Some days are made to remember for all the right reasons. Today was like that. The sun was shining and our daughter and her husband, Matt, and wonderful son, Archie, 3 and a half years old of blond, beautiful fun were to come over for lunch.
There is no big story here, nothing to shout about, no big message, just a small piece about love.
About mid-day the family arrived, carrying deli food which, if you like that kind of thing, seems to come direct from heaven, via a place called Yummies in Radlett. I don't have shares nor even know the current owners, but I still think they were sent for our pleasure.
I received two phone calls today, just before the family arrived, from my cousins. They had both heard from my sister about the very bad day I I had that I reported to you a couple of weeks back when I was on a cruise ship in Mexico. They both wanted me to know they cared. It gave me a very warm feeling that both my cousins, who know me so well, still do care, just like I was still a little boy in the warm embrace of the family.
My daughter and her family settled in, and we all sat outside in the lovely, warm sunshine. The last couple of days there had been a duck, who we'd named Mrs. Puddleduck, who had taken up residence in our garden. I hoped that she'd come to greet Archie, but she decided to be elsewhere. So we inflated the puddling pool and watched everyone have fun. Georgia, my daughter, is pregnant with her second child, due in July, and its wonderful to see her in bloom at the same time as the rest of the world.
I felt a desperate need for confectionary so I asked Archie and Matt if they wanted to accompany me. Archie was ready in an instant, and Matt soon thereafter. We walked to the sweet shop and Archie soon found the penny sweets, which now cost two pennies. He made his selections that he handed to the proprieter, a middle aged lady from the Indian sub-continent. When she had finished and handed Archie his bag of sweets, I paid for them. Archie then said, "Now Poppa can spend some of his money on himself." We laughed, as I did so, purchasing some stuff for the rest of the family.
After buying some quickly melting ice cream on the way back we soon walked back to consume our purchases and relax in each other's company. At the end of the day, with the warmth still in the air, the kids went home. Later there was a phone call from Georgia. She told me that, when Matt was putting Archie to bed, my grandson said, "Poppa's a very nice man isn't he." He could give me no bigger gift.
What a great day.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
Is This What You Want?
What do we value more than life itself? Freedom. I write this with some certainty because many of our fathers and grand fathers died to preserve our freedoms from tyranny and oppression. Like many of you I think these freedoms, soaked in the blood of our forefathers, are being stripped from us in the UK, one by one.
This might appear alarmist, but it is, nevertheless, a common theme of many conversations in our country. The stripping away of freedom doesn’t happen with suddenness or crudity, it might not even be intentional, but the results are nevertheless deeply worrying and to be opposed. Read The Diary of Anne Frank, the story of the young Jewish girl growing up in war torn Holland during the Nazi occupation and you can witness a perfect example of how freedoms can be stripped away from the individual in almost acceptable, imperceptible increments. This happened in Holland where the Jews were forced to wear a star to set them apart, then not allowed to ride their bicycle, then not allowed onto the trams, then to own businesses, then to educate, then to be educated, be doctors and so on without end.
In today’s UK we don’t have oppressive racial laws, quite the opposite. Here we have the beginnings of a cross between the seminal books, Animal Farm and 1984, both by the late, great British author, George Orwell. The state is becoming progressively more all seeing and all knowing and not many are yet resisting. All the measures we will point out were supposedly originated as counter terrorism actions. What we should be doing is evaluating the need for these measures and understanding where these abuses of our personal liberty will inevitably lead.
If you dare to question any of these measures you are always told, “If you’ve done nothing wrong why would you worry about these measures?” The implication is that you must be guilty of something or you would quietly go along with any of these new measures. Well, I’ve done nothing wrong that I know of, and I strongly object. The truth is if this were a right wing government putting such measures in place then the country would be rioting on the streets to fight against them.
As those of you who have read my blogs or articles before will know I have grave reservations about the 4.5 million CCTV cameras we have in place. Do we really need anything like this number, and do we need to be photographed 300 to 400 a times per day? The argument in favor of those that support this level of surveillance is that this amount of cameras has allowed our security forces to quickly capture the perpetrators of some of the terrorist attacks against our society. I believe this argument has some merit, but is the price greater than the result?
