I use my blogs for fun, and to a lesser extent promote myself. I'm
extremely uncomfortable with the promoting side of things. Naturally as
an artist I usually like my work for about an hour before I begin to
tear it apart. I'm constantly filled with self doubt and stress. So,
usually it's a gag here or there and a post of a sketch I did for fun.
Occasionally I push a project that I worked on and am excited about.
That leads to this long winded, but quickly written, post.
I worked briefly on Pacific Rim.
When I began
writing this I was worried that Grown Ups 2 was going to outperform Pacific Rim. Maybe it will. Does it matter? Not really. Guillermo will get paid
(although, I'm guessing much more if it does well), the actors will get
paid, I will get paid...uh, got paid. We all made our money, and worked
hard and had fun doing it. Of course, if GU2 does better, than we can
be guaranteed that there will be a GU3. Maybe that's not a bad thing. I
never saw GU1, so I really can't trash talk. I think most those guys in
GU1 are funny too. But here's the thing about Pacific Rim, and why I'm
rooting for it.
It's Guillermo's film. He treated it with
respect. He made something that's fun and acknowledges what it is. It's a
summer popcorn flick, meant to dazzle you and entertain. Maybe, maybe,
it will have the same effect Star Wars and Empire had on me. See, the
thing is, my dream was to work on a real Hollywood movie.
I had great success
in games, and I guess I was greedy, but really wanted to work on a film. Sadly, I had given up on that dream. I
thought, maybe my kid will be a director some day and throw Dad a bone.
I have worked on one other film,
from home, and it was also an amazing experience; more on that in
August. It gave me the confidence to try new avenues to get into film.
So I made a book of art to present to GDT at a talk about his Strain
books.
That shit usually doesn't work, or shouldn't, but with
Guillermo it can. So I handed my book to him and months later got an
email. I worked with Guillermo del Toro and an amazing group of
artists in a small cramped room near Thousand Oaks on the film Pacific Rim. With Guillermo, you
never doubt that he knows what he's doing. His artistic skills are top
notch, and I felt like I learned more working with him than I could have
learned in years at a school. He is incredibly hard working; he was
there more than we were, and the few times he asked if we could work on a
weekend, he truly asked. There was no punishment for missing it. No
anger, no retribution. My family was way up north, so rather than spend
my weekend alone, I was more than happy to show up. And it was crazy
fun. We worked hard, but the atmosphere was a little lighter than on the
weekdays. Maybe because GDT had been writing all night, and all day,
and then again all night, and all day. He was a little punchy by Sunday.
But happy; very happy. This was a fun project.
I do have another story about Guillermo. One that really matters to me.
When I was
working on Pacific Rim we all went to lunch one day. It was this awesome
burger place I'm planning on visiting while I'm down there this week.
On the way out, this man recognized Guillermo, raced to his car and
started showing him what looked like posters from his trunk. Guillermo
said he'd catch up with us in a bit. I saw him talking with the man, shaking his
hand, and even giving him a hug as we left. I'm sure he made that guys day.
That stuck with me. It would have been easy to say, "Thanks, but I'm
very busy" and walked away. But Guillermo didn't.
So I'm rooting
for this guy. I want that kind of behavior to be rewarded. I want to
reward kindness, intellect, and brilliant artistic vision.
Plus, he's
just a great fucking guy to be around.
If none of that matters, the flick is currently at 85% on Rotten Tomatoes. So, there is that.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pacific_rim_2013/
Doug
