Postcard #200 (Purposely Wes Anderson on Lake Howell)

“You know it when you see it: whether it’s the symmetrical lines, pastel hues, immaculate composition, or something idiosyncratic and beautiful that you can and cannot describe at once, the director Wes Anderson has an immediately identifiable style to his films.”
—From the book Accidentally Wes Anderson

A couple of weeks ago I was kayaking on Lake Howell and came across a newly built dock and I could see a Wes Anderson inspired shot. One of my friends commented that it was ”Accidentally Wes Anderson.” I didn’t know there was a whole social media movement around #accidentallywesanderson. I later tracked down a book based on shots from around the world echoing the influence of filmmaker Wes Anderson.

Wally Koval with Amanda Koval have turned many of the photos into the book Accidentally Wes Anderson.

A few days ago I went back that same dock around sunrise and decided I could tweak my composition to improve the shot. This one (the one at the top of this page) I call Purposely Wes Anderson since I trying to fill the frame in a way that Anderson might.

Of course, there is more to Anderson’s films than quirky framing, and here’s an video by StudioBinder that is an excellent overview of what make his style some unique.

Scott W. Smith is the author of Screenwriting with Brass Knuckles

Read Full Post »

Postcard #198 (Pass-a-Grille Sunset)

Edited in Prisma app with Thota Vaikuntam

I failed. They say that it’s better to have a goal that you fail to meet, rather than not have a goal at all. I think that’s because in taking steps toward your goal you’ve made progress. My goal was to get the first episode of my podcast uploaded yesterday. That didn’t happen—but I’m just going to push that back a week.

In meantime, here‘s a nice little sunset shot I took Saturday night in Pass-a-Grille on the southern end of St. Pete Beach. It’s a good example of “the best camera is the one you have with you.” Just a few minutes before I took this photo the sky was flat because the sun was buried behind the clouds. But it popped out just before it lowered itself toward the Gulf of Mexico skyline. That’s when the ordinary became extraordinary. It lit up parts of the sky in a way that I’d never seen before.

I zoomed in so far with my iPhone that the picture is pretty pixelated. So I ran it through my Prisma app to cover all the flaws and like the end result.

Perhaps the takeaway is this—More than one writer has spoken about feeling like their work is ordinary, only to stick with it and have a breakthrough toward the end of the process that make it extraordinary.

Scott W. Smith is the author of Screenwriting with Brass Knuckles

Read Full Post »

MLK on Jackie Robinson

“Jackie Robinson made my success possible. Without him, I would never have been able to do what I did.”
—Martin Luther King Jr.
(King was a student at Moorehouse College in 1947 when Robinson became the first black player to play Major League Baseball)

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”
—Hall of Fame baseball player Jackie Robinson

To learn more about Jackie Robinson read his autobiography I Never Had it Made and check out the documentary Jackie Robinson by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns & David McMahon. Then there’s the movie 42 starring Chadwick Boseman as Robinson.

P.S. The following scene from Spike Lee’s unproduced script Jackie Robinson takes place at Sanford Memorial Stadium. A stadium I played many games as a high school baseball player. It’s where Hall of Fame baseball player Tim Raines played his high school games. And it’s also just a few miles from where Trayvon Martin was killed. Gives that scene a little more punch doesn’t it?

Related posts:
Martin Luther King Jr. and Writing Strong-Willed Characters
“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream”
Marlon Brando & Johnny Carson After the Death of Martin Luther King Jr.
Chadwick Boseman, Jackie Robinson, and the Struggle for a More Perfect Union
Spike Lee on Why You Have To Make Your Own Movies
Filmmaking in New Hampshire (Ken Burns Style)

Scott W. Smith is the author of Screenwriting with Brass Knuckles

Read Full Post »

Postcard #192 (African Dust, Spanish Moss)

I took this photo around 6:45AM yesterday just about 15 minutes after sunrise. A massive dust storm off the coast off Africa—nicknamed “Godzilla”—made its way across the Atlantic to Florida this week causing unusually hazy conditions.

The Spanish moss hanging from trees is not only common in central Florida where I took this photo, but throughout the south.

P.S. I heard on the BBC this morning that India on top of having a Coronavirus outbreak is dealing with the largest swarms of locusts than they’ve experienced in 30 years dangering the food supply and economy in some regions. What else can 2020 bring?

Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »

It’s Like Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes and Disney World Wrote the Perfect Script … and Walt Disney’s Connection to Kansas City and Missouri

2013 Post by Patrick Mahomes

“As a 17-year-old, Patrick Mahomes dreamed one day that he would be able to say those words [‘I’m going to Disney World’] if he won a Super Bowl. Fast-forward seven years and Mahomes’ dream certainly came true.”
Eduardo Gonzalez
Los Angeles Times
Feb. 3. 2020

Last night, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes led his team to a 31-20 victory over the San Francisco 49ers. And he picked up  Super Bowl LVI MVP honors along the way. Here’s what he’s been up to the last 17 hours or so.