Don’t forget that we are being photographed all of the time, whatever we’re doing, and wherever we are. Remember that in the UK many of the local authorities have hidden cameras in hundreds of thousand of our rubbish bins to check whether we are correctly separating our trash as instructed. Is this the kind of society you want to live in?
This might appear alarmist, but it is, nevertheless, a common theme of many conversations in our country. The stripping away of freedom doesn’t happen with suddenness or crudity, it might not even be intentional, but the results are nevertheless deeply worrying and to be opposed. Read The Diary of Anne Frank, the story of the young Jewish girl growing up in war torn Holland during the Nazi occupation and you can witness a perfect example of how freedoms can be stripped away from the individual in almost acceptable, imperceptible increments. This happened in Holland where the Jews were forced to wear a star to set them apart, then not allowed to ride their bicycle, then not allowed onto the trams, then to own businesses, then to educate, then to be educated, be doctors and so on without end.
In today’s UK we don’t have oppressive racial laws, quite the opposite. Here we have the beginnings of a cross between the seminal books, Animal Farm and 1984, both by the late, great British author, George Orwell. The state is becoming progressively more all seeing and all knowing and not many are yet resisting. All the measures we will point out were supposedly originated as counter terrorism actions. What we should be doing is evaluating the need for these measures and understanding where these abuses of our personal liberty will inevitably lead.
If you dare to question any of these measures you are always told, “If you’ve done nothing wrong why would you worry about these measures?” The implication is that you must be guilty of something or you would quietly go along with any of these new measures. Well, I’ve done nothing wrong that I know of, and I strongly object. The truth is if this were a right wing government putting such measures in place then the country would be rioting on the streets to fight against them.
As those of you who have read my blogs or articles before will know I have grave reservations about the 4.5 million CCTV cameras we have in place. Do we really need anything like this number, and do we need to be photographed 300 to 400 a times per day? The argument in favor of those that support this level of surveillance is that this amount of cameras has allowed our security forces to quickly capture the perpetrators of some of the terrorist attacks against our society. I believe this argument has some merit, but is the price greater than the result?
Don’t forget that we are being photographed all of the time, whatever we’re doing, and wherever we are. Remember that in the UK many of the local authorities have hidden cameras in hundreds of thousand of our rubbish bins to check whether we are correctly separating our trash as instructed. Is this the kind of society you want to live in?
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Educating all the Children
“…If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with children” – M.K. Gandhi
A woman named Jessica Hale, who makes documentary films, made me open my eyes to the fact that the future changes the world will need to undertake will rest heavily or lightly on the shoulders of the world’s youth. How many people know or care what the differences are between an illegal alien, a legal alien, an economic migrant from the newly expanded European Union territories that are allowed entry, or someone from Rumania or Bulgaria, who are not allowed entry to our fair shores. I could go on but you get the picture. We don’t have a true number of the people in the UK, and we’re drowning in our own ignorance.
As Jessica correctly said, if you ask these young people what an asylum seeker is or what organizations like the UNHCR does, and most look at you with blank stares or they would more likely look away to avoid the question. As world crisis spreads it seems more and more important to educate the very age being most effected by social persecution. In thirty years our children will be running the world. If children are sheltered from the wrong doing of today how can they prepare to turn things around for the millions who already suffer?
It is our responsibility to make future generations aware of social and political issues that will directly affect them throughout their lives. Our children must be educated so that we enable them to recognize similarities between themselves and the refugee children, as well as show global concern, social responsibility, empathy and respect for others.
I attended a meeting that was addressed by Ron Lauder, the President of the American Jewish Congress and he said much the same thing. We won’t get anywhere without the kids knowing where they come from and where they’re aiming to go.
In Los Angeles I met with Rabbi David Wolpe, who was recognized by Newsweek magazine as the leading pulpit rabbi in America. We agreed that the future lay in educating the young. However therein is a dichotomy. If we, the liberals of the West, do our best to educate as many of our children as we can, what protects them from the haters in our world’s midst?
