"I'm ready for my close-up now Mr DeMille.." - Universal Studios

The entrance to Universal
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One of the highlights of today was sitting at the front of the Universal Tour and listen to the tour guide bitch about the management.

"You know if they actually spent some money on people they might actually get better staff. But, no, they want their budget balanced. Employees come last.."

I wanted to see more of the process ie the writers, directors, actors etc. But that is all done behind close doors. D

The tour guide said that to the bus driver. Remarks like that would have got him hung, drawn and quartered at Disneyworld Florida but I was pleased because it meant the place was human. In this city of make believe people are worried about just the same things as the rest of us.

Town square on one of the Fairytale sets.
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But today has been very enjoyable. I've never been around a film studio of any kind and despite this being a theme park and as authentic as a Derek Meddings miniature - it was still a good day out. Andy Atkinson came with me again and we got on the free mini-bus available this morning. The Banana Bungalow really knows how to look after its people. It might get abit rowdy at times but the free transportation has been very welcome.

We're not far from Universal City here in the Hollywood hills and another Australian couple befriended us and joined us for the park. Once paying our $30 we were through and led with military precision down to where the tour starts. We got seats at the front of the electric golfcar tourmobile. The tour takes you around some of the old sets of the Universal lot. But first you enter a darkened soundstage where a huge animatronic King Kong shakes the tourmobile. Perhaps hes upset about his wages from Universal as well.

We got to see Cabot Cove where 'Murder she Wrote' was filmed and some lovely sets of New York, the Wild West and a fairytale European village. There were lots of SFX involved including an earthquake where a BART subway train hits us followed by floodwater and the famous rubbery 'Jaws' tries to get its teeth into the tourmobile. But I enjoyed the sets the most such as the Roman Forum from 'Ben Hur', the Town Hall Clock from 'Back to the Future' and the Bates Motel high on a hill.

We were pulled further into La-La land. A cute little ride whizzed us around on bicycles chasing ET - the extra terrestrial accompanied by that stirring John Williams music. My favourite attraction was the SFX studio used for the movie 'Backdraft' (Lordy, that dates this journal) you stand behind railings 30ft above the floor and the whole warehouse catches alight. Its a show of burning oil, sheets of flame and for the last explosion that platform drops a foot giving you a surprise.

In the afternoon were the spectacular shows shown in the auditorium. There was 'Miami Vice', 'Red Sonja', an animal spectacular and a STAR TREK show where I felt with the audience participation I had left planet earth completely. Then we finished off with the 'Singing monster' show before making our way back exhausted.

On the way out I noticed lights on in the offices of Universal. Thats where the real job of making movies is. That peaked my interest. I wanted to see more of the process ie the writers, directors, actors etc. But that is all done behind close doors. Deals are more likely to be done in fancy restaurants then at the Universal Lot, actors are more likely to be holed up in Laurel Canyon then the backlot with a load of tourists gawping.

But the studio did peak my interest in movie-making.