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Trip Journal
May. 1st, 2005 09:17 pmWe're back from the crazy run to see Ralph Bakshi. Surprisingly, nothing really went wrong.
We drove all night and I got to meet![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ultraken Who looks unmistakably like Arthur Dent. We napped at his house for couple hours and then went to Santa Monica.
After Santa Monica, we went into the bowels of LA. Hollywood! It was everything I'd ever expected it to be and less! It wasn't even as sleazy, kitschy, or touristy as I really expected. It was like a mall basically. We got there too early too, of course. Like any mall, it didn't really open until about 11AM. We did stop in a hair salon and found they carried the whole line of Special Effects (Except Yellow) and got all of our hair colouring needs met for the same price as PipeLine. (And saving us a trip) That was about the highlight of Hollywood for me. We had some people stop us and ask to take photos. We were like artifical local color! (Which probably suited Hollywood pretty well if you think about it)
Hollywood now mostly seems to be dominated by giant mall that's really lame. It has almost totally engulfed the chinese theatre you always see pictures of to where I didn't really even recognize it until late in the evening. Outside the theatre, people were already sitting in line for Star Wars... Puleeease! Also, people wandering around in costumes, making a buck off tourists who wanted to photo them. Geh. It was like a sci-fi convention that never ends except it didn't have any of the good parts of a sci-fi convention (like sci-fi) Just people in costumes.
The rest of Hollywood is all stripper outfits and go-go boots. Most of it is really cheaply-made stuff too that I wouldn't even wear. Really without style. Blah. We went back to the car and napped in the car in a parking garage for a little while to recharge (and since we had several hours to kill after buying our tickets) I decided we needed real food too (we'd been surviving on water, Dr Pepper, and granola bars) so we had a really great but mediocre pizza! It was really great in that it was exactly what we needed to recharge and face the rest of this horrible day we'd made for ours. (and I mean horrible in a good way, I think, I'm full of ambivalence here! :) but really it was only an adequate pizza. I think I enjoyed the GIGANTIC caesar salad that came with it more than the pizza. :)
Um. What else. We bummed around some more then went to the theatre, How do I know he was his number one fan? he told us so, on no uncertain terms. Wow. He was amazingly annoying! I was quite amused that Peggy didn't tell him a thing and of course I didn't either. :) Um. Then the guy with the XL1 came along and wanted to interview us about why we'd come to see Ralph. Peggy laughed but said sure, I said no way! and ducked out of shot. :) Fortunetely, we were spared (for the moment) by one of Peggy's coworkers seeing her and coming over to say hi. The poor camera guy reluctantly ended up talking to #1 fan. I got to play fly on the wall and peek over the shoulder at her current sketches. Yay! :)
A few minutes later, Bakshi finally showed up and Peggy went to see him and he remembered her and introduced her as a great writer (I moved out of earshot because I hate groupies and didn't wanna be one) Went back to my spot in line. Number One fan buzzed with joy that he'd been interviewed! Peggy came back and then the camera guy caught us again. He interviewed her and I did my best to stay off camera and not crack up too much (since Peggy's statement was that her mission was to harass Ralph. :) Ironically, Bakshi walked past and harassed her instead.
Got into the movies! The first thing up was an episode of MightyMouse (Batbat) which was fun but so badly telecined and made my sleep-deprived eyes hurt. You could really see a lot of the roots of modern Flash styled animation in it. Strong, funny key poses, good writing, and really poppy animation with simple camera and object rotations in it but still, it worked and it was much more fun to watch than say Mucha Lucha or Atomic Betty.
Next up was Wizards which was.... Not like I remembered. The prints I'd seen before were so washed out that it seemed like it was coloured more like Heavy Metal, when in truth, it was rather garishly coloured like a cartoon. Also, it was a LOT less finished that I remembered. A _LOT_ of the movie was just voiceover narration with camera moves and multiplane moves across what was basically cleaned up Storyboard. You know though, it was still a lot of fun to watch and there were still some parts in it that were pretty impressively well animated. People always say Bakshi's animation was terrible but... I dunno. I get the feeling they're not looking at it right. The _animation_ is pretty f***ing brilliant. The scriptwriting could be better, and there could be MORE animation in films but... Compared to just about any anime film, the animation is _FANTASTIC_ Try watching just the motion of the characters. Heck, the backgrounds were almost worthy of Drulliet! Who cares about the rotoscoping. For doing huge battle-scenes in the 70's for less than $500,000 (Which is what Bakshi's films cost to make BTW) how else were you gonna get big crowd scenes? Sheesh.
