I was hoping for two things to happen on the Oscars show. First (and seemingly most important, at least to Christine my hairdresser) was to see if Rob and I could be spotted when they show the teeny blip from the Academy SciTech Awards that's held earlier in the month. And second, I was hoping for a win for "Falling Slowly," the song from the movie, "Once."
I'm sure that the producers of the Oscar show spend half their waking hours trying to find clever ways to decrease the time allotted for the SciTech Awards portion of the Oscars. But sometimes it's really interesting stuff, and part of the fun is watching the cute young presenter (in this case, Jessica Alba) try to pronounce the technical words. Things like, "This system is used to create simulations of gaseous phenomena integrated into the widely available Maya tool suite, using an unconditionally stable semi-Lagrangian solver."
My favorite award was that given to Christien Tinsley, for the "Tinsley Transfers" - a way of applying tattoos, bruises, and wounds by using a thin adhesive material that can be reused. Instead of having to do the same thing each day with makeup, and trying to match what was done the day before, a tattoo or wound can be done on one of these transfers, and then taken off at night and stuck back on the next day. Very cool. (No, that photo of George wearing Tinsley Transfers is not just a lame excuse to put him on my blog....)
Rob is on the Academy's SciTech Council and also on the Awards Committee and the program is probably the only time his name appears anywhere on the same page with Tom Hanks, Ed Begley Jr, and Henry Winkler. For a while, the Academy kept adding an extra "L" to our last name, but they seem to have it straightened out now. Anyway, it's more than a thrill to see his name listed. (Click on program to enlarge. See middle of right hand column.)
During dinner, Rob disappeared for awhile and later returned giving the excuse that he "had to help Jessica." "With?????" I asked. He said he was pulled over to Jessica's table by his friend, Tad Marburg, who told him that Jessica needed help in the script with the pronunciation of the phrase, "cinematographic image." (Try it yourself - it's not easy...) Rob told her, that's easy, just say, "cinematographer's image" instead. Once again, Rob saves the day. She then (according to him) grabbed his hand with both of hers and said, "Thank you SO MUCH!" Miraculously, he found his way back to our table for dessert.
Now, for the indisputable evidence that my hair (and a little hint of Rob) were on the Oscars telecast. Thanks to the miracle of High-Def television, along with Tivo, here is the wide shot of the event as shown last night, under the looming image of Jessica, with my hair plainly visible (see blue arrow). Hard to believe that our own children did not see us....
In the close-up, Rob is to my right, covered with golden Oscar dots...
Here are the Oscar candies they gave out. Cuteness.
When they showed the "in memoriam" segment, it hadn't occurred to me that I might see someone I knew. But when our sweet friend Laszlo Kovac appeared on the screen, we all got teary-eyed. He is known elsewhere as the award-winning cinematographer of "Five Easy Pieces," "Paper Moon," and "Ghostbusters" (not to mention "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies"), but known to Emily and Claire as "Mr. Basket Head" as he and his wife Audrey would babysit them in their early years and Laszlo would crawl around the house with a laundry basket on his head, trying to entertain them. Em and Claire both called during the show to say how emotional that was for them. This photo of Laszlo fills me with joy....
Another name mentioned in that segment was Peter Ellenshaw. He is the father of our friend, Harrison Ellenshaw, and is one of the gods of matte painting. (Harrison followed in his dad's career choice and did the matte paintings for a little film called, "Star Wars.") Here is Peter getting Julie Andrews positioned for the shot of her floating above London for "Mary Poppins."
And here's the final shot as it appeared in the movie.
And now for the part of the evening I enjoyed even more than looking for my hair:
"FALLING SLOWLY" WON!
How great is that? The movie that cost $100,000 to make, shot in 3 weeks, with two handicams. Its song topped the big Disney production extravaganzas. Wow. Glen Hansard sings like he's singing for his life. Like he can't stop peddling or he'll fall off the bike into the depths of oblivion. It's so raw and authentic (I'm becoming Paula Abdul) and, I guess, real. No hype. No big names. Just music. With feeling. Hard to believe that sometimes an idea doesn't need lots of money, rules, opinions, analysis, focus groups, more money. Sometimes the idea is right, just as it is. Love overflowing. Pure. Complete.
Raise your hopeful voice. You have a choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment