In Smog and Thunder

Production Notes

In 1996, Southern California artist, Sandow Birk, was invited to have an exhibit in San Francisco at Catherine Clark Gallery. "I spent a month living with a friend up there, painting and hanging out," Birk recalled. "And everywhere I went, people would hassle me for being from Los Angeles. I'd be sitting in a bar and people would ask where I was from and then they go off on me: 'It's so horrible,' and 'How can you live there?' At first it was kind of comical, but it became annoying. And that's how I started having this idea about a fake war.'' Birk imagined San Francisco's worst nightmare: an invasion by Los Angeles.

Major General Juan Gomez de los Angeles

Over the next six years, Birk created over 100 artworks in the series. The paintings developed into a wonderful critique and send up of 19th century romantic period history paintings. He saw all the overly dignified and majestically painted portraits of generals and battle scenes of the past as ripe for the picking.

As the body of work grew he exhibited the paintings in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Then, in 2000, he mounted the entire series at the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach, California. Throughout the exhibition he spoofed the nature of museums. There were explanatory wall texts, large models of battleships, dioramas, and an audio tour.

How far could this project go? Birk had skewered historical war paintings, propaganda art, and the historical pomposity of museums. The logical extension for him and his audio tour co-conspirator, Paul Zaloom, was to make a mockumentary. The Ken Burns' Civil War series was now in their cross hairs.

By late 2001, a script was near completion and Sean Meredith was now on board with Birk and Zaloom. Longtime television writer and producer, Tom Patchett, also was part of the team as the Executive Producer and provided the funding needed to make the project.

The Battle of San Francisco

The script was finished in January and casting was quickly under way. The biggest part was already filled: the narrator. The voice of Paul Zaloom as the narrator is the backbone of the film. The next shoes to fill were that of the historian. Zaloom was able to wrangle his colleague, Mark Ritts, who worked with him on "Beakman's World". Ritts had the natural look and presence of an historian. Next, Sean Meredith got Meagan Fay to play the part of the Getty Museum secretary. Then, there were over twenty-five voices to cast. Looking far and wide, the filmmakers got many comedic actors to fill roles.

As they began recording voices and shooting scenes, Birk, Meredith, and Zaloom began to plan the music. Gary Eisenberg, a local Los Angeles trumpet player, stepped in to record many classic war tunes and composed the powerful theme song of the film. Many pieces of music were composed for the film by Alex Raugust and by Mark McAdam. McAdam also wrote, performed, and produced a song for the end credits. McAdam was asked record a send-up of all the horrible songs that the big film companies put in the end credits that have no relation to the film. He came up with a bombastic anthem reminiscent of the self-important band Rage Against The Machine.

By May of 2002, Sean Meredith was immersed in digitally creating all the scenes of the film from images of Birk's paintings. Using compositing software and high-resolution scans of the paintings, Meredith programmed all the moves and effects to transform Birk's paintings into motion pictures.

In the spirit of fairness, Birk, Meredith, and Zaloom wished to include an interview with a 'neutral' California figure. Huell Howser, the host of the popular TV series 'California's Gold' was thus enlisted to do a cameo as himself. They filmed a scene taken right out of Howser's play book. He is shown visiting a bronze memorial of the card table where Northern and Southern California met to sign the peace treaty.

The film is 46 minutes and 20 seconds long. The film's live scenes were shot with miniDV. The motion graphics and effects were rendered using Adobe After Effects. The editing was done with a Final Cut Pro system. The audio was recorded, mixed, and mastered using a ProTools system.