How do we get these horsemen of the apocalypse to stop poisoning the minds of their young? I honestly don’t think you can. I believe that there is nothing we can say or do to stop them hating us and wanting us dead. By us I mean the liberals, the West, the Jews, America, Great Britain and Israel, and not necessarily in that order. By them I mean the leadership of Iran and the terrorist organizations such as Hizballah, Hamas, Al Quada and the Taliban plus quite a large number of radical, fundamentalist Muslims. As everyone knows the leadership in Iran has called for the total elimination of the State of Israel and is developing the means to achieve this.
Therefore, and I say this with great reluctance, I feel the time has come to recognize that these are our implacable enemies and to stop trying to appease them and to stop talking with them unless and until they stop their campaigns against the world at large, and everyone I have listed in particular, renounced violence and declared this irrevocable. Then and only then, should we think about talking with them. I would impose a five-year waiting period before we did so, to prove they were serious in their intent.
In the meantime I would hit them time and again wherever they can be found and whenever the opportunity arises. This is a war, and they must be made to understand that they cannot continue to hit us with impunity. If we wait their attacks will proliferate, grow in size and be more spectacularly destructive, as threatened. The consequences of our waiting will be apocalyptic.
What do you think will happen if Iran staged a strategic nuclear attack on Israel?
Iran must be stopped before the clock chimes midnight.
If we can stop this disaster happening then perhaps, we can start to educate all the children, as this is so clearly vital. As John Lennon sang, Imagine?
A woman named Jessica Hale, who makes documentary films, made me open my eyes to the fact that the future changes the world will need to undertake will rest heavily or lightly on the shoulders of the world’s youth. How many people know or care what the differences are between an illegal alien, a legal alien, an economic migrant from the newly expanded European Union territories that are allowed entry, or someone from Rumania or Bulgaria, who are not allowed entry to our fair shores. I could go on but you get the picture. We don’t have a true number of the people in the UK, and we’re drowning in our own ignorance.
As Jessica correctly said, if you ask these young people what an asylum seeker is or what organizations like the UNHCR does, and most look at you with blank stares or they would more likely look away to avoid the question. As world crisis spreads it seems more and more important to educate the very age being most effected by social persecution. In thirty years our children will be running the world. If children are sheltered from the wrong doing of today how can they prepare to turn things around for the millions who already suffer?
It is our responsibility to make future generations aware of social and political issues that will directly affect them throughout their lives. Our children must be educated so that we enable them to recognize similarities between themselves and the refugee children, as well as show global concern, social responsibility, empathy and respect for others.
I attended a meeting that was addressed by Ron Lauder, the President of the American Jewish Congress and he said much the same thing. We won’t get anywhere without the kids knowing where they come from and where they’re aiming to go.
In Los Angeles I met with Rabbi David Wolpe, who was recognized by Newsweek magazine as the leading pulpit rabbi in America. We agreed that the future lay in educating the young. However therein is a dichotomy. If we, the liberals of the West, do our best to educate as many of our children as we can, what protects them from the haters in our world’s midst?
How do we get these horsemen of the apocalypse to stop poisoning the minds of their young? I honestly don’t think you can. I believe that there is nothing we can say or do to stop them hating us and wanting us dead. By us I mean the liberals, the West, the Jews, America, Great Britain and Israel, and not necessarily in that order. By them I mean the leadership of Iran and the terrorist organizations such as Hizballah, Hamas, Al Quada and the Taliban plus quite a large number of radical, fundamentalist Muslims. As everyone knows the leadership in Iran has called for the total elimination of the State of Israel and is developing the means to achieve this.
Therefore, and I say this with great reluctance, I feel the time has come to recognize that these are our implacable enemies and to stop trying to appease them and to stop talking with them unless and until they stop their campaigns against the world at large, and everyone I have listed in particular, renounced violence and declared this irrevocable. Then and only then, should we think about talking with them. I would impose a five-year waiting period before we did so, to prove they were serious in their intent.
In the meantime I would hit them time and again wherever they can be found and whenever the opportunity arises. This is a war, and they must be made to understand that they cannot continue to hit us with impunity. If we wait their attacks will proliferate, grow in size and be more spectacularly destructive, as threatened. The consequences of our waiting will be apocalyptic.
