His vision was clear, every time. So, I know his vision is clear now, and the things he’d tell you! (Kersh Chuckle)

But he was above all, human. In fact, almost more human than possible.

He brought Yoda to life. He WAS Yoda — or at least a facet of this multi-dimensional man was. In fact, I’m convinced that tree at the doorway of his house is enchanted, and out of the Empire swamp.

Kersh has made a planetary difference, and now we would be told to take a look at your photography portfolio. He’d want people to study the imagery. He’d probably suggest young filmmakers study each photo to see what he was intending. Or he’d say shhhhh… just let them look at the pictures.

With Kersh in Albuquerque on a business trip in ’95, I found our waitress was an aspiring actress. I told her who she was serving. When she asked him for advice about acting, with a sparkle he asked why she would want want to do such a thing? Did she really want to be broke and miserable? Such honesty she would surely never see again in her pursuit.

But to filmmakers the advice was a swift kick in the ass if we were not making a movie. He talked with bright enthusiasm about the newest tiny video cameras that get an amazing image — so no excuses !!!

The big news at NAB (the national association of broadcasters convention) is 3-D. Now we all have to go out and by 3-D TVs? Not for another couple of years! The technology has amazing potential. Problem is, you need either “powered” 3-D glasses or a 3-D television to get it.

Kind of annoying actually. The signal is a split screen image that gets combined by the television set, which apparently rotates each image based on the nature of LCDs, and a polarizing filter in the 3-D TV creates an image that is filtered by your (non-electric) glasses to make the left and right images discrete.

Does all of that make sense? I had 3 guys from Sony trying to explain how the TVs work and they were all a bit befuddled. (No disrespect to Sony or the tech’s… it’s typical of new technology).

So, this feels a LOT like HD when it was introduced a decade ago or so. If any of you are techy’s — remember when the big debate was on how many lines HD would have — like there would be ONE standard? Those of you who have seen an editing system lately will barely be able to FIT all of the new HD formats on one pull down-menu… So I guess we all have to remember that DTV broadcast endless formats.

What does all of these mean to those of us who just purchased a widescreen TV? Do we need to go out any buy a 3-D ready TV?

My suggestion based on experience — wait about 3 years.

The technology is still being developed and feels exactly like the early days of HD Awesome technology. NO CONTENT available. NO good standard available. Super hot excitement that no one understands …

I’d wait, folks!

– Richard Arsenault

First the bad part. Who wants to see their son or daughter trained to me a military commando and killing machine?

But now the good part. This game is human. From the training camp to the mission in the ice at the beginning you really “feel” the other soldiers by your side. There is an eerie sense of comradery with these non-player-characters to the point where you sense that they “care” about your safety — and as you as a person. Weird.

I compare this to the rather theatrical but entertaining attitudes of the other characters in Grand Theft Auto. In GTA, there really is very little emotion and you never forget they are cartoon personifications. You never suspend your disbelief in GTA, but the imagery and layout is dazzling.

In Modern Warfare 2, characters are on a whole new level. The soldiers react to you, they seem to “care” about you (there’s that creepy word again). Is this a good thing? I’d say yes.

If we need a military game to push the envelope of character development in gaming, that’s fine by me. This game is going to break a half a BILLION bucks in revenue. That’s significant. I love that the first night the server was torn apart by the onslaught of users trying to get online. They must be crying all the way to the bank.

Why is it GOOD to promote violence? No… I never said that. I said it was good that we are pushing character development in on-line games. Hollywood is disassembling and rebuilding itself and trying to discover what it “is.” Entertainment today is the most exciting industry to be in, even with the recession and hardships since the WGA strike. But, especially with a $500 million “box office,” video games are well beyond a major force in entertainment art. And, with the characters and emotions of MW2, the future looks remarkable.

Now, “Hollywood” can be broken down into 4 categories:

1. Theatrical Movies. Movies are still the driving force of entertainment by any standard. This highly refined passive art form is the ultimate expression of controlled story-telling art in a three-act structure. No debate. However, the income potential of a movie by itself is almost a break-even proposition. Ancillary markets, toys, games, broadcast, DVDs make the actual theatrical presentation something of a ritualized formality.

The next step: Digital broadcasting. 3-D and sensory theatrical experiences. Ultra high definition visuals and sound. Live events.

