Archive for the ‘network television’ Category

PINA the movie in 3D by wim wenders at BAM

December 29, 2011

last night in the rain we drove out to brooklyn BAM to see PINA

the Wim Wenders 3D film on Pina Bausch work with Tanztheater Wuppertal. I’ve had the extreme pleasure of seeing the company perform at BAM during the Next Wave festival . My first ever experience seeing Pina’s work  was the Rite of Spring at BAM which blew me away.

Pina Bausch Krueger

at that time i was working with Ralph Holmes on Guiding Light for Procter & Gamble on CBS. Ralph lit Dance In America for PBS for years and was considered the preeminent  television dance Lighting Director. oh did i say we share an Emmy together. not to take anything away from Jennifer Tipton whom i also worked with, nor any of the other designers who worked on this series

I would tell him about the company, actually rave about the company and Next Wave to him. he would smile nod his head in acknowledgment of our shared love of dance and go about his work. he was a wonderful teacher and i sought his guidance, as we shared sets going from his studio to mine as to how he lit it to keep the show consistent.

but i digress from lasts night experience. I had apprehensions about seeing a 3D movie which i hadn’t seen since i was a kid remembering , PHANTOM IN THE RUE MORGUE  in 3D with heads flying, corpses falling in ones lap.but we were quite surprised at the intimacy the 3D achieved with  dance.

the movie starts i think with Rite of Spring after a few spoken words (see link for short opening sequence.) and it just doesn’t stop going from one piece to another interspaced between with dancer reminiscences of Pina, how she communicated with them.

what struck me was the phrase ‘when words end, DANCE’ or something like that. another piece in the film was Cafe Muller which again on seeing it at BAM left me speech less. so simple yet complex what did i think and i didn’t have a ready answer. dance theater that made you think. whoa nellie.

don’t know  if you can tell how much i love dance, as a child i would dance in front of our stand up radio in the living room when no one else was around and i loved the Fred Astair or Gene Kelly like ‘Singing In The Rain’ type movies it looked like so much fun. but i was buried in Schenectady with very little chance of breaking out, besides i was pretty young and wet behind the ears to wander world.

another Pina dance featured in the movie was Vollmond ( full Moon). Pina’s work is so sensual and the film captures that sensuality. the one disturbing aspect of the 3D technique is a slight loss of sharpness. after all you’re wearing these ill fitting glasses  and it distracts a bit from the total presentations but not enough to keep people out of the theater.

This movie is playing 4 times a day through Monday 1/2

and 3 times Tuesday 1/3 through Thursday 1/5 at the BAM Rose Cinema  $15 general admission but worth the price.

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Posted in art, artistic expression, dance, Dance performances, Dancer, modern dance, network television, theater productions | Leave a Comment »

photo day at ‘Occupy Wall Street’ & other musings

October 17, 2011

i know this has been a photography and art blog and i am further from a real reporter/news photographer than you’ll ever know, but i am here in new york city where there is a real live story going on and it’s something one can’t ignore all though the mainstream news media are doing a pretty good job at that.

i am struggling with my typing- wordpress photo editing layouts and thought process. i want to walk away from the keyboard because my own lack of expertise in these aforementioned matters frustrate me. but i’ll prode on in the hope i’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel and it won’t be a train.

Saturday afternoon i went down to Zuccotti Park where the demonstration Occupy Wall Street rally is being held. it’s quite a small area, 33,000 square feet,  originally created in 1968 by us steel in return for a height bonus for their headquarters being built close by, then known as Liberty Plaza Park. now owned by brookfield office properties the park is named after company chairman john zuccotti, a politically connected business man and former deputy mayor under abe beame. the building is now renamed One Liberty Plaza.

Liberty plaza is one of the few open spaces with trees and benches located in the downtown area. renovated as part of the lower manhattan rebuilding efforts, the park was regraded, trees were planted, and the tables and seating restored with private money, and served as a staging area for world trade center recovery efforts and memorial ceremonies.

the significant thing  i missed took place further uptown at citibank, 555 La Guardia Place where some of the demonstrators where arrested attempting to close their accounts. can you imagine the panic in the banking community if hundreds of people started closing their accounts. at least not using your credit and debit cards.

did you ever think you could be arrested for closing your bank account. we now know who the nypd is working for and it aint us. you would think nypd would be grateful for all the overtime the demonstration is creating.

If you want to express your opinion about this type of customer service to senior management at Citibank, you can call Citibank President Vikram Pandit. He told Business Week magazine he’d be happy to talk to Occupy Wall Street! His direct office line is (212) 793-1201, and his email address is vikram.pandit@citi.com

but now it’s become famous for something completely different under the watchful eye of the nypd eye in the sky and other secret forces

eye in the sky

this reminds me of the movie war of the worlds where i invaders had huge machines wandering around killing people. of course these can’t walk, yet…..hey don’t give then any ideas. but here are the people, ideas and sights

marchers

the energy i felt from the crowd was pretty incredible  which i am sure changes from

day to day maybe even by the hour. i talked to a few people but a lot of them have agenda. there was a guy preaching the bible of course, they always come out for a crowd. what is amazing about the crowd is everyone seems to have a different view point and no one is in charge.

