Kodak: A Thousand Words

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Today we are announcing a new role at Kodak, that of Chief Blogger. For those of you that follow this blog it should be of no surprise that Jenny Cisney been offered and has accepted that moniker. We couldn't be happier as she totally lives and breaths blogging, storytelling, photo projects, and more. She will be able to devote more time to covering the world of photos for us all! The public announcement comes out later today so I'll probably get in trouble for scooping it (those pesky blog people!).

Jenny is a 10-year veteran at Kodak (although she doesn't look it!) and is a pioneer in the blogosphere. Do you know she has posted virtually every day since the year 2000 on her personal blog? Those were early days for blogs and she has built a great following. You can find her ljcfyi (little jenny cisney) blog here. You can also find her speaking on a panel at BlogHer today (10am-noon) if you happen to be at that conference in NYC.

Regarding Jenny's additional qualifications for this important role. Well, we sometimes wonder if she has a camera surgically attached to her person. Evidence provided by fellow blogger Tina Clark certainly points to it, take a look...

So watch this space for more great stories, photos, product tips, and other blog action from Jenny and the rest of the blog crew at Kodak. Feel free to leave comments to congratulate Jenny, give her ideas, etc. We always love hearing from you at 1KWords!
This just in...the official scoop.

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Regulars to this blog might recall a post where I explored the History of Bunny Ears. Today I would like to delve into another photographic genre, that of milk sploop photography. I bet most of you haven't heard of this but it quietly surrounds our daily lives.

First of all, a definition: Milk Sploop Photography is the art of capturing the precise moment when an edible projectile strikes a pool of milk. The examples below should provide clarity for you.

Sometimes the act of pouring it is enough to cause a milk sploop. However, mothers universally frown upon this technique.

Please note the variety of sploops from subtle to downright exuberant.

Not all products are suited to wild splashes of milk.

Unlike many photographic traditions the origins of sploop photography can be precisely traced. Eadward Muybridge (1830-1904) invented the use of multiple cameras to stop motion as early as 1872. He used his zoopraxiscope to display the images he captured. This pre-dated the type of motion picture projectors we think of today. But I digress...

Harold "Doc" Edgerton (1903-1990), an MIT professor, pioneered the use of strobe lighting in lieu of multiple cameras to literally "stop" time to capture speeding bullets, golf swings, etc. One of his most famous images is the Milk Drop Coronet, circa 1957.

Thus, milk sploop photography was born.

Today, the Amalgamated Milk Sploop Photography Society (AMSPS) has advanced the skills and techniques of this profession. They have gatherings in many places around the globe throughout the year, usually in cities where there are tall structures from which to drop things. They publish their findings so they can learn from one another. Here is a recent diagram from the society's journal, Drop by Drop, illustrated by AMSPS member, Lait Éclaboussure.

We hope that this window into a little-known niche of the photography world was interesting to you. The next time you walk down the cereal aisle please be sure to notice the ubiquitous and under-appreciated work of these tireless photographers. Please feel free to share your comments below. The work of AMSPS members is not often in the spotlight and a little bit of encouragement goes a long way.

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Have you seen the Vinny Pastore video on the Kodak World site yet? I had the good fortune of working on the shoot and wanted to share some behind the scenes observations and photos.
The scene was the Brooklyn Naval Yard, a now-defunct government property, hoping to re-emerge as an industrial complex. It was the perfect place to shoot a mobster themed vignette. The day was rainy and cold. As the day unfolded it rained more. As a matter of fact it didn't let up for a second the entire day!

→ Click any of the pictures in this post to enlarge ←

From left to right: Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge in a driving rain, interesting buildings in the Brooklyn Naval Yard made for a perfect backdrop, a chain link fence view of a tugboat pushing a barge into the East River.

A panoramic shot (three individual shots automatically stitched together using a Kodak V610) of the set.

Brooklyn Naval Yard building. Vincent (Vinny) Pastore getting into character.

A 1970 black Lincoln Continental Mark III was just what we needed. Make-up! It was a soggy day and a challenge for all involved including make-up artist Robin Watson.

A view of a monitor during the shoot. Acclaimed Director David Steinberg reviews the script with Vinny.

Yours truly with Vinny. Clearly I am in need of a make-up artist! Vinny driving off with the newest member of the family a Kodak AiO Printer!

Uh oh, it doesn't look good for this non-Kodak printer....

Yep, it did rain all day long. I guess that was good for continuity sake. At least that is what we kept telling ourselves. Actually, the gray skies and shiny asphalt added to the effect we were going for so I'd like to say we planned it ;-)

As they say in the biz; "Thats a wrap."

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Congratulations to Ryan Newman who
won the 2008 Daytona 500!!!

Kodak Motorsports driver, Ryan Newman won the 50th edition of the Daytona 500 race in a dramatic finale on Sunday. Newman, in his No. 12 Alltel-Kodak Dodge, waited while the big stars fell back one by one. Then, with only Tony Stewart ahead of him, Newman got a push from teammate Kurt Busch to take the lead on the final lap.

The Penske drivers finished 1-2 in the race.

Newman was grateful for the assistance from team mate Busch. "Kurt was the push from heaven that made it all happen," Newman said. "Without a doubt, he could have easily gone three-wide and split us through the center and made one heck of a mess there. But he chose to be a teammate, and that was the most honorable thing that he could do."

"It was emotional pushing him over the line, amazing to have a Penske one-two over the line. Something very important for us," said Busch.

Penske, the most successful owner in open-wheel history with 14 wins in the prestigious Indianapolis 500, now has a victory in NASCAR's showcase event. And it came in the 50th running of the Daytona 500, in thrilling fashion, with a last-lap pass for the second consecutive year. The win marked Penske Racing's first on a superspeedway.

Kodak will be the primary sponsor of the No. 12 car in six NASCAR Sprint Cup races in 2008. What a way to start the racing season! You go Ryan!

Newman's Daytona 500 win is Kodak's 4th as a sponsor. Kodak won in 1992 with Ernie Irvan and in 1994 and 1995 with Sterling Marlin.

Kodakers Tom Page, Betty Noonan, Jeff Hayzlett, Karl Post, and Lesley Marangola in front of Sterling's car that won the 1994 Daytona 500. The car was was part of a pre-race parade of to celebrate the 50th running of the Daytona 500.

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This is OSCARS® week and we will be doing a post each day to share a bit about Kodak's role in the world of star-studded entertainment. Kodak makes motion picture film and has since its beginning with Thomas Edison. We are as much a part of Hollywood and international cinema asanyone. As a matter of fact we were just awarded our ninth OSCAR® but more about that tomorrow - how is that for a cliffhanger? ;-)

A fact that we are very proud of at Kodak is that each and every picture that has won the OSCAR® for Best Picture has been shot on Kodak film. That is an incredible streak of 79 years. Some of the most iconic, enduring images from cinema are in these films. I was thinking, what better way to illustrate than to list all of the 79 Best Picture winners - all shot on Kodak film. Here goes:

1927/28 (1st) - Wings
1928/29 (2nd) - The Broadway Melody
1929/30 (3rd) - All Quiet on the Western Front

1930/31 (4th) - Cimarron
1931/32 (5th) - Grand Hotel
1932/33 (6th) - Cavalcade
1934 (7th) - It Happened One Night
1935 (8th) - Mutiny on the Bounty
1936 (9th) - The Great Ziegfeld
1937 (10th) - The Life of Emile Zola
1938 (11th) - You Can't Take It with You
1939 (12th) - Gone with the Wind

1940 (13th) - Rebecca
1941 (14th) - How Green Was My Valley
1942 (15th) - Mrs. Miniver
1943 (16th) - Casablanca
1944 (17th) - Going My Way
1945 (18th) - The Lost Weekend
1946 (19th) - The Best Years of Our Lives
1947 (20th) - Gentleman's Agreement
1948 (21st) - Hamlet
1949 (22nd) - All the King's Men

1950 (23rd) - All about Eve
1951 (24th) - An American in Paris
1952 (25th) - The Greatest Show on Earth
1953 (26th) - From Here to Eternity
1954 (27th) - On the Waterfront
1955 (28th) - Marty
1956 (29th) - Around the World in 80 Days
1957 (30th) - The Bridge on the River Kwai
1958 (31st) - Gigi
1959 (32nd) - Ben-Hur

