This trip had the makings of either an epic adventure or epic disaster. Fortunately, it was the former.
The annual trek to the Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle was looking like it might not happen this year, but at the last minute, a few crucial details unfolded, and after an afternoon at AAA mapping out the journey, it started to look more like a go.
The problem was that Rob was scheduled to speak at an Academy event on Tuesday night and we had to be in Scottsdale on Wednesday. And then Seattle on Friday. And we were driving.
And so we packed for both the heat of Arizona and the grey of Seattle, stuffed our suitcases, blankets, lawn chairs, and DOTS tape into the van, dropped off the pup, and headed to the Academy for a rehearsal. I love the photo above because it shows Rob practicing, alongside a slide he put on the screen of Hummel Lake on Lopez Island. Somehow, seeing him standing between a giant Oscar and a giant Hummel Lake filled me with the joy of whatever forces brought the Hummel family to that lake and the knowledge that one of the clan is on stage as a member of the Oscar family. A journey no one could plan or ever fully account for. But there it was.
The evening was about the difference between shooting movies on film vs. shooting them digitally. Rob's part was explaining the science behind both. I've heard him do the film portion many times (including Claire's awesome diagram explaining 3-strip Technicolor which garners praise each time it's appeared on screen). But I'd never heard the digital side. He'd created some great slides showing all the information that gets lost in the process, and also how it gets misplaced, landing on the wrong photosites, causing rainbows where there aren't supposed to be rainbows.
At rehearsal, Rob pulled aside Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois (creators of "Lilo and Stitch" as well as of "How to Train Your Dragon") and asked them to sign a printout of Claire's painting of "How to Train Your Stitch," where she had painted Stitch as the dragon. It appeared to Rob that Chris and Dean were just being polite when they said yes. But when Rob unrolled the printout, Chris exclaimed that he remembered seeing this on Deviant Art and that he'd recommended it! Then the two pointed at different parts.... ohhh look at how she did the shading here... Happy dad.
It was a pretty star-studded panel, at least to cinematography geeks: John Bailey, John Kroyer, Guillermo Navarro, Dean Semler, Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois, and Adrian Seery.
I love Guillermo Navarro, who, in turn, loves film. He says that on the set, when the director yells "Action!" there's a palpable feeling of energy and focus, knowing that there's a limited amount of film stock going through that camera. No such feeling with digital. Just shoot it again. And again. And again. Also, with no respect for the amount of material one is piling on top of the poor editor who has to sort through it all to find the good stuff. So Guillermo's advice was that when shooting digitally, use the same discipline and focus that you would use if you were shooting on film. I guess I just love anyone who, in this day and age, sings the praises of discipline and focus.
Besides our cinematographer friends, we were happy to be joined by our nephew Patrick and his girlfriend, Hannah, along with Lynn Thurman, Jesse Mather, and Devon Brady, son of friend Penny Peyser.
In the lovely connections department: Martha Winterhalter, publisher of the ASC Magazine, told me she'd been to the laguna Kemp house in the early 70's. Turns out that she'd worked for an architect (I think) and had been helping an interior designer named Bruce. She went on location with him and that location turned out to be 1141 Marine Drive. Bruce Clark was mom's decorator at the Ruthlee house and then at laguna, and I'm sure there are remnants of his 70's era design at the laguna house still. Kind of amazing to find out that someone my husband knows through his association with the ASC had been inside my old home almost forty years ago, around the time we were first moving in ourselves.
And finally, on display was our old friend the Dalsa camera. Dalsa had donated a couple of cameras to the Academy. I have to admit, my heart skipped a beat when I saw it. Goofy clunker in shape, but the best of the best in digital imaging. Another great idea snuffed out by corporate short-sightedness.
The show ran way too long and we said our goodbyes, hopped into our trusty van, and headed for Palm Desert. The Academy show was about the transition from film to digital. The rest of the trip was going to be about the transition from digital to DOTS. We had a long road ahead of us.
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