Sunday, March 23, 2014

The Problem With Girls Night Out...

Photo;Shandra Beri

...is that you are so happy to be with your girls and having fun that you forget to remember the names and components of the dishes you order and all your pics are out of focus because everyone takes a vote and agrees very early on that the sommelier should bring many, many bottles of wine.

  Photo;Shandra Beri

  Photo;Shandra Beri 

So much talent and beauty at one table!

  Photo;Shandra Beri

Photo;Shandra Beri

 Photo;Shandra Beri

 Photo;Shandra Beri

 Photo;Shandra Beri
Photo;Shandra Beri 

Photo;Shandra Beri 

Thank god I ate something green.

Photo;Shandra Beri

 Photo;Shandra Beri


 Photo;Shandra Beri

  Photo;Shandra Beri

I do remember that there was burrata cheese involved in this 'and baby figs' salad.


 Photo;Shandra Beri

Mmmmmm... fat, flat noodles with some kind of old world grandmother's secret recipe beef-based comfort sauce.

  Photo;Shandra Beri

This may or may not be #1. the leg of a chick, #2. the leg of a quail or #3. the leg of a squab. The only thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is that it was very tiny and very delicious.

Photo;Shandra Beri 

Fries, white truffle oil and...?

  Photo;Shandra Beri 

More wine!

Photo;Shandra Beri

Of course you will not be crying with laughter when trying to guess what exactly this is a tattoo of 

 Photo;Shandra Beri 

because this is not your 7th bottle of wine.


Sunday, March 16, 2014

Eyes as Big as Plates



In the wet and cold countryside of the far north reside hardy people with stories to tell. Ambling across the verdant pastures, clad in the plants of the region, senior citizens model in the wilderness of south and eastern Finland. In our modern, often youth-centered world, the photographs are a beautiful and arresting look at unique and interesting characters in strange circumstances.

The project, called Eyes as Big as Plates, started off as a play on characters and protagonists from Norwegian folklore, but for Norwegian photographers Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen the series has become something more about, as they put it, “exploring the mental landscape of their neighborly and pragmatic Finns.”

The models in the photographs are captivating, not only for the strange organic headwear or clothing they wear in the photographs, but equally for the character they project through the images. Who are these quirky and fascinating people who trek across the cold wilderness, willing to don strange clothes and convey so much through their expressive eyes? What stories do they tell when not behind the lens? In a sense, the mystery behind the people in the images transforms them back into the folkloric images they were originally intended to be.

You can find out more by exploring the websites of both Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen or their new Eyes as Big as Plates site. For a more intimate encounter, attend their show, running February 15 – April 26, 2013 at Recess in Red Hook in New York.

Written by Benjamin Starr















Content via VisualNews and Riitta Ikonen.


Tuesday, March 11, 2014

More Proof That Corvids Are Incredible

Self-Controlled Crows Ace the Marshmallow Test



Photo: zenilorac/Flickr

Are four treats better than two? Not if you’re a crow picking a favorite snack.
Crows and ravens hold off on gobbling a tidbit when they can see a better one coming after a short wait. But they’ll only act with restraint if the future treat is something they like more than what they already have, not if it’s just more of the same.

The new results, published in the April 2014 issue of the journal Animal Behavior, suggest the birds aren’t just capable of controlling their impulses, they also choose when to give in to temptation. The experiments mimic the classic test where kids and adults are left alone with a marshmallow, and promised a better treat if they refrain from biting in. Like many children and adults, crows and ravens waited.

To test the birds’ patience, researchers began by learning their favorite foods. They offered members of the corvid family — seven crows and five ravens — bits of bread, grapes, sausage or fried pork fat and other treats, and noted each bird’s preferences. In a series of subsequent tests, each bird was offered a food item. After delays ranging from a few seconds to ten minutes, they could exchange it for a treat they liked more (sausage and fried pork fat were high on all the birds’ lists), or return it for a larger helping of the same snack.

