Lotfi Mansouri, Tim Burton, HBO Show and Driving the Bay Bridge

Opera - Lotfi Mansouri, S.F. Opera director 13 years, dies
San Francisco Opera's Mansouri dead at 84
Remembering Lotfi Mansouri
Cheryl North: Ildar Abdrazakov sings like the devil in San Francisco Opera's 'Mefistopheles'
Dolora Zajick withdraws from SF Opera's 'Claiborne'
San Francisco Opera brings Stephen King’s ‘Dolores Claiborne’ to stage

Movies - Tim Burton Transforms North Beach Into 1950s San Francisco
Big Eye Keane Paintings
Margaret Keane - The Lady Behind the Big Eyed Kids

Reed Morano Preps LOOKING in San Francisco - “The instructions I gave to my B camera team were basically ‘Don’t shoot anything that anyone’s ever shot of San Francisco, ever,’” says Reed with a laugh. “’For the love of god, no cable cars!’” 
Russell Tovey Joins Gay-Themed HBO Dramedy 'Looking' (Exclusive)
Scott Bakula Joins HBO’s Michael Lannan Dramedy Series, Now Titled ‘Looking’
Mapping San Francisco Buildings Used in Movies and Television
Porn actress' positive HIV test spurs state investigation

Outsourcing - Chinese Cinema: Base FX’s Effects Exception

Disney/Pixar/Lucas - Keeping Disney’s kingdom magical

Sounds Familiar Dept. - Bob Peterson No Longer Directing 'The Good Dinosaur' For Pixar
Pixar Animation yanks director Bob Peterson off 'The Good Dinosaur'


How it would look if you could drive across the bridge at 100mph - Mark Jones, who is part of the documentation team, drove the length of the bridge in both directions, including both new spans to document the construction zone. The drive was conducted at speeds under 25 miles per hour and slower near construction. It has been speeded up 400% so you can make the nearly 16 mile drive across the new Eastern Span and the historic Western Span, and then back to Oakland, in just 13 minutes.

Only in San Francisco - “America doesn’t do big infrastructure projects that well anymore...” Richard Walker, an emeritus geography professor at the UC Berkeley
After years of delays and billions of extra costs, new SF-Oakland Bay Bridge on track to open
Caltrans never approved design of Bay Bridge S-curve
Westbound Virtual Ride across the New Bridge
Eastbound Virtual Ride Across the Bridge

SF Opera Ball, Real World San Francisco, Jobs Bombs, Blue Jasmine Blooms and Union Jobs Lost

Opera - Tickets to S.F. Opera Ball sell out - twice
Discs offer previews of S.F. Opera's fall season

Movies/TV - Is This Polk Street Pad The Next 'Real World' House? Formerly the Avalon Ballroom the space has recently been an office. The article has it wrong, the Avalon was Chet Helms' venue, not Bill Graham's.

Photo: Inside The New 'Real World S.F.' House

Watch: 70-Minute Animation Masterclass With Tim Burton

Kutcher's Jobs movie crashes on opening

Ashton Kutcher's Steve Jobs Movie Bombed At The Box Office This Weekend

After a mediocre opening, the Jobs movie will likely soon fade to black
Cate Blanchett premieres Oscar favourite Woody Allen film Blue Jasmine at Cremorne Orpheum in Sydney
In ‘Blue Jasmine,’ Suzy Benzinger Turns Clothes Into Characters
Cate Blanchett worried she'd be dumped from Woody Allen film
Woody Allen's 'Blue Jasmine' blossoms out to more theater screens - "Allen's 44th feature film will expand to over 1200 screens, bypassing his Oscar-winning 2011 release "Midnight in Paris" to stand as the widest release of any of his films."

Trouble - Live Nation eyes taking over BottleRock
Rent bump forces Lusty Lady to grind to halt
The Lusty Lady To Close In Two Weeks - "San Francisco's celebrated, unionized and worker-owned peep show the Lusty Lady will close its doors on September 2nd."

