Tech Art, Coming Soon

The last few weeks I’ve been enjoying shooting new images for my series on antique motion picture equipment
(see the bottom of the article: Good Times, Aug 12). I am now in the home stretch preparing for my exhibit. The Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be displaying 30 of my images in the Dunn Theatre at the Pickford Center here in Hollywood. The Academy has been opening doors for me at Panavision, Mole Richardson and their own archive. You can’t see me right now, but I’m grinning like an idiot as I write this. I feel like a kid in a candy store as I rummage around these great old things.

Here are some of my favorites from the last batch. You saw it here first.

Mole Richardson studio light.

Panavision motion picture camera, front view.

Tilt wheel, Panavision camera.

Bears and Roses

I’m not a big fan of the multiple production companies discovering our quiet neighborhood and deciding it’s the perfect place to shoot their movie or commercial. I am however a big fan of the absurd!

Don’t get me wrong; I totally support film production staying in Hollywood as opposed to being bussed out to the great white north (Canada, for those who didn’t see “Strange Brew”). But when those crews show up three times a year with multiple trucks, generators and staff with walkies, robbing us of our precious parking spots… it gets a little annoying. It doesn’t help that some twenty something craft service kid with a tattoo and a headset walks with an attitude that being involved in the “business” is as important as curing cancer.

I had to smile though when I saw a crew a few weeks ago late in the day shooting a dumptruck unloading teddy bears and roses into an open convertible. No lie! If I didn’t have the picture to prove my story I probably would not have mentioned it for fear of being locked up. I hope you enjoy the humor in this image as much as I do.