The Bay Area is blue and green. Los Angeles is gray and brown.

After I left the Bay Area to move to LA, I couldn't stand it here for quite some time. I can't remember when I really began to accept it. It was more like having your soul crushed into submission rather than seeing it as something good. Not to get to heavy there... ha. But after 9 years we almost moved back before all this stuff at Nickelodeon happened. The best thing by far about LA is the industry opportunities and the people. These are the things I'll miss when we return (most likely now in 2007). Anyway, here's an article I got via an ILM guy about an ILM guy moving down here. And ironically, I had to turn down ILM (only temporarily!) to stay here. But it gives you a glimpse of what it's like to be in LA. A friend summed it up:

The Bay Area is blue and green.
Los Angeles is gray and brown.
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Pre-vis Master David Dozoretz Comes To Terms With L.A.

(MarinIJ) David Dozoretz, who spent 10 years in Marin atGeorge Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic before setting out on his ownin Los Angeles, tells a his story:

"If you walk down the street in L.A. and stop a random person, and youask, 'How's the script coming?' seven out of 10 people have alegitimate answer. Everybody here is in the industry."

That, according to Dozoretz, can be both a blessing and a curse. Hespeaks of trying to ground himself in reality by attempting to spendtime in less movie-crazed portions of the great metropolis to thesouth.

But in the meantime, L.A. is where he needs to be. During his tenureat ILM, Dozoretz became a pioneer in a new digital-storyboardingtechnique just becoming prevalent, especially in effects-heavypictures made by the big L.A.-based studios.

The technique is called pre-visualization, and by hitching his star toit, Dozoretz rose from ILM intern to heavyweight. His ownpre-visualization company recently finished working on "Mission:Impossible 3" and "X-Men 3," but Dozoretz also has plans for directinghis own movie, and both his company and his script required hispresence down south.

"As the owner of a company that does (pre-visualization), I needed togo where my clients were," Dozoretz says. "And even stronger thanthat, I needed to meet with producers, studio executives, and agents(regarding my own project) É and that's all down here in L.A."

The one place I wouldn't live.

Dozoretz wistfully remembers exiting the art department with hisco-workers in time to see the Marin sun set over the trees, thencontrasting this with a Los Angeles he describes as a maze of "gasstations and doughnut shops."

"We would work hours and hours (at the ILM art department) trying tocreate a beautiful image, and then, walking outside, we'd see that Godwould do it in a matter of minutes. In Marin, artists have to rise tothe challenge of living in Marin."

Dozoretz is not the only Marin expatriate who will wax poetic over thebetter connection to nature one can feel in Marin. In L.A., thesefilmmakers say, there are less trees and more billboards.