Our Best Advice

OSCARS 2013 – Event Planning

Over the years we’ve seen many clients win Oscar awards (see our Domestic Staffing website). Some of the people we referred for job opportunities were so loved by their employers, they went on to become famous celebrities themselves. Like Chef Wolfgang Puck, who Dora referred to a client. Wolfgang had worked at a renowned restaurant (the kitchen of Ma Maison), but he wanted to work as a Personal Celebrity Chef to expand his opportunities. Wolfgang was eager to prove his talents, and urged the client to give him a try. The Client decided to give him their job opportunity, Dora endorsed it was the perfect fit (with a free trial period giving both parties time to check things out), and that’s how he got hired. While working ISA job referrals Wolfgang met many famous people. They fell in love with his cooking, and followed him to his first restaurant SPAGO (at that time located on Sunset), which quickly became a sensational celebrity hang. 

TIP: Keep reinventing your talents to expand Job Opportunities and study how others created new trends. It’s a famous story that Wolfgang (a Master Chef among Chefs with brilliant business strategy), transformed the restaurant and catering business. He then went on to open more restaurants, became famous for Oscar Awards parties with specialty foods sold nationwide to build a food empire. There are no limits how far a Chef can go; current trends show franchises worth millions.

The first Oscar Awards was held at The Roosevelt Hotel in 1929. Last night we saw another big Oscars show with events held worldwide, (and Wolfgang still cooking up a storm). A billion people were reported to be watching. An incredible viewing increase in just 83 years as an astounding confirmation how much films influence and shape our lives.

Among the noteworthy was a tribute in memorium to those who passed away. We take this opportunity to pay them homage added to our clients gallery, including Richard Zanuck (with his legendary producing skills), and actor Ernest Borgnine. Into his seventies Richard Zanuck was a first choice for studios that had challenging projects. He was Hollywood royalty with a father that was one of three principles who founded Fox Studios. Darryl Zanuck left a legacy with a career spanning the Silent Era, the Golden Age, and decline of the studio system (that fractured under the costly production of Cleopatra). Yet, big Hollywood productions and Fox both survived.

Richard Zanuck had his own style known as a directors producer renowned for going after and protecting quality films. He worked with some of the finest directors (many of whom are our clients) making groundbreaking pictures like Jaws with Stephen Spielberg, Ron Howard’s Cocoon, Bruce Beresford’s Driving Miss Daisy, Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict, Walter Hill’s Sting, Sam Mendes Road To Perdition, and Tim Burton Alice In Wonderland (which grossed more than 1Billion worldwide). With Burton he worked on six projects among them Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and Planet of the Apes. Films that became Hollywood classics setting new highs in world film history. California is famous for transforming History in so many key industries that people continue to flock here, and remains the leading hub for the most advanced creative talent in the world. 

Ernest Borgnine was among the changing tide of actors who could successfully undertake roles in TV, with the lead in McHale’s Navy (originating the role of an irreverent con man as a PT boat skipper), with roles in The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch, Airwolf, and From Here To Eternity among other wonderful movies. His McHale’s Navy role played with unerring comedic timing, while he could also play a tough guy with an unforgettable face. An unlikely  big-screen star or romantic lead, this beloved actor won an Oscar in 1955 for Marty that brought him a Palm D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Marty and The Lost Weekend (1945) are the only two films ever to win both grand prizes. A career lasting six decades, Mr. Borgnine’s work continued as the voice of Mermaid Man on Sponge Bob. Nominated for an Emmy at 92 for his work on ER. At 95 he leaves a brilliant body of film work for generations to come.

This is not the first time we see people heatedly arguing about violence in films, or its influence on children and American culture. While lobbying for gun control and more laws, parents are also demanding a reduction of violence in films. A friend recently sent me a quote (which Snopes confirmed is true) that Hitler allegedly made in 1942 saying, “History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms, have prepared their own downfall by doing so.” When Stalin came to power he too quickly removed people’s right to bear arms. 

