I’ve worked since 1985 in the Hollywood movie and TV industry.  I started from scratch building miniatures that we shot against blue screen with motion-controlled robotic cameras.  My first James Cameron movie was “The Abyss” and by the second, “Terminator II,” I was supervising.  I continued on through the late ’80s and early ’90s handling on-set special effects, meanwhile producing and directing films and commercials on the side.

At one point I deviated into movie marketing and started a company that designed movie posters. Working on the computer brought me full circle back into effects work as it transitioned to digital visual effects. I worked for a couple small companies for a few months until each movie was completed and then started with a mid-sized company that had started to consistently win bids for larger studio pictures .  It was a less stressful position than being on set with so many egos and at only 40 hours a week instead of 70, it was much more like a regular job.

On my first day I was assigned to a workstation in a small room with one other artist.  I sat behind someone I’ll call Carl, a Compositor, who married together different elements into one shot. The first thing that people find unusual about visual effects work is that there is a lot of sitting around and waiting for shots to preview and render on the computer. So, artists spend a lot of time conversing with each other and surfing the net.  Carl had just downloaded Paris Hilton’s sex video and was going on about how much she liked sex. This didn’t bother me especially in an era when we had to hear about the creative uses our former President had for cigars. (more…)

This is my first “coming out” article as a conservative and Christian because Hollywood is taking its last breath before dying and I don’t really have much to lose. I’m a director, but made a good living for about seven years compositing visual effects. That is, until I was blacklisted for objecting to anti-Christian and anti-American propaganda that I was forced to listen to 8 hours a day by 90% of the people around me. But that’s a story for a different time.

Today, I’m writing to comment on “V,” as I’m sure many viewers missed the parallels of the questions raised in the show regarding our own politics today.

Hollywood script-writing 101 classes tell writers, “If you want to write a good script, write what you know.” Kenneth Johnson, creator of the original “V” series and story writer of the resurrected version, apparently knows his history. For disclosure purposes, I have met him and visited his home many years ago, but don’t know really much about him other than he has a good grasp on good and evil and human, albeit lizard, nature. (Possible political jab that the Left is slimy … even though lizards are not?)

What completely blows my mind is that all these comic book and sci-fi loving fans embrace and cheer for the underground rebels and immediately suspect the Visitors as wolves in sheep’s clothing (or lizards, in this case). So why is it so impossible for these same fans to see who the real-life lizards are? The aliens arrive and we don’t know anything about them other than they all look like celebrities too old for the CW Network, and they come offering hope and in the shows own words: “universal health care.” No, President Obama, nor Harry Reid, nor Nancy Pelosi didn’t arrive in a spaceship (or did they… hmmm?). No, they came with years of very questionable history behind them that anyone not rushing to embrace the empty promise of “hope” and “change” would immediately see. (more…)