Our Best Advice

OSCARS 2013 – Event Planning

Monday, February 25th, 2013 | Our Best Advice | Comments Off

Over the years we have seen many clients win Oscar awards (see our Domestic Staffing website). Some of the people we referred for job opportunities were so loved by their employers, they went on to become famous celebrities themselves. Like Chef Wolfgang Puck, who Dora referred to a client. Wolfgang had worked at a renowned restaurant (the kitchen of Ma Maison), but he wanted to work as a Personal Celebrity Chef to expand his opportunities. Wolfgang was eager to prove his talents, and urged the client to give him a try. The Client decided to give him their job opportunity, and that’s how he got hired. While working ISA job referrals Wolfgang met many famous people. They fell in love with his cooking, and followed  him to his first restaurant SPAGO (at that time located on Sunset), which quickly became a sensational celebrity hang. TIP: Keep reinventing your specialty talents to expand Job Opportunities and study how others created new trends. It’s a famous story that Wolfgang Puck (a Master Chef among Chefs with brilliant business strategy), transformed the restaurant and catering business and also became famous for Oscar Awards parties. 

The first Oscar Awards show was held at The Roosevelt Hotel in 1929. Last night we saw another big Oscars 2013 show, (and Wolfgang still cooking up a storm), with a billion people reported to be watching. An incredible viewing increase in just 83 years (astounding confirmation how much films influence and shape our lives).

Among the noteworthy was also a tribute in memorium to those who passed away. We take this opportunity to pay them homage as added to our clients gallery, including Richard Zanuck (with his legendary producing skills), and actor Ernest Borgnine. Into his seventies Richard Zanuck was a first choice for studios that had challenging projects. He was Hollywood royalty with a father that was one of three principles who founded Fox Studios. Darryl Zanuck left a legacy with a career spanning the Silent Era, the Golden Age, and decline of the studio system (that fractured under the costly production of Cleopatra). Yet, big Hollywood productions and Fox both survived.

Richard Zanuck had his own style known as a directors producer renowned for going after and protecting quality films. He worked with some of the finest directors (many of whom are our clients) making groundbreaking pictures like Jaws with Stephen Spielberg, Ron Howard’s Cocoon, Bruce Beresford’s Driving Miss Daisy, Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict, Walter Hill’s Sting, Sam Mendes Road To Perdition, and Tim Burton Alice In Wonderland (which grossed more than 1Billion worldwide). With Burton he worked on six projects among them Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and Planet of the Apes. Films that became Hollywood classics setting new highs in world film history. California is famous for transforming History in so many key industries that people continue to flock here, and remains the leading hub for the most advanced creative talent in the world. 

Ernest Borgnine was among the changing tide of actors who could successfully undertake roles in TV, with the lead in McHale’s Navy (originating the role of an irreverent con man as a PT boat skipper), and wonderful Films, with roles in The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch, Airwolf, and From Here To Eternity among others. His McHale’s Navy role played with unerring comedic timing, while he could also play a tough guy with an unforgettable face.

An unlikely  big-screen star or a romantic lead, this beloved actor won an Oscar in 1955 for Marty that brought him a Palm D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Marty and The Lost Weekend (1945) are the only two films ever to win both grand prizes. A career lasting six decades, Mr. Borgnine’s work continued as the voice of Mermaid Man on Sponge Bob. Nominated for an Emmy at 92 for his work on ER, he died at 95 leaving a body of historical film work for generations to come.

We must keep in view that for a large country, with a large population, running our America (as a business on a daily basis) is an extraordinary challenge. Talk about ‘running the “House”‘ – our White House belongs to the people of America alone, and the words “unto the people alone” is key. Challengingly, we each have our own bias and ideas how to do it.  It can only be done if we work together to remain conscious and alert about growing our awareness and skills to become more refined, as any job requires of us. It’s our job to continuously improve ourselves. Often people lose jobs because they don’t grow, including acquiring new skills to keep up with trends and economic changes, or they begin taking a job for granted. Or conversely, an employer loses a great employee because they don’t show appreciation including incremental pay raise and benefits. However, in this economy of uncertainty, it’s important for employees to be grateful for the work when we see millions of people out of a job. TIP: Even if it’s not your ideal job and you’re out of work, give it a try and see what happens. It might turn out to be once you get in and see what’s involved, and you never know until you try it. If you don’t like it keep looking. 