What do you think will happen if Iran staged a strategic nuclear attack on Israel?
Iran must be stopped before the clock chimes midnight.
If we can stop this disaster happening then perhaps, we can start to educate all the children, as this is so clearly vital. As John Lennon sang, Imagine?
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Travelling
Travel is no longer much fun. The hassle is so immense that it doesn’t feel like it’s worth it, until you arrive somewhere great. Today I am traveling between Los Angeles and London, a trip I have made several hundred times. It isn’t getting any better. Even if you know how to travel, and I do, there is just no easy way of managing all the small indignities they now put you through, all in the name of security.
Luckily I had my trusty BlackBerry with me as this had warned me yesterday that our flight was to be put forward thirty minutes. I was lucky again when they sent me another update just before leaving my daughter’s apartment to say that the flight was now going to be delayed an hour and a half, or one hour from the original time. I am now hopeful that it won’t be changed again. But from experience I expect it’s more about the airline, this time United, which will be consolidating flights that would otherwise be insufficiently full.
Today I had arranged for my hire car to be picked up at between 9 and 9.30. Of course no one showed, I called the number, and, after checking to see whether I had, in fact, sent an e-mail confirming the pick up, they said they would be with me shortly. They were, but of course it was another small aggravation.
The journey to the airport was uneventful, which is just how you want it to be. The baggage check in line was again an event. The idea behind this was supposed to be to liberate us from lining up. In fact what’s happened is that now there are a great many very confused passengers not knowing where to go, what to do and how to do it, and they’re all in my way until I am in the front of the line, similarly suffering from terminal confusion as my blood pressure rises. I had pre-checked in on line the previous night, but it didn’t give the simple message, just drop your bags off at the desk and we’ll take care of you. Well, maybe it did, but not in any way I could understand. I did figure it out but there were a couple of minutes where I wanted to hit the computer as it kept asking me questions I had already dealt with last night.
Once this was accomplished I had to join the big, Disney type, zigzag line wending its way to the customers and immigration officers. This is made much more entertaining by a great many people of various nationalities standing, oblivious to the fact that they’re in the way, as they wait for their friends and relatives to gain access from the access point, which is vigorously policed by another security person checking for boarding passes. Once these people have been carefully avoided I found myself being politely allowed through after being checked.
Yes, you guessed it, another line. This time to security, which is the only time I think there should be some time spent getting it right. The signs told us to remove our shoes, laptops, bum bags, sweaters and coats. This we did, now getting distinctly warmer as the people in the line moved at their various speeds. It is also where I discover I am not as fast as I thought, but much faster than some others. Eventually my stuff is safely loaded onto the plastic container and the conveyor takes it steadily off. As I come to the personal security arch the surly guard demands my boarding pass that I have carefully placed into my bag that is, even now, moving away from me on the conveyor. He shakes his head and looks at me with hate in his baleful stare. I clearly should have known, telepathically, that he would be the third person demanding this vital document within twenty yards. He allowed me, with absolutely no grace, to collect my papers from my bag and return to him. He growled something unintelligible and I was allowed through. Now I was hopping about trying to re-shoe myself as I placed my laptop back into my case plus find my sweater and bum bag. This takes place whilst people of every type and nationality suffer similar indignities all around me.
Deciding that sustenance was desperately required I found my way to the inappropriately named, Food Hall. It is a motley collection of awful places that no one, however hungry, could ever want to eat at. It was now about 11 am and so it seemed that breakfast would be nice. It appeared in large type on the menu. With great expectation I ordered this delightful looking dish. Of course, you know that breakfast was no longer available. The young lady who told me this said it as if this was obvious. I ordered something that approximated the same type of thing, and received a $25 revolting mess. I will never again complain about our British airport food establishments; they are so far superior it doesn’t bear comparison.
Now I am patiently waiting for my delayed plane, but that, and the journey is a story for another day. I just hope United Airlines and Los Angeles International Airport conspire to make it as uneventful and boring and efficient as possible.
