Ep. #6- The Matrix Reloaded with Ami Zins, Former Oakland Film Commisioner

Fabulous Film & Friends

English - September 21, 2021 04:00 - 44 minutes - 30.5 MB - ★★★★★ - 7 ratings
Visual Arts Arts Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed

Previous Episode: Ep. #5: 2001: A Space Odyssey with Bob Gitzen, Sound Mixer

Next Episode: Ep. #7 - Star Trek V Roundtable with Burton Brown, David Johnson, DMD, and Roseanne Caputi

On today’s exciting edition of Fabulous Film & Friends I’m talk with former Oakland Film Commissioner Ami Zins about The Matrix Reloaded, the blockbuster sequel to the 1999 genre busting, era-defining sci fi mind-bender, The Matrix.

I met Ami during the carefree days of the summer of 2000 on a an indie feature entitled Haiku Tunnel, the very first project I worked on as an intern after taking the dive from the workaday grind into the extraordinary, intoxicating world of film.

We were filming in Oakland City Hall and the surrounding Frank Ogawa Plaza and I was immediately struck by how much enthusiasm Ami had for the project as well as in helping the crew, despite our very low production budget of only a couple 100k or so.

In the subsequent years, any time I encountered Ami on either a film or a commercial project, she always had the same happy grin on her face and excitement for the project, and more importantly, for the people she was working with.

Ami was also instrumental in establishing the Oakland Film Center, which was a thriving hub of film production from the early 2000’s up until the mid 2010’s.

Ami has since left the Oakland Film Office and works as a Resilience & Transformation Coach as well as a Public Speaking Teacher/Coach and she also helps students in the realm of English Language Empowerment.

For more info contact Ami on her LinkedIn Page.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amizins/

But with a fourth Matrix movie due out in theaters and HBO Max this Christmas, I was reminded of one of the biggest, most ambitious productions ever to hit the San Francisco Bay Area in The Matrix Reloaded as well as its back-to-back sequel, The Matrix Revolutions and Ami was there from nearly the beginning of the project.

I wanted you, my keen-eared listeners to get Ami’s insights on a colossal production like that, from a film commissioners point of view, and to share that perspective as we prepare to rekindle our love for all things Matrix.