> By 3 p.m. he’d been seated, and he delivered the lines perfectly. We were done by five, getting everything we needed without overtime. I remember him grinning at the furious agency guys as he walked away from the set. Later on, after a few more commercials, they’d fire him, but I wasn’t around for that.
Sounds like he combined alcohol with a sleeping pill—never a great idea—and needed to take a nap. Unprofessional, but hardly the worst thing a star has ever done on set.
My favorite Orson Welles thing is this anecdote from Kenneth Tynan:
> Arriving, some years ago, to deliver a lecture in a small mid-western town, he [Welles] was faced with a tiny audience of listeners and no one to introduce him. He decided to introduce himself.
> “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “I will tell you of the highlights of my life. I am a director of plays. I am a producer of plays. I am an actor on the legitimate stage. I am a writer of motion pictures. I am a motion-picture actor. I write, direct, and act on the radio. I am a magician. I also paint and sketch, and I am a book-publisher. I am a violinist and a pianist.” Here he paused, and rested his chin on his hands, surveying the sparse congregation. “Isn’t it strange,” he said, quizzically but with clinching emphasis, “that there are so many of me—and so few of you?”
>> Unprofessional, but hardly the worst thing a star has ever done on set.
I think he did pretty well. Other drunk/high actors get angry to grab people they should not. This appears to be tipsy-drowsy drunk, not shouty-punchy drunk. He still came to set. He was dressed. They got the shot in the end. All those extras (paid by the hour) were probably perfectly happy that it took longer than expected.
>> I told him that I had to put him on camera for insurance reasons, so that we could show that he was all over the place and that we couldn’t do the job — that way we’d have insurance coverage for the day because of the actor malfunctioning. He understood, so I helped him out of the vehicle; he held onto my arm and we walked in.
Being drunk is certainly unprofessional, but few modern celebs would push though, embarrassing themselves on camera, to satisfy the needs of the shoot. A drunk yes, but still a pro imho.
Given that Welles agreed to do the outtakes to prove incapacity for insurance purposes, I wonder whether he'd hammed it up a bit to be sure that they met the necessary bar.
> “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “I will tell you of the highlights of my life. I am a director of plays. I am a producer of plays. I am an actor on the legitimate stage. I am a writer of motion pictures. I am a motion-picture actor. I write, direct, and act on the radio. I am a magician. I also paint and sketch, and I am a book-publisher. I am a violinist and a pianist.”
My favorite anecdote is this one from Edward Zwick:
> ZWICK: You know, I have a story that I actually recalled after I wrote the book, but it's one of the most important stories in my life, and I'll tell it to you and see if you're interested. But it's - after the show, I was put on news programs, and I was asked to go on a local news program with Orson Welles. And you have to understand that Orson Welles was, of course, the spiritual father to this with his "War Of The Worlds." And I was in the green room with Welles, and he was in his wheelchair and not very communicative and actually rather cold. And I thought, oh, here's this opportunity to be with my idol. And he was not really forthcoming, and I just accepted it.
> And we went on with the show. And on the air, this news person begins to attack me and saying, well, how dare you do something like this and confuse people with actors acting as if they're news people? And Welles rises from his chair and says, you're an actor. You're just reading the news. How dare you attack this young man. And it was just one of those, you know, wonderful moments when things come full circle.
The article implies that he was drunk, but every eyewitness refers to sleeping pills. It seems that the alcohol claim is solely from his demeaner in the infamous outtakes without knowing the cause of the slurred speech. People assume that he was drunk, so the few articles written about this event duly report that he was drunk.
It is obvious he partied all night after a late shoot. "I took a sleeping pill and it didn't kick in until now" is just a polite way of saying partying was more important to me than this commercial. The man was a known alcoholic.
I once drank a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew, and then fell asleep about 2-3 hours later.
A few hours later, (about 6 after drinking all of the Mountain Dew,) I pooped. As everything moved in my insides, the caffeine finally hit me all at once.
So it's completely possible for a sleeping pill to sit in Well's stomach for a few hours before he finally absorbed it. I wouldn't attribute any malintent on his part here.
