Hollywood Center Studios is pleased to announce that we now have wireless Internet available on all eleven stages, including our three cyc stages.  HCS decided to add wireless coverage in addition to the existing hardwired Ethernet connections because, in the words of Dennis Taylor, Network Operations Manager for Hollywood Center, "Today, Wireless Internet Service is a necessity, especially in the fast-paced environment of a production stage.  We have taken the utmost care in planning and deploying our Wireless Internet Service, working with our customers to achieve the most reliable service possible."

As a sales representative for the Creative Handbook, Alex Moreno has been visiting productions on Hollywood Center Studio's lot for over 18 years.  Moreno hand-delivers his books because, "It's a personal touch.  We're on set, on location, shaking hands and building relationships with people.  The producers we deliver the book to often ask us our opinions on different vendors, and we're happy to sit and have a conversation with them.  We're not trying to sell anything; we're just providing information.  The vendors represented in Creative Handbook are tried and true companies that know how to serve their customers.  It's all about creating a partnership between producers and the vendors that serve them."

Moreno enjoys visiting Hollywood Center Studios in particular.  "I've been coming there over the years and I've seen how they've built their team," he says.  "Their staff is always walking around the lot and making themselves readily available to their clients.  That's pretty unique in this business these days.  Even some of the independent studios don't offer that personalized level of service anymore; but at Hollywood Center, everyone from the Stage Managers to the parking crew is well-organized and customer-service oriented."

Creative Handbooks have over eight hundred pages of information on the Industry's top companies and sources worldwide--everything from location scouting to screening rooms.  Aside from the fact that it is a practical resource, Hollywood Center chooses to place an ad in the Creative Handbook every year because, according to Communications Manager Kate Hallahan, "It's a Hollywood staple.  They've been around for nearly two decades, and they know this business.  And it's great to see friendly faces like Alex's around the lot.  The personal touch he provides by hand-delivering his books really complements the 'Old Hollywood' atmosphere on our lot."

 

Doughboys, a 3rd Street staple since 1992, recently opened the doors to a second location at 1156 N. Highland Ave., just three blocks from Hollywood Center Studios.  Not only are they within walking distance, but Doughboys will also cater your wrap party in one of HCS' event spaces, or can deliver a meal during your next shoot.  And with the full breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus all served from 7am until midnight, they can meet the culinary needs of everyone on your shoot.

When asked why Doughboys chose Highland Avenue for its latest venture, General Manager Romain Lescaon said, "There's a demand for it here.  This area is up-and-coming.  It has cleaned up in the last few years and is becoming very trendy."

Everything on Doughboys' menu, from the bread to the salad dressings, is made fresh on the premises.  Their food offerings run the gamut from healthful to decadent, and include griddle items, egg dishes, sandwiches, salads, soups, pizzas, and delicious baked goods.  Some of their most popular items are the Blueberry Flaxseed Griddle Cakes, the Toad-in-the-Hole, the Roasted Basil Chicken Salad, and the French Onion Soup.  And their most popular item?  According to Lescaon, it's the Red Velvet Cake.  "After Oprah's taste test, where we won top Red Velvet Cake in the country, we got three times as many orders for those cakes," he says.

Taking advantage of the convenient location for a recent lunch meeting, Richard Schnyder, Vice President of Commercial and Film Production at Hollywood Center Studios, ordered the Smoked Turkey Sandwich with gorgonzola cheese, shredded spinach, sliced tomato, and honey mustard on a French baguette.  "The sandwich was tasty, and they have a lot of variety on the menu," he commented. 

So on your next shoot at Hollywood Center, be sure to check out this latest addition to our all-star roster of Hollywood-area restaurants.

 

 

In 1919, designer John Jasper built three production stages on 15 acres of undeveloped land in Hollywood.  The height of modernity at the time, the new Hollywood Studios Inc. was described by Moving Picture World magazine as a "studio that will contain four stages, each with a space of 70x120 feet…to be built of steel and glass.  Each stage will be able to be darkened at any time, without any trouble involved.  Attached to each stage will be offices, dressing rooms, and other facilities."  Thus, what would eventually become Hollywood Center Studios was born.

At the time that Jasper built his three production stages (the fourth
was never completed) the movie-making craze was just beginning to hit
Hollywood, but the invention of motion pictures had been in
development for nearly sixty years.  Artists and inventors in both
France and the United States were highly influential in the early days
of film.

As early as the 1860s, machines were created to produce
two-dimensional drawings in motion.  Mechanisms such as the zoetrope
and the praxinoscope were designed to display sequences of still
pictures at sufficient speed for the images on the pictures to appear
to be moving.  These inventions were the predecessors for modern film
animation.

When nitrate celluloid film was invented in the mid-1880s to capture
still photography, it became possible to capture and store individual
component images on a single film reel, which allowed objects in
motion to be captured in real time.  Early versions of the motion
picture camera, including the first Kinetoscope developed by Thomas
Edison in Orange, New Jersey, required the individual viewer to look
through a contraption resembling a pair of binoculars that look
downward into a box.

These inventions led quickly to the development of motion picture
projectors, which were designed to shine light through the processed
and printed film and magnify these "moving picture shows" onto a
screen for an entire audience.  This phenomenon came to be known as
"motion pictures." Early motion pictures were composed of a series of
rapidly sequenced static shots depicting an event or action with no
editing or other cinematic techniques. With a few exceptions, these
first films were documentaries depicting every-day life – also known
as actualités.

The first motion picture to be shown in front of a paying audience,
thus ushering in the era of commercial film, was a filmed boxing
match.  Lasting just eight minutes, it was entitled Young Griffo vs.
Battling Charles Barnett.  It was filmed on the roof of Madison Square
Garden, and premiered at 153 Broadway in New York City on May 20,
1895.

The first commercial film to actually be projected on to a screen was premiered on December 28, 1895, by Louis Lumiere and his brother, Auguste. Convinced that motion picture film had mass-appeal and should be viewed by large audiences, the Lumiere brothers had created what they called a Cinematographe machine, which was a combination camera and projector that could project an image up on large surfaces, thus enabling the film to be shown to a large audience.  Using their photographic supplies factory as a motion picture laboratory, the two brothers had painstakingly created a 17-and-a-half-minute film entitled La Sortie des Usines Lumiere (Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory).  They showed it for the first time to a paying audience at a Paris café called Salon Indien.

In 1896, using a projecting kinetoscope, Thomas Edison showed the
first publicly-projected motion picture on a screen in the United
Stages at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City.  That same
year, Edison created a 20-second short entitled The Kiss, depicting
May Irwin and John Rice in a lingering smooch.  Although it was the
most popular film produced by Edison's Black Maria film company that
year, it also became notorious as the first film to be criticized as
scandalous and to bring demands for censorship.

In 1898, the idea of censorship was put into practice when curious
camera operators traveled to Cuba in an attempt to capture footage of
the Spanish-American War but were turned away by the U.S. Army.
Unable to capture real-time battles on film, many of them went into
studios to create battle scenes using models and painted backdrops,
thus ushering in the start of scale-model effects for motion pictures.
Taking the idea of created effects a step further, in 1899, French
magician Georges Melies produced a film called Cendrillon
(Cinderella).  This was the first film to use artificially arranged
scenes to construct and tell a narrative story.  Melies went on to
write, design, direct, and act in hundreds of his own fairy tale and
science fiction films.  He also developed techniques such as
stop-motion photography, double-exposures, multiple-exposures, and
fades.

Up until this point, motion pictures had been largely considered as
either a visual art form or a curiosity – a popular fad that would not
stand the test of time.  By the turn of the century, however, as more
and more public demonstrations and paid showings took place, public
imagination was captured by the possibilities of this innovative form
of entertainment.  It was at this time that films began developing a
narrative structure by juxtaposing scenes together to tell a story.
Editing was born when the scenes were broken up into multiple shots of
varying sizes and angles.  Other techniques such as camera movement
were discovered and proved to be more effective ways to capture
audience imagination and portray a story on film.

These critical steps in early film history laid the groundwork for motion pictures to became a household sensation in early 20th Century America.  Stay tuned for the next issue of Hollywood Center Studios' newsletter to read more about the rise of the small farming community outside of Los Angeles known as Hollywood.

Mister Ed Adds to the Legend of Hollywood Center Studios

The sixties were indisputably the Golden Age of the television sit com and many of the era’s most popular shows were shot at Hollywood Center Studios. Green Acres, Petticoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies were among the many comedy series produced on the lot.

Another was Mister Ed, which ran on CBS for five years beginning in 1961. Perhaps because it starred an animal, Mister Ed may be the subject of more urban legends than any show of its time. One such story insists that Mister Ed was actually played by a zebra. In fact, the show’s star was a palomino gelding named Bamboo Harvester. The story may have its roots in an episode where Ed impersonates a zebra while visiting a zoo.

In 1986, a preacher from Ohio claimed that the familiar Mister Ed theme song, when played backwards, delivered a satanic message. There followed a mass burning of Mister Ed records. Jay Livingston  who wrote and performed the song was untroubled by the rumor, noting that he received the same royalty payment whether the song was played forward or reverse.

But by far the most speculation centered on how the producers got the horse to talk. Alan Young, who played Wilbur Post, Ed’s owner, on the series, is said to be the source of the most popular theory, that a wad of peanut butter was inserted between the horse’s cheek and gum. Others, however, insist that a nylon bit was used to get Ed to move his head and lips in the manner of a marionette. Fans have scrutinized videos of the show for evidence of these mysterious strings. A third theory, attributed to none other than George Burns (who produced the show’s pilot) has it that small electric shocks were used to stimulate the horse to move its lips.

According to Young, the problem was not getting Mister Ed to talk; it was getting him to stop. The talented Bamboo Harvester, which purportedly was able to open doors, untie knots, wave a flag and even answer the phone, got the idea that humans liked seeing him move his lips. The obliging animal began performing the action whenever the cameras rolled. His trainer eventually developed a technique using a riding crop to signal the horse to keep his lips sealed.

The show was shot on Stage Six at Hollywood Center Studios, at the time known as Hollywood General Services Studios.  A stable area was provided the star of the show behind the stage and right next to a small dressing room building that lacked air-conditioning.  One can only imagine the conditions on the many hot, breezeless days during the production season.

The adjacent Stage Five was often used to position a rear screen projector, which shot through an opening between the two stages to provide a background process shot for the long-running series.  There also appears to have been a plumbed collection system for the “convenience” of Bamboo Harvester built under the stage floor at strategic points.  Many of these archeological finds were discovered during recent renovations of the stages.  

HCS Adds New Dressing Room Complex

Renovations at Hollywood Center Studios are ongoing virtually all the time. Most recently, the studio completed construction of a new 5500 square foot dressing room and production support complex. The new facility includes 10 fully appointed star dressing rooms and was built to accommodate the increasing television production activity on the lot.

The dressing room complex will primarily serve Stages 4 and 7. With the new addition, Hollywood Center now has 55 star dressing rooms serving its 11 stages. The new complex also includes a wardrobe facility, hair and make-up, a green room, a conference room, and several school rooms.  The dressing rooms are designed to provide star players comfortable privacy and to allow them to stay in touch with the set and the outside world. Their many amenities include high speed Internet connection and flat screen television monitors with access to the studio’s cable channel system.

The dressing room complex is also equipped with a number of features designed to reduce energy consumption including high-output, low-wattage natural-light fluorescent lighting throughout and individually controlled, low energy air conditioning units in each dressing room.  Hot water is derived from a tank-less system that use natural gas and yield a 50-percent energy use reduction over traditional water heaters.

41 Sets’ Path to Success Begins at Hollywood Center Studios

Doug Jeffery doesn’t just work behind the scenes in Hollywood. He builds the scenes. Jeffery is the founder of 41 Sets, a company that constructs sets, and just about anything else Hollywood might need.

Jeffery launched his company four years ago. He was on hiatus from The Man Show when he got the opportunity to build a set for another series. Sensing a business opportunity, he set up shop in a small space at Hollywood Center Studios and was soon off and running. Today, Jeffery’s company occupies nearly 5000 square feet of Building 41. He employs a full-time crew and has recently built sets for such shows as Bravo’s Shear Genius, CBS’s Cold Case and Comedy Central’s Mind of Mencia.

“I was in a situation where I needed to get set up quickly and Hollywood Center Studios was kind enough to create a space for me,” recalls Jeffery. “I started out in one little bay and now I have half the building. Each year, we’ve been busier and busier and this year it’s been literally non-stop.”

Normally, Jeffery’s work occurs well outside the limelight, but recently his company has found its way into a couple of on-camera roles. 41 Sets was contracted by the Discovery series Where Did It Come From? to build replicas of several ancient pieces of technology including Archimedes’ legendary screw and an early odometer invented by Leonardo da Vinci. The series’ production crew shot demonstrations of the archaic tools inside Jeffery’s workshop. Jeffery himself was on the series as a regular guiding the show’s host into the mechanics of rebuilding the ancient technology.

Similarly, Jeffery’s workshop was used as a “set” for a recent episode of the CW series Beauty and the Geek . “The female contestants were tasked with building dog houses and that was done in my shop,” Jeffery notes. “Then, I got to judge the outcome.”  The “beauties” on the show judged Jeffery and noted on national television that he is “cute.”

Although his work takes him all over Southern California (and occasionally beyond), Jeffery said that having his home base on the lot has been crucial to his success. “It’s very difficult to launch a start up company in California, but being located on a major lot has been a big help,” he says. “If it wasn’t for Hollywood Center Studios, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Crossroads Shoots Promos for Bravo’s New Reality Competition Series at Hollywood Center Studios.

Crossroads Television recently spent three days at Hollywood Center Studios and turned Stage 7 into a trendy hair salon. The occasion was a promotional campaign for Bravo’s new reality competition series Shear Genius, which seeks to crown America’s next great hair stylist. Crossroads creative director Glenn Lazzaro helmed the shoot, recording short, lively interviews with the show’s contestants on a stylized, all-white salon set.

The key to the success of any reality show is getting viewers to identify with the contestants. That should be no problem for Sheer Genius. “The contestants are a very interesting bunch; they were made for the drama of a hair salon,” explains Lazzaro. “A lot of them are very flamboyant and that makes for interesting watching.”

Lazzaro, whose credits include work for ABC, ESPN, Lifetime and the Disney Channel among many others, has a genius for being able to capture the personality of his subjects in just a few frames of film. The trick, he says, is to get them to feel comfortable enough in front of the camera to really open up.

“Part of it is treating them like stars,” says Crossroads Television executive producer Dean Winkler. “We get the best cinematographers, the best hair and make up people, the best lighting and the best wardrobe…and bringing them onto a lot like Hollywood Center Studios also helps.”

“When you mount a large production on someone’s behalf, it makes them feel important, cared about and special,” adds Lazzaro. “And that’s when the magic happens.”

Logistics are also important. Lazzaro, who has created promotional campaigns for many reality series including the Bravo hits Project Runway and Top Design, notes that when the contestants arrive for the promo shoot, they have often just met, but are already extremely sensitive to one another’s opinions.

“We don’t want the whole cast on the set when we’re shooting the interviews,” Winkler notes. “Hollywood Center makes that very easy, because the green room is just down the hall from the stage and it’s very comfy. It’s close but removed enough to create privacy on the set.”