In a second arrangement, the birds watched as scientists offered up extra helpings of a snack at fixed intervals. If they waited the experiment out, they received four pieces of the food. But they could grab and go at any point, and if they chose to do so, the experimenter stopped doling out treats.

When waiting to exchange a snack for a tastier treat, birds only chose to be patient for higher-quality foods. A bird holding a piece of bread would wait to trade up to a bit of sausage, but not for a second piece of bread. While waiting for treats to pile up, however, corvids wouldn’t stick around for more if they already held a prized treat.

Early experiments with pigeons, chickens and gray parrots suggested birds couldn’t be patient. More recently, studies have demonstrated corvids’ capacity for self-control, so the researchers weren’t surprised by these results with crows and ravens. But they were impressed that the birds waited up to ten minutes on some tests.

“These crows are fed on a regular basis,” said Friederike Hillemann, graduate student at the University of Göttingen, Germany and first author on the study. “They don’t have to work for their food in general, but they were still willing to wait, voluntarily – not because they were starving.”

Previous studies of impulsive fowl have tested pigeons and parrots, cockatoos and chickens, but they usually assessed self-control for treats of higher quantity or quality – not both.

“Hopefully our study showed that there is a big difference between the two,” Hillemann said. She hopes future work will also test primates on both kinds of tasks to see if they show similar preferences.


Photo: jsj1771/Flickr

Being impulsive can pay off. Waiting is difficult, as most of us know. In the wild, it might also be a costly choice. The longer an animal has to wait for a reward, the greater its chances of losing it. Food can walk or fly away if a bird waits too long, and a waiting crow is also a sitting duck crow to predators.

But self-control has advantages to social animals like crows and ravens, which may benefit by sharing. It might also have evolved as birds grew more capable of assessing situations and picking the best response to a set of constraints.

“This is an interesting study,” said James Thom, cognitive psychology researcher at the University of Cambridge. “It provides a nice comparison point to start looking at the mechanisms of how animals make these choices – what are the mental processes going on.”

All the birds in this study were either bred in zoos, or injured or abandoned chicks that were raised by hand. Birds in the wild can’t be tested in such studies that require interacting with humans, Hillemann said. But it’s unlikely that the patience these corvids display is purely because they live in captivity.

“In my experience, corvids will jump through quite a lot of hoops for preferred foods,” said Thom. “I wouldn’t be surprised if birds in the wild were willing to work quite hard for high-value food items as opposed to low-value ones.”

Hillemann’s co-authors are currently planning to test how large, cooperative colonies of crows in northern Spain fare on such tasks.

“Crows and ravens have long been seen as pest species,” Hillemann said, “but it would be nice if people see these birds have abilities we often think of as mostly human.”

Jyoti Madhusoodanan About the Author: Jyoti Madhusoodanan is a Bay Area-based science writer. She has covered animal and human behavior, conservation, and human health for various publications. Follow on Twitter @smjyoti.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Accurate Actually...


How Sarah Jones Lost Her Life

A Train, a Narrow Trestle and 60 Seconds to Escape:


Issue 10 BIZ Sarah Jones Inset Main Image - H 2014
Bobby LaBonge
The Feb. 20 death of 27-year-old camera assistant Sarah Jones on the set of Midnight Rider outside Doctortown, Ga., spread grief and anger through Hollywood. It has led to an industrywide reckoning on safety standards and inspired some Oscars attendees to wear black ribbons on their lapels in her memory. Many of the details of the accident remain murky and unknown. But now a THR reconstruction, based on an exclusive eyewitness account and interviews with Jones’ parents and others, reveals harrowing new details of what happened when a 20-person film crew tried to shoot a scene on a live train track.

Joyce Gilliard, a 42-year-old hairstylist working on Midnight Rider, an indie biopic about Gregg Allman featuring William Hurt as the 1970s rocker, began feeling anxious about the shoot from the moment she arrived at the 110-year-old bridge trestle over the Altamaha River in Wayne County, a wild, untamed land full of rivers, Spanish moss and gnats. “As soon as I got to the location, I started to feel funny,” she said during a series of interviews. “It didn’t feel right. I didn’t feel safe there.”


