Joseph C. Krause

'The Job' is set to be filmed here
Tom Long / Detroit News Film Critic

Cameras are set to roll next week in Detroit on "The Job," another film production that's landed in Michigan following the April passage of a tax rebate bill here for film production companies.

"The Job" stars Patrick Flueger ("The Princess Diaries"), Ron Perlman ("Hellboy"), Taryn Manning ("Hustle & Flow") and Joe Pantoliano ("The Sopranos," "The Matrix") in a dark comedy-thriller based on the award-winning play of the same name, which ran in Los Angeles for a year before moving to Off Broadway.

The story is about an innocent young man (Flueger) who takes a job sight unseen, hoping to win over a girl. But when he finds out what the job entails, he does everything he can to get out of it.
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Writer Shem Bitterman will direct, and the film is expected to be shooting in the city of Detroit throughout next week.

Why Detroit?

"The financial incentive is obviously a big draw to shoot in Michigan, but locations are what cinched it for 'The Job,' " producer Kiki Goshay says in a press release. "Detroit is rich in architectural treasures like the Fisher Building and the city is also easy to navigate. We've also been pulled in by the warmth and support of the local community."

You can reach Tom Long at (313) 222-8879 or tlong@detnews.com.

WXYZ on "The Job"

You can briefly see me talking on the phone in the background. Also, we're in Palmer Park, Detroit, one block from Highland Park, but not in Highland Park despite what Google Maps say.

Video

The guy cleaning out his car thought that our parking signs reading "THE JOB" indicated we were hiring, and why wouldn't one think that? At least one other was fooled, too. The guy complaining about parking is probably a resident of the building, because we are not using any street parking spaces, we are parking in the gated lot used by residents as well as in the large church parking lot on the adjacent street. I do feel like we are intruding on the residents of the building, though, but we'll be gone in half a week.

Go in here and buy coffee; it's the place that got me this internship that I am loving:

212 Grand River Ave
Detroit, MI 48226
(313) 963-5204

In an unexpected and remarkable turn of events, I find myself currently interning as the director's assistant for an independent Hollywood film shooting in Detroit. I will be working 5 or 6 days per week for long stretches; today was 12 hours. Shooting is scheduled to end by June.

This film crew is in Detroit because Michigan just passed legislation to give back forty cents for every dollar spent here to make films, and astonishingly, the office for this film has been set up for two weeks already. These people don't fuck around.

"In Ohio, on Thursday, I was killed by a truck. Now I haunt you."

Lately I have been playing pretty decently at Catan online, but have been losing, losing, losing. Does this indicate that there's some short-circuit in my brain preventing me from completing tasks on the brink of success? Random chance would have me winning 1/3 of the time, and I am winning less than 1/4 of the time. In the past though I have won more often, but had a lower score. What does it mean to do better overall but rarely win instead of doing shitty overall but winning more often? MYSTERY ANALYSIS!



Games are generally played to 13 or 15 points. That score is displayed before the usernames. But each player also has a "ranking" score, calculated by considering the difference in the player's scores and the difference in the points. For example, if I have a score of 40 and come in second place to someone with a score of 250, I may earn more ranking points than them. If all players are ranked similarly though, the "game" score is analogous to the ranking score.

There are children -- *playing* -- in the playground outside. There are about eight or nine of them and they are supervised by a parent. If this keeps up I will no longer be able to call that "Ghetto Playground Number 1", it will simply have to be "Playground Number 1". Oh well. I bet it's some kind of freakish accident.

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The night before last the front pane of glass was broken on the door to the building. This was a prank or accident, as this door is always unlocked; it was not a break-in attempt. The next morning, a new pane of glass had replaced it. That's good management!

Our mayor has just been charged with 12 felonies. He and his former mistress must turn themselves in by no later than 7AM tomorrow or they will be arrested. :D

Mike Buffington came to visit this week and I showed him around Detroit. I first met him online and finally met him in person last year when I went to Tucson for the Tape Op convention. He was here to look at Cranbrook as a potential school for a Masters in Industrial Design. I explored the campus with him a little bit on his second day; I hadn't been there since I was a child. I liked the Saarinen exhibit and had forgotten about the science museum there. We also spent some time in Ferndale, Royal Oak, MOCAD, The DIA, the Grand River Galleries, Eastern Market, at the Packard Plant, downtown, Hamtramck and on Belle Isle. He gave me two days worth of They Might Be Giants music that I mostly didn't already have.

When we were in the Greektown parking garage, we witnessed a man stealing a van. Mike got the plate and I called security, but we don't know whether he was stopped. That guy was letting the party begin at Greektown.

Finally met with the InZer0 sound guy, and will commence work on the audio to a gunfight scene soon. Also storyboards are in process with Aaron for an animated project that fizzled a year ago which we're trying to bring back to life.

Beans and Bytes is not a good coffee shop. In addition to its lack of good atmosphere and feeling of general discomfort, it just took 25 minutes for my order to be prepared: a small coffee containing soy milk. I guess it's better than nothing, but I look forward to Mercury opening.

Oh yeah, and the parade yesterday was cold and fun.

Foxy Shazam is a sexy band and I even like their songs. Also, Daisy is fun to dance with.



Further, the director of that video, Jeremy E. Jackson, directed this gross Cannibal Corpse video featuring my friend Lou:



Eew.

I finally today got around to making some long-overdue improvements to Aram Khachaturian's famous Sabre Dance.

I just recorded this and cut it together:


Original Music from Mega Man 2
by Manami Matsumae, Ogeretsu Kun, and Yoshihiro Sakaguchi.

La Shish Closes Doors For Good

My current favorite cynic now has a podast.

This week I taped part one of a four-part speaker series put on by Cityscape Detroit. Here's the video of James Sears, who oversees the development of WSU's campus, speaking at The Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit.

The video work isn't that amazing, but I was presented with the unfamiliar equipment minutes before the event commenced, so it should be better next time.

By the way, WSU students, the Third Street bridge over The Lodge is on its way out unless the Michigan Department of Transportation changes its mind. If you know people who live on Fourth Street, make sure they know, as this will further isolate their block.

Kenneth Cockerel Jr. attended this event. It's nice to know that the man who will be mayor should Kwame resign is engaged with what's going on.

Vimeo is a site like YouTube, but it allows higher-quality video uploads, so here is a much better-looking version of "City Kids" than the ones found on YouTube:


Zelda and the Unibrows "City Kids" from Joseph C. Krause on Vimeo.

I went to Ferndale today to get some stuff from The Natural Food Patch. Since I looked at that apartment there last Summer, about six businesses in the one block of 9 Mile West of Woodward have closed or are closing: Noovoodoo Screenprinting, an eyeglass place, a tea shop, a boutique of some kind, Old Navy, and Record Time. Also, the really cool woman who would have been my next-door neighbor had I taken that apartment died. What's happening to Ferndale?