One of the reasons there was such a lapse in this little cocktail blog of mine was due to a major change in my life. The film industry in California is in great danger, more and more studios are influenced to take their work to foreign entities due to major tax incentives. (Part of the reason I spent 6 months in Vancouver) For a while we thought we were invincible here, but slowly production after production leaves and on the end of work I was in, VFX studio after VFX studios in the state shut down. I worked for one of the biggest, Academy Award winning Rhythm and Hues, most renown for the work on Life of Pi. Early this year our studio filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as the pressures to meet the demands of Studio heads and international pricing finally took its toll. I watched at co-worker after co worker was laid off in hundreds, then finally myself at the end of May as the studio was finally purchased by an Indian investor and the decison was made that production work was no longer going to take place in Los Angeles and only in our international facilites.

I took this as a chance to try something new. I wanted to embrace local artisan culture and promote local handmade work, thus Rizzo & Crane was born. http://www.rizzoandcrane.com/

I have been selling on Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/RizzoAndCrane) and will also be at The Artisanal LA Fall Show in Los Angeles October 12-13