Author Archives: Anna Macaulay

Always Carry Your Reel: The Journey from Poland to an Oscar-Winning Career

The path to becoming an Academy Award-winning cinematographer sounds so easy when he talks about it before a packed auditorium of Art Center students, faculty and staff.

Kamiński

Yesterday, award-winning cinematographer Janusz Kamiński was on campus to speak as part of the Film Department’s Distinguished Filmmakers Series. Faculty member Allen Daviau hosted the Q&A with the two-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer and director. Some of the most fascinating people in film come to campus as part of the series, and Kamiński was no exception.

Kamiński grew up in Poland, with his love of movies beginning as a boy. After immigrating to Chicago, Kaminski had a choice: becoming a laborer, or pursue an education. He chose film school.

After attending Columbia College (not associated with Columbia University) he moved to Los Angeles and completed his MFA at the American Film Institute. Kamiński had a friend who worked as an assistant to Diane Keaton, and after the actress viewed his reel, she hired Kamiński to film Wildflower, a made-for-TV movie.

Famed director Steven Spielberg saw Wildflower, and was interested in how quickly it was shot. He went on to hire Kaminski to film the award-winning Schindler’s List, and Kamiński has filmed every Spielberg movie since. And a few others, too.

The talk began with a viewing of the first and last ten minutes of Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The beginning of the film is shot entirely from the viewpoint of Bauby, waking from a three-week coma. The end of the film again retreats into his world, depicting his reality as his brain begins misfiring and starts to shut down. The scenes used selective focus, skewed framing and hand cranking to portray the world as seen through Bauby’s one eye.

Kamiński noted that the film was much more linear between the opening and closing scenes. While the images were powerful and the story allowed for such unconventional techniques, he advised against going in this direction for too long or you lose the audience: “I was not interested in making an art film.”

Kamiński said he was grateful to work with Schnabel, who was not interested in conventional story telling and who had a sophisticated visual sense. “Most directors would have made a soppy, sentimental movie, Kamiński said. “I know I would have. I love sentimentality.”

Kamiński’s advice to students:

  • “You have to be very proactive with how you get jobs. I always had my demo reel with me. I didn’t always have a car but I had my reel.”
  • “Don’t be careful; just do it now. Be careful later.”
  • “Watch the world around you. Notice how the light changes during the day. How are you going to create that world on a screen?”

And on working with Spielberg:

  • “I have spent more time with him than with my previous two wives.”

CSE Lantern Festival: Sleep and Happiness

At Art Center’s annual Chinese Lantern Festival held today, the most common wishes penned on bright orange and red lanterns were for sleep and happiness.

Photo by Adam Lopez

Not necessarily at the same time–but one can certainly see a connection when realizing they were written by art and design students.

About 75 students, faculty and staff entrusted their wants, whims and yearnings to the promise of the lantern at today’s event, held by Art Center’s Center for the Student Experience (CSE).

Next week, all lanterns created today will hang along both sides of the Bridge for all to enjoy.

A sample of some of the other wishes:

  • “To see beyond them all”
  • “I will travel to nearby places and imagine they are far”
  • “To see her again”
  • “Peace inside”
  • “More inspiration”

Lunar New Year celebrations traditionally end with a lantern festival, during which colorful lanterns are lit and released into the air. This year the event lands on Thursday, February 17, to correspond with the full moon. In many Asian countries, releasing the lanterns is believed to bring good fortune and prosperity.  People write their wishes on paper lanterns before releasing them in hopes that they will be granted.

Here’s to plenty of sleep and happiness to all of our students!

Photo by Adam Lopez

Dogs in Space!

David Wilson, director of the Museum of Jurassic Technology, visited Art Center on Monday to talk about the early days of the Russian space program.

Laika, painted by M.A. Peers, one of five portraits of Russian Space Dogs commissioned by the Museum of Jurassic Technology

Wilson was the final Big Picture Lecture Series speaker of the term. We knew right away that this talk was going to be an interesting one.

No talk of early Soviet space exploration is complete without a discussion of the Russian space dogs. As many know, Laika was the first earth born creature to leave the atmosphere.

We were amused and intrigued as Wilson taught us more about Russian space dogs. Did you know:

  • All were female.
  • All were formerly strays.
  • They went through extensive space training.
  • Nine dogs made it into orbit; sadly three of them died during their missions.
  • Strelka, who went into orbit with Belka, went on to have six puppies after her safe return to Earth. Nikita Krushchev gave one of the puppies to Caroline Kennedy in 1961.
  • Belka and Strelka are stuffed (!) and on display at the Cosmonaut Memorial Museum in Moscow.

Wilson also screened two portions of a film depicting the lives of early influencers of the Soviet space program. Obshee-Delo (translated means The Common Task)  told the stories of Nicolai Federov, who was an impoverished yet influential philosopher-librarian, and Constatine Tsiolkovski, who imagined the future of space travel.

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The Zen Master’s Search for the Wild West

On Monday, Occidental College professor Dale Wright was on campus as part of the Big Picture lecture series to talk about Buddhism, Buddhist wisdom and creativity.

The most entertaining part of the talk, however, was the story of the Zen Master who came looking for the Wild West—and how he found it.

Wright met the Zen Master at a conference in New Mexico. The Master had traveled from Japan in large part because of his love for all things Western—especially Western movies. The first night of the conference, the Master talked Wright into walking into town in search of a “saloon.”

Wright tried to talk him out of it, explaining that things had changed, and that today’s cowboys rode pick-up trucks instead of horses. Not to mention, he doubted that there was a saloon in the small town, anyway.

The Master was not deterred, so he and Wright set out for town on foot—the Zen Master in his robe, wooden sandals and shaved head.

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Magonelli: The Long, Strange Trip from Gas Pump to Tank

“You are going to spend your entire career in a wind tunnel.”

Magonelli

This was Lisa Magonelli’s words of advice for those in attendance of her talk for Monday’s Big Picture Lecture Series. Magonelli was referring to the accelerating pace of change in the world, and how we are will have to innovate at a pace about three times the speed of the industrial revolution just to keep up. She noted that things are going to change so rapidly that “it will be powerfully disorienting.”

Margonelli directs the energy policy initiative at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. She spent four years following the oil supply chain to write Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to Your Tank, published in 2008. Recognized as one of the 25 Notable Books of 2007 by the American Library Association, Oil On the Brain also won a 2008 Northern California Book Award for general nonfiction.

Her talk Monday was a cautionary tale. She spoke about America’s dependence on oil, and how that shapes our communities and lives—as well as the challenges we will face as we move away from oil dependence.

Margonelli on gas pump design: “Gas pumps are now designed to look and feel like ATM machines because studies have shown that we feel warmly towards them. As consumers, we want to feel better about buying gasoline.”

On our dependence on oil: “We are creating this very lasting and complicated relationship with the Middle East.”

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