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Her Final Flight

A look back at the life and times of Katniss Everdeen, documenting her evolution from girl from 12 to Girl on Fire.

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We sat around a big U-shaped table like that scene in 2001 — in that conference room on the moon.

- Douglas Coupland (novelist, author of Generation X and Microserfs) in Wired, on the Idea Summit Spielberg assembled ten years ago to research for the world he wanted to project in “Minority Report”.

Among the things I've always loved about this scene: the little future camera the paparazzo uses to get Dr. Heywood from all the angles, the paparazzo's little mod suit, and the walls of light. All conference rooms of the future should look like this one.

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Ron Burgundy just announced ‘Anchorman’ sequel on Conan

Oh my goodness. When he said the bit about the sequel coming, I pumped both fists in the air like no one was watching. Ronald Joseph Aaron Burgundy made me pump 'em.

I'd like to mention that the jazz flute scene from ‘Anchorman’, on the Venn diagram of things I find funny and things I find musically satisfying, sits heroic and squarely in the center, all big in a nice font. At :45 when he does that first run, I get chills. Every time. Please do me the honor of watching. I could not be more excited about this.

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And speaking of Peter Atencio, he was interviewed on the most recent episode of a very neat new podcast program by a commercial director named Ron Small, who invites a guest commercial director each episode to talk about how they work, how they've learned, what they've learned, and why they work in the short short form.

The first guest on the show was me, in a two-parter that was really one of the most fun interviews I've ever gotten to do. In the first ten minutes, I talked about being a VFX assistant on the movie “Torque” (2004) and how the director Joseph Kahn has a larger than average-sized head. Subsequently, Joseph Kahn heard the episode and defended his head size on Twitter, blaming it on the head of his beautiful Korean mother. I also talk about cameras and doing what you love and finding God in the music.

But in Peter's interview, rather than commercials, he talks all about what it's been like making this incredible show Key & Peele for Comedy Central. At about 50 minutes in, the discussion turns to what ended up being a pretty giant struggle with the network to keep a laugh track out of the show, even getting into some of the psychological implications of the decision, and the sisyphean task of convincing Comedy Central to fight their instincts and preserve the show's integrity. Spoiler: he won the battle and thank the lord.

Anyhow, if you're into this sort of thing, I think you'll enjoy Spotcast. Other guests have been my friend the VFX maven and author of The DV Rebel's Guide that changed the filmmaking game for so many of my generation, Stu Maschwitz. And Vince Laforet, who basically got the world excited about shooting movies on DSLRs. And hopefully soon, Joseph Kahn himself.

Spotcast!

[lonelysandwich]

Double Feature the iPhone App by Scott Jackson

My friend Scott Jackson has made a brilliant little app that does one thing really well. Here's the website (also brilliant). Instead of describing it to you, I'll tell you how I used it the other night, super organically, to solve my problem and make me happy.

My girlfriend and I are on the couch, watching Seinfeld AS IS OUR WONT and Jerry and Elaine are in line at the movie theater. Behind the glass wall of the box office is a collection of movie posters of the era (early 90s). One of them clearly features Richard Gere and maybe Kim Basinger but it's hard to tell. So my girlfriend says to me she says “what movie is that, with Rick and Kimmy?” (because we live in Los Angeles and are friends with most celebrities) and I pulled out my iPhone, launched Double Feature and within seconds, I knew that the movie in the poster in the box office on Seinfeld had been “Final Analysis” (1992). Thanks, Double Feature.

Get it. It's great. The design is pretty, it works like it's supposed to, and Scott is a really nice young man, unlike William Zabka here. What a twat that guy was.

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Oscar Peterson & Clark Terry “Mumbles”

Watch as Mr. Terry takes my mantra and puts it into song.

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Sesame Street “Pinball Song”

How on earth did counting to 12 ever get this funky?

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Charlie Parker laughing at Coleman Hawkins's attempt to do playback on his own recorded improvisation

This is the coolest thing ever. In one of two known pieces of footage of Bird performing, the music is pre-recorded and the band is supposed to be pantomiming along. But he clearly thinks it's stupid and starts to laugh until someone off-camera tells him to stop and then just look at his face. Bird was too cool for this world.