WAY OT: Why Sydney, and not LA?

Michael,

No offense to our good friends down under, but why is the picture on the "home" page of the forums Sydney, Australia and NOT Los Angeles... home of the LAFCPUG? I like the visual concept of putting "LAFCPUG" around the world, but how about a little love for Los Angeles?

Don't get me wrong. It's a great picture, and when I visited Sydney, I actually took a picture in that exact spot. But when I asked where the LAFCPUG ferry was, they looked at me like I was from Kookaburra!

How about running a contest for a new picture? Just one rule. It's gotta be LA, and it's gotta have LFCPUG photoshopped in. First prize, 100 raffle tickets for the supermeet at NAB. (Must be present to win )

Mark

Just sitting back waiting for someone to make me a pict. We had the Hollywood sign but were forced to take that down cause it's a global icon and you must pay one zillion dollars to muck it up.

100 raffle tickets my butt. How about lunch with Mark Raudonis, he pays.

Contest is a good idea though. Think I'll do that. Next newsletter.

Michael Horton
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This Sydney icon is a bit costly to muck up, too:



$111,000 dollars, or so they say:
[www.smh.com.au]

A nice big LAFCPUG sign all over it could be nice, though.
I've had lunch with Mark Raudonis (in Sydney) and i can that that too is very nice,
but maybe not worth five yars in jail/gaol.


nick

Why not draw the "LAFCPUG" in place of the Hollywood sign... and put the your pony next to it?

"Why not draw the "LAFCPUG" in place of the Hollywood sign"

i think that's what it was.

i guess even the "idea" of a real estate sign can be copyrighted if you have enough$$$


nick

Yeah we did that lafcpug over the Hollywood sign. Got us in trouble. Had a lafcpug on the Hollywood walk of fame but dont know where that went.

Michael Horton
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Yep...that was my design. Still ticks me off we had to pull it...gives the forum a "lofty-bigger-than-life" presence:



Want more? You just have to ask... is the Walk Of Fame copyrighted?

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Wow...good job Joe.

Hmmm....what pic to take...


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Now that I think of it it would be cool to muck up global icons around the world. Spray paint lafcpug on all continents. Muck up the Opera House in Sydney, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Taj Mahal in India, some lone penguin in Antartica, Machu Picchu in South America, Statue of Liberty here. Just basically piss off everyone.

Michael Horton
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Is that sarcasm, Micheal or a challenge ??

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Walk of Fame is considered a global icon or something. There really arent icons in LA other than the Hollywood Sign and the Walk of Fame. The water tower at Warner Brothers is maybe one.




Then again, take the Warner bros logo off and all you got is a water tower.

Michael Horton
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Mike,

You're da boss so you pick a landmark anywhere in the world that you would REALLY LIKE to see composited (and is useable on the forum) and I will mock something up for you. I have tons of Royalty Free stock photography that might be of use. No use wasting time mocking up stuff that is copy protected.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Haha... I remember the Animaniacs popping out of a similar water tower! Else, it'd be funny to cut a quick flash intro with all nice montage sequence of all the global icon...

No flash on lafcpug. That's a rule frm day one. I hate it.

I'll try and find something Joe. Not much to choose from in LA except a billboard on Sunset Blvd.

That might be cool.

Michael Horton
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Try to pick a very recognizable billboard...one that SCREAMS "LA" (something associated only with LA is what I am going for). Maybe have someone take a nice hi-rez picture of it & email it to me.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

The pict must be of the LOTS of billboards on the Sunset Strip. Otherwise it will come off as nothing more than a billboard anywhere. "lafcpug" is then composited on one of the billboards.

Havent found a pict I like yet.

Michael Horton
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...you're the "LA" expert... I'll take care of the rest.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

How about one letter ("L", "A", "F"...? on each billboard, but overlapped so that the letters aren't far apart?


www.derekmok.com

I could create a billboard. I did this one in C4D and composited it into a photo I found online (the composite on the billboard is mine as well):

* EDIT *
Image removed

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

That would work. Now to find a good pict of Sunset to stick it in. The slide show on the front page moves pretty fast Derek. Not enough time for folks to "get" the "L", "A", "F"... spread I dont think. Cool idea though.