Hopefully, all Americans are concerned with documents that govern our freedoms. It appears that many in Washington don’t know our legacy of inherited undeniable rights. Get to know and revisit the United States Constitution and United States Bill of Rights often. They’re profound guarantees of our freedom many people worldwide don’t enjoy – or could sustain – due to corruption of values. I don’t usually write about political issues (not the place for it), and only address these themes because many of our clients are in the film and music industry. We must consider that liberation is an inside job for each of us that cannot be granted you by any other human being. It is discoverable within our Spirit, not ruled upon.

The right to bear arms is not an easy discussion, but there is none more complex historically with presenting a struggling tortured mind than issues of enslavement of one man to another. Men and Women have died for the right to have both. There are ‘bad guys’ who exist, who don’t just go away on their own, as films show us with some of the greatest characters Hollywood ever brought to story telling. But there is only one Lincoln. Daniel Day Lewis brought him to life for all of us. Although Lincoln remained a dearly beloved President he was beyond reach as a heroic figure overseeing a civil war. Rather than merely characterizing him as President Lincoln, the film industry agreed that only Daniel Day Lewis could bring forth the incredible man behind a title. Winning Best Actor was that statement.

Oscars 2013 Best Picture nominations put challenging plot lines of human grit and passion to overcome adversity. With laugh-out-loud fun as Silver Lining gives as a new romantic love story with a twist, or remarkable human wisdom as only the young express and delight us, in Beasts Of The Southern Wild.

Showing how technology changed (after Avatar) is the marvelous Life of Pi that Ang Lee directed (and won Best Director). A breathtaking cinematic film, that prompted my curiosity about what and when was the first movie made. To technically answer we turn to Edward Muybridge and his groundbreaking photos called Horses In Motion (1878), which he created using four cameras. The images were assembled as running frames showing all four hoofs of a horse are galloping off the ground. That became the first ‘moving pictures’.

Ten years later came a home movie created by inventor Louis Le Prince in France, showing his family walking around in his garden called Roundhay Garden Scene (1888).

Next came a camera test (from two men working for Thomas Edison) called Monkeyshines 1 & 2, created at Edison’s lab in New Jersey around 1889 or 1890. Why is this film history important is because new technology transformed how we ‘see’.

We take symbolic images (in this case photos) that are ordered into ensembles as frames (today using bits of digitized data), and weave them together to create another frame that comes next, and so on. 

Unfortunately, most people don’t care about film history (but I find it fascinating) and we’re generally not taught in schools how movies impact history. We passively/actively ‘record’ all that we see and feel (whether we’re aware of it or not) and regardless of what we each have as immediate access to memory (at any given ‘frame’). We’re sensitized to be triggered emotionally based on our experiences.

These experiences (in the imagination or in reality) can become entrained as trance-states. Silver Linings Playbook is a great example of trance state patterns), and how we can break them without using medication. Reliance on drugs is clearly not a good thing so curb your enthusiasm.

How manipulatable are we? Reminds me of when I lived in Bali and first saw a brilliant performance of  shadow puppets [theater] art known as Wayang. I’m always amazed how quickly people forget they’re merely watching pictures moving on a wall or a movie screen (computer monitor, iPad, smart phone, etc) which was traditionally taught (and known) as shadows moving on the wall that we react to. Instead of staying conscious we become hypnotized to associatively feel ‘in the movie’ as if it’s real. But it’s an illusion, and when we begin to totally believe in its story (and live by it), that’s called a delusion. A famous teaching by Plato.

In Victor Hugo’s Les Misrables plot line, a story of love, despair, and revolution that changed the world (tuff to argue this is delusion), the challenges of such despair is disparagingly real and still current worldwide. 

About a week ago I had to reach out to a women who was literally whimpering during a movie, because she was so identified with what was on the screen. She thanked me for bringing her out of her trance, and almost immediately fell right back into it.

The movie was Django Unchained, (Django (character) – a name used famously in Spaghetti Westerns (and in the tradition of Sam Peckinpah films) – that deal with conflicts of values and ideals, with the corruption and brutality of human violence in human society. Characters who are often loners or losers, who know of the great hypocrisy, yet somehow find a desire to do something honorable, but are forced into compromise to survive in a world of nihilistic brutality.