  

     

then there is this fellow reading the us constitution to no one and everyone

then the media: tv cameras, microphones, notebooks, still cameras

 

  the happiest people seemed to be these guys

    a variety of food along with free food supplied by donors of the movement. so much food and supplies are being sent to the movement a problem arose where to store it. the The American Federation of Teachers Local 1839 had office space near the site so they offered storage space. donations of money  via the internet to the tune of $300,00 are flooding in to the movement from all over.

  so this a mix of americans which is pretty cool, on the weekends everyone can come down and be a part of

  if you’re interested in learning what some of the media has to say check out mother jones has to say on the origins of this movement. even the NY Times paul krugman had something to say today about how wall street financial services have helped the american people or did they?

 

everyone had a job to do, some just being there, some making signs, some silk screening t shirts

so at the end of the elephants parade comes the sweeper

remember who has created this financial mess and who has benefited from it. are you better off now than you were six years ago? if you want to find out whats going on down at Liberty Plaza do peruse the Occupy Wall Street web site

jene

Posted in citibank, living life to it's fullist, network television, occupy wall street, power to the people, Uncategorized, welcome to nyc | Leave a Comment »

Fassbinder: Berlin Alexanderplatz’ at KW Institute

August 24, 2010

for those people who’ve kept up with my eclectic postings know this i some of my all time fav films. it’s a long one for sure 16 hours. i first saw it on PBS when they were a public educational television station, now they are just a tape playing house showing safe nature films and raising money to line the executives pockets. i’ve been there done that. has anyone who’s seen the replacement of Bill Moyers and Now know

Press

Berlin– The monumental film Berlin Alexanderplatz that Rainer Werner Fassbinder made for television is based on Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel. The film consists of thirteen episodes and an epilogue. It runs to fifteen hours and thirty-nine minutes. When it was first screened in Germany in 1980, it triggered heated debates and gained international recognition as one of the cinematic masterpieces of the past decades. A meticulously restored 35-mm version of Berlin Alexanderplatz Remastered  has been successfully presented to the public at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival in February.  On exhibition 18 March until 13 My, 2007.

Press

On March 17, 2007, KW Institute for Contemporary Art will open Fassbinder: Berlin Alexanderplatz – An Exhibition. The show will present this unusual and fascinating work in a way that enables visitors to choose their own mode of approach. In fourteen separate rooms, the episodes and the epilogue of Berlin Alexanderplatz will be screened in permanent loop. In addition, all the episodes will be shown in chronological order and full length on a central big screen. Visitors can thus decide how they approach Berlin Alexanderplatz: they can divide its unusual length up into pieces, watch episodes several times, or return to the exhibition whenever they like, as the entrance ticket entitles holders to repeated visits. The parallel screening of all the episodes in one place will highlight Fassbinder’s impressive visual idiom and his artistically challenging, free and innovative use of images.

The epilogue to Berlin Alexanderplatz marks a high point in Fassbinder’s creative work, combining visual and narrative planes in a complex collage that anticipates contemporary artistic positions. The exhibition also presents stills from the film’s 224 scenes. Moreover sketches from Fassbinders storyboard will be on view for the first time ever. A further, highly personal document are the tapes on which Fassbinder himself recorded his script for the film and which have never previously been made accessible to the public.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue (in German; approx. 600 pages), edited by Klaus Biesenbach, with essays by Susan Sontag and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The catalogue includes extensive illustrations. Furthermore the publication contains the complete screenplay as well as the biography, blbliography and filmography. Curator: Klaus Biesenbach.

Press

KW Institute for Contemporary Art is regularly listed among Germany’s foremost modern art institutions and attracts international media coverage. KW has no collection of its own but instead views itself as a laboratory for communicating and advancing contemporary cultural developments in Germany and abroad by means of exhibitions, workshops and resident artists’ studios, as well as by collaborating with artists or other institutions and by commissioning works.

Founded in the early 1990s by Klaus Biesenbach and a group of young art enthusiasts, the institution is located on the site of a abandoned margarine factory in Berlin’s Mitte district. It symbolizes, perhaps more than any other institution, the city’s development into a center of contemporary art in the decade after the fall of the Wall.  As well as presenting the first solo shows or major new projects of outstanding international artists such as Doug Aitken, Dinos & Jake Chapman, Paul Pfeiffer, Santiago Sierra and Jane & Louise Wilson, KW also introduced emerging new artists from Berlin and elsewhere in Germany to a wider public.

