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Poppies in Tuscany 2 - The Digital Photography Alternative

It can be hard work locating the perfect field of poppies in front of the perfect view of a Tuscan town. You think it might just be easier to slap in a field of poppies on your computer at home later. Well, these days it is a viable alternative, one much used in the professional photography world, but if you're going to do it well, there is still a lot of work involved.

This time you are going to need to find two shots: one of the view of your chosen town in Tuscany, ideally with a nicely defined hill curving gently in the foreground, which will be filled with poppies digitally later; the other the poppy field itself in a similar light to your first picture and on a similarly contoured hill or field. A flat field of poppies stuck onto a hill shaped foreground is just going to look like a collage. So no escape from the driving around Tuscany searching for the perfect shot then.

Just as well that it is more of a joy than a punishment to potter along the winding roads between such jewels as Pienza and Montepulciano, |San Quirico d'Orcia and Montalcino, you don't even need the excuse of photography. Get a friend to drive so that you don't end up in the ditch, craning to get a better view of Monte Amiata, my favourite mountain, or of the towers of Siena in the distance. A detailed map will help you explore the strada bianca (dirt roads), but they are not always completely accurate, so be prepared to head off into the unknown and turn back at a dead end - all part of the adventure. The magic of Tuscany is the unexpected view, a hidden crumbling brick farmhouse with cypress trees, a perfect field of poppies.

You've located your shots of your background town and your foreground poppies. Take a lot of permutations of the same shot: different depths of field, different points of focus, different angles, different light situations, and bracket, bracket, bracket your exposures. The beauty of digital is that you don't have film costs to worry about. Return to the same place at a different time of day to get a different angle of sunlight on your poppies. You need a large choice of shots to play with when you get home to your computer. Once home you can't re-shoot, you have to work with the material you've already collected.

Now, after downloading the images, backing them up on DVD or an external hard drive, you have hours of fun ahead of you, selecting the images to work with and then juxtaposing them perfectly and seamlessly to create the ultimate illusion, that looks effortless. Only you have the satisfaction of knowing how much work went into creating the perfect photograph of Poppies in Tuscany.

Kit Heathcock copyright 2006

About the Author

Kit Heathcock - worked and travelled in Italy for many years, is passionate about food and loves being a fulltime mother. Co-creator of
A Flower Gallery
home of original flower pictures and
Food and Family!

TV Stars - Really? They Started On The Legit Stage

Many instances most people associates an actor with a role they play on a long-working television present, not realizing that often that thespian had an active profession on the stage first. Jerry Orbach and Sam Waterston on Regulation and Order, Jason Alexander on Seinfeld, and Patricia Heaton on Everyone Loves Raymond are a few of the many actors who first skilled for, minimize their enamel on, and professionally carried out on the legitimate stage.

The fact is the technique most often taught to American stage actors - some type of the Stanislavski Technique - works very properly on both TV and film. Though there are adjustments to be made going from the stage to tv, a properly-skilled stage actor can usually make these changes fairly quickly.

The most important modifications have to do with the subtlety employed by these performing for the camera. Stage actors find that bodily and vocally less is extra in entrance of the camera. Additionally, a good movie or television actor has a sound sense of find out how to use the camera body to their greatest advantage. An actor like Michael Caine is a master at this.

For somebody who has only completed television or film, acting on the stage may be difficult. The stage calls for that actors maintain a personality for long intervals of time, something the digital media doesn't do. General, stage performing additionally requires greater actions than these needed for television and film. If somebody has by no means been skilled for the theatre, this can be intimidating.

Of course the scariest factor about acting on stage is the fact that you’re in entrance of a stay viewers and for those who make a mistake, you don’t get a Mulligan. Even when a tv present is done in entrance of a "live viewers," there’s less strain for the actor to be perfect. If they "go up" (that is, forget their strains), they will make a joke and get amusing whereas "lower" is called. They then get to strive the moment, motion or scene again. There is no "minimize" in a dwell stage efficiency; there is solely "protecting" for a flubbed line, a missed entrance, or a misplaced prop.

Listed below are a few actors that you’ve develop into conversant in on tv who first acted on the authentic stage.

Jerry Orbach

Orbach, who handed away in 2004, was greatest known as the wisecracking Detective Lennie Briscoe on Legislation and Order. As a younger man, he attended the University of Illinois and Northwestern University where he studied drama. After going to New York, he continued to study for the stage. He grew to become intently associated with musicals, creating the function of El Gallo and singing the properly-know opening number "Attempt to Remember" in the lengthy-working musical The Fantasticks. He received the Tony in 1969 for his portrayal of Chuck Baxter in Promises, Promises; he sang the hit track "I’ll By no means Fall in Love Once more" in that show. He additionally performed leads in Chicago (Billy Flynn) and Forty-Second Street (Julian Marsh). Most Legislation and Order followers don’t understand that Orbach had a stupendous, resonate singing voice.

