Great article yesterday in the San Francisco Chronicle Pink Section honoring Pinball Donut Girl’s Ned Kopp:

Ned Kopp on the set of Pinball Donut Girl
- photo by Audrey Daniel

A longtime Bay Area production supervisor, Kopp was who the Bond production team, headed by Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli, turned to when James Bond came to San Francisco to make “A View to a Kill,” which was partially filmed here in 1984. The film, Roger Moore‘s seventh and final appearance as Bond, was released in 1985.

The Bond team liked Kopp’s work so much that they called the next time it shot in the United States – four years later for “License to Kill,” with Timothy Dalton as Bond, in Key West, Fla.

In the early 1970s, Kopp served as an assistant cameraman on George Lucas‘ “THX 1138″ and was Lucas’ assistant director on “American Graffiti.” (You can see Kopp in any Mel’s diner. In a photograph with actor Ron Howard in the foreground and Lucas hunched beneath a lunch counter, Kopp is the bearded, balding man standing above the counter.) He also worked on films directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Phil Kaufman and Alan Parker, among others.

But a Bond set is something else.

The 28th annual Pinball Expo is off and running in Chicago.

photo by Mark Czarnowski

PBDG cast member Mark Czarnowski is hard at work behind the scenes and it looks like things are really coming together.

photo by Mark Czarnowski

Mark got to play Cactus Canyon Continued — a CC game running with P-ROC, a cool board that lets you mod pinball games via a pc over usb.  Mark reports:

“In our repair room, we have a Cactus Canyon, running custom software on a P-ROC controller and a PC. The new custom version, dubbed Cactus Canyon Continued, is programmed and overlaid on top of the original. The pic shows the CCC software creator on the left, and the P-ROC hardware guys, center and right.”

Photo by Mark Czarnowski

“The P-ROC version has many new features, including a mode called Drunk Multiball, best played by crossing your arms, since the flipper buttons are reversed.”

photo by Mark Czarnowski

Don’t forget that Pinball Donut Girl will be screening at the LTG show Friday evening at 10:00 with Mark hosting!

Lloyd Olson, AKA “LTG” will be including a screening of the ten minute festival cut of Pinball Donut Girl at his LTG show at Pinball Expo of Chicago this Friday, Oct. 19 at 10:00 PM in the Lake Michigan Ballroom.

I won’t be able to attend , but cast member Mark Czarnowski will be standing in for me, and I hear there is a good chance some PBDG posters will be part of Lloyd’s prizes.

photo courtesy Lloyd Olson

In addition to putting on the greatest seminar at the Expo, Lloyd also runs SS Billiards, in Hopkins, Minnesota, where he has been keeping pinball fresh since 1972 with tournaments, family fun, and well maintained games.

So come out to the Expo, have a great time, and please join Mark at the LTG show to see Pinball Donut Girl! I wish I could be there with you.

Poster Detail (Download Me as Wallpaper!)

A few photos from the Pacific Pinball Expo, definitely my favorite five days of September!

Charlie Kuttner and I filmed the whole load in, an amazing 2 day transformation of an empty room to a pinball wonderland, and then of course I got to meet and talk to a lot of you, play pinball, see cast and crew members, eat donuts, and screen my films. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Thank you to everyone who came out to the show and to the amazing volunteers of the Pacific Pinball Museum who make the magic happen!

photo by Charlie Kuttner

photo courtesy Matt Walsh

photo by Charlie Kuttner

And congratulations to Jeri Ellsworth on her 2012 Maker Hero award!

Hope you’re coming on Friday to the Pacific Pinball Expo; the first festival event in the Sausalito room will be Wade Krause: Pinball Artist.  Wade himself will be there to talk about his work and help me answer questions about the film.

image from Wade Krause: Pinball Artist, photography courtesy Joe Bansuelo

Get behind the backglass with Wade! You’ll learn about his restoration work and his collaborations with artists like Dirty Donny on the Metallica game, Beatniks, Hellacopters and other cool games.

Date: Sept. 21, 2012
Time: 11:00 AM
Where: Sausalito Room, Pacific Pinball Expo, San Rafael, CA
Directions: www.marincounty.org/Depts/CU/Directions

Hope to see you there.

PS: Stay for the whole weekend so you don’t miss seeing Pinball Donut Girl on Saturday.