David Ramser of The Artists Company is best known as a comedy director. But in-between those humorous ad jobs, he has donned a reporter’s hat, turning out mini-documentaries which he directs, shoots and edits. We thought it appropriate in the context of our Directors Issue to focus on one helmer’s personal filmmaking pursuits during his spare time.
“There’s an old saying, ‘Dying is easy. Comedy is hard,'” related Ramser. “So for fun, I wanted to take on other kinds of projects that directly affect me, that have been brought to my attention by some relationship to the subject matter. For me, this is fun. This wasn’t a directorial decision so that I could skip out on comedy and get more work of a different sort. I love comedy–that’s what I do professionally. But I wanted some passion projects to express myself in other ways, to explore interesting things I care about or that just strike my imagination.”
One passion project in particular, The Foreclosure of Cristina Ramos, has struck a responsive chord upon being covered in The Huffington Post, putting a human face on the housing meltdown as Ramser interviewed Ramos, a housekeeper whom the director has employed twice a week for the past 15 years. She and her husband bought their South Los Angeles home six years ago with $15,000 down on a $425,000 sales price. The home’s value has plummeted to $170,000. Refinancing and loan modifications have been denied. And auction dates have been set for the house only to thus far be postponed.
Ramos explains she isn’t angry, just sad and depressed. She said the realtor wasn’t forthright, telling them they were qualified for home ownership with “no problem” and that their monthly mortgage payment would remain stable. Instead, the variable rate shot the mortgage from the former Countrywide up from $2,300 to $3,000. Ramser’s seven-and-a-half minute documentary notes that from 2007-’10, nearly half of all foreclosures involved Hispanic borrowers. (Bank of America, which has since bought Countrywide, paid $335 million to settle allegations that its Countrywide unit discriminated against African-American and Hispanic borrowers during the housing boom.)
“I just tried to show how a person and her family have been impacted. I wasn’t looking to take sides in a fight or make a political statement,” said Ramser who noted that online feedback for the most part has been either empathetic or derisive. In today’s polarized era, Ramser observed that he wished more moderate people were vocal.
Still, the film serves as food for thought. Conversely another mini-documentary from Ramser, Bug Nation, serves as thought for food, profiling Mathew Krisiloff, a college student who teamed with others to form Entom Foods, short for entomophagy, which is the eating of insect meat. Introducing bugs to American cuisine, Krisiloff contends, is healthy, good for the environment, economical and believe it or not, tasty.
As for what’s next, Ramser plans to do a follow-up piece on Ramos. And at press time, the director was headed to Watts to explore the Urban Compass program which helps provide elementary school kids with productive activities during the vulnerable 3-6 p.m. daypart so that they will be more inclined to continue their education and not get detoured into gangs or drugs.
Hollywood’s Oscar Season Turns Into A Pledge Drive In Midst Of L.A. Wildfires
When the Palisades Fire broke out in Los Angeles last Tuesday, Hollywood's awards season was in full swing. The Golden Globes had transpired less than 48 hours earlier and a series of splashy awards banquets followed in the days after.
But the enormity of the destruction in Southern California has quickly snuffed out all festiveness in the movie industry's high season of celebration. At one point, the flames even encroached on the hillside above the Dolby Theatre, the home of the Academy Awards.
The fires have struck at the very heart of a movie industry still trying to stabilize itself after years of pandemic, labor turmoil and technological upheaval. Not for the first time this decade, the Oscars are facing the question of: Should the show go on? And if it does, what do they mean now?
"With ALL due respect during Hollywood's season of celebration, I hope any of the networks televising the upcoming awards will seriously consider NOT televising them and donating the revenue they would have gathered to victims of the fires and the firefighters," "Hacks" star Jean Smart, a recent Globe winner, wrote on Instagram.
The Oscars remain as scheduled, but it's certain that they will be transformed due to the wildfires, and that most of the red-carpet pomp that typically stretches between now and then will be curtailed if not altogether canceled. With so many left without a home by the fires, there's scant appetite for the usual self-congratulatory parades of the season.
Focus has turned, instead, to what the Oscars might symbolize for a traumatized Los Angeles. The Oscars have never meant less, but, at the same time, they might be more important than ever as a beacon of perseverance for the reeling movie capital.
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