After Wizards was a short Q/A with Ralph, and several of the people who'd worked on various projects with him showed up. The live-action people for roto in American Pop, the guy who did the music for Wizards, etc. Very cool. I think the one that I liked most though was a black guy who'd wanted to see Coonskin when it was originally in the theatre. It'd got yanked before he had a chance to see it and he'd had to wait THIRTY YEARS to see it. Someone else mentioned that various rap singers had at times cited that film as an influence (the beat poet basketball guy voice by the Scatman) F*** if this isn't something to fling at the naysayers! I've met people who told me I couldn't animate a film by myself and that no one person could make a difference. They were oddly silent when I produced Free as a Bird completely by myself. Can't change anything? Ha. Bakshi, regardless of what you might think of the results, has changed both animation and music, making low as f*** budget films with nothing more than a group of people who were talented and passionate. You CAN do anything if you really set your mind to it!
Finally, Coonskin! This was a nice clean print and gawd the animation in it was simply goregous! This is the 4th time I've seen that film and each time I see it, I like it better. Some people have blindly asserted that it's racist and such but you know, Spike Lee, rappers, and everyone else cite it as a positive influence in their lives and the people who worked on it back in the day felt the same way. The only people I've ever heard call it racist were white. What's that tell you? It's a GREAT film and this print was SHARP! You could see all the linework, and the characters were FANTASTICALLY animated! The weight and stretch and squash on them was just fantastic! I can't say enough good things about them. Watch this film without the 'EW! It was made by Ralph Bakshi!" blinders on. It's a GREAT film and using photographs and video in the backgrounds and for some of the characters really adds to the movie rather than taking away from it. This is one of the best animated films to come out of the 70s, no question about it.
After the films and a little bit of chatting with Peggy's old co-workers, we were off on the long grind home. There was no Herriman moon to guide us, nothing joyous to look forward to (except bed) just the gritty exhaustion of being completely burned up. We DID Hollywood and, like a cheap whore, said nothing more than, "Money's on the nightstand" and walked out. The road went on forever. I had to pull off and rest for a bit at a rest stop. We came over Pacheco pass as the sun rose, got home around 6:30. Fell to bed and slept. When I took a shower this evening, it took two good scrubbings with soap to get the scent of LA off me. It was an interesting trip but I dunno that I'd do it again anytime real soon.
We drove all night and I got to meet
ultraken Who looks unmistakably like Arthur Dent. We napped at his house for couple hours and then went to Santa Monica. | In Santa Monica, we looked around for where Peggy had gone to animation school. It was a nice bit of walking. There's a strip there that's really like Santana Row in it's corporate box stores masquerading as a downtown area. We also walked down to a park looking out over the pier and saw oodles of baby squirrels! SO CUTE and adventurous! The adults were keeping an eye on us as the little ones wandered around. One even wandered over and nibbled on Peggy's shoe. Hee! I miss the little squirrel I found but I'm feeling pretty good about having taken her to a shelter after seeing these little guys. :) I also had to be a bimbo and climbed up on a cannon for the photo op! Bababababa-boom! ^_^ (No Tank Girl references here!) I was feeling like my colour had really faded but in this photo it still seems pretty bright. I guess my standards for brightness have just changed (I'm gonna redye my hair right after this post, I think, or at least get started on it. :) |
After Santa Monica, we went into the bowels of LA. Hollywood! It was everything I'd ever expected it to be and less! It wasn't even as sleazy, kitschy, or touristy as I really expected. It was like a mall basically. We got there too early too, of course. Like any mall, it didn't really open until about 11AM. We did stop in a hair salon and found they carried the whole line of Special Effects (Except Yellow) and got all of our hair colouring needs met for the same price as PipeLine. (And saving us a trip) That was about the highlight of Hollywood for me. We had some people stop us and ask to take photos. We were like artifical local color! (Which probably suited Hollywood pretty well if you think about it)
Hollywood now mostly seems to be dominated by giant mall that's really lame. It has almost totally engulfed the chinese theatre you always see pictures of to where I didn't really even recognize it until late in the evening. Outside the theatre, people were already sitting in line for Star Wars... Puleeease! Also, people wandering around in costumes, making a buck off tourists who wanted to photo them. Geh. It was like a sci-fi convention that never ends except it didn't have any of the good parts of a sci-fi convention (like sci-fi) Just people in costumes.