Hosted by Jaclyn Smith, Shear Genius premieres on Bravo this spring.

Francis Ford Coppola’s “One From the Heart”

Over the past 90 years hundreds of films have been made, all or in part, at Hollywood Center Studios. They’ve come in all types and descriptions. Some have been blockbusters. A few have not fared so well. But none, it’s safe to say, has been quite like One From the Heart!

Francis Ford Coppola made the movie musical in 1982 following his spectacular success with the first two Godfather movies and Apocalypse Now. He was the hottest commodity in Hollywood and One From the Heart was his labor of love.

The story involves a star-crossed couple, played by Frederic Forrest and Teri Garr, who split up and get back together over a Fourth of July weekend in Las Vegas. It’s a fairly conventional tale, but there is nothing conventional about Coppola’s theatrical delivery and dazzling visuals. His Las Vegas is even more fantastic, magical and dreamlike than the real thing, bathed in gorgeous neon lighting and set beneath a night sky of otherworldly colors. The film also features a wonderful bluesy score by Tom Waits, and performed by Waits and Crystal Gayle.

Coppola shot the film entirely at what is now Hollywood Center Studios. The director owned the lot at the time, which he ran as Zoetrope Studios. He built several large sets including a breathtaking recreation of the better part of the Las Vegas Strip. He also constructed a set representing a portion of McCarran Airport—something that hadn't been done on the lot since the twenties. The director incorporated a number of technical innovations into the production. Most notable was his use of video gear and a computerized mixing board to “preproduce” the film. The idea was to speed the actual production and streamline post. Although it didn’t quite work out as Coppola hoped, the concept was similar to the previsualization techniques used in some films today.

Coppola got into a battle with Paramount over distribution of the film. The studio eventually pulled out and the director decided to release it himself. There was a preview screening at Radio City Music Hall in New York followed by a limited release in a few cities in the U.S. and Canada. Critics mostly ravaged the film and after just two weeks, Coppola removed it from theaters. With box office revenue at only about $2 million, the film was a financial disaster for the director. He later sold the studio.

In the years since, critics have been kinder to One From the Heart. Following its release on DVD in 2003 (and another limited theatrical run), many hailed it as a visionary work, artistically and technically ahead of its time. Love it or hate it, the film Coppola called his “unique vision of love” remains a colorful chapter in the rich history of Hollywood Center Studios. 

Oxygen Makes Itself at Home at Hollywood Center StudiosFor women across the United States, Oxygen’s pink “oh!” logo has come to represent the edgiest, most innovative entertainment on television. Launched in 1999, the cable channel currently reaches some 70 million households and delivers more original series and specials than any other women’s network.

Oxygen is headquartered in New York and has satellite offices in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles, the latter on the lot at Hollywood Center Studios. The Hollywood staff carries out most of the channel’s development activities and oversees production, as most of its original series are produced nearby. Oxygen has shot many shows on the lot, including Mo’Nique’s F.A.T. Chance, its groundbreaking beauty competition for women with “something extra.” Most recently, Oxygen used one of Hollywood Center’s stages to shoot Tease, a hair competition series, hosted by Lisa Rinna, premiering in January.

Oxygen set up shop at Hollywood Center in 2002 but within three years, the bustling operation found itself needing a little more elbow room. A quarter million dollar renovation solved the problem and provided it with beautiful new digs reflective of its energy, spirit and stature as the leader in television for women.

“We love it,” says Robin Couto, director of West Coast finance and operations. “We had to put up with some banging during renovation, but it was worth it. It’s made a huge difference to our operations.”

Award-winning Los Angeles architect George Yu designed the renovation under the guidance of Oxygen CEO and co-founder Geraldine Laybourne. Hollywood Center assisted with logistics and infrastructure improvements. “They were very helpful through the transition,” recalls Couto. “Whenever we needed something, they came right away. Prior to the renovation, we thought we might have to move because we were growing so fast, but everyone wanted to stay because we like it here so much.”