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This is not the first time we see people heatedly arguing about violence in films, or its influence on children and American culture. While lobbying for gun control and more laws, parents are also demanding a reduction of violence in films. A friend recently sent me a quote (which Snopes confirmed is true) that Hitler allegedly made in 1942 saying, “History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.” History is not just facts and dates, it’s a complex dimensional field we must all understand more deeply.

For instance, did you know there is such a thing called “normalcy bias“? Freedom to bear arms is an issue that brings even close friendships to be tested with differing philosophies. Hopefully, all Americans are concerned with documents that govern our freedoms. It appears that many in Washington don’t know our legacy of inherited undeniable rights. Get to know and revisit the United States Constitution and the United States Bill of Rights often, which are amazing guarantees of our freedom that many worldwide do not enjoy, or could sustain, due to corruption of values.

The right to bear arms is not an easy discussion, but there is none more complex historically with presenting a struggling tortured mind than issues of enslavement of one man to another. Men and Women have died for the right to have both. There are ‘bad guys’ who exist, who don’t just go away on their own, as films show us with some of the greatest characters Hollywood ever brought to films. But there is only one Lincoln. Daniel Day Lewis brought him to life for all of us. Although Lincoln remained a dearly beloved President he was beyond reach as a heroic figure overseeing a civil war. Rather than merely characterizing him as President Lincoln, the film industry agreed that only Daniel Day Lewis could bring forth the incredible man behind a title. Winning Best Actor was that statement.

Oscars 2013 Best Picture nominations put forward challenging plot lines of human grit and passion to overcome. With humor thrown in as Silver Lining provides, or remarkable human wisdom as even the young carry presented in Beasts Of The Southern Wild. Graphically showing how technology changed (after Avatar) is the marvelous Life of Pi that Ang Lee directed (and won Best Director). A breathtaking cinematic film that prompted my question what was the first movie made. To technically answer we turn to Edward Muybridge and his groundbreaking photos called Horses In Motion (1878), which he created using four cameras. The images were assembled as running frames showing that all four hoofs of a horse are galloping off the ground. That became the first ‘moving pictures’.

Ten years later came a home movie created by inventor Louis Le Prince in France, showing his family walking around in his garden called Roundhay Garden Scene (1888).  Next came a camera test (from two men working for Thomas Edison) called Monkeyshines 1 & 2, created at Edison’s lab in New Jersey around 1889 or 1890. Why is this film history important is because new technology transformed how we see. We take symbolic images (in this case photos) that are ordered into ensembles as frames (today using bits of digitized data), and weave them together to create another frame that comes next, and so on. Story telling has expanded to new remarkable heights.

Unfortunately, most people don’t care about film history but I find it fascinating (and we are generally not taught in schools, another issue altogether). Because we passively/actively ‘record’ all that we see and feel whether we’re aware of it or not (and regardless of what we each have as immediate access to memory at any given ‘frame’), we are also sensitized to be triggered emotionally based on our experiences. These experiences (whether in the imagination or in reality) can become entrained as trance states. Silver Linings Playbook is a great example of trance state patterns, and how we can break them without using medication. It’s our response-ability to learn more about how to keep ourselves healthy including how to mature ourselves.

How manipulatable are we? Reminds me of when I lived in Bali and first saw a brilliant performance of  shadow puppets [theater] art known as Wayang. I’m always amazed how quickly people forget they’re merely watching pictures moving on a wall or a movie screen (computer monitor, iPad, smart phone, etc) which was traditionally taught (and known) as shadows moving on the wall that we react and succumb. Instead of staying conscious, we become hypnotized to associatively feel ‘in the movie’ as if it’s real. But it’s an illusion, and when we begin to totally believe in its story, and live by it, that’s called a delusion. Also a famous teaching by Plato. Or in Les Misrables plot line, a story of love, despair, and revolution that changed the world. It’s tuff to argue this is delusion when seeing the movie Les Misrables. It’s incredible to know the challenges of indentured servitude and despair are here today.