The 110-year-old bridge over the Altamaha River, Wayne County, Ga.

Jones, already known in the local production community as an indefatigable worker with a cheery disposition, apparently didn’t reveal any concerns to co-workers. But her father, Richard Jones, says that in a phone conversation the night before she died, his daughter told him she was “nervous about a few things.” He says, “She was a little bit surprised about it being low-budget. … She made a comment that some of the people asking her questions should have known more than her, and she thought that was odd.” The day she died, says her father, was her first on the set. (For the full, exclusive interview with Jones' parents, click here.)

As a barefoot Hurt paced, rehearsing his lines, Gilliard watched nervously. She was responsible for the actor’s hair, and as the wind picked up, she darted in and out of shots before retreating behind the cameras, where she traded small talk with Jones.

As the day wore on, director Randall Miller moved the shoot from the land beside the river onto the narrow gridwork of the trestle itself, which extends over the edge of the Altamaha. The trestle’s wood and metal bottom was covered with pebbles and had gaping holes in some places. The blustery wind rang through the girders, making it hard to stay steady, says Gilliard.



From shore, several dozen yards away, a voice shouted to the crew that in the event a train appeared, everyone would have 60 seconds to clear the tracks. “Everybody on the crew was tripping over that,” says Gilliard. “A minute? Are you serious?” By now, she and two other crewmembers were nervous enough that before shooting, they gathered in an informal prayer circle. “Lord, please protect us on these tracks,” murmured Gilliard. “Surround us with your angels and help us, Lord.”

While Gilliard prayed, Jones helped load film, monitor the cameras and transport gear. A fresh-faced South Carolinian with a passion for travel and books, Jones wasn’t really the type to fret much. The crew was filming a dream sequence, and they had placed a twin-size metal-framed bed and mattress in the middle of the tracks. Then, Gilliard looked up and saw a light in the distance, followed by the immense howl of a locomotive. It was a train — and it was hurtling toward them.

Two stories high, screaming with the sound of a blast horn and possibly brakes, the train was nearly as wide as the trestle. Gilliard says Miller yelled at everyone to run. Jones, several bags slung over each shoulder, shouted something about what to do with the expensive camera equipment. “Drop it!” Gilliard and others yelled. “Just drop it!”

The only viable escape route to the closest shore lay in running toward the approaching train, now traveling, by one estimate, at almost 60 mph. Gilliard tried to make her way onto the metal gangplank parallel to the tracks. Miller and another crewmember began tugging at the bed, trying to remove it from the train’s path, fearing it might cause a derailment. But as the train approached, Gilliard says, they abandoned their efforts.


Hairstylist Joyce Gilliard, injured on the set of "Midnight Rider," at her home. (Photo credit: Terry Manier)

Before Gilliard knew it, the train was upon her. She found herself clinging to one of the girders. But the blast of pressure and wind from the train’s passing ripped Gilliard’s left arm away from her body and straight into the train. It snapped like a stick. With one hand still on the girder, Gilliard looked down and saw bone sticking out of her sweater. And then she saw blood. She grabbed a sheet that had come loose from the mattress and wrapped her bleeding arm inside it. With the train howling past just inches behind her, Gilliard threw herself onto two metal wires that stretched between the girders and along the gangplank, thrust her head out over the river below and shut her eyes. “I saw my life, my kids, my family, all of it before me,” she says. “I was sure I was going to die.”

One of the first things she saw when she opened her eyes again was a lifeless Jones, her body and face mangled. Like Gilliard, Jones had tried to find shelter on the gangplank. But when the train hit the bed and mattress, it sent debris flying. Something may have hit Jones, possibly propelling her into the train’s path. In the melee, Miller also fell on the tracks. A still photographer nearby managed to pull him away just in time. He was sobbing, Gilliard says, trying to cope with the disaster. Hurt also survived unscathed. The traumatized crew helped collect Jones’ body. A team of paramedics arrived within 20 minutes, and a helicopter touched down shortly after.