Disney World in greater the Orlando, Florida area just is 12 miles away from where I’m typing this post. It’s sunny and 73 at 5:00. It’s like Disney and Mahomes wrote the perfect script.

On Wednesday, the Chiefs will be honored back in Missouri with a parade. Having won their first Super Bowl in 50 years, I think it’s going to be quite a celebration.

About a decade ago I spent some time on a various productions in Missouri and took a little time visiting some of Walt Disney’s old stomping grounds. In a 2009 post I talked about visiting the town of Marceline, MO where Walt Disney spent time as a child. That Main Street that Mahomes is visiting today at Walt Disney World was inspired by the Main St. in Marceline.

In the 2011 post Walt & Walter in KC, I touched on driving by the building where Walt Disney “built his own studio that created Laugh-O-Grams that became popular enough for Disney to have a building and several animators.” Though he eventually filed for bankruptcy and had a nervous breakdown.

But every story needs a reversal—a comeback. It took Disney few years, but he found wild success in California. It only took Mahomes a few months to find his wild success, coming back from a knee injury earlier in the year that he thought was going to sideline him for the season.

P.S. Watching the NFL honor the top 100 players of all time before the Super Bowl, it was fun to see three players that I’ve had the opportunity to directly work with in my career as a cameraman and video producer—Eric Dickerson, Reggie White, and Deion Sanders.

Scott W. Smith 

Read Full Post »

Happy New Year … You’re Going to Die—Now Get to Work

“Spending too much energy romanticizing the past or dreaming about the future can come at the expense of appreciating today.”
Casey Neistat
What Just Happened? 

Many years ago I crossed paths with Orlando-based photographer Bill Bachmann who had one of those jobs that creative people dream about—get paid to travel around the world taking photos. He was a tall guy with a dynamic personality, and incredibly talented.

He invited me to his home studio to talk about a project and I was instantly impressed with his photos that were from everywhere on your bucket list (and a few that aren’t). He gave me a signed copy of one of his travel books before I left that day and our paths unfortunately never crossed again.

Last year, I wondered what he was up to and I found out he died from cancer in 2017. (His obituary said that he’d traveled to 200 countries, authored 15 books, and photographed five U.S. presidents.)

On the last day of 2019 I found myself driving by a cemetery where I knew he was buried and I decided to pull into the cemetery to see if I could find his mausoleum. Because mausoleums have a way of standing out it only took me about a two minutes to find it.

I’m one of those people who finds peace in cemeteries. They remind us of the people who’ve gone before us, and of our own mortality. It puts things in perspective.

This puts things in perspective, too . . . a few days ago I was working out when a old movie started on TCM and I realized as I watched the opening credits that I did not recognize a single name of anyone who worked on the movie.

Let’s all get back to work this new year, not forgetting to work on building lasting relationships with the ones we love.

Scott W. Smith

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

‘ . . . it was all started by a mouse.’—Walt Disney

Last night my wife and I went to the Toledo restaurant at Walt Disney World to celebrate our wedding anniversary. The restaurant is on the top floor of the recently opened Gran Destino Tower at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort. If you’re ever at Disney World in Orlando and want an ideal place to eat and watch the fireworks then I’m not sure you can do better than the 16th floor of the Toledo.

It was a great experience and it once again reminded me of the words of Walt Disney on reflecting on all they had done, “… I only hope we never lose sight of one thing, it was all started by a mouse.”

Related posts:

Screenwriting Quote #53 (Walt Disney)
Walt and Walter in KC
Imagineering with Walt Disney

Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »

Postcard #183 (Baldwin Park Fountain)

This fountain was about 100 yards away when I turned a corner while driving this morning and something told me it had potential for a nice photograph. All the layering componets were there. You have a fountain with water giving movement in the foreground, some trees in the middle area, sun in the background, and lots of negative space at the top of the frame with interesting texture in the clouds.

Taken in the Baldwin Park neighborhood in Orlando, Florida. An interesting side note is this fountain is located in Blue Jacket Park which was a former Navy training area. The park is named after the USS Bluejacket, 2/3-sized replica (230 feet) of a destroyer ship that was used for training in the same general area from 1968-1993.

The Bluejacket landlocked Navy training ship in Orlando

The Bluejacket opening had an official ceremony in 1969, and was demolished 30 years later

Scott W. Smith 

 

Read Full Post »

Postcard #181 (Rio Pinar/‘The Right Stuff’?)