Michael Horton
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This pict is in public domain



Michael Horton
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How about the LA river?
isn't that the big concrete canal where people have car chases, etc?

Actually that is the Sepulveda Dam in the San Fernando Valley. Part of the concrete LA River. Most over used location in LA next to downtown. It is cool though.

[en.wikipedia.org]

Michael Horton
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Michael:

Not sure that I told you this but when I produced the Wizard of Oz three DVD set for Warner Bros. in 2005, for one of the docs, I paid a graphic artist to animate the Wicked Witch of the West, flying on her broom over a set of block letters that said "Hollywood". Not set on a hill, not the same font as the Hollywood sign, not realistic looking at all, very "graphics" looking. An original piece of artwork, made for hire that I paid about $8,000.00 for.

The wimp lawyers at Warner Bros. MADE me pay Global Icons, LLC $5,000.00 to use my own commissioned piece of artwork just because it was similar although it wasn't the real sign, a recreation of the sign or even the same look, layout or concept as the real sign. The fact that Global Icons can make the sharks at the studios pay up means that they will sue anyone and probably win. Stuff like this drives me crazy because it means basically that the lawyers have won. They have made it so that not only can you not appropriate someone's image for your own work (fair, I guess, to a point), they have made it so that the threat of them filing a cease and desist letter OR the threat of suing is enough to extort lots of money from anyone for doing almost anything. It's kind of sick when you think about it.

If you are doing your own thing with these logos, I would definitely have a lawyer look over ANYTHING that you use because anything having to do with LA/Hollywood/human beings is a huge risk of you being sued. It's ridiculous but that's the society we have let the lawyers create. The entire intellectual property issue basically threatens to strangle documentary film making as I have encountered in hundreds of different situations over the past few years. Even if you exist in an isolated monastery, anything you create from scratch is held up and compared to everyone else's "property" and if anything even has a slight whiff of being related to anything else, you stand a good chance of being threatened and or sued.

I have two television shows in development hell right now, and we are thrashing through all of these issues, several of which threaten he viability of networks ever being able to consider the shows/concepts. They are great, very entertaining concepts but the lawyers may end up telling us that we just cannot do them because of fear of lawsuits from other lawyers who want to take advantage of the situation.

Dan

Global Icons sent me a warning letter that said in effect they'd kick my butt from here to Indiana if I didn't take down the Hollywood Sign/lafcpug recreation. I wrote back and said it was my photograph and didn't I have the right to muck with it if I wanted too? Answer was take it down, or we will take legal action.

So no, I cant argue with you. Its ridiculous.

Michael Horton
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The few things I remember from LA - a very dark comedy club, a weird hotdog shop that was an actual big hot dog that you sat inside, the boulevarde, the bowl, the walk of fame, the chinese restaurant, a very large house in bright pink, a very nice kingsize bed and VHS right to your room!

It's the Walk of Fame star icon that can't be trifled with. Further to the Hollywood sign discussion, can the sign be shot & inserted into a show without recrimination? I asked this question of several attorneys throughout 2007 and they all gave me "maybe." The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce was lobbying at the time for restricted use. I see reality shows & actuality shows that use the sign all the time. I ask because we're doing a travel show pilot that shows the sign a few times.

Reid C

How about 100 raffle tickets for someone who sprays LAFCPUG on every major icon of the world for real, document it in HDV? I'm starting in Egypt.

------------------------
Dean

"When I see you floating down the gutter I'll give you a bottle of wine."
Captain Beefheart, Trout Mask Replica.

Dean,

We'll send you your raffle tickets in prison.

Mike,

I was feeling extraordinarily GOOD after the Giants beat the Patriots this evening, so here's submission #1 for the "contest":

* EDIT *
Image removed.

How many can we submit?

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

wait why is it illegal to take a picture of a hill and then do the lafcpug like the hollywood sign. It would seem to me that its the hill that its on that makes the biggest difference.

plus a hill is not man made therefor the copywrite is null unless it is privately owned.

Although i will say that i like the billboard idea.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"