The rest of Hollywood is all stripper outfits and go-go boots. Most of it is really cheaply-made stuff too that I wouldn't even wear. Really without style. Blah. We went back to the car and napped in the car in a parking garage for a little while to recharge (and since we had several hours to kill after buying our tickets) I decided we needed real food too (we'd been surviving on water, Dr Pepper, and granola bars) so we had a really great but mediocre pizza! It was really great in that it was exactly what we needed to recharge and face the rest of this horrible day we'd made for ours. (and I mean horrible in a good way, I think, I'm full of ambivalence here! :) but really it was only an adequate pizza. I think I enjoyed the GIGANTIC caesar salad that came with it more than the pizza. :)
Um. What else. We bummed around some more then went to the theatre, How do I know he was his number one fan? he told us so, on no uncertain terms. Wow. He was amazingly annoying! I was quite amused that Peggy didn't tell him a thing and of course I didn't either. :) Um. Then the guy with the XL1 came along and wanted to interview us about why we'd come to see Ralph. Peggy laughed but said sure, I said no way! and ducked out of shot. :) Fortunetely, we were spared (for the moment) by one of Peggy's coworkers seeing her and coming over to say hi. The poor camera guy reluctantly ended up talking to #1 fan. I got to play fly on the wall and peek over the shoulder at her current sketches. Yay! :)
A few minutes later, Bakshi finally showed up and Peggy went to see him and he remembered her and introduced her as a great writer (I moved out of earshot because I hate groupies and didn't wanna be one) Went back to my spot in line. Number One fan buzzed with joy that he'd been interviewed! Peggy came back and then the camera guy caught us again. He interviewed her and I did my best to stay off camera and not crack up too much (since Peggy's statement was that her mission was to harass Ralph. :) Ironically, Bakshi walked past and harassed her instead.
Got into the movies! The first thing up was an episode of MightyMouse (Batbat) which was fun but so badly telecined and made my sleep-deprived eyes hurt. You could really see a lot of the roots of modern Flash styled animation in it. Strong, funny key poses, good writing, and really poppy animation with simple camera and object rotations in it but still, it worked and it was much more fun to watch than say Mucha Lucha or Atomic Betty.
Next up was Wizards which was.... Not like I remembered. The prints I'd seen before were so washed out that it seemed like it was coloured more like Heavy Metal, when in truth, it was rather garishly coloured like a cartoon. Also, it was a LOT less finished that I remembered. A _LOT_ of the movie was just voiceover narration with camera moves and multiplane moves across what was basically cleaned up Storyboard. You know though, it was still a lot of fun to watch and there were still some parts in it that were pretty impressively well animated. People always say Bakshi's animation was terrible but... I dunno. I get the feeling they're not looking at it right. The _animation_ is pretty f***ing brilliant. The scriptwriting could be better, and there could be MORE animation in films but... Compared to just about any anime film, the animation is _FANTASTIC_ Try watching just the motion of the characters. Heck, the backgrounds were almost worthy of Drulliet! Who cares about the rotoscoping. For doing huge battle-scenes in the 70's for less than $500,000 (Which is what Bakshi's films cost to make BTW) how else were you gonna get big crowd scenes? Sheesh.
After Wizards was a short Q/A with Ralph, and several of the people who'd worked on various projects with him showed up. The live-action people for roto in American Pop, the guy who did the music for Wizards, etc. Very cool. I think the one that I liked most though was a black guy who'd wanted to see Coonskin when it was originally in the theatre. It'd got yanked before he had a chance to see it and he'd had to wait THIRTY YEARS to see it. Someone else mentioned that various rap singers had at times cited that film as an influence (the beat poet basketball guy voice by the Scatman) F*** if this isn't something to fling at the naysayers! I've met people who told me I couldn't animate a film by myself and that no one person could make a difference. They were oddly silent when I produced Free as a Bird completely by myself. Can't change anything? Ha. Bakshi, regardless of what you might think of the results, has changed both animation and music, making low as f*** budget films with nothing more than a group of people who were talented and passionate. You CAN do anything if you really set your mind to it!
Finally, Coonskin! This was a nice clean print and gawd the animation in it was simply goregous! This is the 4th time I've seen that film and each time I see it, I like it better. Some people have blindly asserted that it's racist and such but you know, Spike Lee, rappers, and everyone else cite it as a positive influence in their lives and the people who worked on it back in the day felt the same way. The only people I've ever heard call it racist were white. What's that tell you? It's a GREAT film and this print was SHARP! You could see all the linework, and the characters were FANTASTICALLY animated! The weight and stretch and squash on them was just fantastic! I can't say enough good things about them. Watch this film without the 'EW! It was made by Ralph Bakshi!" blinders on. It's a GREAT film and using photographs and video in the backgrounds and for some of the characters really adds to the movie rather than taking away from it. This is one of the best animated films to come out of the 70s, no question about it.
After the films and a little bit of chatting with Peggy's old co-workers, we were off on the long grind home. There was no Herriman moon to guide us, nothing joyous to look forward to (except bed) just the gritty exhaustion of being completely burned up. We DID Hollywood and, like a cheap whore, said nothing more than, "Money's on the nightstand" and walked out. The road went on forever. I had to pull off and rest for a bit at a rest stop. We came over Pacheco pass as the sun rose, got home around 6:30. Fell to bed and slept. When I took a shower this evening, it took two good scrubbings with soap to get the scent of LA off me. It was an interesting trip but I dunno that I'd do it again anytime real soon.