Until earlier this month I hadn’t been to the Rio Pinar Golf Club since Jimmy Carter was in The White House. But on my way to a video shoot two weeks ago I drove by the classic midcentury modern building and took this photo. (All it needs is Rick Dalton’s ‘60s Coupe de Ville in from Once Upon a Time …  in Hollywood in the driveway. ) Then after my shoot I drove by again and looked at the newly remodeled inside.

It brought back memories  to the late‘70s when I was a teenager and saw Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer play in the Florida Citrus Open Invitational. (The successor to the Arnold Palmer Invitational.) 

It also brought back to memory a video shoot I did in the ‘90s with golfer Payne Stewart (top left corner) and a photo shoot I did with Greg Norman (on the other end of this wall but not in this photo) in Los Angeles way back in the ’80s. And it also brought back a more recent memory of driving by another midcentury modern building in the Orlando area about a month ago.

On August 31 I drove by The Maitland Civic Center and noticed the grip trucks and lights outside and wondered what they were shooting. When I saw the classic old cars I figured it was for the TV version of The Right Stuff that’s been in Florida shooting recently. I took a couple of photos with my iPhone but didn’t ask what they were shooting, nor did I see executive producer Leonard DiCaprio moving any C-stands around.

P.S. And to add a little color to this post— I found this old photo online from Rio Pinar back in its heyday. Cheers…

Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »

Once Upon a Time … in Florida (15 Connections Between Quentin Tarantino and the Sunshine State)

“To me, torture would be watching sports on television.”
Quentin Tarantino

How in the world can you tie in a college football game in Florida with Quentin Tarantino’s movie Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood? It’s really not that hard because in Tarantino’s world everything is connected.

Once upon a time the rivalry between the University of Miami and the University of Florida was the Ali-Frazier battle of college football. Though they’ve been competing against each since 1938 it was the 80s and 90s when it turned into a slugfest. Since 1984 Miami or Florida have won a total of 8 national championships.

When they played this weekend it made me think of how Florida was connected to Tarantino’s world and his film Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood via some personal recollections. (BTW—I did watch the Miami—Florida game on Tv and at 3 hours it was even longer than Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. I have the ability to enjoy both.)

1. Jackie Brown is based on Elmore Leonard’s novel Rum Punch which was set in Florida. Tarantino changed the location to the more familiar Los Angeles County where he was raised.
2. Actor/director Sylvester Stallone attended the University of Miami long before he became Rocky and a Hollywood icon. Stallone has said in interviews that he turned down roles in both Jackie Brown and Death Proof.  In Tarantino’s ever involving list of favorite films you will sometimes see the original Rocky film listed.
3. Burt Reynolds briefly played football at Florida State in Tallahassee before also becoming a Hollywood icon. (He first studied acting at Palm Beach Junior College.) Reynolds was the biggest box office actor in the 1970s and his films were a huge influence on Tarantino growing up. The Rick Dalton character played by Leonardo DeCaprio was partly inspired by Reynolds and Tarantino cast Reynolds to played George Spahn in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.   
4. In 1978 I went to one of the best concerts of my life at the Tangerine Bowl (now known as Camping World Stadium) in Orlando (which is where the game was played last Saturday between Miami and Florida). The final act of that ’78 concert was Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. Seger’s 1969 song Rambin’ Gamblin Man is featured on the soundtrack of Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. 
   

   I was a concert rat back in the day and kept many of my ticket stubs. I think there were around 60,000 people in attendance.

5. At the old Orlando arena I once saw Neil Diamond in concert and his work is also featured on the Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood soundtrack. He performs Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show.
6. Back in the 90s I was editing a video project a Greg Rike Productions in Altamonte Springs and was told that Deep Purple was regularly coming into the studio at night.  Apparently they liked to winter in the Orlando area where they could play soccer and rehearse. Deep Purple has two songs on the Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood soundtrack—Hush and Kentucky Woman (which was actually written by Neil Diamond).
7. Another time when I was editing at that same facility I met one of the band members for Flock of Seagulls. In Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction Jules (John Travolta) calls one of the people he’s going to kill “Flock of Seagulls” because of the guy’s haircut.
8. One of my high school football coaches was Sammy Weir who played one season with the New York Jets in 1966. The quarterback of the Jets in ’66? Joe Namath.
   

   Here I am (#42) standing next to Coach Weir my senior year at Lake Howell. Weir was a Little All American at Arkansas St.

   When Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) walks into the Bruin movie theater to watch the movie The Wrecking Crew the movie trailer playing is for C. C. and Company and features Joe Namath. At the 35mm showing of Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood I saw in Jacksonville they actually showed the original trailer of biker film featuring Broadway Joe (as Namath was known in his heyday).