Members - The Keeper of Lost Causes (Kvinden i buret): Locarno Review - A review of a Film Matt McLemore worked on, for those of you who remember Matt when he was a Southern Californian and not a European here's the trailer.

 

Above, here's a timelapse changeover Figaro to Aida at the San Francisco Opera about 3 years ago. I think that's Stefanie touching up downstage starting at 0:58

Only in San Francisco - Mechanical Hands and Pelvises on Science Channel's 'Oddities: San Francisco' This Weekend - Pix from the show here. Video here. The featured store here.

In other news - San Francisco is now only the 15th best city to be a hippie in.
17 Best U.S. Cities for Hippies
Dejected Berkeley only 8th New Ranking: Berkeley Not in Top 7 U.S. Hippie Towns
And Santa Cruz... not on the list The Universe is Shaken: Santa Cruz Was NOT Picked as one of the Country's Top 17 Hippie Cities????!!!

Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Jobs: The Movie and Willie Brown: The Wax Statue

Theater - San Francisco Opera brings Stephen King’s ‘Dolores Claiborne’ to stage
Damian Smith retiring from SF Ballet after 18 years
Tidbits of the Future of S.F. Opera
Big finale from Merola Opera singers
The Opera goes to Silicon Valley, hopes that Silicon Valley will return the favor
Drag queens on art ahead of 'Priscilla' in SF
Q&A with costume director of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert


New Carole King Musical To Star Jessie Mueller
Beautiful announces complete cast - Originally announced for spring 2014, the show will now begin previews on Broadway at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on 21 Nov 2013, with an official opening night set for Sunday, January 12, 2014, following its World Premiere this fall at San Francisco's SHN Curran Theatre from 24 Sep - 20 Oct 2013.
Tickets for San Francisco Engagement of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical on Sale Beginning Aug. 16

Movies - Beauty Tuesday: SF’s Gretchen Davis on makeup, movies & Woody Allen
Nine Things 'Blue Jasmine' Got Wrong About San Francisco
'Real World' set to return to San Francisco

Jobs" Director Talks About Casting Ashton Kutcher, Human Flaws, and Realizing That Movies About Computers Are Not Interesting
'Jobs' Film Director Reveals Steve's Early Struggle To Communicate Simply
Is social media sending new Steve Jobs film to the' damp squib' heap?
Ashton Kutcher Responds to Steve Wozniak’s Jobs Criticisms; Claims Wozniak Is Being Paid to Back Competing Biopic
Portrait of the Artist Behind Apple
So, what does Steve Wozniak think of 'Jobs'?
An Apple History Nerd’s Take on the Jobs Movie
New “JOBS” Film Falls Short
Jobs Movie Review: A Sadly Appropriate Metaphor
10 Powerful Quotes From The Steve Jobs Movie And What They Teach Us About Leadership

Forget Jobs, Here's the Movie Trailer for the Epic Gates Biopic
Tim Burton News Blog - the latest on Big Eyes
Free Turkish Film Festival Coming to San Francisco August 13-15

Members - I knew it must have been Katy Wu who drew the Google Doodle on last Monday's home page. Those of you who worked at Cinderbiter remember Katy who joined as an Assistant Art Director, she's now working at Google as a Doodler, one of those people who redo the logo on the home page. Here's a link to her blog with some of her Doodles.

And a link to the work she did on the animated Doodle for the Roswell 66th Anniversary.