Interestingly, we see that while in the past people loved these movies, an ever growing fear of violence is seeking to shut them out. It’s important that director Quentin Terrentino remained undeterred by folks who criticize his efforts to wake them up (as I understood from him during an interview was his intention and interest to expand the cowboy mythos). You can choose not to watch a movie. Without judging its violence (there are films worse then this made in Hollywood in its past), Django Unchained had an important message.

Regardless of creative license in their story telling, I found it important that the Best Picture nominated films had this illuminating key as a central theme running through them (illusion/delusion). Each one of them worthy of their nominations. Among my favorites was Beasts Of The Southern Wild. Although filmgoers believe the movie Lincoln occurred as it was filmed (and debated by historians as somewhat misleading), it doesn’t change the fact that this picture was brilliantly delivered by Stephen Spielberg, or that Daniel Day Lewis remains one of the greatest actors of any generation. It became an instant American film classic.

The first public movie made for commercial viewing (for profit), was by the Lumiere brothers in 1895 (30 seats out of 100 were sold thereby proving its success.) Shown at a basement salon at the Grand Cafe in Paris (a hot city for artists to test their wares) in order to sell their Kinetoscope machine. This was a wood box you peeked into and saw moving pictures (the first “peep show” for commercial viewing). see it HERE.

Then a film was made in Berlin by another two brothers (Max and Emil Sklandanowsky) who invented Bioksop, a complicated technology using two parallel film strips. The Lumier brothers method was easier to use so they’re credited as the first motion picture tech (which I’m sure the Germans disagree with). Differing national pride stories are quickly claimed with most inventions.   

A delusion theme can be inspirational (Alice In Wonderland), or crushing (Lord of The Rings), each Surreal, and crucially important in very different ways ( a bit of a Mad Hatter in every one of us). We could say that James Bond was delusional with lessons to learn using an ever growing grouping of deadly toys (with each side having a seemingly endless arsenal to choose from), or as the film story mantra in Hollywood goes (and director William Friedkin loves to say), “there is good and bad in everyone”. 

We’re now a planetary city of a planetary population who’s center is resonant with a human family everywhere. The technology is only as good as those who can see beyond it.

TIP: All Event Planning today relies heavily on technology. Yet, there is the expertise that still remains within people, not machines. If an ice cream machine breaks down earlier in the day you need to turn on a dime and create another dessert with a flourish finish. Your hands are invaluable. Don’t become too reliant on machines. 

A key theme of ARGO showed Hollywood takes its movie planning worldwide (as any clandestine ops could be planned for “what-if” scenarios) – because it has the courage of people crazy enough to fight for freedom (on behalf of all people everywhere), who are able to spontaneously be creative beyond limits of circumstance. We dare to dare ourselves. True ‘leadership’ is never limited to systems theory. It’s a creative capacity to mature, not train.

TIP: Save all critical judgements that are not intended as positive input at their core. All Event Planning (including dress rehearsals) must allow for spontaneous decisions. Remain openly agile to pivot as needed. I watched my mother (Dora) go through life in faith that there is a higher power, and we are reminded of it ongoingly. Miracles exist (I’ve witnessed many with humbled gratitude). She’s always worked hard to help people (never relying on faith alone but keeping it close in her core being), as we continue to refer people to fantastic opportunities; dream jobs. People helping people is real. Don’t just do your job – go beyond it to increase value and the quality of life for others lives. Yours will also be immeasurably increased by it.

Last night’s stepped up glamour + diva entertainment included surprise guests Barbara Streisand and Shirley Bassy, each gorgeous and singing classics loved everywhere. Streisand singing Memories, and Bassey delivering Goldfinger, showed that seasoned ladies are never too old, who can still teach younger gens (to standing ovations). Seeing Barbra Streisand looking so marvelous brought memory of her (then) daring outfit (so controversial others copy cat it today), which she wore to her Oscar win for Funny Girl. 

First Lady Michelle Obama (a big surprise), looked naturally relaxed and fashion stunning as she presented Best Picture award to ARGO via live telecast from The White House, also to standing ovations. Many passionate rounds of standing applause throughout the evening as we’ve not seen for some time. Congratulations to all the nominees who are all winners! 

Hollywood holds a beacon for billions of people from all walks of life about freedom, more than any other industry, and we’re very proud to be part of it. Thank you for the job opportunities you give us, we’re grateful to help you.

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