didn't see any sign of them (not that we were looking though). It was used as the location for Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (woohoo!) and looked suitably grim and disgusting there. By now it's cleaned up, and is actually rather famous for its beach and boardwalk.
The Boardwalk was deliciously tacky, with stores lining one side selling touristy crap and beachwear and overpriced snackages. There weren't too many people since it was on a weekday and still a little bit chilly, which was nice.
On the other side was a wide expanse of beach which was rather empty. If it was summer though, it'd be packed. Unfortunately, this also meant that there were no hot, skimpily clad people walking around. Well, except for a bodybuilder type person at Muscle Beach, but he could hardly be considered hot, because he was kinda scary and bizarre. You can see him in the background here.
Muscle Beach is a portion of Venice Beach with tons of fitness equipment out in the open. There are also rings and bars and stuff like that should one feel gymnastic (and exhibitionistic). It feels like the kind of place where Arnie might feel at home. No wonder he's governor of California.
We took a long, slow walk down the Boardwalk, which turned out to be much longer than we'd originally thought. It felt great, enjoying the breeze, soaking in the relaxing, laidback atmosphere, swearing at the rich bastards living in their beachfront apartments and houses. We probably spent a lot more time there than we needed to, but it just felt so damn good.
As Magic Hour approached, we took another Big Blue Bus back to Santa Monica, where we transferred to an express bus to downtown L.A.
Which was a dead town at night, apparently, with not many pretty lights and buildings at all. The Disney Music Hall just looked disturbing. Dinner was at a lame chicken restaurant, after which we waited for Arielle to pick us up. She dropped us off along Hollywood Boulevard, where we got a quick look at the tacky tourist traps and the Kodak Theatre, home of the Oscars. But we'd be back tomorrow, so more on that later.
posted by cinewhore @ 12:05 PM
0 mindfucks
0 Comments:
gimme some mindfuckery
<< Home