Only in San Francisco - “Oh my God, they have Willie Brown in Hollywood Hunks!” -Tourist Trapped, SFGate
San Francisco's Famed Wax Museum Shuts Doors
Willie Brown's Hollywood Resume'
The Wax Museum at Fisherman's Wharf: Photos
Wax Museum Fishermans Wharf 3-10-011 on Flickr

Hyperloop Blog at Tesla Motors
This Is the Hyperloop, Elon Musk’s Fantastical Vision of Mass Transit
IS ELON MUSK’S HYPERLOOP A PIPE DREAM?
Elon Musk Unveils Designs for Hyperloop - Conference call with Elon Musk on Youtube

ACT's Strand Theater Renovation, Blue Jasmine, Elysium, Big Eyes

Movies - Woody Allen's 'Blue Jasmine' is thin on San Francisco
WOODY ALLEN: WHAT I'VE LEARNED - Esquire
HBO Calls Jonathan Groff Gay Series “A Special Show”
ACT to begin Strand Theatre renovation
Berkeley Rep charting 'No Man's Land'
'Elysium' review: Foster, Damon in future world - Photo - model makers at Kerner Optical who worked on the movie.

Tim Burton and vintage cars on set of Big Eyes in Vancouver - Vancouver is standing in for San Francisco

Star Wars - BYU prof: Tunisian sands swallowing Star Wars set
Dunes on planet Tatooine: Observation of barchan migration at the Star Wars film set in Tunisia
Google Maps View
Photo Series Visits Abandoned Star Wars Film Sets in the Tunisian Desert
Star Wars: Episode VII to limit cheap CGI tricks and keep it real
Weird Star Wars News - Chewbacca Walnut Looks Exactly Like 'Star Wars' Character (PHOTO)
California man forced to forfeit Yoda, other 'Star Wars' memorabilia following fraud conviction

Live - Acme Scenery built the arch at Outside Lands
Ustream plans ‘social stream’ video of Outside Lands
What to wear to Outside Lands
Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Production Runs at The Orpheum in downtown Minneapolis: Q&A with Timothy Gulan
One of the really strange things about this piece is that Hugo said the reason why he wrote this story is because there are always going to be poor people, there's always going to be the miserable ones, the book title. When we visited San Francisco, that was one of the places that really hit home for me because the theater is in an area where there is a tremendous homeless population so everyday as you leave the theater you see these people and you go, "God it's still around."

Lawyers, Fraudsters, Outsourcers - The American Bar Association is in town, they compiled a list of 12 Must See Movie Sites in San Francisco.
Before Dixon, movie studio investment in Lathrop failed to deliver -Sacramento Bee
California Seeing ‘Profound Erosion’ of Production - Variety

1990s Nostalgia - Ten SF-Based Movies That Defined '90s Pop Culture



Steve Jobs NeXT presentation in San Francisco (1990)
Kutcher on 'Intimidating' Role Portraying Steve Jobs

Art - I’ve Not Had Enough of You (2013) by James Shefik at Pro Arts - 150 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA 94612

Only in San Francisco - Rarely Seen Maps From San Francisco’s Quirkiest Hidden Library

San Francisco in the Fifties

"Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" shoot in SF! We've compiled some of the best photos and videos captured of the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes filming. It was a blast! - SF Film Commission
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Releases New Motion Capture Footage
'Blue Jasmine' has Woody Allen's biggest box-office debut ever
'Blue Jasmine' review: Allen, Blanchett dazzle
Blue Jasmine website with showtimes
S.F. Ballet brings magic to Stern Grove
Star Wars 7 will have less CGI, more real effects - New Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy promises more models and real locations for Episode VII.
'Star Wars Episode 7' to Focus on Story and Characters, John Williams Set to Score
Silicon Valley Goes to the Opera
The Happiest States In America In One Map (INFOGRAPHIC)

Opinion - George Clooney To Hedge Fund Honcho Daniel Loeb: Stop Spreading Fear At Sony

Even in the Fifties, San Francisco Was a Food-Lover’s Paradise - I smelled all the food of San Francisco. There were seafood places out there where the buns were hot, and the baskets were good enough to eat too; where the menus themselves were soft with foody esculence as if dipped in hot broths and roasted dry and good enough to eat too. Just show me the bluefish spangle on a seafood menu and I'd eat it; let me smell the drawn butter and lobster claws...Jack Kerouac



@Film_SF is an ideal place to shoot as seen in the upcoming @fruitvalemovie & #BlueJasmine but they need more space! http://bit.ly/13DTSTj