About a week ago I had to reach out to a women who was literally whimpering during a movie because she was so identified with what was on the screen. She thanked me for bringing her out of her trance, and almost immediately fell right back into it. The movie was Django Unchained, (Django (character) used famously in Spaghetti Westerns, and in the tradition of Sam Peckinpah films that deal with conflicts of values and ideals, with the corruption and brutality of human violence in human society. Characters who are often loners or losers, who know of the great hypocrisy, yet somehow find a desire to do something honorable but are forced into compromise to survive in a world of nihilistic brutality.

Interesting to see that while in the past people loved these movies, an ever growing fear of violence is seeking to shut them out. It’s important that director Quentin Terrentino remained undeterred by folks who criticize his efforts to wake them up (as I understood from him during an interview was his intention and to expand the cowboy mythos). You can always choose not to watch a movie.  And without judging its violence (there are films much worse then this made in Hollywood in its past), Django Unchained had an important message (several), including how hypnotic trance takes over with all of its complications in life.

Regardless of creative license in their story telling, I found it important that the Best Picture nominated films had this illuminating Key as a central theme running through them (illusion/delusion). Each one of them worthy. Among my favorites was Beasts Of The Southern Wild, which sadly few have seen (it received little promotion among other reasons). Although filmgoers believe the movie Lincoln happened as it was filmed (and hotly debated), it doesn’t change the fact that this picture was brilliantly delivered by Stephen Spielberg, or that Daniel Day Lewis remains one of the greatest actors of any generation. It became an instant American film classic.

The first public movie made for commercial viewing (for profit), was by the Lumiere brothers in 1895 (30 seats out of 100 were sold thereby proving its success.) Shown at a basement salon at the Grand Cafe in Paris (a hot city for artists to test their wares) in order to sell their Kinetoscope machine. This was a wood box you peeked into and saw moving pictures (the first “peep show” for commercial viewing). see it HERE. Then a film was made in Berlin (also a city of inventive artists) by another two brothers (Max and Emil Sklandanowsky) who invented Bioksop, a complicated technology using two parallel film strips. The Lumier brothers method was easier to use so they’re credited as the first motion picture tech (which I’m sure the Germans disagree with).

National pride is quickly claimed with most inventions, yet usually without ability to track the Clews (Klews) as to how we actually transformed with all comprehensive correspondences of variables, or how did a particular pattern begin, let alone all of its subsequent transforms of unfolding trajectories (and vectors and tensors).  

A delusion theme can be inspirational (Alice In Wonderland), or crushing (Lord of The Rings), each Surreal, and crucially important in very different ways. We could say that James Bond was delusional with important lessons to learn using an ever growing grouping of deadly toys, with each side having an arsenal to choose from, or as the film story mantra in Hollywood goes (and director William Friedkin loves to say), there is ‘good and bad’ in everyone. To pretend otherwise is a fatalistic “us against them” scenario of warring without end. To bridge these divides under circumstance of such advanced tech as we have today is a huge challenge. Like children, we must learn how to manage our toys without bringing down the house. Total censorship, including being forced to censor ourselves out of fear of being “politically correct”, is dangerous. We classically had this result in a totalitarian fascism and as we see that creeping closer all around worldwide. It’s a call for us to know how we’re affected. If we cannot become more creative in the 21st century to overcome such tendencies of paranoia (movie Dr. Strangelove shows so brilliantly), we must immediately remember it’s our obligation to do better and Learn. Movies teach Vision but they’re also an illusion, and can also be a delusion myth when people blame them for being propaganda alone. Every television ad is a form of propaganda, so what does that mean? For some people it means turning off their TV, others ignore it, while others get angry, and so on. It stimulates spirited debate, but importantly, it fostered the independent film making we see online as younger gens take to DIY filming, and act as their own studio.

A group of inventors and artists as immigrants running away from Europe came here during both world wars, and was also the subsequent birth of Hollywood. Simply put, Hollywood is truly a planetary community (and yes, there is always room for improvement). Much beyond research labs of technology is the vision of men and women who see new possibilities. There is continuous new talent coming here, which disrupts the applecart along with all else. We are a planetary city of a planetary population who’s center is resonant with a human family everywhere. Technology is only as good as those who can see beyond it.