9. In the trailer for C.C. and Company (and in the movie) are clips of musician Wayne Cochrane with his pompadour in full glory. Cochran was known as The White Knight of Soul and he is said to be the inspiration behind Elvis in his jumpsuit era. Cochran spent his last years in Miami where he was an evangelist.
10. Jim Morrison of The Doors is mentioned in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood and he was born in Melbourne, Florida, was a student a Florida State University, and cut his singing chops playing in bars in Tallahassee. Another musician on the edge of the story was Graham Parsons who was raised in Winter Haven, Florida on his way to being a part of The Byrds. The Byrds road manger Phil Kaufman knew Charles Manson while in prison at the Terminal Island Prison and encouraged Manson to pursue a music career. (That prison is not far from Torrance, California where Tarantino grew up.)  Manson eventually met Beach Boy Dennis Wilson and that leads Manson to meeting record producer Terry Melcher in hopes of getting a record contract. Melcher once lived at  10050 Cielo Drive. Some speculate that when Manson’s cult members went to Cielo Drive it was an effort to payback or scare Melcher for not following through with a record deal for Manson.
11. When Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) pulls into the Van Nuys Drive In theater one of the movies on the marquee is Pretty Poison which stars Anthony Perkins. Perkins went to Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida (an Orlando suburb). Fred Rogers—better known as Mr. Rogers—also went to Rollins. At one of the viewings I went to there was a trailer for the new Mr. Rogers movie starring Tom Hanks.
12. I’ve often joked that I had the shortest career of any football player who ever put on a University of Miami football uniform. I was a walk-on player (non-scholarship) who dressed out for exactly one JV game, and that happened to be a game against Florida. I played exactly zero downs which was the only time that ever happened in 10 years of playing organized football. I dislocated my shoulder the week after that game and had it operated on. Though I was a good high school player I was a athletic version of Rick Dalton by the time I was 20. One thing sports teaches you at every level is there is a pyramid of talent and that pyramid is always rotating. Jerry Rice was one of the top players to ever play NFL football. (A top of the pyramid wide receiver.) But at the end of his career when in was with the Denver Broncos he retired after learning that he would no longer be a starter. The head coach when I was at Miami was Howard Schnellenbeger who as an assistant at the University of Alabama in the early ‘60s is the one who recruited Joe Namath to play for the Crimson Tide.
13. I made my first 8mm film while at the University of Miami with my arm in a sling after surgery on my shoulder. The rock star in the film program then was David Nutter who went on to win an Emmy for directing an episode of Game of Thrones. I heard (though don’t know if he’s still attached) that he was directing some episodes of TV version of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff—that is being produced by Appian Way Productions which is Leonardo F-ing DiCaprio’s company.  (Tampa Bay Times article on The Right Stuff shooting in area.) I did see photos that they had set up shop at Universal Studios Orlando which is just a couple miles from when I’m typing this post.
14. And while Scarface has nothing to do with Once Upon a Time … Hollywood (that I know of), it was shot in Miami and directed by one of Tarantino’s favorite directors Brian DePalma. 
15. Toward the end Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood Brad Pitt says “And awaaay we go” which is a famous tagline of Jackie Gleason who from 1966-1970 hosted The Jackie Gleason Show “live from Miami Beach.” Gleason played Burt Reynolds nemesis in Smokey and the Bandit—a movie that Tarantino says warrants repeat viewings.

P.S. Updated bonus track: After a University of Miami football game in 1981 the Beach Boys played a concert at the Orange Bowl. (And were oddly paired that night with the Commodores.) That was two years before Dennis Wilson died and so I assume he was part of that gig. The Beach Boys were formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California and a few years later a young Quentin Tarantino attended Hawthorne Christian School for part of his elementary years. (A school he’s said he wasn’t fond of attending.)

And two more Florida connections to Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is celebrity hairstylist and Sharon Tate buddy Thomas John Kummer went professionally by the name Jay Sebring, taking his last name from Sebring, Florida which is known for its international raceway. And lastly, Walt Disney gets a nice shout out in the movie when Julia Butters says Disney was a once in 50 years kind of genius. As someone who grew up in Central Florida I’ve always said Orlando basically only had indoor plumbing and air conditioning before Walt Disney’s vision of Disney World opened here in 1971. To go there that year as a ten year old was personally a transformative experience. Just riding the monorail at the start of the day was surreal to my senses. The Haunted Mansion, 2000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride were mind blowing fun.

I still have some of my early Walt Disney World tickets.

The first Disney movie I remember seeing in theaters was The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes (1969) which stars Kurt Russell—who, of course, is in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. 

Scott W. Smith

 

 

 

Read Full Post »