Earthquake
31 messages in this thread
All of our Ca. friends,
I hope CNN is over reacting and all of you are well. According to them you
all are well out to sea by now. Keep your heads down or up or whatever you do
when ground actually moves. Real
Real – Unfortuneately, I think the earthquake is pretty serious. I
live in the San Diego area. I felt it pretty strong but everything
here seems to be O.K. There does seem to be quite a bit of damage in
L.A. however. Hope all is well for those there.
To all those who sent messages of goodwill and concern after the
earthquake: Thanks! It is all appreciated! We personally are OK,
our home and office even has power as we speak. Much of Los Angeles
has no power, and gas and water lines have been ruptured. Many phone
lines are down, and those that are left are seriously overloaded.
Cal Tech says it is a 6.6 shaker, third largest this century. Woke me
up at 4:30am. Freeway overpasses fell down, a couple of buildings
collapsed, about 16 people died. A train derailed about 30 cars.
Glad to hear you're doing well, must have been a monster of a shaker.
Sounds pretty intense on the news. Just really glad you and family
are O.K. What a way to start a new week! Ahh… California, gotta
love it!
They said that one more is probably coming up. Hope that they are
wrong. We have had minor 4.0 ritcher in south spain this X-mas, but
they were fast, no one minute shakings there. Glad to hear that all
of you seem to be ok! 🙂
We had an earthquake in central New Jersey, it was only 4.2 on the
richier scale. But because it isn't sun California, people don't
care…. From the arm pit of America
The richter scale is logrithmic..
5.0 is 10x more powerful then 4.0
6.0 is 100x more powerful then 4.0
7.0 is 1000x more powerful then 4.0
6.6 compaired to 4.2 is a huge difference.
The 6.6 quake I think ranks it about the 5th most powerful in the
states this century.
Earthquake IPAS…
Glad to hear you're okay. Dana called from Santa Clara. When she said
she had no trouble getting to work I figured you were probably well
outside the damaged area down in Newport.
David
Yes, our are back to normal, although we had a client call us this
morning from out-of-state and tell us he sent a project elsewhere
because the phone lines were down and he couldn't talk to us
yesterday! Talk about adding insult to injury!
Greg (anyone forget to put 'Act of God' in their contracts?) Pyros
Current death count is at 34- in san perdo(south bay region) Lost
power for about 4 hrs otherwise all is well ( islept through it)
Mike:
You must be quite a sleeper, we were up immediately (but the dogs helped!) here
in Newport Beach.
Glad you're OK!
Greg Pyros
I'm in Burbank, right in the middle of the San Fernando valley, and all
I can say is WOW! I've just finished cleaning up the mess, no serious damage,
but everything that was on a shelf higher than 12 inches ended up on the floor,
and I lost about a third of the water in a 20 gal aquarium. I was actually up
working on the computer when it hit, so when the power came back on this
afternoon, I was relieved to find that my hard drives were not damaged. It had
been about a week and a half since my last backup, a good lesson to do it more
often!
Around burbank, power is still out in spots, and the damage seems to
be limited to broken windows and fallen items in stores and such. I'm glad it
happened early like it did, because if it happened later in the day, with the
freeway collapses and downed parking garages and department stores, the death
toll and injuries would be much higher. So if it had to happen, I guess it
chose a good time. An aftershock just hit a few seconds ago. they're happening
every 10-30 minutes, but most are pretty mild.
Thanks to everybody for thier well wishes. Bye for now.
David
David – Sounds like you keep the kind of crazy hours I do. I didn't
realise you were out in the Burbank area, jeez. Its really nerve
racking, isn't it. Sounds like you survived very well all things
considered. Really lucky you didn't get a power spike or something on
the hard drive and didn't loose any work. I think people realised it
was bad, but it really didn't register how bad until the after
shocks. Thing is you can't always see the structural damage. I have a
friend who lives in the Marina district in S.F. He went outside after
the big one to see what was going on, and watched the apartment
collapse after an after shock. Pretty wild! He said he was watching
his fish tank hopping around and couldn't do a thing about it.
