It seems a bit late to bother talking about it, but two weeks ago my dad and I went to a lecture at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute with Garrett Brown, who invented the Steadicam and all sorts of motion-controlled-camera technology since then. It was pretty cool, almost like being back in school, but in more of a production-oriented lesson instead of film studies. He talked about how he developed the equipment and tested it, and even screened reels of ealry demonstrations and promotion from the 60s. He also went through a few scenes from different films to talk about the advantages, and art, of camera motion during a shot, and after the lecture there was a screening of Rocky, the first film to use Steadicam technology.
Over the weekend, I went down to Delaware to help with set-up for week 1 of the Delaware Aerospace Academy, doing my usual set-up task of assembling cadet handbooks. Unlike past years, though, I had some help from two co-pilots (first-year counselors), which made for a very entertaining afternoon. I hit it off with one of them in particular, who, was quite interested in hearing about my study abroad in Scotland; apparently his sister had been to the Edinburgh Tattoo & Fringe Festival the year before, so theatre & film festivals are really the only connection he has to Scotland. Turns out he also had just gotten back from Ireland, and told me about The Wind That Shakes The Barley (which was at Cannes, I think -- regardless, it's everywhere in the film and culture magazines that I've been checking in at the library...), so we had a good time chatting about independent film and Britain and such. It didn't hurt that he looks like a younger, curly-haired Cillian Murphy -- another oddity to go along with the Scotland/film connection, because Cillian stars in Barley. Weird. It's too bad the younger version is far too young, though, by about eight years. Suddenly I feel old...
In other Academy news, for those of you who looked at the website, but mostly for those of you involved with DASEF, you might be relieved to know that I've started redesigning it; I updated the blue & yellow logo last night so it doesn't look like it's from the 80s - I just hope Dr. Wright (who runs the Academy) will be willing to use it. Oh what the hell, I'll post it for kicks:
Other than that, it's just been rainy and humid for the past five days, and I stayed home from work today because it took my mom and me forty minutes to drive about 2 miles in an attempt to get me to the train station before finding out the road we needed to get on was completely blocked due to flooding. I do love living in the boonies. But it gave me the chance to get some web design research done, and through poking around on the CSS Zen Garden (this isn't the homepage, just one of my favorite designs; this one is pretty cool too, and I love the title image here), I found my new favorite website, http://www.sxc.hu/, and I now have about a dozen new photos that I can't wait to get into Photoshop. *sigh* look at me, I've become a web nerd...
1 comment:
Put me on record as liking the new logo.
2 things though...
1) There's nothing wrong with the 80s.
2) If you're old, what does that make me?
Post a Comment