All the Event Planning today relies heavily on technology in so many ways (too long to cover here). Yet there is the expertise that still (always) remains and resides within people, not machines (and if an ice cream machine breaks down earlier in the day you need to turn on a dime and create another dessert, etc). Vision, talent, and expertise, always come first, regardless of how great your computer skills. One of the key themes of ARGO showed Hollywood takes its planning worldwide, just as any of the best clandestine ops could be planned for “what if” scenarios – because it has the courage of people crazy enough to fight for freedom on behalf of all people everywhere, and able to ‘turn on a dime’ to be creative beyond limits of circumstance. Propaganda may run in all nation states, and their respective films and yes, even in those we call documentaries, but true Wisdom themes prevail showing that any delusion can never blind people for long. We can always do better. And must. 

TIP: Save critical judgements that are not intended as positive input at their core. All Event Planning including ‘dress rehearsals’ allows for spontaneous decisions. As the movie ARGO showed, the best ‘rehearsal’ never covers real life conditions necessary to bring any mission off successfully. There is no way but to remain openly agile, to pivot as needed sometimes instantly and at others spontaneously. It’s good to have your intentions clear, but you’ll find that you actually at times must go beyond them. I watched my mother (Dora) go through life in faith that there is a higher power, and we are reminded of it ongoingly. She’s always worked very hard to help people and we continue to refer people to great job opportunities. . 

Last night’s stepped up glamour and diva entertainment included surprise guests of the ever memorable Barbara Streisand and Shirley Bassy, each gorgeous and singing classics much loved everywhere. Streisand singing Memories and Bassey delivering Goldfinger showed that the seasoned ladies are never too old, who can still teach the younger gens a thing or two.

First Lady Michelle Obama (another huge surprise), looked naturally relaxed and stunning as she presented Best Picture award to ARGO via live telecast from the White House to standing ovations (of many throughout the evening as we’ve not seen for some time).

And not to forget fashion, I leave reporting on the always fabulous dresses to other sources, but seeing Barbra Streisand did bring to view the insane controversy caused by a transparently liberating outfit she wore for her Oscar win (Funny Girl). She looked amazing last night and can still hold her own in 2013. As we saw with the incredible turnout from all over the world, and while many speak of apocalyptic doom and gloom (and its jaded ways of corruption), this country is still the most sought after place to live and work. And Los Angeles is the world city center to that creative fire for so many. Who come to make those famously magical stories that dreams can and do come true, which reaches out to the entire planetary culture. Hollywood holds a beacon for billions of people from all walks of life about freedom, more than any other industry, and we’re very proud to be part of it. Thank you for the job opportunities you give us, we’re grateful to help you.

Send others our TIPS and Our Best Advice. Our team loves hearing form you, and we’d love to refer you towards helping find your dream job. We have top job opportunity offers for household help in the domestic help field, if you have top expert job experience with top checkable references for job referrals.

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PICNIC ON MARS

Monday, August 6th, 2012 | Our Best Advice | Comments Off

Over the years ISA staffing has had fascinating job description challenges (which we love), but nothing quite like staffing a picnic on Mars. We see a highly qualified Curiosity trained Chef participate with skillfully prepared space-food specialty cuisine. Peanut’s have accompanied each JPL rover’s landing as a treat ritual (shared among the staff for good luck). We say definitely begin with peanuts and add chocolate (Chef’s choice amuse bouche) along with freshly made food. Make it a Picnic on Mars theme, and show JPL’s video gone viral  Curiosity Seven Minutes of Terror .

After the Cam dust covers were removed we could see thumbnails beautifully enhanced to a better quality. For the next three months scientists around the world will work to track experiments for data telemetry. First commission commands were preloaded onto Curiosity acting under those directions (temporarily) to ensure she remains safe. Interactive directives will come from the team for the next set of activities to begin.

TIP: Check things out on Mars by doing your own online research. Do include children and friends who will gladly wish to know about this monumental accomplishment by forwarding our TIPS to them too. Don’t forget to prepare a fantastic Mars picnic to share together and send others Our Best Advice, (see more TIPS on our Sitemap), and if you need Party Staff, call us!

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Tags: Chef's choice, CHEFS, Curiosity, Curiosity rover, Event Planning, ISA Staffing, job description, JPL, Mars Mission, Mars Picnic, Mars space-food, NASA, Opportunity, Picnic on Mars, Specialty Cuisine, Spirit