Post script. Arrived safe but tired in London. Had the customary and lengthy route march from the plane to the customs, immigration and baggage halls. It is only fair to mention that the cases came through almost immediately; the car park worked well, and from landing to being on the road took less than 25 minutes. Wonderful, now for some sleep!
Luckily I had my trusty BlackBerry with me as this had warned me yesterday that our flight was to be put forward thirty minutes. I was lucky again when they sent me another update just before leaving my daughter’s apartment to say that the flight was now going to be delayed an hour and a half, or one hour from the original time. I am now hopeful that it won’t be changed again. But from experience I expect it’s more about the airline, this time United, which will be consolidating flights that would otherwise be insufficiently full.
Today I had arranged for my hire car to be picked up at between 9 and 9.30. Of course no one showed, I called the number, and, after checking to see whether I had, in fact, sent an e-mail confirming the pick up, they said they would be with me shortly. They were, but of course it was another small aggravation.
The journey to the airport was uneventful, which is just how you want it to be. The baggage check in line was again an event. The idea behind this was supposed to be to liberate us from lining up. In fact what’s happened is that now there are a great many very confused passengers not knowing where to go, what to do and how to do it, and they’re all in my way until I am in the front of the line, similarly suffering from terminal confusion as my blood pressure rises. I had pre-checked in on line the previous night, but it didn’t give the simple message, just drop your bags off at the desk and we’ll take care of you. Well, maybe it did, but not in any way I could understand. I did figure it out but there were a couple of minutes where I wanted to hit the computer as it kept asking me questions I had already dealt with last night.
Once this was accomplished I had to join the big, Disney type, zigzag line wending its way to the customers and immigration officers. This is made much more entertaining by a great many people of various nationalities standing, oblivious to the fact that they’re in the way, as they wait for their friends and relatives to gain access from the access point, which is vigorously policed by another security person checking for boarding passes. Once these people have been carefully avoided I found myself being politely allowed through after being checked.
Yes, you guessed it, another line. This time to security, which is the only time I think there should be some time spent getting it right. The signs told us to remove our shoes, laptops, bum bags, sweaters and coats. This we did, now getting distinctly warmer as the people in the line moved at their various speeds. It is also where I discover I am not as fast as I thought, but much faster than some others. Eventually my stuff is safely loaded onto the plastic container and the conveyor takes it steadily off. As I come to the personal security arch the surly guard demands my boarding pass that I have carefully placed into my bag that is, even now, moving away from me on the conveyor. He shakes his head and looks at me with hate in his baleful stare. I clearly should have known, telepathically, that he would be the third person demanding this vital document within twenty yards. He allowed me, with absolutely no grace, to collect my papers from my bag and return to him. He growled something unintelligible and I was allowed through. Now I was hopping about trying to re-shoe myself as I placed my laptop back into my case plus find my sweater and bum bag. This takes place whilst people of every type and nationality suffer similar indignities all around me.
Deciding that sustenance was desperately required I found my way to the inappropriately named, Food Hall. It is a motley collection of awful places that no one, however hungry, could ever want to eat at. It was now about 11 am and so it seemed that breakfast would be nice. It appeared in large type on the menu. With great expectation I ordered this delightful looking dish. Of course, you know that breakfast was no longer available. The young lady who told me this said it as if this was obvious. I ordered something that approximated the same type of thing, and received a $25 revolting mess. I will never again complain about our British airport food establishments; they are so far superior it doesn’t bear comparison.
Now I am patiently waiting for my delayed plane, but that, and the journey is a story for another day. I just hope United Airlines and Los Angeles International Airport conspire to make it as uneventful and boring and efficient as possible.
Post script. Arrived safe but tired in London. Had the customary and lengthy route march from the plane to the customs, immigration and baggage halls. It is only fair to mention that the cases came through almost immediately; the car park worked well, and from landing to being on the road took less than 25 minutes. Wonderful, now for some sleep!
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Remembering
Yesterday, here in Los Angeles, the annual Holocaust Memorial Day, “Yom Hashoah”, took place. In a city that is home to one of the biggest Jewish populations in the world, this is bound to be a big, impressive event. It was more than that.