lawyers, priests, and physicians are professionals. they answer, in theory, to a higher code of ethics than whoever they're getting paid by at the moment, partly because they are in a better situation than their client to judge whether they've done their work well or poorly. their respective professional colleges judge that, largely to protect the clients from incompetent or corrupt professionals. partly as a consequence, it is often considered questionably ethical for them to become too dependent on a single client. they have duties to their profession such as education and the advancement of the profession itself—raising the level at which their successors can work
(those are not the only professions, but they are central examples of the professions)
this strikingly contrasts with the relationship in capitalism between employers and employees; like professionals, employees assume an ethical duty to act in the interests of those who pay them; but, unlike professionals, employees must defer to their employer's judgment on what that means. as a consequence, it is often considered questionably ethical for them to not be entirely dependent on a single employer
freelance artists, such as freelance actors and freelance photographers, do not fit either of these categories very well. it's not clear that they have a duty to act in the interests of their clients at all, but their clients often may not be able to tell how well they've done their work. moreover, both professionals and employees usually have a duty to suppress their own feelings in service of their work, whereas artists' work is their feelings to a significant extent. certainly there is no professional college of actors needed to protect clients from incompetent or unethical actors; such a thing would be absurd. the sag, as its name indicates, exists to protect actors from their clients, not vice versa. it is a cartel (look the word up before arguing with me about this), not a professional college
so to me it seems like a category error to describe welles's behavior as 'unprofessional', like trying to assess the electrical conductivity of a social movement, or the color of television
I feel guilty for saying this but when I think of Orson Welles, instead of any of his pioneering contributions radio and cinema my mind defaults to 'muahahahh the frensch'. There's something stunning to see master of the arts act in such a way, and in the internet age it's probably his most iconic performance!
> the great man needed to subject himself to work that was well beneath his talents
There's this cool anecdote of Mel Brooks hiring him to be the narrator to History Of The World Part 1. Brooks paid Welles $25000 for five days of work, from 9 to 5. But Welles was done by 11:30 the first day, and it was "all perfect". So Brooks asked him what he would do with the money, and Welles said "Cuban cigars and Sevruga caviar. I would have included women but I'm getting just a little too heavy for that."
He chose Sevruga because in his opinion it was just as good as Beluga, and half the price.
Taking a sleeping pill to try to get a few hours of sleep between Las Vegas and LA puts a different spin on it. Sure, he probably shouldn't drink with his sleeping pills, but I know a fair amount of nonalcoholics that have done similar.
Surely what really puts a different spin on it is that the purpose of these takes was apparently to demonstrate to the insurance company that Welles was unable to work. In that context, he put on a great (albeit method-enhanced) performance.
The voice actor in this clip is the guy that voiced The Brain in Pinky and the Brain, as well as several other famous cartoon characters. Maurice LaMarche.
LaMarche also did the voice of Orson Welles in Tim Burton's 1994 movie Ed Wood. Vincent D'Onofrio played Orson Welles, but was later dubbed by Maurice LaMarche.
1. A wide shot establishing the actors geography in the scene.
2. a medium shot of both of them facing each other.
3. A “dirty” over the shoulder shot where the foreground actors head fills a third of frame with the focus on the background actor. This is usually as the conversation heats up, and focused on the actor giving the most exposition.
4. Close up single shots of each individual actor as they talk and react to the information
5. Finally a medium or wide as the actors leave the conversation. This would have already been filmed on step 2 or 3, but edits in at the end.
Financially this make sense as you generally light for one direction before “turning around” and moving all your lights to the other side and shooting in the opposite direction. It ensures that you get the most footage without have to spend lots of time moving lights over and over. It also allows you to get your highest paid actors off the clock sooner, as you don’t need them for the dirty or single shots. Everything about making films is trying to catch magic while not spending all your money.
A Notable subversion of this technique is Sorkin’s “walk and talk” shots where 2 or 3 characters have a walking conversation facing camera as it leads them through a path.
It will take more time to light that entire path upfront, but then you are free to let your actors live in the moment without cutting and there’s no need for turn around. You get something feels more real, but you rely on your dialogue and your actors for the pacing instead of editing.
Typically you need “character” actors to pull this off which is a phrase that generally means “good at acting.”
Yeah it’s real & one way where you can get continuity errors. I had a friend who’s job it was to carefully catalog all set objects in FileMaker Pro so he could reconstruct the parts of set that had to be torn down when moving cameras, lights, etc.
Famously, Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster barely did any direct interaction during the filming of The Silence of the Lambs. Hopkins was essentially walled into his prison cell during filming that took place in the "prison", so they did all his shots for as long as his bladder could last before breaking the set down to let him out.
I don't know for sure that this is the one that I watched, but I think so and the time frame is about right: [The Inside Story](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1918873/).
The deep details of the movie are fascinating. Schlock filmmaker gets a recent Oscar winner and an experienced but little-known in Hollywood actor to take on a very confusing story, which then debuts into a slow burn that gradually builds over more than a month to become one of the best movies ever? You would never sell that as a script because nobody would believe it, but it really is true.
In the video, it was suggested that Caine would get in the back of other actors scenes. Of course the extent of it in the video is obviously parody.
But is there anything to it? I imagine an actor could, for example, cheat a bit in the two shots; look right at the camera while they are the speaker, then just shift a little bit while the other actor is speaking, not enough to be obvious, but just enough to catch the camera with a little bit more of their face…
The Director and Director of Photography would immediately reposition them. It would look very awkward.
