2018-09: Spain & Alfonso X

Me in the middle of Plaza Mayor in Madrid.  Took it with my Insta360 One on my iPhone.

Here is the web site that Ryan now uses and it includes all my 360 shots.

The last 2 weeks of September 2018 found me in Spain - Seville, Madrid, Toledo, and El Escorial. I went there with Rob DeMilner of the LRC and Ryan Szpiech, Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Associate Professor of Judaic Studies in LSA. We went to Spain to shoot a video for Ryan. This was a much ‘leaner’ version of the same kind of shoot we had done in Athens in May 2017.

The topic was Alfonso X, the King of Castille in the 13 century. Also known as Alfonso the Wise, he inherited a large and prosperous kingdom from his Dad.  Since he did not have to fight any wars he was able to direct his significant resources to other work.

At the time, the Arabic world was the height of fashion and knowledge. Their works were being translated into Latin, which at the time was the language of scholars. But Alfonso thought they should also be translated into Spanish, in particular, Castilian Spanish, which was the dialect that was used in Alfonso's kingdom. Alfonso also hired many astronomers, chart makers, and other scholars to expand current knowledge and create new areas of learning.

This is why the language that we know today as simply Spanish came from Castilian Spanish. That Spanish became another language of scholars (and conquest) and was spread throughout the globe.

             
With just Rob and myself as the crew, I had familiar and expanded duties. I copied the data and charged the batteries every night, but also did most of the sound tech work and a fair amount of video shooting.

I used the rolling setup shown below to cart both cameras, 2 tripods, the GoPro Omni rig, and all the audio gear around on foot. You can see the tripods in the front, and the gray bag in back held most of the audio gear. The Omni is in front, in its bag, hanging from the handle. worked great and had the added bonus of providing us with a wheeled cart for the airports.

 

And I took a lot of 360 stills. Here is one of our 3 person US crew and our Spanish "fixer" at the Plaza Espana. It can be viewed with the GoPro VR Player 360. The link will let you download a Mac or Windows version of it.

Rob shooting with Ryan in the Plaza de Espana in Seville.

Me (Tom) shooting a 360 from the tippy-top of the Toro del Oro in Seville.

Rachelli, our Israeli producer and 3rd camera, shooting with Ryan in the National Library.

Rob shooting Ryan looking at actual books from Alfonso's time.

2018-09-10: Zafos

Zafos at UMMA 9/2018

I helped plan and set up an installation designed by the recent Witt Visiting Artist at Stamps, Zafos Xagoraris.  It was a one-day-only event, during the first home game of the season.  That would be on a Saturday.

His plan was to recreate, somewhat, the fell of early 60's free speech rallies on campus.  He found a 1967 Thunderbird to set up out front of UMMA, and I worked with the UMMA staff and Chrisstina Hamilton from Stamps to arrange the tech.

The whole point of this was to have people inside the gallery stand in front of the green screen so I could mix the3m into the other camera that was shooting the car out front.  They would be watching a monitor that showed them standing on the car, and their real voice would come out the speakers I put together.

Here is what the setup looked like out in front.

Here is what it looked like inside.

Here is the speaker stand I built.  Please note the sandbag for stability and the safely covered speaker wire.

 I got a large flat panel from UMMA and set it up just inside the window so passers-by could see the composited image.  Zafos had not originally planned this, but without it the only person who would see the complete image would be the person talking inside.

 We had to put up the black 'screen' in front of the window to block out the reflections from outside, so that the screen could actually be seen from outside.

Below is Ryan being composited onto the car, seen in the monitor pictured above.

I left for Spain the next day, so Ryan was kind enough to tear it all down at the end of the day.