Tuesday, May 02, 2017

Linear Stanley

Linear Stanley
by Chris Carrillo


The next night, the bulletin board fell on Stanley Lambchop for the second time.

"Hey! Come and look!" cried Arthur, Stanley's brother.

"Heavens!" said Mrs. Lambchop. "Yesterday Stanley was flat. Today he has become one-dimensional!"





"Let's take him to the doctor!" said Mr. Lambchop.


"How do you feel?" Doctor Dan asked.

Stanley didn't say anything.

Doctor Dan told the nurse to take Stanley's measurement.


"What is wrong with these people?" asked the nurse.





The End


Coming tomorrow:  "Singularity Stanley"

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Panoramas from "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971)

I'm a big fan of the movie "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971).  Everything about this film is gorgeous--the music is beautiful and memorable, the story is touching, and the characters have been dear to me for my whole life.


I recently re-appreciated the cinematography in the film, noticing several establishing shots included long camera pans.  I have taken some of these pans and used them to create wide-format panoramic images which I am presenting here.

I hope other fans of the film will enjoy these as much as I enjoyed making them.

_________________


Panorama of the village of Anatevka in the pre-dawn light at the opening of the film:


At 1:17:25, there is pan across a cornfield right before the scene in which Chava is harassed by Russian farm workers:


https://goo.gl/2RD75l

At the very beginning of the scene where Motel and Tzeitel run through the woods ecstatic about having been given permission to marry, and Motel sings "Miracle of Miracles", there is a long pan down a birch tree. It's interesting that a film whose frames have a wide aspect ratio can be the source of such a tall vertical panorama:

Original Clip
































This is from the sequence in which Tevye recalls his "dream" to Golde in order to convince her that Motel should be Tzeitel's groom.  The camera pans right to left across the faces of their deceased relatives:



The scene where Perchik is giving a lesson to the two youngest daughters begins with a closeup of the river and then pans left and out, which makes possible this unusual composite image:


Just after the intermission, the film reopens with a pan across a cornfield during harvest:


Near the end of the film, after the townspeople are forced to leave their village, there is a very long slow pan across the deserted village of Anatevka, ending on the stoic face of the Constable:



For your listening pleasure, here's a link to the full "Miracle of Miracles" scene:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvVeJJ-TnK4