Within an hour after the incident, Gilliard was airlifted to a Savannah hospital to be treated for a compound fracture in her arm and other injuries. Five other crewmembers also required medical care. A police investigation was opened, and federal officials soon were swarming the marshy countryside asking about permissions, permits, easements and the complex language of film contracts.



The multiple investigations since have widened to include the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Georgia law enforcement authorities are treating the investigation into Jones’ death as a negligent homicide, setting the stage for the biggest safety-related scandal to rock Hollywood in at least a decade.

The exact details of what precautions were — or were not — taken on the set that day and whether the production even had permission to film on the tracks are being sorted out. But in the days following the disaster, recriminations of shockingly lax safety protocols began to emerge.

“This was no accident,” says Ray Brown, president of the Motion Picture Studio Mechanics union local 479 in Atlanta and a Jones colleague, suggesting the incident was avoidable. “When I have done train work or around trains for smaller productions up to major blockbusters, there are always several railroad personnel there with their hard hats, glasses and radios, and I can’t imagine a more structured safety protocol even beyond airlines than the rail system.”

Jones’ parents are reluctant to cast blame until investigations are complete. A shaken Miller called them after the incident to express his condolences. “I don’t know myself really what part Randy Miller played in all of this, but he was very upset that day,” says Richard Jones. “He was saying he was so sorry.” Since then, the Joneses have heard nothing from top execs associated with the film.

Their daughter’s death prompted a tidal outpouring of grief and anger from around the world. The filmmaking team has received death threats (though executive producer Nick Gant, who was attacked on Facebook for appearing to have posted insensitive comments, is telling friends that his account was hacked and that he deleted the hacker's comments when he discovered them). By Sunday night, more than 60,000 had signed an online petition demanding that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences include Jones in its “In Memoriam” video segment. Instead, the Academy recognized her in an onscreen photo and caption just before it went to a commercial.

But for Gilliard and the other members of the crew that day, the death of Jones always will be inextricably linked to a lonely patch of Georgia railroad.

The day felt strange from the very beginning, says Gilliard. She and the rest of the crew had gathered at a studio in Savannah that morning, when they were told they’d be traveling to a location to shoot a “camera test.” The crew was quiet and reserved as they passed fields and railroad tracks, arriving about two hours later at the massive metal trestle that spans a portion of the Altamaha River.

CSX, the Florida-based railway company that owns the tracks, easement and trestle where Jones died, told the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office in the early hours of the investigation that it never granted Midnight Rider’s producers permission to film on the tracks in the first place.

“According to the CSX employee,” Sgt. Ben Robertson wrote in a report obtained by the media, “the production company had previously been denied permission to film on the trestle, and there was electronic correspondence to verify that fact.” Robertson’s report noted that a member of Miller’s crew, when asked whether permission was granted, replied, “It’s complicated.”

Miller, who has engaged noted Savannah defense attorney Donnie Dixon, declined through a New York public relations firm to provide specifics about what safety precautions were taken. Other senior managers on the film, including the line producer, first assistant director and location manager, did not respond to requests for comment. Lee Donaldson, a friend of Jones and a local Georgia union official, put it bluntly. “It’s not complicated; you either have permission or you don’t.”

Several Hollywood producers question whether there were shortcuts or oversights in the production. “Every train, every airplane, every airport, every shoot I’ve ever done, there’s always been a coordinator that you hire on your staff to coordinate it all, to communicate to crew, to any train operators, linemen, whatever,” says Harry Bring, a producer of one of the first television shows Jones worked on, Lifetime’s Army Wives. Gilliard says she saw no such officials. “It doesn’t seem like precautions and procedures, both legal and common sense, were taken,” adds Bring. “If they didn’t have permission to be on the tracks, why in the hell were they there?”

