Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Inside the LA MARATHON 2008

NENIKEKAMEN!

OK, I am posting this with YouTube under protest...



...why? Because VIMEO has much better compression. Check out the same video here for a better time!

There's nothing like that feeling...congrats and thanks to all the amazing runners and Angelenos who turned out that day. What a terrific race! I got a little punchy going into Boyle Heights, but then I saw the view of downtown from the 6th Street Bridge...it's like that shot from the Wizard of Oz!


I shot this (and all the video here) using a simple Quickpod and my little Nikon. Next year, I'm going for a little more image stabilization. Or maybe I'll just shoot more stills. Either way, it's like the man said when he arrived in the city of Athens: "Nenikekamen!"



"We are victorious!"

Friday, March 07, 2008

It's Dick Sylbert's Hollywood...



...we just work in it!

Six years ago this month Richard Sylbert died of pancreatic cancer. He was amazing: one of the few true men of genius I ever had the pleasure to interview. His knowledge of story and of design was profound, and it gave us THE GRADUATE, CHINATOWN, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, ROSEMARY'S BABY, REDS, THE PAWNBROKER, and on and on and on.

I meant to put this out there before now: attention must be paid to this kind of skill. Here's a little peek into his genius through what is probably his most famous film: CHINATOWN. A short segment from MASTERS OF PRODUCTION, a doc I created for PBS a few years back.

I have two regrets about that doc: it isn't available for the many students out there who are struggling (as so many of us have) to understand the junction of story and design, and it's not out there to illustrate what people inside the movie business know:

It's Dick Sylbert's Hollywood, we just work in it.