Held in the Pan Pacific Park adjacent to the Los Angeles Holocaust Monument. It was attended by most of the local and state civic dignitaries and a large crowd, all covered by a huge tent shading them from the bright Spring sunshine. The theme this year was to commemorate 70 years since Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass – Shattered Hopes.
During the speeches Britain got a special mention because it was the only country that allowed Jewish children from Germany into our country on the famous Kindertransport. No one else, including America allowed large Jewish groups, of any age, an escape from the Nazis.
The speeches, particularly those by Jacob Dayan, the Israel Consul General and Rabbi David Wolpe from LA’s Sinai Temple, were spellbinding, powerful and compelling. I had the good fortune to have had a meeting with the Rabbi a couple of days previously and I know him to be an extremely thoughtful and incisive man. Listening to him make a speech we all realized why Newsweek magazine had recently selected him as the top pulpit rabbi in America.
There was a beautiful musical interlude featuring the cellist Barry Gold from the Los Angeles Philharmoic Orchestra. In addition The Tova Concert Singers were excellent. There were so many outstanding speeches and presentations it seems wrong to select just a few. But special mention should be made of the Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who made his understanding and support for this event and Israel, from a Gentile, American perspective, clear and unequivocal.
The Rabbi told his audience that the one thing we must do, as a minimum, if we are not to repeat these horrific mistakes in the future, is remember the name of one person who perished in the Holocaust. I turned to my sister to remember the name Weisberg, the name of my father’s mother’s family who were all lost in the Holocaust, in Warsaw. None of us know their first names, what they looked like, what were their dreams and aspirations, what football team they supported, what music they listened to, or anything else, other than that they were our family. They were killed because they were Jewish. We ended with the words, Never Again.
Held in the Pan Pacific Park adjacent to the Los Angeles Holocaust Monument. It was attended by most of the local and state civic dignitaries and a large crowd, all covered by a huge tent shading them from the bright Spring sunshine. The theme this year was to commemorate 70 years since Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass – Shattered Hopes.
During the speeches Britain got a special mention because it was the only country that allowed Jewish children from Germany into our country on the famous Kindertransport. No one else, including America allowed large Jewish groups, of any age, an escape from the Nazis.
The speeches, particularly those by Jacob Dayan, the Israel Consul General and Rabbi David Wolpe from LA’s Sinai Temple, were spellbinding, powerful and compelling. I had the good fortune to have had a meeting with the Rabbi a couple of days previously and I know him to be an extremely thoughtful and incisive man. Listening to him make a speech we all realized why Newsweek magazine had recently selected him as the top pulpit rabbi in America.
There was a beautiful musical interlude featuring the cellist Barry Gold from the Los Angeles Philharmoic Orchestra. In addition The Tova Concert Singers were excellent. There were so many outstanding speeches and presentations it seems wrong to select just a few. But special mention should be made of the Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who made his understanding and support for this event and Israel, from a Gentile, American perspective, clear and unequivocal.
The Rabbi told his audience that the one thing we must do, as a minimum, if we are not to repeat these horrific mistakes in the future, is remember the name of one person who perished in the Holocaust. I turned to my sister to remember the name Weisberg, the name of my father’s mother’s family who were all lost in the Holocaust, in Warsaw. None of us know their first names, what they looked like, what were their dreams and aspirations, what football team they supported, what music they listened to, or anything else, other than that they were our family. They were killed because they were Jewish. We ended with the words, Never Again.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Doing Deals
Deals are deals, but now it doesn’t mean that they are necessarily that binding. My first two film productions were small. We made them in some ancient age, nearly 40 years ago. We shook hands on the deals and received some finance, and made the films and delivered them, all before the contracts were drawn up and signed. How things have changed.
Now you can have a signed contract and it means nothing. Several times in the recent past the contracts have been longer than the screenplays. Who does this benefit other than the attorneys?
For the last many years there were two main film industries. One, the major studio system, is the one most of you are aware of. These are fundamentally the big money distribution machines that own a big pipeline that demands film product being fed down its voracious maw or it is just a very expensive waste of space.
