I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve never been a big fan of Jackson Pollock, but can appreciate his message and approach. Never having the opportunity to try his methods before, I could not really see his challenge of finding the right amount of spacial balance and color choice. But thanks to the internet and a flash applet, I was able to paint my first Pollock. Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas allows anyone to imagine they are in a hot paint stained studio, leaning over a large canvas with a dripping brush in one hand, paint bucket in the other and a cigarette lollipop in their mouth.
However, once I had a few stabs at creating my own drip-piece, I could really see the difficulty in validating that thrift-store painting an ex-trucker bought for five bucks in San Bernardino, California.
When We Left Earth – HD-TV in the 60′s?
Yesterday, as I was watching Discovery Channel’s new series When We Left Earth, I noticed something peculiar. The test, launch and space footage from NASA was in HD and in 16:9 ratio (without pillar-boxing). I started to wonder if they cropped the top and bottom of the footage (beam-boxing??). After doing some research, it looks like NASA did a deal with Discovery to let them convert all the original footage into HD (and presumably digital) to use in their documentary. However, NASA gets all the converted footage for their archives.
Source of the footage aside, the When We Left Earth’s strong point was the fact that they have interviews with the actual people involved with the missions. From astronauts to mission control specialists to family members. So the amount of detail and behind the scenes information they provide is unmatched in anything else I’ve seen before about the space race. It’s not just presented as a history lesson, but more like the viewer is part of the NASA team racing to put a man into space… and on the moon.