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Taylor Swift - BEST HD CLOSEUP - Hollywood and Highland - Long Live - 10.29.10

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Kobe Bryant to become first athlete with hand, footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theatre
-- Mark Medina
Los Angeles Times
January 20, 2011 | 1:55 pm

As if he doesn't have enough accomplishments as a five-time NBA champion, two-time NBA Finals MVP, a Beijing Olympic gold medalist and the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, Kobe Bryant will become the first athlete to have his hand and foot imprinted at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

The ceremony will take place Feb. 19 as part of the festivities surrounding NBA All-Star weekend, preceding a gala thrown by Bryant that is expected to include at least 1,200 guests. This isn't the first time Bryant's made his presence on Hollywood Boulevard. Madame Tussauds has a wax statue of the star.

"To be a part of such elite company is a tremendous honor. I’m proud to be the first athlete to be recognized," Bryant said in a statement.



Read More: http://lakersblog.latimes.com/lakersblog/2011/01/kobe-bryant-to-have-hand-and-footprint-ceremony-at-graumans-chinese-theater-during-nba-all-star-week.html

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Creative minds behind Cirque du Soleil's 'Iris'
A Q&A with director-choreographer Philippe Decouflé and composer Danny Elfman.
July 24, 2011|By Reed Johnson, Los Angeles Times

Last week previews began at the Kodak Theatre for "Iris," the latest big-top extravaganza by Montreal-based Cirque du Soleil. The show, which its producers hope will run at the Hollywood & Highland complex for the next decade, is a valentine to the art of cinema that combines circus acts, avant-garde theatrics and a touch of Hollywood razzle-dazzle.

The two top-billed members of its creative team are director Philippe Decouflé, a Paris-based director-choreographer, and composer Danny Elfman, former frontman for the progressive rock band Oingo Boingo and author of dozens of feature film scores, including Tim Burton's "Batman" and "Alice in Wonderland." We spoke with them about "Iris" this week at Elfman's studio in Los Angeles. In conversation, the pair work together like an aerial act. Elfman, humorous and upfront, maintains a steady patter of anecdotes and impressions about the show and its progress. Then Decouflé swoops in with elegantly crafted thoughts in Parisian-accented English. This is an edited transcript of their conversation.

This show is about cinema, not about Hollywood, although here in L.A. we sometimes think of them as synonymous.

Elfman: It's almost like cinema as an idea, rather than "movies." We're not trying to make you think of "Lawrence of Arabia," not trying to make you think of Alfred Hitchcock, we're not trying to make you think of specific movies. It's almost as much of an homage to [Louis] Lumière as it is to any single director.

Decouflé: The basic subject is cinema. For me it was so dangerous, I didn't know what to do for a long time. Because if we talk about just one school of cinema — like, I'm a fan of Alfred Hitchcock, but I cannot do a show which is an homage to Hitchcock because I have to give an homage to cinema in general. So I decided to work mainly on what was before cinema, about the fascination we have for images. It's the beauty of movement.

Danny, how does doing "Iris" compare with working on a film?

Elfman: Well, there's no comparison, almost on any level. Film, first off, you have a finished product, or semi-finished, by the time I come in. Secondly, it's a film, and you know what you're supposed to do. I knew that "Iris" was going to be in a constant transformation. But the thing that is most interesting is that there was no template to look to, to follow.

How did you two begin working together?

Elfman: We started two years ago. Philippe already had a lot of work done. He was creating the show in Paris. I just started writing music and sending it over to him.

Philippe, why did Cirque want Danny involved in this show?

Decouflé: Cirque du Soleil asked me to work on this show and to find a creative team. So my very first idea was let's ask Daniel, because he's one of my favorite composers. "The Nightmare Before Christmas" is a movie I have seen 50 times. And I had the chance that Danny, he hadn't seen a lot of dance shows in his life, but he saw my solo work in New York a little while before.