The alternative method is known as the independent film sector. This makes smaller budget films. Despite convention this sector has always demanded some star names to make their films marketable. Not to the cinema or other audiences, but to the independent film distributors in each country. Historically the way this worked was that these films were pre-sold on a country by country basis and their value and desirability was computed against the cast, director and producer track records and the projected budget of the movie to be produced. This, in turn, relied on the banking sector accepting and underwriting these ascribed values per territory. They would advance discounted cash for the film then to be produced. They made their charges and profits based on the accuracy of these projections. This worked comparatively well for many years. But when credit got tougher, and the banks became more risk averse the whole system seized up.
The result has been other, newer alternatives in which capital funds from other sources were created. These were largely tax incentive schemes originally motivated by governments wishing to create film industries to lead the vital creative sectors in their burgeoning economies. With the recession beginning and spreading its tentacles, banks are getting tighter with their fiscal policy, governments start to panic and cut incentive schemes, just when they should be doing the opposite. The results for the independent film sector are disastrous.
Big time corporate deals will become more difficult to finance, and you’ll see further examples of this like Microsoft’s pulling away from Yahoo’s purchase. A deal that would have gone through a year back. Deals in the entertainment business for the bottom feeders, which is most of us, will become tiny or non-existent. Perhaps we’ve gone full circle. Now we can make tiny, inexpensive productions again, and the means of distribution has been democratized so we can get things done and out there, in front of the world. The trouble is this, so can millions of others. Therefore the big question now is how do you get proper exposure for your product so that it has the oxygen to grow? I think I know the answer, but that’s for another day.
Now you can have a signed contract and it means nothing. Several times in the recent past the contracts have been longer than the screenplays. Who does this benefit other than the attorneys?
For the last many years there were two main film industries. One, the major studio system, is the one most of you are aware of. These are fundamentally the big money distribution machines that own a big pipeline that demands film product being fed down its voracious maw or it is just a very expensive waste of space.
The alternative method is known as the independent film sector. This makes smaller budget films. Despite convention this sector has always demanded some star names to make their films marketable. Not to the cinema or other audiences, but to the independent film distributors in each country. Historically the way this worked was that these films were pre-sold on a country by country basis and their value and desirability was computed against the cast, director and producer track records and the projected budget of the movie to be produced. This, in turn, relied on the banking sector accepting and underwriting these ascribed values per territory. They would advance discounted cash for the film then to be produced. They made their charges and profits based on the accuracy of these projections. This worked comparatively well for many years. But when credit got tougher, and the banks became more risk averse the whole system seized up.
The result has been other, newer alternatives in which capital funds from other sources were created. These were largely tax incentive schemes originally motivated by governments wishing to create film industries to lead the vital creative sectors in their burgeoning economies. With the recession beginning and spreading its tentacles, banks are getting tighter with their fiscal policy, governments start to panic and cut incentive schemes, just when they should be doing the opposite. The results for the independent film sector are disastrous.
Big time corporate deals will become more difficult to finance, and you’ll see further examples of this like Microsoft’s pulling away from Yahoo’s purchase. A deal that would have gone through a year back. Deals in the entertainment business for the bottom feeders, which is most of us, will become tiny or non-existent. Perhaps we’ve gone full circle. Now we can make tiny, inexpensive productions again, and the means of distribution has been democratized so we can get things done and out there, in front of the world. The trouble is this, so can millions of others. Therefore the big question now is how do you get proper exposure for your product so that it has the oxygen to grow? I think I know the answer, but that’s for another day.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
The Klinger's and the Weisberg's
Today in South Pasadena Klinger family members from three continents, myself amongst them, met for the first time since 1915. Cousins, from 5 to 80 something years old met, some for the first time during the get together. We delved into our common past. About 100 years ago my father’s family journeyed from the Russian Tsar’s empire in Poland to England.
Different, exotic and colorful stories abound. We found one picture that was common to our British, American and Australian family branches. It was of four young men, one young woman, two small children and one old lady. They are all staring at the camera very intently. They are dressed in formal attire, the men resplendently displaying fine moustaches. When I first saw the picture I thought it was a joke. How had someone photo shopped me into a picture from nearly a century ago? But it turns out that I share a face with my previously unknown great uncle. Of course he is a particularly fine figure of a man. Actually my grandfather, staring confidently at the camera, is the best looking man in the picture, and I don’t look much like him. I will write more fully about this in the future.
