Daily, I run the homeless gauntlet here in San Francisco, which by the way, was just ranked #11 in the country in terms of being "mean" to the homeless. Laws against vagrancy and all. It all seems very at odds with what I see each day as I walk the downtown streets. Because if they have have laws against vagrancy they are just on paper. So, I think that's a very flawed statistic. Anyway, what I find amusing is the fact if I don't give any money to someone who asks then I get yelled at, if I do they don't seem very appreciative. Although, one night getting back late to my hotel I was asked ever so kindly by a man if I had a buck. Well, I was feeling pretty warm and fuzzy at the moment, bourbon and water tend to have that effect on me, and I gladly gave the man a dollar and walked away. He was very appreciative, so much so, that he continued to follow me ask and for another, so I did. $3.50 later, he finally was content, but like I said very appreciative. So, it's really a crap shoot when it comes to giving or ignoring panhandlers.

Wow, that's not really what was on my mind but after 4 days here and being stuck in seminars most of that time you get a bit loopy. That's when you order your first bourbon and water before dinner.

I had some free time yesterday and I snuck off into a presentation from a guy named Michael Rubin. He has a book out called "Droidmaker" and it's about George Lucas and and the digital revolution. Mr. Rubin, used to work for Lucasfilm, Droidworks, specially and he was intrigued by Lucas and the fact that the man who is credited for much of the digital and computer generated effects, editing and sound of movies today is not much a what he called a gadget guy. He doesn't surf the web, he doesn't use a word processor or script software to generate his scripts, doesn't play video games for fun and so on. So, what's the deal?

Lucas is a man who when he started in filmmaking out of USC was a editor and a good one at that. His experience on THX 1138 and American Graffiti and working within the confines of the studio system drove him crazy, as matter of fact he hated the system and Hollywood in general, but he wanted to make movies.

Going in I'm thinking this is all about Star Wars, but what Michael Rubin was writing about was the fact that the dream of George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola was to use technology to free them from the constraints of Hollywood. They wanted to make movies, control their end product, and make it so ANYONE could buy a camera, edited and distribute their work. George is an artist and he wanted to use technology and give other artist and future artist the opportunity to create and not be told how to do it. This was back in the 70's!

I got kind of the condensed version of Mr. Rubin's book, and while interesting, I found it to be eye opening. I have always said Star Wars changed my life but little did I know how profound that would be in the big picture. Star Wars was NOT a technological marvel, but as Michael Rubin said, 'It was the pain of making Star Wars," which led to all the cool toys we have today to make films and put whatever we can think of on screen. That's when I thought about how we make movies at Twenty One. We do it EXACTLY as George Lucas intended for us to do it when he dreamed of it way back in 1970.

We can do what he, Coppola, Zoetrope and Lucasfilm have worked so hard for all of us to be able to buy a camera, shoot, edit, and distribute our movie without even the slightest help from a studio or corporate system. That was the goal and that was the dream. And now I have even more to that George Lucas for.

To get more insight on the entire digital filmmaking revolution in great detail and pick-up a copy of "Droidworks," from Michael Rubin.