What's Tom Doing?: 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.