Monday, April 2, 2007 - Student Film

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"  In Florence, South Carolina, on January 11, 2000, the president asked the question.  Fade to black.  Fade in - central Hollywood Boulevard - Monday, April 2, 2007 - and you have your answer.

Scene - a movie location shoot for a student film - "Beats per Minute" - and the young folks from Cal State University, Northridge, are hard at work.

Establishing Shot - every cliché about Hollywood you ever imagined, the hooker, the innocent young man and all the rest - but maybe it's a parody.

The production is very professional - the program, CSUN Department of Cinema and Television Arts, is good, as in this news release - "CSUN's film program recently was named Southern California's best by the Association of Independent Feature Film Producers." Mel Gibson recently spoke to the students - see LA Daily News - Mount Mel Erupts Again.  It seems Gibson was there to discuss his last film, Apocalypto, and a tenured history professor, in the question and answer session, suggested he might have had more than few details of Mayan history all wrong. He showered her with obscenities - he didn't use Yukatec Maya language at all, as he did in the film - and his people roughed her up and threw her out. The kids now know about the business.

Wardrobe!  Scotch Tape!

ACTION!

Ah, maybe the do have the neighborhood exactly right, as this is on the corner.

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the 'fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site.

Technical Note:

Most of these photographs were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0. Earlier photography was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik