The move back to LA has definitely been interesting. First of all, I cannot stand the corporate housing apartment I am living in for the month of July. The last time I was in LA, I only knew of 2 Oakwood corporate apartments in LA - the Burbank & Century City apartments - both sucked. When I looked again this year for where I wanted to live temporarily, Oakwood had over 60 different properties in LA from the Valley all the way down to Playa del Rey. I wanted to be centrally located and near where I thought I would want to live. The best available property was the Palazzo West on 3rd Street, right across the street from The Grove. Well, I made a good decision to explore the neighorhood because I did get an apartment right up the street, making The Grove my walkable neighborhood. But the Palazzo West is terrible.
First of all the apartments are fine, but the floor plan is awkward, the light switches are not where they should be. Where I am directly overlooks what basically passes for "the projects", I can hear the footfalls of the people upstairs from me. But beyond the construction, what I didn't know is that this is where they filmed that horrible MTV show "The Hills." So now, everyone who can afford an apartment, and this is usually people from out of town who are here trying to "make it" in LA thinks that some magic from "The Hills" will wash over them and make them as successful in Hollywood. Rubbish, but that's what people think. So all day long, by the pool, in the gym, it's all wanna-be's and posers. Awful. Thank God I am not actually living here.
And with my return to LA, came the inevitable weekend pool party. First some quick background. Hollywood is the only legitimate businss industry I know of that has almost a "Shadow Hollywood" attached to it. If you work in finance on Wall Street, you can't just hand a sign outside you apartment, print up some business cards and call yourself an investment banker, you actually have to work at Goldman Sachs or Merrill Lynch. If you work in energy in Texas, you can't just say you do, you actually have to work at Exxon or BP, but not so in Hollywood. You can just say you're a Director or a Writer or a Producer with having actually been paid for directing, writing or producing anything. Consequently, you get a whole group of people that want to work in Hollywood. And what is their "In"? Their million dollar idea. This is the idea that people have thought about their whole life and are determined that if they just meet the right person, they will make millions of dollars from their idea. So that's the set up, here's the story.....
I'm at the Saturday pool party and the guy hosting the party (a Brit), says to me, "Hey Mike, you work for a big studio, can I get your reaction to my idea?" (Oh boy, here it comes). And this was his idea: "What do you think about a 3D dance movie?"
This was my response: "3D is fine, but it has to be organic to the script and the movie, rather than a gimmick. Audiences today don't like gimmick 3D movies - witness the failure of the horror 3D remake of My Bloody Valentine. 3D is working in kids animated films, but animated films are very adaptable to a 3D environment and the box office proves it. We'll see how live action 3D movies perform in December when James Cameron's Avatar comes out in December."
Don't get me wrong, someone will make a 3D dance movie, but definitely not this kid. Why would anyone pay $15 to see a 3D dance movie? What would that even look like?
Regardless, don't just come up with what you think is a million dollar idea and just have the idea. To make a movie you need little things.......like a script, talent attached, financing, a talented choreographer lined up, anything more substantial than just an idea.
Later telling this story to a friend of mine, he asked why I just didn't call him on it and call a 3D dance movie the stupidest idea ever? And the fact is that I used to do that in Hollywood when I was younger. It always turned out that I crushed someone's dream, and then had to endure the inevitable comeback: "You'll see when my movie ends up making $100 million." Now to this day that's never happened, but when I end up crushing people's dreams, I usually wouldn't end up with additional invitations to their pool parties.
Stupidiest idea ever, right?
UPDATE: Disney is making a 3D dance movie, as I predicted almost a year ago. Behold Step UP 3D: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89TLbK6o-og
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