various film stuff
It's been a few days, so I think an update is in order. Things have been kind of low-key lately... I've been working a lot on my big project, which should be presentable, at least in its first form, very soon. We did have a pretty big day yesterday, when we had the chance to meet with a couple groups of folks that are doing very cool stuff with film.
First, we trekked out to Anthology Film Archives for a special screening and tour. It's always very cool to meet Carleton grads who are out and about in the world working at jobs they absolutely love. Here, we met John Miripiri, who told us about the work being done at the archives. They have the largest collection of avant-garde cinema, and they are supported by some of the biggest names in the field (like Jonas Mekas, who unfortunately didn't make it out to meet with us). That said, it was surprising what a low budget place it was. They have a couple very run-down theaters, in comparison to most of the places showing feature films these days, and their offices, storeroom, and library are too small for the work they're doing. It's just really unfortunate that they don't have a larger budget to improve their facilities and bring in more staff to work on preserving these films that are otherwise not being preserved and will be lost eventually without intervention.
Then we headed over to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts to check out their animation department. We met with John Canemaker, a professor there who has had quite the career in animation. My jaw dropped when he mentioned in passing the Oscar he won. The program there has spouted out some animators who are in the center of what's going on at Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, etc. It looks like a pretty awesome undergrad program, although it's not really my kind of thing. I'll stick to my midwest liberal arts education.
Which brings me to one more thing I've been realizing the past week or two: I'm not really a city girl. Yes, I grew up in a decent sized city, but in the more suburban area of it. New York is pretty awesome, and it's been really fun trekking around and being overwhelmed by how many big, cutting-edge places are packed into this city, but it's just a bit too much for me. The other day, I ended up walking over 100 blocks from where I'm staying down into Chelsea, and halfway through, I felt like I just needed to get away from all of the people and noise and shops and trash (they pile trash bags on the sidewalks here! where are the dumpsters?) and go take a walk in the arb or something. Yes, there's Central Park here, but it's not the same. At all.
First, we trekked out to Anthology Film Archives for a special screening and tour. It's always very cool to meet Carleton grads who are out and about in the world working at jobs they absolutely love. Here, we met John Miripiri, who told us about the work being done at the archives. They have the largest collection of avant-garde cinema, and they are supported by some of the biggest names in the field (like Jonas Mekas, who unfortunately didn't make it out to meet with us). That said, it was surprising what a low budget place it was. They have a couple very run-down theaters, in comparison to most of the places showing feature films these days, and their offices, storeroom, and library are too small for the work they're doing. It's just really unfortunate that they don't have a larger budget to improve their facilities and bring in more staff to work on preserving these films that are otherwise not being preserved and will be lost eventually without intervention.
Then we headed over to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts to check out their animation department. We met with John Canemaker, a professor there who has had quite the career in animation. My jaw dropped when he mentioned in passing the Oscar he won. The program there has spouted out some animators who are in the center of what's going on at Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, etc. It looks like a pretty awesome undergrad program, although it's not really my kind of thing. I'll stick to my midwest liberal arts education.
Which brings me to one more thing I've been realizing the past week or two: I'm not really a city girl. Yes, I grew up in a decent sized city, but in the more suburban area of it. New York is pretty awesome, and it's been really fun trekking around and being overwhelmed by how many big, cutting-edge places are packed into this city, but it's just a bit too much for me. The other day, I ended up walking over 100 blocks from where I'm staying down into Chelsea, and halfway through, I felt like I just needed to get away from all of the people and noise and shops and trash (they pile trash bags on the sidewalks here! where are the dumpsters?) and go take a walk in the arb or something. Yes, there's Central Park here, but it's not the same. At all.