Anyway glad to hear all is well, and hope things calm down for you
guys soon!
>> Thing is you can't always see the structural damage. I have a friend who
lives in the Marina district in S.F. He went outside after the big one to see
what was going on, and watched the apartment collapse after an after shock.
Ouch! At least I live in a single story wooden structure, and the
aftershocks in this area have been pretty weak. I just noticed a little while
ago that our nieghbors chimney looks as though it will collapse if I so much as
blow on it! The scary part is that the power went out during the quake, so I
had to feel my way around and dig out a flashlight before doing anything, as
the house was pitch black. I'm glad I knew exactly where it was!
Anyway, things are back to normal, at least for me. Thanks.
David
Hi Dave. Glad you made it through the earthquake alright. I've been watching
the news and it sounds like LA will be in for some serious traffic problems for
a while. Like it wasn't bad enough to begin with.
When the 7.1 hit San Francisco a few years back I was sitting on top
of a ladder during a take while I was working on the production of a
T.V. series. Strangely enough, nothing bad happened, and I didn't
know the earthquake was really serious untill I started hearing about
it on car radios in the studio parking lot.
I hope LA recovers as easily as we did, and hope you didn't lose
anything of real value,
John,
Yeah, traffic is going to be a mess for many months in certain
areas. I noticed you said you had been working on a TV production.
Out of curiosity, what did you do? I ask because I work in the film
industry myself. If I didn't, I would have moved out of LA a long
time ago!
David
I have worked in many areas during my "tenure" as an IATSE member. I mainly
gripped and gaffed, but also worked as a special effects sculptor pupeteer, and
wrote and sold a couple of screenplays (not produced). After a drunk driver
hit me and dislocated my shoulder I decided to check out a different carreer
with shorter working days. Animation is fun, but the days aren't _always_
shorter<g>.
What do you do, down there in tinsel town?
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
I've been working as a make-up effects artist / puppeteer
pretty much non-stop for the past 6 years or so. The money is good
and it can be quite fun, but the hours can be a bit nuts at times and
I needed a break from the chemicals that go along with making the
stuff. In november I finally decided to take some time off and
concentrate on the computer for a while. I'm working on various
personal projects that will go into a demo reel, and then I'll shop
around to see if I can dig up some computer work (hopefully soon). I'm
just glad I have the luxury of taking time off to play with the
computer, not many people do.
I'm sorry to hear about your accident, but I'm sure your
having more fun …. There goes another aftershock, god I hate those
things. Anyway I'm sure your having more fun now than you were while
working as a gaffer or grip. (You are, aren't you?)
Hey David, PMJI, but seeing that you were/are a puppeteer up there in
the Hollyweird area, does the name Rico Topazio sound familiar at
all? He was a bass-playing friend back east many years ago who went
to LA to seek his fortune and ended up doing the (Kroft) bass-player
puppet on the old Barbara Mandrel show. Later he went into movies and
I think the last I heard of him was his involvement in the "Short
Circuit" series of features. Ring any bells? Thanks,
Alan,
Believe it or not, I actually have worked with Rico on a couple of
occations. He filled in for an unavailable Crypt Keeper puppeteer for a few
'Tales from the crypt' episodes a while back. I think I ran into him a few
months ago, but I haven't seen him since.
Small world, eh?
David
Ha!
I just had this feeling that you might had of heard of him, if only because I
was hoping that the LA puppeteer community was as tight-knit as other
entertainment-oriented/specialty groups I knew of were. Totally cool. I don't
think I've spoken to him since maybe 1979. If you see him, could you please run
my name by him and see if he possibly remembers me?
Thanks, David.
-Alan
Sure will.
David
What do you all think about working on computers, and pictures, compared to
hands on things, like real lights, making props, etc? Ever get stir crazy? At
times, I can't stand sitting around all the time, pushing buttons and such. I
can't wait for VR modeling.
