For the next five days I’ve agreed to observe and report on the InFilm program, which bills itself as a kind of Hollywood education experience for high-end tourists. The InFilm people are looking to spread the word around, and I thought it might be interesting to learn perhaps a bit more about the visual effects industry, which is the focus of this week’s get-around.

Taking an InFilm program Hollywood tour costs between $2500 and $3000 a pop. I’ve never heard of an operation like this, but it’s the sort of thing I’d probably go for if I had money to burn and didn’t have the social and informational access to the film industry that’s part of my Hollywood Elsewhere day-to-day.

The InFilmers are figuring that $2500 to $3000 isn’t too much to pay for a classy film connoisseur’s experience — for people who really and truly care about movies the way others care about Catholicism or whatever. It’s an informational way to blow dough, in short, for particular people who don’t see themselves as run-of-the-mill tourists.

That said, I’m not sure that this morning’s activity — a visit to the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library, where I spent hundreds of hours researching articles during my print journalism days of the ’80s and ’90s — is going to broaden my horizons.

But later today we’ll be dropping by Digital Domain, which I’ve never once visited in all my years in Los Angeles. On Tuesday we’ll be visiting Anatomorphex, and then Rhythm & Hues the following day. Visits to Legacy FX and Full Scale Effects will happen on Thursday.

Suite #310 at West Hollywood’s Le Parc hotel

I was introduced to the InFilm program by Brazilian film critic, scholar and educator Pablo Villaca, whom I’ve known on an online basis for a few years.

I ran into Pablo yesterday afternoon at the Le Parc hotel, where InFilm is putting us up, and since he’s never been here before I took him a ten-cent tour of West LA, Santa Monica, the Ocean Park beach area, Bel Air, Beverly Hills and West Hollywood.

Anyway, that’s the deal for the next five days — a high-end tour of the local FX industry. I’ll carve some time out here and there to file whatever, and I’m going to keep up with screenings and whatnot in the evenings.