In addition to railway safety personnel monitoring the set, Brown, the Atlanta union official, says all crew and cast should have been provided with call sheets with detailed notes on safety. Gilliard claims no such call-sheet notes were provided and no evidence that they existed has emerged.

Ordinarily, producers say, a location shoot like this also would have included an on-site medic. But Gilliard recalls that when Hurt required a Band-Aid for a minor abrasion, he had to get one from a costume designer who happened to have one in her bag. “That’s when we all knew that there was no medic,” recalls Gilliard. In fact, she says, there was not one safety meeting for the shoot on the tracks that day.

According to one media report, Miller may have cut corners before. A local news station released a DVD made by Miller’s production company, Unclaimed Freight, in which crewmembers bragged about their “guerrilla style” filmmaking during the production of the 2013 movie CBGB, which included allowing a small child to roam in a field of cows and another scene in which a piano was dropped down a staircase. In the DVD, Miller says, “I don’t think it’s dangerous at all to have a little kid running with cows, do you think? No. No.”

Director Miller, whose company, Unclaimed Freight, was producing "Midnight Rider." (Photo credit: Dan Steinberg/Invision/Ap)

Gilliard relaxed a little as the initial filming got underway. Two trains rumbled past without incident. When she and others asked whether any more trains were expected, the answer came back: a definitive “No.” The warm weather and camaraderie on the set was a pleasure. But when Miller directed everyone to move out onto the trestle, Gilliard’s stomach tightened once again. She was afraid of heights and never had learned to swim. Jones and Gilliard had worked together before, and Gilliard was happy to see the younger woman. A native of Columbia, S.C., now living in Atlanta, Jones was gifted with optimism, a knack for following instructions and a can-do attitude that endeared her to nearly everyone she encountered. As a kid, she swam and did gymnastics. Later, she attended a local technical college and became interested in the film industry during an internship on Army Wives. In her off time, she traveled.

“If she had a second off, she left the country, she had to see the world,” says one of her best friends, Amanda Etheridge. “She was unstoppable, always wanting to learn a new hobby, a new craft.” Bobby LaBonge, the director of photography for two seasons of Army Wives, says Jones had a disarming naivete. “You felt re-invigorated around her,” he says. “You saw the fresh wildness of making movies again, and you saw a sparkle in her that was fun.”

By her early 20s, Jones was making headway in an industry discipline overwhelmingly male, physically grueling and tough to sustain for very long: camerawork. LaBonge remembers her huffing with lots of gear, always smiling, never complaining. On the set, she was known as “The Ant” because of her ability to carry heavy objects that dwarfed her.

On March 2 in Jones’ hometown, nearly 900 people gathered in the Ashland United Methodist Church, where Jones spent many Sundays as a child. Her father sat down at the piano and began to play “Andy’s Song,” a tune about his own father he had composed and had played for Sarah only a few weeks before, when he found himself stranded in Atlanta by an epic snowstorm. It was the last time he saw her in person. The church filled with the sounds of weeping. As mourners began spilling out of the church, a common refrain was heard: “Never again.” Sarah, everyone agreed, would not die in vain.


Now, the global film industry is undergoing a widespread reckoning of what Jones’ death means. “This incident has rippled its devastation of people all the way to the top of our world,” says Brown. “We have a firm commitment that we will never forget. We will never let this happen again.”

The most high-profile case in which a director was criminally charged in an on-set death was the 1982 helicopter crash during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie that killed Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Chen. Director John Landis and his four co-defendants were found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter after a lengthy 1987 trial, but the deaths did lead to significant improvements in production safety protocols.

Meanwhile, filming of Midnight Rider, which was to be distributed in the U.S. by Open Road Films, has been suspended indefinitely.