What does happen often is impactful news will be delivered causing the foreground actor to turn to camera and contemplate as they rack focus from the background actor to the foreground. See also, a door slamming or an event happening just off camera.
It’s an easy way to get a nice little two shot of both actors faces
I admired Welles back when I thought the famous Paul Masson shoot was him with no more fucks to give.
Now that I understand he was under the influence of a sleeping pill, slept it off, and finished the shoot perfectly in the most friendly and professional manner possible, I admire him even more.
He butted heads with suits all the time, as he did with the agency personnel, but with ordinary people like the cast and crew of this shoot he was always the most affable gentleman. Towards the end of his life he said "I want to be remembered as a good guy, not a difficult genius." And man, he lived up to that.
Sometimes I wish newspaper subscriptions had simply evolved into “here’s an E-reader. All it will ever do is show you this week’s worth of newspapers we’ve delivered to you. When you unsubscribe we’ll want it back. Again, it will never do anything but show you the newspaper.”
But even the newspaper itself was chock full of ads. Sometimes it was a full page ad. We seem to forget this in these discussions.
I have no issues with ad supported anything. I do have issues with the ad tech being used to have ads on a website. The actors running them have been shown to do very bad things at various levels from running malicious code, to running video underneath an image just to juice their numbers for charging their customers more. Because of their historical behavior, I will do everything in my powers to block them.
Create an ad system that is not evil, and I'll allow ads. Until then...
Yeah, but newspaper ads weren't specifically targeted at you, and they were mostly full of the information you'd get directly from the source today - what movies are showing, at what time, or what hours that restaurant is open, or where the nearest "massage" place is. On that last one, the newspapers even did ads disguised as news stories. "Oh, good citizens, run far away from this desperate house of ill repute located at 123 Main Street, where just this past weekend the police found evidence of crimes against morality being committed. That's 123 Main Street, the green house with a blue door, not to be confused with 125 Main Street, the blue house with a green door. Yes, stay far away."
Those seem particular instances of adtech. Any service than runs malicious code in your browser is bad. I don't think websites are bad because some of them have malicious code.
I never claimed the sites are bad. I specifically said ad tech is bad. I block ads, not web sites. You're trying to make my comment into something it is not.
No, you've missed the point. You're saying all ad tech is bad because some has before served malware. I'm saying this isn't consistent - you don't avoid all websites because some of them serve malware.
No I block all ad ware so I can visit what ever website I want precisely because ad tech has shown itself to be malicious. Really not sure of your confusion on the point.
That would take a decade to turn a profit on each device. It is a cool idea, though - a glimpse of a world of friendly technology that will never happen
Back in the early Pocket PC days, I think it was called Microsoft Today would sync daily news stories to read offline (this was long before WiFi was affordable and ubiquitous).
I remember waiting for class in college and browsing stories and thinking that this was what the fire urn was going to be like for everyone. In some ways yes, but in most ways no.
Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
If you read the article on a phone, there are at least 2 pop over ads that take half the screen, with a full screen pop over at the end. And all throughout the article there are flashy video ads that take the entire screen as you scroll.
This constant attention grabbing destroys whatever narrative is being crafted.
I'm not the person you're asking to, but in case you're interested in another opinion, I also no longer use ad blockers. I think it's fair to consume content in the way the author intended, especially because it seems that ads often give the author or the platform some revenue. That said, I do refuse to browse sites where the ads get too annoying. So I just close the tab and go on with my life without it. It turns out I rarely need most of the stuff that I come across randomly.
And how exactly is using an adblocker depriving the website owner of revenue if you simply close the tab instead? And 'annoying ads' are the precise reason I use an adblocker; if they were as intrusive as google's ads from the early 2000's I would hardly care, but we've long careened past that. I'm unsure the premise of your argument makes much economic sense.
Before trying to answer you, let me just reassure that I am not, by any means, preaching that people should stop using ad blockers. I was just sharing how I manage to not bother using one anymore.
You're right that using an ad blocker isn't worse than closing the tab when it comes to revenue that comes from actually clicking on the ads. And I can only assume that's how it works, I don't know.
What I was trying to say is that authors intend to share their content with ads. It's like having the ads there is what they're charging me for their otherwise free content. Not that I click on the ads. Not that I even read the ads. Just to have the ads there.
Half the time, it doesn't bother me too much, and I consume their content to their terms.
However, many sites are unreadable with so many ads. So, using an ad blocker would help me consume their content, yes. And since it's very rare for me to actually click on an ad, it wouldn't make much economic difference to them anyway.
The central point of my comment wasn't about this, though. It was that most of the internet isn't worth reading. So when I'm faced with content I'm not willing to "pay" for by having all the ads on my screen, it's okay to just let them go. It doesn't really matter. They won't be missed.