Elfman: It was really a bit of fate. I had an agent who was booking concerts. So one night in New York, he says, "We're going to go see a show, a dance show." And I get to the theater and there's just this picture of one person. It's a solo. And I go, "What?! You've taken me to a solo performance? Oh my god, I'm going to see a modern dance solo performance! This is going to be horrible!" And I loved the show. I said, "Whoever this Decouflé is, I'd love to work with him some day." And six months later I get this call saying Cirque is interested. And you also have to remember I started out as a street musician. I was a fire-breather, same as Guy [Cirque Chief Executive Guy Laliberté]. My first performing in my life was with a French musical-theatrical group, Le Grand Magic Circus.

The music for "Iris" incorporates many different styles, from Latin jazz to Balinese gamelan and Japanese taiko drums to serialism.

Elfman: Sometimes I'd get an idea thrown at me, just something to grab hold of. So there was lots of things, like doing Gershwin-esque, or doing Leonard Bernstein, doing something romantic.

Philippe, you often use live music for your dance pieces, right?

Decouflé: Since, I don't know, like 15 years ago, I decided to play only with live music. Because I think it's always better for the audience when all the elements that I use are live, and when they play together. And the relationship between dance and music for me is really very close. Dance almost always needs music, except you have the [Merce] Cunningham and [John] Cage style, where they decided to have the music independent from the choreography, but I'm not from that tradition.

Danny, are you the only Hollywood guy involved in the creative team?

Decouflé: Are you a Hollywood guy?

Elfman: What a scary thought!

Decouflé: It's true that I have a very French team [for "Iris"]. For example, my set designer, he's mainly working in cinema.

Elfman: I guess I would have to be the "Hollywood guy" in the team. Although, it's funny, after 26 years of working in Hollywood, I still don't consider myself a Hollywood guy. I'm not a Hollywood guy in the sense that I don't connect with Hollywood. I go to openings when I absolutely have to. As much as I support the Academy [of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences] and all the good things they do, because I love cinema, and cinema was my inspiration to get into music.

How did that translate into making music?

Elfman: All accident. My early designs in life were to be in movies — not an actor, but a cinematographer, an editor, a writer, maybe a director. Everything but an actor or a composer. My training was spending every weekend of my life at a theater. And I lived in an area where the kids went to the theater every Saturday and Sunday.

Philippe, does the culture of Hollywood — the Academy Awards and that kind of thing — interest you?

Decouflé: I don't know it so well, so I can't say. But I could say almost the same as Danny in many points, because I do what I do by accident also. Because it's a bit the same. When I was a kid, every day when I was in school, at midday I was escaping to go to the movies, mainly to cartoons. When I was a kid I was always crazy about Tex Avery.

Did you like cartoons because you can do anything in them?

Decouflé: Yeah, it's something about freedom, freedom of movement. So there is something about reaching the impossibility which interested me a lot. And voilà, I began to do what I did also by accident. I thought I was going to work in the movies, to make lighting, or the film credits at the beginning and the end of the movies.

Is there anything you haven't been able to do in the Kodak Theatre?

Decouflé: I have a model of the Kodak Theatre in my house in Paris, a big one, and I've slept with it for three years. (Laughter.) There is a basic problem in the Kodak: It's the American sickness of king-size. It's too big. It's a reproduction of an Italian theater, but really like king-size. So we had to fight to try to twist the relationship that the spectators have with the space. Because if you respect the normal aperture, it's too big, too far.

Elfman: That's what I noticed right from the beginning. "Iris" is much more human-based. There's a sense of anticipation that's more old-school circus than the new Cirque du Soleil shows. Because I've seen "O" twice, I've seen "Ka" twice. And I never feel that anything could ever go wrong in those shows, they're like clockwork. But here, you have four people, two people, six people, just doing their act, there's no help, there's nothing but them and their bodies. I bite my nails and grit my teeth much more than in any other Cirque show that I've seen. I know they're going to be OK, but I have to look away at moments because it just looks too insanely difficult. To me, of all the Cirque shows I've seen, this one, its unique quality is that connection with the human element. You don't need $100 million of CGI. You're just watching performers performing. And what a joy that is.



Read More: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/24/entertainment/la-ca-cirque-decoufl-elfman-20110724

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Oscars academy to build outdoor theater in Hollywood
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will build an amphitheater and event space at Vine and Fountain, where it had planned to build a movie museum.
By Nicole Sperling, Los Angeles Times
December 17, 2011

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will build an amphitheater and event space in Hollywood on a parcel of land that had been the planned site for a movie museum. The 17,000-square-foot outdoor space is designed to function as a venue for showing classic films and is expected to open in May, according to academy President Tom Sherak.

