» On 6/15/2025 05:30:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Please, No Photographs. 

[This is the last of five essays (https://snzltr.blogspot.com/search/label/zoe) intended as a sort of love letter to Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope.com Virtual Studio, which is closing tonight, after a glorious 25-year run. Thanks, Francis - you improved a whole lotta lives!]

In 2006, someone on the Zoetrope boards posted the link to a Variety article, announcing a new TV pilot by Kevin Williamson (Dawson's Creek, Scream 1-4, The Vampire Diaries). Shooting was set to take place in the city where I was working as the Online Editor for Palm Springs Life magazine. After doing some digging, I realized I could audition for an under-three-line acting gig. The experience would be good fodder for PSL's online magazine "The Life," so I went for it.

Gail O'Grady (NYPD Blue's Donna Abandando) was one of the stars of Hidden Palms, and she had an ice-tea-sipping interlude with two other women on a country-club patio. Look for me and my blue polo shirt - it plays a crucial backup rôle in that scene.

Side note: The director moved me around many times, probably looking for the precisely-right combination of Gail's lovely blonde hair and the blue of my shirt: "Hey, you in the blue polo, move right a bit." After a couple of orders like that, the AD came over and asked for my name. For the rest of the scene (45 minutes of on-and-off filming), it was: "Hey Alan, move right a bit." By the end of the scene, you'll notice that I was on the other side of Gail's head. The director treated me well, for a lowly day player. I was the envy of all the other extras. 😉

Video: http://9TimeZones.com/cz.htm


Celebrating A Volcanic Eruption Of Creativity

Labels: zoe

 
» On 6/14/2025 06:30:00 AM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
The Inside Pitch. 

In the summer of 2005, a program description appeared on the Zoetrope.com boards. It was billed as a TV taping of two ICM execs, listening to screenwriter pitches and giving them feedback. I really suck at pitching, but I thought maybe I could learn something, so Anikó and I went to the event, down in Culver City. The execs were very entertaining, and everybody was having lots of fun, so after watching several other writers stumble through their pitches, I worked up the courage to give it a shot. My presentation was as crappy as I expected, but they were nice enough to include a short clip of my stumbling in the DVD credits.

Here's the DVD description: "This Emmy nominated, award winning program is a fast paced, engaging way to learn the art and business of selling a script in Hollywood. An American Idol for screenwriters, this program appeals to anyone interested in the behind the scenes workings of the movie business. The program features ICM executives, Christopher Lockhart and Jack d’Annibale fielding aspiring screenwriter's pitches and giving their honest, sometimes harsh, but often hilarious critiques."

Labels: zoe

 
» On 6/13/2025 01:00:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Books 'R' Us. 

In early 2004, a Zoetrope.com member posted a link to a "Librarian For A Day" writing contest on the discussion board. Anikó promptly submitted her essay, a touching paean to libraries in general, and to Glendale's in particular. During July 2004, we moved two hours east, out into the Palm Springs area. Near the end of October 2004, when Woman's Day magazine notified Anikó that her essay had been chosen from 500 submissions to receive one of their two Grand Prizes, they assumed her day as a librarian would be spent at our new local library.

But when my headstrong wife insisted on relocating the event back to our former library—-the place which had inspired her winning essay—-rejoicing broke out in Glendale (pop. 205,300). GPL generously offered to put us up in a fancy Glendale hotel, so we wouldn't have to make the four-hour roundtrip drive in one day. They treated Anikó like a queen, and even lassoed a City Councilman into presenting a Mayor's Commendation plaque.

It was an eye-opening day, full of positive energy that kept sparking more and more good vibes. One small example: the library's collection of Magyar books (which had recently eased Anikó's transition into American culture) had been painstakingly assembled years ago by an employee who hailed from Budapest... and Kati was now able to hear firsthand about the extraordinary impression her efforts had made on a fellow Hungarian.

According to WD's photojournalism crew, their magazine has over 20 million readers. Anikó's two-page layout appeared in their March 8, 2005 issue.

PS: Anikó just told me that she remembers the makeup artist WD hired for her: "The first and only time in my life that I didn't have to do my own face! They even gave me fake eyelashes - Woo-Hoo!!"

More details: http://9TimeZones.com/a/wd.htm

Labels: zoe

 
» On 6/12/2025 04:00:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
The Hungarian Connection(s). 

(I) Some of you will remember that back in the Second Millennium, the Internet was a curiosity. Lots of journalists were writing about this new medium, and magazines were springing up, specializing in tidbits from The World Wide Web. One such magazine, based in Hungary, was called Internet Kalauz ("Guide"), and Andrea Wesselenyi was one of its top freelance writers. In 1998, Andrea was a member of Francis Ford Coppola's first writing workshop (workshop.lather.com), along with my wife-to-be and me. Anikó and I had not yet met in real life, but we had just finished writing a screenplay+book, and we were searching for ways to promote them. Andrea noticed our postings on the workshop's discussion board, and cleverly saw the possibility for an article about this online collaboration and love story. She exchanged a flurry of eMails with Anikó, and the resulting interview finally appeared in the 12/1999 issue of Internet Kalauz.

(II) During the summer of 2002, my new wife received an eMail from the production staff at Frei Dosszié (Dossier). They had seen her interview in Hungary's leading cyber-issues magazine, and wanted to tape a segment about us for an upcoming broadcast on "Sex & Love." To them, our transatlantic courtship sounded exotic.

I had never heard of Tamás Frei, the host, but Anikó was well-acquainted with his work. He began his career as a traveling reporter, visiting more than 100 countries, and later became Hungary's foremost war correspondent. Frei Dosszié is produced for one of the two commercial TV networks in Hungary, and the program's top episodes have aired in more than 25 countries. Tamás is a two-time Hungarian Pulitzer Prize winner and is one of Hungary's most famous and respected television personalities.

Tamás certainly impressed me: he speaks four languages fluently, and has interviewed Nobel Prize winner Nelson Mandela, Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the Maharaja of Jaipur, computer mogul Bill Gates, Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Antonio Banderas, Sharon Stone, Danny DeVito, David Duchovny, David Copperfield, director Oliver Stone, tenor Luciano Pavarotti, and the entire cast of Desperate Housewives... among many others.

So a foreign celebrity was visiting our home. Our interviews didn't take very long to shoot, but we spent the next nine grueling hours with László Balassa, Frei's director of photography. László was in charge of shooting the segment's background footage and went to extraordinary lengths to get it. I vaguely remember him hanging outside the window of our car while taping some roller-coaster views on the hairpin mountain curves up in Angeles Crest. He was grinning madly and shouting, "Faster, faster!"

The segment aired in Hungary on November 4, 2002, and my Budapest in-laws had a *lot* to talk about for the next few months.

Labels: zoe

 
» On 6/11/2025 09:00:00 PM Mountain Standard Time, Alan wrote:
Fifteen Seconds - More Or Less. 

In early 2001, I was killing some time on the Zoetrope.com boards, when I noticed that c|net television producer Shirin Etessam had posted a message, requesting a volunteer to be interviewed for a (now-defunct) show called News.com.

So I figured, "What the heck, send her an eMail."

Much to my surprise, she flew me up to Oakland (from L.A.), after a series of phone chats. She even sent a driver across the bridge, to bring me into San Francisco.

Cool. I felt like a V.I.P.

I arrived in the morning, but their taping wasn't scheduled until late afternoon, so I cruised around the city, visiting some old friends from my Haight-Ashbury-urban-commune daze. They were very patient with my blatant attempts to show off.

Later, we shot at least 30 minutes of video down near the Pier 40 Marina. I was a babbling idiot for most of that time, but luckily Shirin only needed about 10 or 15 seconds from me, to plug into a much longer piece about Francis Ford Coppola and his Zoetrope Virtual Studio. So during the mid-February CNBC cable/satellite network broadcast, I actually sounded like a normal human being.

Yup, thanks to Shirin's editing skills, my 29 minutes and 45 seconds of babbling had been left on the cutting-room floor.

Labels: zoe