So I prefer to see the ads from those I keep reading, just because it's what they've implicitly asked to do by sharing their content.
Then again, this is not an advice. I'm not defending a point. That's just what I've been doing.
I started using an ad blocker, oddly enough, because a web comic I read had a shitty habit forever of having ads above the comic that would load in and shift the page down. That shift would be late enough that it would happen just as I was clicking on the comic to make it full screen. Now I get a popup saying “please support us” and I think I’ve supported you enough, sir, with unplanned clicks on ads and whatever tracking bullshit they’re doing.
While I run an ad blocker, I think it is something everybody ought to do, and I can’t think of many reasons not to do it, IMO we should still consider the blocker-less experience to be the default one. For better or worse, (almost certainly the latter) it is what you get out of the box.
Sites need to charge for subscriptions, then, and write content worth paying for. Maybe give us a headline and charge access per story. But charge up front.
That means losing 90% of "journalism" on the web at least, but that's fine. Most of it is filler for ads anyway.
This doesn't work because the ad farms will just copy the content and make the profit on it. We need to kill advertising as a viable business model, because it consumes all other forms of business.
There are probably a lot of independent online journals I'd gladly support with money even though I don't read them and don't even know they exist.
A curated independent journalism fund could do wonders. I donate to my local NPR station because it's good and I want to ensure something widely accessible still exists, but they also need my money less than smaller outfits. Even if I don't read those smaller journals, I think it's quite important for them to exist as an option and for those who do read them.
> Even using adblock you can't scroll down two lines without running into some old dude hawking cheap wine.
This is an article about Orson Welles (an old guy) making an infamous commercial. It is about the history of advertising. The YouTube iframe is the commercial the article is about.
What random company? There is no such danger unless your idea of an ad blocker is pretty different from mine.
In the case of browser plugins (there are other forms of ad blocker but let's just pick the riskiest for the sake of argument), the only one to consider is ublock origin, written by the famously intractably principled Raymond Gorhill, and open source on top anyway.
That also means Firefox because Chrome & Edge kneecapped the ability of any plugins to do the job. And on mobile that means Android because Apple doesn't allow any other browser engine than Safari on IOS, even Firefox is just a wrapper.
If you can't or won't use a browser & platform that allows you control over your life, you are giving a lot more than merely your browsing history to a non-random company, namely Apple or Google or Microsoft.
It's totally backwards or upside down to worry about the danger of an ad blocker in that context. It's like being in a cage and believing the jailors warnings not to trust any shady subversive characters that may come along and offer you keys or a lesson on lockpicking.
All that said, the existense of ad blockers is really beside the point. The fact that it's not only possible but advisable for each user to employ tools like ad blockers to control their own life instead of just having to take whatever crap every random web site shoves at you, does not change the fact that the web site is shoving crap at you and it would be better if it didn't, and web sites that don't shove crap at you are better than ones that do.
The charge that the site sucks is valid even though effective ad blockers exist to hide the suck on your end.
I don’t see any ads on this article with ublock origin and privacy badger disabled (maybe the safari system-wide ad blocker gets them?) but I use the orion browser by kagi on iOS. It supports firefox and chrome extensions.
Yeah, I should have been more clear; I’m using Safari with, I’m pretty sure, the system level Adblock enabled. But that’s more or less the default on iOS I think.
I see the same lack of ads, though my ad blocker also blocks the youtube videos because Google really doesn’t need to know which news magazine I’m reading today. And technically they are ads, too.
I have a hard time swallowing the hubris of the teller. No one was to be able to approach or chat with Orson Wells... except him, of course, who "connected" with Orson, so it was all OK and he'd launch with Orson too! But the others, these inferiors, mere crew, set extras. God, even a clapper boy could not /possibly/ do their job as they would need to get near Orson Wells!!!
But him, the director, yeah, he could approach talk, whatever. He's in another classssssssss, you see...
Sounds like he combined alcohol with a sleeping pill—never a great idea—and needed to take a nap. Unprofessional, but hardly the worst thing a star has ever done on set.
My favorite Orson Welles thing is this anecdote from Kenneth Tynan:
> Arriving, some years ago, to deliver a lecture in a small mid-western town, he [Welles] was faced with a tiny audience of listeners and no one to introduce him. He decided to introduce himself.
> “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “I will tell you of the highlights of my life. I am a director of plays. I am a producer of plays. I am an actor on the legitimate stage. I am a writer of motion pictures. I am a motion-picture actor. I write, direct, and act on the radio. I am a magician. I also paint and sketch, and I am a book-publisher. I am a violinist and a pianist.” Here he paused, and rested his chin on his hands, surveying the sparse congregation. “Isn’t it strange,” he said, quizzically but with clinching emphasis, “that there are so many of me—and so few of you?”