2. Television. (Programs designed for television) Remember, TV is not a three act structure. Modern half hour shows are generally 4 acts. One hour shows are 6. Two hour shows are 8 or more acts. Telling a story with commercial breaks in mind has created a new form of story telling. It’s more of a Novel than a play. TV will always be around, but broadcasting TV over the air, and limited cable-casting and even satellite -casting are too limited for today’s audience. Add un-targeted commercials and the hourglass of TV as we know it is almost over.

What’s next: TV with TARGETED commercials that you cannot avoid. There won’t be as many, but you wont be able to fast forward them. At least the subject matter will appeal to you. I wont have to watch a commercial about tampons, and you wont have to watch a commercial about AVID plug-ins. So, even the commercials will be cool.

TV broadcast over the internet. What is taking so long?

TV on demand. Why should we have to watch taped events at a specific time? I see why American Idol needs to be live and the news, but unless there is something to the spiritual concept of mass viewing broadcasts creating some sort of brain trust, I don’t see why we have to wait to view our favorite episode of a show. They should be uploaded and available on demand at 12:01 AM on the day of release. Again, Internet-cast TV will fix this dilemma and send cable and broadcast scrambling.

3. Games. Here we get to our topic at hand. Games are the sandbox interactive experience of the future. And, now that characters are becoming genuine, and cut-scenes are becoming less obnoxious and amateur (sorry, we know it’s true) — games are carving a clear and respectable niche in entertainment.

Next: I don’t want to give away any of the proprietary developments at my company, but here are some hints:

Truly customizable characters with real time image-mapping. How would YOU like to be the star of the next video game you play with an exact replica of yourself on-screen?

Internet delivered games. Throw away you PS3 or your XBOX 360 in ten years. It’s all coming to a server near you.

4. Interactive Cinema: (Again, this is stuff we are working on confidentially, but I can give you a few hints.) Interactive cinema is not a game, nor a TV show, nor cinema. But you are an active participant in the story. That’s all I can say. But in 10-15 years, look for this rising entertainment sector to rival video games, TV, and cinema in revenue and respectability.

According to Jeff Goodell in Rolling Stone (11/12/09), the Arctic is melting so unexpectedly quickly that in a few decades there may be sailboats crossing the north pole during the summer. But it gets worse.

Below this ice is a thousand feet of sludge from thousands of years ago… sludge made from plants and dead animals like woolly mammoths. Cute? No, as this undigested waste is consumed by microbes who will belch out tons of methane, which is 20 times more potent than CO2.

There is trillion metric tons of the stuff — which would be like burning all of the oil, gas, and coal on the planet.

More methane will come from below the sea as it warms — and will quickly turn our planet into a cauldron of heat. And more water exposed by melting ice means more heating and so on.

Sea levels will soon rise by as much as 3 feet. I heard certain island nations are saving money to buy new homelands as their countries are destroyed by rising water of the oceans … which destroy the protective barriers around them and eventually sink their island into the ocean. Sounds like fiction? Ask the Maldives if they made it up for a reality TV show. Hint: they did not.

So, it’s too bad Wall Street and Banks and Insurance stole all of our money so we can’t immediately invest what’s needed to stop what is essentially the looming end of humanity. And, of course immediately forcing an instant global reduction of greenhouse gasses would be bad for the standard of living.

We’d rather die as a species than curtail our prideful ways? I’m going to drive my Hummer down and get another cup of Starbucks*.

(*laugh here)

Right out of USC cinema, I worked on a dozen or more features and television programs in technical roles.  Then I took a job at Triad Artists Talent Agency.  I directed and edited this company video in 1988 which features some of the top talents in the industry — both on screen and behind the scenes.

 
Triad merged with William Morris in the early 90′s and now is one of the most powerful forces in Hollywood.  What an amazing opportunity to film Bruce Willis in his early career, as well as Christian Slater, Cindy Williams, and up close with Victoria Principal! (to name a few)

This was shot on 3/4″ videotape.  The portable deck was hard to get my hands on, so I lugged around a massive Sony VO-9850, which is bigger than a huge PC and weighs — I don’t know — 70 pounds?

The minute I posted it today, I realized what an historical archive the video really is — some of the top people in entertainment, and some of the most beloved stars in history are on this video.

Here is the link to the video.