Lazy sod

One of the fun parts about satellite radio is scanning the channels. Some of the stuff I didn't even know was there; besides Squizz and Fred, I rarely wander elsewhere. So I'm checking out conservative talk radio last week, listening to Larry Elder. He says he's got a story about Hollywood polluting LA. Being a film professional, I decide to listen. In short, he introduced the story, quoting verbatim from the text of an NPR report. His only original comments were "hmm!" and "where have I heard this before." No problem so far. Then he procedeed to play the NPR story in its entirety, all 20 minutes or so of it. Again, all of his commentary was pretty useless, consisting of "hmm!" in a faux surprised tone, "really," and "Bob's not happy." I don't think anything consisted of more than five words. I figured at the end, having spent almost half an hour simply replaying someone else's production, he'd have a wrap up. Nope. Before going to commercial, he gave us his synopsis: "Unbelievable." And that was that.

Thing is, he's right: Film productions are ridiculously wasteful. Time being the most expensive commodity in the business, productions do whatever they can to ensure that high-priced actors never have to wait for anything. Food is cooked constantly, generators run all the time, and a slew of production professionals are standing by to supply greens, sets, props, wardrobe or makeup at a moment's notice. The generators really are big towed diesel rigs, which makes sense if you're shooting "Last of the Mohicans" in the mountains of North Carolina, but seems less obvious in downtown DC (the reason is that most of the lights run three-phase power; it eliminates the flicker that can occur if a 60Hz light is captured by a 24fps camera). We should be greener about that aspect.

We also generate a mountain of trash and waste. Most interiors that you see on films are specifically-build sets. When we're done, we fill a dumpster with the stuff. It's cheaper than keeping it for the next project. I could go on and on.

That said, perhaps Larry could have had someone from the film business comment on the study, or (gasp) even done a bit of research himself. Instead, by adding nothing more constructive than "hmm!" for half an hour, he earned a paycheck.

Nice work if you can get it, I suppose...