1960 (33rd) - The Apartment
1961 (34th) - West Side Story
1962 (35th) - Lawrence of Arabia
1963 (36th) - Tom Jones
1964 (37th) - My Fair Lady
1965 (38th) - The Sound of Music
1966 (39th) - A Man for All Seasons
1967 (40th) - In the Heat of the Night
1968 (41st) - Oliver!
1969 (42nd) - Midnight Cowboy

1970 (43rd) - Patton
1971 (44th) - The French Connection
1972 (45th) - The Godfather
1973 (46th) - The Sting
1974 (47th) - The Godfather Part II
1975 (48th) - One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
1976 (49th) - Rocky
1977 (50th) - Annie Hall
1978 (51st) - The Deer Hunter
1979 (52nd) - Kramer vs. Kramer

1980 (53rd) - Ordinary People
1981 (54th) - Chariots of Fire
1982 (55th) - Gandhi
1983 (56th) - Terms of Endearment
1984 (57th) - Amadeus
1985 (58th) - Out of Africa
1986 (59th) - Platoon
1987 (60th) - The Last Emperor
1988 (61st) - Rain Man
1989 (62nd) - Driving Miss Daisy

1990 (63rd) - Dances With Wolves
1991 (64th) - The Silence of the Lambs
1992 (65th) - Unforgiven
1993 (66th) - Schindler's List
1994 (67th) - Forrest Gump
1995 (68th) - Braveheart
1996 (69th) - The English Patient
1997 (70th) - Titanic
1998 (71st) - Shakespeare in Love
1999 (72nd) - American Beauty

2000 (73rd) - Gladiator
2001 (74th) - A Beautiful Mind
2002 (75th) - Chicago
2003 (76th) - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004 (77th) - Million Dollar Baby
2005 (78th) - Crash
2006 (79th) - The Departed

That is quite an impressive list isn't it? How many have you seen? I realized I have seen all but three so that would officially make me a film buff. I'll have to get on those last three! The good news is that Kodak is assured that the streak will continue as all five 2007 nominees for Best Picture were shot on Kodak film.

The Best Cinematography category is also important for Kodak and we wanted to mention the four artists who paint with light for the five films that have been nominated (Roger Deakins is up for two!).

Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC

Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC was born and raised in a small seaside town in Devon, England. He completed his education at the National Film School, and focused for a time on documentaries before segueing in to feature film. He earns his sixth and seventh OSCAR® - and American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) - Award nominations for No Country for Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. His previous nominations were for The Shawshank Redemption, Kundun, Fargo, The Man Who Wasn't There and Brother, Where Art Thou? His body of work also includes such memorable films as In the Valley of Elah, A Beautiful Mind, The Village, and Dead Man Walking.

No Country for Old Men is a thriller from Joel and Ethan Coen. It is based on the Cormac McCarthy novel with the same title. It's a classic battle of good versus evil. Good is represented by a sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones, and evil is embodied in a ruthless killer played by Javier Bardem. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) finds himself in the middle when he stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad, and is drawn into the mayhem.

"I don't think I can say in words why I do things a certain way. But you know it affects you when you do it. While shooting Tommy Lee Jones in the scene in Ellis' cabin, I'd get a tingle up my spine. It's a combination of the dialog, the setting, the vast emptiness outside the windows, and Tommy's face and his acting. It's not merely the meaning of the words that makes it powerful. It's the whole thing - the whole feeling and the context within the story. Those juxtapositions are really the power of cinema."

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford delves into the private life and public exploits of America's most notorious outlaw. The charismatic and unpredictable Jesse James (Brad Pitt) plans his next robbery and wages war on his enemies, not realizing the greatest threat may ultimately come from those he trusts the most.

"Jesse James has a huge amount of night work. We often wanted vast amounts of absolute black in the frame, with perhaps a subtle piece of information lit by an oil lamp. In one scene, two characters ride horses through an empty darkness. The only things giving it any motion were white trees we put along the path. We wanted them to be floating in the blackness, but it was difficult to give their faces some shape and not light the ground. I did it through a combination of lighting on location and a lot of work in the DI."