JNJ
John,
Working in the virtual vs. the physical world? I'm not really sure.
They're two totally different things, and each has their own advantages and
drawbacks. As far as modelling goes, I would much rather sculpt them in clay
and digitize the sculpture (when doing animal models and such), it would be
faster for me and I would get exactly what I need with minimal cleanup. I've
spent hours moving verts around to get just the right look, when the same thing
on a sculpture would take five minutes, and that does get a bit frustrating. Of
course, a 3d digitizer is a little out of my budget right now, so I'll stick
with what I've got. I'm really very happy with the models I'm working on now,
they're much better than I thought I'd be able to do with 3ds alone. I have to
admit I'm a perfectionist and I'm pushing myself to make the stuff look
realistic as opposed to making 'computer characters'. It does take quite a bit
of tweaking to get it right and I do go a little stir crazy pushing verts
around in a large model. Making inanimate objects on the other hand is fairly
easy on the computer, and goes faster than trying to do it for real.
I'm taking a break now and am having alot of fun working on personal
animation projects, but after a while, I'm sure I'll be dying to get my hands
on something solid again!
>>I can't wait for VR modeling.
The one thing I look forward to more is when it actually becomes
affordable!
David
Most of the time I'm having more fun, although lighting is really fun for me,
more so in physical reality than 3DS. Untill 3DS can hook into real-time phong
lighting hardware it will be tedious to have to wait for rendering to see the
results of minor light tweeking.
The main reason I got into the film biz besides loving movies and lights was
the freedom of being free-lance. When I joined the IATSE in San Francisco that
went right out the window. The local here is one of the "Seven Golden Cities",
with the highest hourly rates, benefits etc…, plus it's a hiring hall that
sends you out for work. I never had to hustle for work, but I could also never
take a vacation out of town, or time off. If I didn't answer the pager when
they called me, and make myself available at the drop of a hat, they would just
skip over me on the next "big one", or send me on a few midnight Opera jobs
(yech!!!).
Now I've got the complete illusion of freedom working for myself <g>, and only
work 12 hours a day instead of 14-16 <GG>.
cheers,
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
John:
Reminds me of a poster:
When you have your own business, you only have to work half days.
(And you even get to decide which 12 hours!)
Greg Pyros
LOL! Very appropriate. Where did you see this poster? I'd love to get my
hands on one for my front door <g>.
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
Greg:
Please send a copy of that poster to Genny. I've been telling her that for
years. And now she's starting her own business!
David
John,
Working freelance is nice, but the thought of working when you want
doesn't seem to work out that way. Ideally I want to work for a couple of
months and then take a couple weeks off of before working again, but right
before you finish a job you get a call, and either it's a cool show that you
don't want to turn down, or you start thinking "Gee, if I turn this one down
they won't call me again" or " if I don't take this one, it could be months
before I get something else" and then you notice its 2am, your still at work,
and its been ages since you had a vacation! (and you still take the job!)
I guess it could be worse, I know make-up fx people who would go 6
months without work, because shops have been having a hard time these past
couple of years getting shows (due partly to the fact of the 'computer special
effects revolution' that's taking Hollywood by storm. Everyone I know is
worried that they will be out of work in two years because everything will be
done on computers. Thats not going to happen to me… he he he!)
Well, best of luck in your ventures.
David
Yeah, freelance work just means you gotta take it when it's offered.
But working for myself, at home or in my office, is different. If I
want to work from 8am to 5pm that's fine, or if I want to go climbing
for a couple of hours in the afternoon and work till 11pm that's
fine, too. I just can't stand working on other people's schedules
all the time. I don't mind it for periods of time, I have to do that
when dealing closely with a client, or against a hard deadline, but
at least there's an end in sight, and if I really want to I can make
a decision to change my work schedule for a day or a week or
whatever.
P.S: I don't think digital will completely replace physical F/X,
because there'll always be the need for that "retro" <ggg> look.