“Sarah was a strong, powerful, beautiful woman,” says Gilliard, who now will commit herself to the promotion of safety and welfare on sets. Doctors have told her she will never straighten her arm again. She has metal pins in her elbow, and she says she wakes up several times each night crying, with one horrible final image of Jones burned into her consciousness.

After Richard Jones and his daughter talked by phone the night before the shoot, the two exchanged texts. She expressed her excitement about working with Hurt, and then she was out of range, and their exchange ended. A few minutes later, at 7:57 p.m., he sent her one final text: “Lost you.”


A production slate remembering Jones. (Photo credit: Brooke Brunson)

Scott Johnson, a former Newsweek correspondent, is the author of The Wolf and the Watchman, a CIA Childhood
VIA;  http://www.hollywoodreporter.com

Personal note; Not long ago I worked on a (abysmal...) 2nd tier production that had somehow roped in the participation of a lovely A-list movie star. Throughout the production several fairly serious but non-life threatening injuries had occurred to various cast members (including the lovely A-list movie star...) as a result of poorly supervised stunt-work. Usually, the Stunt Coordinator is the most safety conscious guy on the set, but it became apparent that this was far from the case where our film was concerned. I had by (lucky) coincidence overheard a conversation between the Stunt Coordinator and a totally green (and eager) stunt man who was scheduled to do a full burn the next day (a very dangerous, fully engulfed event that requires stone-cold precision and specialized training to avoid injury). The young man to be 'burned' very clearly stated he had never before worked with fire but he was 'psyched'. The Stunt Coordinator kept slapping him on the back and saying, 'Yeah, I've done it a few times with my dad, it's going to be great!'  I knew at that moment that the kid was going to die. I called the executive producer that night and told him about the conversation I'd overheard, very clearly reminded him about the laundry list of injuries that had occurred on his set and without mixing words stated that in my opinion he would be speaking to a coroner at the end of the next day if he didn't get in the pros. The next day the eager kid was nowhere to be found and our Barney Fife stunt guy had been replaced by experts. Later that day I watched as the flames fully engulfed a seasoned stuntman and shot 10 feet above his head. The burn was spectacular and no one got hurt.

I wish I had been on the set with Sarah Jones. I would have been the voice that kept everyone off that bridge.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

C'mon, Gimme A Hug!


Cafe Day

 Photo;Shandra Beri 

Here's the thing; it was suppose to rain like CRAZY here yesterday (it did not, but the THREAT was LOOMING!!!) and if you know anything about L.A. you know that rain (even in minute quantities...)  has a paralytic effect on the driving capabilities of all persons residing here. SO, if you decide to brave the wet stupidity, you have got to give yourself TIME.



 Photo;Shandra Beri 

Which is how I ended up in Brentwood an hour and a half before my hair appointment.

 Photo;Shandra Beri 

WHICH turned out to be a perfectly civilized time to enjoy a solo breakfast of fresh squeezed orange juice


 Photo;Shandra Beri

and PERFECTLY poached eggs (it's a fetish of mine...) resting upon chunks of heirloom tomatoes, light, pure virgin olive oil, a few wisps of basil and

  Photo;Shandra Beri


the most delectable and perfectly toasted bruschetta On. Planet. Earth.
 

  
 Photo;Shandra Beri 

Also there was a potato, but I didn't fall in love.

Anyway, my hair appointment was a successful whirlwind (thank you, Kevin!) and who should show up for my blow dry but the beautiful Myriam and her super hot hubby, Ian!

 Photo;Shandra Beri 

Not only did the heroic Ian sit in the salon and WAIT for the final 'swoosh' of the dryer (are you kidding me?!), but he and Myriam treated me to lunch at Lemonade!

Photo;Shandra Beri

Beet and tangerine mélange, pear, dandelion and blue Stilton salad AND a cup of white truffle mac and cheese! (Sadly, it's beyond my ability to fully describe the deliciousness going on here, but let's just leave it at INCREDIBLE.)

Flew home on a dry and almost empty freeway just in time for a nice glass of wine!

Great day.