Robert Elswit, ASC

Robert Elswit, ASC, studied filmmaking at the University of Southern California and the American Film Institute, and began his career working as an optical effects cameraman at Industrial Light & Magic. This is Elswit's second OSCAR® nomination. There Will Be Blood was his fifth collaboration with writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson over the past 10 years. His work on the film earned him the American Society of Cinematographers Award in the organization's feature category. Elswit was previously nominated for Good Night, and Good Luck. Throughout the course of his career, Elswit has earned a diverse range of 50-plus narrative credits in collaboration with such acclaimed directors as Paul Thomas Anderson, David Mamet, Don Roos, Joel Schumacher, Curtis Hanson, Stephen Gyllenhaal and Rob Reiner, among others.

There Will Be Blood is a sprawling epic of family, faith, power and oil. It is set on the incendiary frontier of California's turn-of-the-century petroleum boom. The story chronicles the life and times of Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, who transforms himself from a down-and-out silver miner who is raising a son on his own into a self-made oil tycoon.

"Everybody who makes films about this period ends up finding their own way to recreate the aura created by oil lamps and fire light." Director, Paul Thomas Anderson loves strong contrast, so we tended to use the slowest films on his projects. That meant we had to find ways to disguise the fact that we were using more light on sets without it looking artificial. It takes a little more work to finesse that look, but Paul is willing to do what it takes to make it look right."

Janusz Kaminski

Janusz Kaminski was born and raised in Poland. He migrated to the United States in 1981 with the dream of becoming a filmmaker. He studied at Columbia College in Chicago, and completed his formal education at the American Film Institute. Kaminski has earned OSCARS® for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan and a nomination for Amistad. In addition to OSCAR® and American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) nominations, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly earned the Golden Frog Award at the 2007 Camero image film festival. A short list of his other credits includes Minority Report, The Terminal, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Artificial Intelligence: AI, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds and Munich.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is based on 43-year-old Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a stroke in 1995 that paralyzed his entire body, except for his left eye. Using that eye to blink out his memoir, Bauby eloquently described the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to his imagined stories from lands that he only visited in his mind.

"The lighting design was partly based on practical and logical considerations. Often the characters were four or five inches from the camera, so there's no way I could have created heavy contrast lighting because it would have been blocked. But my approach - surrounding them with light - was also appropriate for the story. There is no ambiguity about these women. They are very straightforward, and they play their emotions up front, with no hidden agenda. It would be weird to create shadows. Also, these women needed to look angelic, and they look better when their skin is a little bit burned out. The job of the cinematographer is to find these metaphors. It's not just about creating light and shadows, or creating images that are pretty or not pretty."

Seamus McGarvey, BSC

Seamus McGarvey, BSC, was born and raised in a small town in Northern Ireland. He was a self-taught still photographer and a stringer for a local newspaper. McGarvey launched his career shooting documentaries before segueing into filming more than 100 music videos. He shot his first feature film in 1995. McGarvey has subsequently earned several dozen credits, including such memorable films as The War Zone, High Fidelity, The Hours, Sahara, World Trade Center and Charlotte's Web. He earned OSCAR®, ASC and BAFTA nominations for Atonement.

Atonement is a love story that spans several decades. It is based on the novel by Ian McEwan. The film follows the lives of two sisters, Briony (Saoirse Ronan) and Cecilia (Keira Knightley), and Robbie (James McAvoy), the son of the family's housekeeper. It begins in 1935 England when a budding romance between Cecilia and Robbie is thwarted when 13-year-old Briony falsely accuses him of a crime. Through the subsequent years, Briony seeks forgiveness for her childhood misdeed, and eventually finds the path to her uncertain atonement and to an understanding of the power of enduring love.

"Sarah Greenwood, the production designer, had a huge collection of decorating magazines which we referenced. We also looked at various films, including In Which We Serve, a David Lean movie from 1942. One of the stars was Celia Johnson. Director, Joe Wright, was interested in the sensibilities of her performance, the cinematography, and production design. Later, he encouraged me to listen in on his discussions with the actors. That gave me a broader appreciation for how he wanted to depict them during the three periods."

Learn more about how Kodak goes from the silver screen to OSCAR® gold.

OSCAR®, OSCARS® and ACADEMY AWARDS® are registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.