We then started to talk with each other and old family histories were unearthed and old journeys re-trod. There was a fine picture of my uncle Max in the uniform of the Imperial Russian Army. He looks very snappy but there is another truth. I well remember my Poppa Gershon telling me how his brother, the man in the picture, was ruthlessly beaten by his Russian commanders on a regular basis, purely because he was Jewish. It was because of his treatment that his family re-considered where they should live. In those far off days the Imperial army took one brother at a time into the army. When one came back the next had to take his place, unless he was killed earlier. Apparently his tormentors permanently injured my great uncle and the decision was made to leave.
Therefore, in some twisted grand design my great uncle’s maltreatment meant that we could all meet in Pasadena. With more benign treatment I suspect that there was a very good chance the family would have stayed in the Polish part of the Russian Empire. If we had done so about thirty years later the invading Nazis would have decimated my father’s family.
I say this with some certainty because it did happen to my father’s mother’s side of our family, the Weisberg’s (I guess it could be spelt Weissberg) of Warsaw. Sixty-three of them were murdered in the Holocaust. According to our family story my grandmother, Dora, returned to her native Poland with my father, then a small boy, before the war, to try and get her family to leave. She was only able to convince one sister. That sister agreed to make the journey to England with her two children, but their application for papers was refused. They are all lost to us now. That family will never enjoy a sunny reunion anywhere as there are none of them to meet.
Ironically today is Holocaust Memorial Day. Although I am not religious I shall go to the ceremony in the nearby park and offer up a prayer for those that were lost in my family, the Weisberg’s, and millions of other families. I fell I have to do it for my late grandmother as there is no one else to do so.
Different, exotic and colorful stories abound. We found one picture that was common to our British, American and Australian family branches. It was of four young men, one young woman, two small children and one old lady. They are all staring at the camera very intently. They are dressed in formal attire, the men resplendently displaying fine moustaches. When I first saw the picture I thought it was a joke. How had someone photo shopped me into a picture from nearly a century ago? But it turns out that I share a face with my previously unknown great uncle. Of course he is a particularly fine figure of a man. Actually my grandfather, staring confidently at the camera, is the best looking man in the picture, and I don’t look much like him. I will write more fully about this in the future.
We then started to talk with each other and old family histories were unearthed and old journeys re-trod. There was a fine picture of my uncle Max in the uniform of the Imperial Russian Army. He looks very snappy but there is another truth. I well remember my Poppa Gershon telling me how his brother, the man in the picture, was ruthlessly beaten by his Russian commanders on a regular basis, purely because he was Jewish. It was because of his treatment that his family re-considered where they should live. In those far off days the Imperial army took one brother at a time into the army. When one came back the next had to take his place, unless he was killed earlier. Apparently his tormentors permanently injured my great uncle and the decision was made to leave.
Therefore, in some twisted grand design my great uncle’s maltreatment meant that we could all meet in Pasadena. With more benign treatment I suspect that there was a very good chance the family would have stayed in the Polish part of the Russian Empire. If we had done so about thirty years later the invading Nazis would have decimated my father’s family.
I say this with some certainty because it did happen to my father’s mother’s side of our family, the Weisberg’s (I guess it could be spelt Weissberg) of Warsaw. Sixty-three of them were murdered in the Holocaust. According to our family story my grandmother, Dora, returned to her native Poland with my father, then a small boy, before the war, to try and get her family to leave. She was only able to convince one sister. That sister agreed to make the journey to England with her two children, but their application for papers was refused. They are all lost to us now. That family will never enjoy a sunny reunion anywhere as there are none of them to meet.
Ironically today is Holocaust Memorial Day. Although I am not religious I shall go to the ceremony in the nearby park and offer up a prayer for those that were lost in my family, the Weisberg’s, and millions of other families. I fell I have to do it for my late grandmother as there is no one else to do so.
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