HOLLYWOOD HILLS

Funny...I was fresh in Hollywood, some classmates and me climbed up the hill with a 16mm Arriflex camera and shot a speck commercial with the Hollywood sign in the back ground. I was on top of the world with a real attitude. Making Hollywood pictures, what an experience. I lived in Hollywood, next to the Holiday Inn in a dingy studio apartment filled with drug addicts and transvestite prostitutes. One of the transvestite prostitutes was from Tallahassee, Florida so he would have me over to hear about Florida from me. It never dawned on me to interview any of the people in my building were I lived. I was to busy with my Hollywood filmmaker attitude. It took awhile for the attitude to ware off. I still see a bit of it in pictures of me today. Hollywood is a state of mind I carry with me. I met Lilian Gish at a “Broken Blossoms” screening and she told me about working with D.W. Griffith. Mr. Griffith worked with a cameraman named Billy Bitzer…that is who I would ask Ms. Gish about if I were granted another moment with her today…to me that is the Hollywood attitude to which I aspire.