Standing On The Precipice.

Nicole and I gave up all our cable movie channels a few weeks ago, except HBO. Long story, short; We were getting them free because of a glitch at DirecTV, so instead of increasing our monthly bill, we just got rid of them. HBO in recent weeks has had the award winning movie "Gladiator" starring Russel Crowe in heavy rotation. And since, we've lost nearly 30 movie channels, I've been putting Gladiator on in the background while I putter around the house, or relax in the bedroom.

It would be fair to say that the demise of Rome has been floating around in the back of my brain. It surfaced on Tuesday when I was programming lights for "Miss Pole Star 2009". Yes, it's exactly what you think. It's a contest to find the best pole dancer. 6 dancers were left:

(This is the view from my monitor, I was upstairs behind a curtain and didn't have a direct shot to the stage)

And like in the movie Gladiator, the choice for who stayed on the show and who was "voted" off, was left to the collected crowd of people. And to accent the point, there was a "thumbs up, thumbs down" vote that happened.

You know our society on a downward spiral when reality shows lead the ratings, and reality games shows like "Jingles" and "Miss Pole Star 2009" are taped for mass consumption. Are we on the precipice of the American society tumbling downwards? Need more evidence?

How about a stripping little person (or midget for you less than politically correct folk).

I actually had to stand up and walk away from my console to take these pictures. Apologies for the poor quality.

But this picture I took on my monitor, still not the best quality, but you can see better the underwear and knees socks.

Normally, for shows with live audiences, there's a warm up person, usually a comedian who entertains, the waiting crowd, gives out free stuff, and gives out the rules for being in the audience (cheer loudly, listen to direction, turn off cell phones, etc.). For "Miss Pole Star" we had a stripping little person. I think I'm looking over the cliff, preparing for the downward spiral.

I don't want to be all gloom and doom. I actually had a good time during the filming. The dancers only performed for 30 seconds each and then had a "dance off" to determine the top dancer and the bottom dancer... voted for by a show of thumbs. Programming was a little chaotic because we had no direction from anyone and during rehearsal, they just went from scene to scene without stopping to let lighting adjust. So everything was done on the fly and as long as no one was standing in the dark we were fine. Note for future television directors: Don't put the palest blond person next to an African American on camera. Makes for a hell of a day for the lighting people.



As for today... I'm at my regular weekly gig, Mun2. We shoot 5 shows on the one day we're all here. They're tight on budget, so they keep cutting people and days in an attempt to save money. But here's some pictures of the different sets we shoot on.

The first show they shoot everyday is called "Crash and Yasmin Uncensored". It's basically "The View" for the teenage Hispanic female crowd. But since there's budget cuts, they only have two hosts.

The next show they shoot is called "What Up PPL". It's a show where they take requests and questions from the fans on their website and play them. The host, Yarel, is really nice and very good, hardly messes up her lines so we fly through taping this show.


Yarel is also the host for "Reventon", and "Reventon top 10". Both are shot on the same set which is hidden behind a very large pillar, so I can't ever see what's going on on stage. I have to rely heavily on my monitor to see my lights and their focus. In the picture above, you can see the set for One Nation lit in different colours for Reventon. We had a band perform last show and they needed to use both sets.... 16 member Mariachi band! Both "Reventon", and "Reventon t0p 10" are shot in front of big windows that look out on the central court of City Walk. Consequently, we have to shoot at night so that there isn't any sunlight contaminating the set.

The last show we shoot is called "One Nation". It used to be called "One Nation Under Hip-Hop", but they fired the guy who hosted it and have Yasmin hosting instead. I like Yasmin, she's cool and says thank you to me every night when she finishes. But man, she messes up lines. Not as bad at Carmen Electra who hosted "Miss Pole Star 2009". I won't get into that... it's safe to say, I like getting overtime.

Monday I start a little pre-viz work with Manny for a show we're working on in Orange County. I'll have more to report then...

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