Visit KW Institute for Contemporary Art at: www.kw-berlin.de

Posted in art, awards, films, network television, Uncategorized, video | Leave a Comment »

Canon 5D Mark ll opinion

October 2, 2009

hi gals & guys

i am somewhat disappointed with my 5D Mll especially now that the 7D is around the corner which seems to be a much better camera video wise at least.i do come from a film/video background so i am somewhat opinionated about this.

i moved up to 5DMll because i wanted a full frame camera and the people selling used 5D’s were asking way too much around here. the video component also was very enticing but 30 frames and no locked auto focus or face recognition software seems like they are just waiting for Mark lll to come out.reminds me of the epson 4000 & 4800 introductions.

to not be able to sync sound to video seems silly. i looked at some video i lit for some other shooter and i see how silly it looks. picture looks nice but since edison figured out how to record voices  and made pictures you’d think canon who makes video cameras might have married the two together on this camera. but i guess it had something to do with turf wars.

one the plus side the sensor on the Mll gives great color rendition well it is an improvement over my 20D that’s for sure.the file size for my usage is over the top, i don’t shoot billboard art but some do. with genuine fractal’s i seem to be able to get the size prints i want. i might want to do billboards later in life so maybe having such big files will come in handy.i get a whooping 300 some odd images on a card now. lexar should be happy.

as far as the seals go i try and keep my cameras out of water etc but it would be nice to have it sealed well.

as far as the software is concerned i am still learning it. i shoot mostly 4 gb cards so i can back them up on dvds and the new 9999 images on a folder threw my backup workflow off. i am adjusting as i know others are. so it’s just not a matter of dragging and dropping a folder onto a drive. yes redundancy backups on hd and dvds.

oh did i mention battery size. if the 7D can use the same legacy batteries then why did i have to buy new ones for the Mll, oh the camera didn’t cost enough money, i see. at least i don’t have to get new lenses.

but hey nothing is perfect in this world and we all need to make a buck, well except me, i seem to be supporting manufactures of equipment while art sales have plummeted bouncing off the floor but hey we all got to eat. maybe i can crack open some 20D batteries and see how they taste.

well maybe my tune will change once i learn the new camera system. remember the old camera where there was a f stop ring & focus thingy that seemed to work pretty good, still have my F1 loved the look of that camera and the metering system, whew be still heart.

just my uninformed take on the subject maybe some day i’ll know more, but i do like fast lenses and cool cars.

jene
http://www.jeneyoutt.com

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Posted in abstract dance images, Artist, canon, dance photography, network television, Photography | 1 Comment »

a day of personal satisfaction

September 24, 2009

yesterday september 22, 2009 i was invited to the Broadway Salutes 2009 celebration in Duffy Square, Times Square, New York City. this ceremony was to honor the working people who make up the Broadway Theater community for their years of service. i got a 25 year pin and the chance to see my name scrolled on the Clear Channel billboard on 47th street and Broadway.

no i didn’t take pictures. it was nice just sitting there seeing my name and reflecting. i thought i did pretty good for a kid who stole postcards and displays from the theaters to put in my room, oh so many years ago. times square what a memory and oh how it’s changed over the years. but to me i see so many things as clear as day there, ghosts of new york.

one of the things i always loved about the ‘Square’ were the people or should i say characters, like the guys who sold ‘Dancing Balloon Figures’. they worked as a team, one of them standing off to the side operating a clear fishline with the other end attached to a fire hydrant or pole. he usually had a coat over his hand so you wouldn’t see him moving the fishline. the other fellow was the pitchman who gave out the packages took the money. this happened to the theater crowd as they were exiting on their way home. my friends and i would laugh about them blowing up the balloons and trying to make them dance. those were the days. i bet those balloons would be worth a pretty penny now.

one day a friend of mine, barry arnold and i were walking somewhere through the square and i was moaning about not getting anywhere in the ‘biz’ when he stopped in front of on of the many book stores on broadway and said ‘come on’ . he strolled in walking up to the theater section where he pulled from the shelves a theater directory. thumbing thought the index until he got to my name, next to my name were page numbers corresponding to the various shows i had worked on listing my title.

‘there you see’ he said ‘feel better now?’ yes i did.

we continued on to wherever it was we were headed, but that moment stayed with me through all the tough lean years. i was a somebody. i wasn’t until years later after winning a couple emmy awards for my lighting that my estranged family was proud of me, they always wanted me to get a job. i on the other hand would have wished the mom who raised me could see who i was then.

after being downsized at CBS Evening News the day after winning my second emmy i didn’t feel too good about the future, but i stuck around not knowing what else to do. at the end of my last show the title page of credits appeared showing my name. it just stayed there not moving until the copyright appeared. i was almost in tears. that’s how much they thought of me.

millions of people had the chance to see my name on the network shows i’d worked on but what was important to me ,were how the people i worked with felt towards me. but sitting in times square tuesday seeing my name i though to myself ‘you’ve come a long way baby.’

no pictures, just a silly pin and a program that will go in my mementos box along with my last Fillmore East program, some Woodstock letterhead and a few other trinkets. not much when you think about it, just some parts of my life.

and what will tomorrow bring?

Posted in awards, broadway theater, network television, theater productions | 1 Comment »