"It seems like the right thing for both Los Angeles and the academy," Sherak said. "Anyone can set up an outdoor theater but nobody can show what we can show — either from our archives or from our members. If it works and it's a safe place to go, that's a good thing for L.A."

The organization behind the Oscars purchased the 3.5-acre lot near the intersection of Vine Street and Fountain Avenue in 2005 for $50 million, with the intention of building a world-class movie museum on the property.

In October, however, the academy announced a partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on the project, and the movie museum is now set to be housed in the former May Co. department store on Wilshire Boulevard at Fairfax Avenue. The academy will lease the 1939 building from LACMA.

Rather then sell off the land in Hollywood, which sits next to the academy's Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study, the academy opted to open the family-friendly outdoor theater, Sherak said. The location once housed a Big Lots store, a post-production facility and a 1927 bow-truss building that belonged to the Golden Bridge Yoga studio.

The amphitheater will be constructed as a raised grassy area and is expected to seat approximately 300 people. It's expected to have a casual feel with audiences bringing their own blankets or chairs to the screenings. Adjacent to the theater will be a 10,000-square-foot patio designed for special events.

The existing structures will remain on the site. The former Big Lots building will be used for storage, while the two buildings used by the Post Group will be retrofitted to store the academy's artifacts that eventually may reside in the museum.

The property will be landscaped to improve its aesthetics.

"We will have two rows of palm trees called Palm Walk behind the amphitheater to give it a closed-in feel, and there will be lovely plantings all around the site," said museum project administrator Heather Cochran.

Demolition began this week and should be completed by February. The academy hasn't given a name to the venture or a price structure for admission to the films that will screen at the amphitheater, but Sherak doesn't expect the facility to be a big moneymaker for the institution.

"This is not a profit center," he said. "If it ran at a loss, I'd still want to do it. I'm not looking to make money on this one. I'm looking to be part of a big community."

Sherak wouldn't specify which movies would be screened, though he promised that they would be films "that have stood the test of time."

It remains unclear how much demand there is to see older films in a neighborhood that already houses the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, which has established a cottage industry over the last decade showing classic movies on its grounds during the summer months.

"We're not looking to compete with anybody," Sherak said. "This is about community. This is about the history and heritage of the academy."

Still, the project could prove temporary. Sherak said the academy wanted to keep the land in its possession in case it was unable to raise the roughly $200 million needed to open the museum at the May Co. site. If it fails to meet its fundraising goals, the academy could again consider the Hollywood property as a location for the museum.

Also, Sherak said the organization wanted to retain the property until its value returned to its 2005 level or higher. If the academy put the land on the market now, it would probably sell at a loss.

"We don't need to sell it," Sherak said. "We want it to conform with the neighborhood and we are fixing it up now."



Read More: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-academy-land-20111217,0,4110332.story

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NBCUniversal scraps plan to build housing on Universal back lot
Instead of developing apartments and condos on Universal Studios land, it now suggests adding more film and TV production facilities, enhancing the theme park and building an extra hotel.
By Roger Vincent, Los Angeles Times
6:10 PM PDT, July 16, 2012

NBCUniversal has dropped controversial plans to build thousands of residences on its famous back lot and hopes instead to add movie and television production facilities and expand the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park.

The new $1.6-billion proposal was unveiled Monday just before the release of the final environmental impact report on the company's proposal to improve the sprawling studio and tourist attraction in the San Fernando Valley.

An earlier plan, valued at $3 billion, called for nearly 3,000 apartments and condominiums at the east end of the studio's property; they would have been served by proposed shops and restaurants. Many neighbors were opposed to the housing, and this year Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky called on NBCUniversal to ditch the residential component of its "Evolution Plan."

Housing development would have made economic sense for the company, Universal Studios President Ron Meyer said a meeting with The Times on Monday. Yaroslavsky and Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge, however, "urged us to focus on our core business," Meyer said, "and they are right."

Yaroslavsky and LaBonge attended the meeting at Universal and voiced support for what they called the "no-residential alternative" while stopping short of endorsing the new plan, which still faces city and county approval processes.

Eliminating a portion of the back lot to build housing would reduce television and motion picture production at Universal — potentially costing jobs — because there would be less room for filming, Yaroslavsky said. He also expressed sympathy for neighbors in the hills above the studio.

"If you lived over the back lot, you wouldn't want Park La Brea Towers erected in your backyard either," Yaroslavsky said, referring to a massive apartment complex in the mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles.

LaBonge said he hoped Universal would continue to emphasize film and television production on the lot and the popular Universal Studios tour.

"This is an important tourist attraction," he said. "You see people outside smiling with anticipation."

Homeowner groups have been watching Universal's plans with interest over the years.

The president of the Hollywood Knolls Community Club, Daniel Savage, said dropping the housing component would be "a welcome change in terms of lessening the potential negative impacts on traffic and infrastructure such a housing complex would have, but also preserve to the greatest extent possible the historical Universal back lot and keeping it available for production, which is greatly needed in this city."

The new plan calls for adding 327,000 square feet of development to the theme park, which might include an expansion of the well-known tram tour and parking. The boundaries of the theme park would not grow.

The theme-park enhancements might seem to be a natural complement for the planned Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which NBCUniversal said in December would cost "several hundred million dollars" to create. The studio hopes to emulate the success of the attraction at Universal Studios Orlando in Florida.

But on Monday, NBCUniversal officials said they hadn't determined where they would place the "Harry Potter" attraction, which is expected to include a re-creation of the Hogwarts castle as well as Potter-themed rides, shops and restaurants.

A key revision of the proposal calls for construction of two 500-room hotels instead of one. The new plan also would bump up the amount of new production facilities and offices to 1.45 million square feet from 1.24 million square feet.

The revised plan calls for $100 million in transit and roadway improvements as originally proposed, said Thomas Smith, senior vice president in charge of real estate on the West Coast for NBCUniversal.

The budget would include a new ramp and other improvements on the 101 Freeway. About half the $100 million would be spent on improving traffic flow on nearby streets, intersections and freeways; the other half would be spent on transit programs, including shuttles, a Metro bus and employee and visitor incentives to forgo car trips.

The final EIR has deemed the no-residential alternative "environmentally superior," officials said, and NBCUniversal has asked the city and county to focus on that version of the plan for the upcoming approval process.

Comcast Corp., which owns a majority interest in NBCUniversal, supports the new plan, Meyer said. Public hearings on the final environmental impact report lie ahead. If the proposal is approved, construction will begin right away, he said.

The Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., a business trade group, said it supports NBCUniversal's latest proposal, which would create thousands of construction jobs.

"Not only will these new attractions, destination spots and recreational options boost the economy around the Universal City facility, but they will significantly stimulate our entire region's hospitality and tourism industry," the group said.



Read More: http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-nbc-universal-20120717,0,2938879.story

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Academy raises $100 million for movie museum project
By Nicole Sperling
October 18, 2012, 12:33 p.m.

The long-awaited movie museum in Hollywood moves another step closer to fruition with the announcement today by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that it has raised its first $100 million in its goal to generate $250 million toward the new institution.

The academy also announced its vision for the museum, slated to open in 2016, by architects Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali, which will include the complete restoration of the old May Co. building -- a 1938 Streamline Moderne structure -- located on Wilshire and Fairfax. It was purchased by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and its 300,000 square feet of space will house the academy museum.

The two architects announced that they intend to add a "spherical glass addition" to the back of the original building, which will house a state-of-the-art theater and will replace an extension made to the structure back in 1946.

"The design for the museum will finally enable this wonderful building to be animated and contribute to the city after sitting empty for so long," Piano said in a statement. "Our design will preserve the May Company building's historic public profile while simultaneously signaling that the building is taking on a new life that celebrates both the industry and art form that this city created and gave to the world."



Read More: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-academy-movie-museum-project-20121018,0,6827847.story

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IRIS from Cirque du Soleil - A Journey through the World of Cinema
http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/iris/default.aspx