Bebe Neuwirth

Beatrice "Bebe" Neuwirth has not too long ago grow to be a daily on Regulation and Order, the place she performs the function of Tracey Kibre. Nevertheless, it was on the sitcom Cheers that she discovered fame by playing Lilith Sternin-Crane - a tough, tense psychiatrist and wife of Frasier Crane. Neuwirth skilled at the Julliard Faculty and first made her identify as a dancer and actor in the nationwide tour of A Refrain Line (1980), the place she played Cassie and Sheila. In 1982, she appeared on Broadway in Dancin’, directed and choreographed by the legendary Bob Fosse, and within the musical Little Me. She cemented her reputation on the Great White Method by playing the lead in Bob Fosse’s revival of the musical Candy Charity (1986), for which she gained a Tony. Neuwirth is an incredible, charismatic musical performer, who instructions the stage together with her voice and body.

Jason Alexander

Greatest know as Jerry Seinfeld’s obnoxious finest pal George Costanza in the sitcom Seinfeld, Alexander, who was born Jay Greenspan in Newark, NJ, is another former Tony winner. While he was an undergraduate at Boston Faculty, Alexander was forged in Stephen Soundheim’s Broadway musical Merrily We Roll Along. He won the Finest Actor in A Musical Tony for his position in Jerome Robbin’s Broadway (1989). In the first few episodes of Seinfeld, he wasn’t fairly certain of methods to play George Castanza so he imitated Woody Allen.

Sam Waterston

On tv he performs robust, no nonsense D.A. Jack McCoy in Regulation and Order (1990), however originally Waterston was finest known for his stage roles. He went to Yale, the place he didn't study performing, however did taking appearing classes on the American Actors Workshop in Paris. Waterston played numerous roles in New York, including Jonathan in Oh, Dad, Poor, Dad, Mama’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling so Unhappy, Hamlet in Hamlet, and Signoir Benedick of Padua in Much Ado About Nothing, for which he gained the Drama desk award for Finest Actor. Prior to changing into associated with Legislation and Order, he was greatest identified for his work in straight performs, each new and classic. On stage, Waterston perfected an elegant, refined fashion, displaying a capability to make precise and delicate appearing choices.

Barry Bostwick

On the Michael J. Fox sitcom Spin Metropolis, Bostwick played the dimwitted mayor Randall M. Winston Jr. in 70 episodes. Since that point, he’s appeared on numerous hit TV shows as a visitor star, including Scrubs, Chilly Case and Regulation and Order. But Bostwick has deep Broadway roots that include the creation of the role of Danny Zuko in Grease, for which he received a Finest Actor in a Musical nomination, and the creation of the lead role of Jamie Lockhart in the musical The Robber Bridegroom, for which he gained the Tony. Bostwick, who also performed in numerous straight performs, was known for his excessive vitality and slapdash style. Whereas performing in his award winning run as Jamie Lockhart, Bostwick broke his arm when he fell swinging across the stage on a rope. He proved he was a trouper although when, after a short recuperative interval, he bought back on stage together with his arm in a solid and continued to play Lockhart, rope swing and all.

Patricia Heaton

For 70 episodes, Heaton played Debra Barone, Ray Romano’s spouse on the highly regarded sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. As a young lady, she targeted on theatre arts at Ohio State University and then went to New York where she studied with William Esper. She made her debut within the Broadway gospel musical Don’t Get God Started, however general throughout her career in New York she was relegated to small roles. With a number of acting buddies, she started a theatre company called Stage Three, which produced new works in NYC. In 1989 they took their profitable production of The Johnstown Vindicator to Los Angeles, the place casting directors saw and preferred Heaton. Slowly her TV profession started to take off. But Heaton has lengthy acknowledged that even though she by no means made it huge on Broadway, her stage training has been instrumental to her success on television.

James Gandolfini

Gandolfini continues his run as the chilly-hearted, insecure, narcissistic Tony Soprano on HBO’s hit collection The Sopranos. After receiving a degree in Communications from Rutgers University, Gandolfini went on to check performing within the late 1980’s at the prestigious Actors Studio in New York City. After making his skilled stage debut in Massive El's Greatest Buddy, he appeared in many New York productions. He made his Broadway debut in 1992 as Steve Hubbell within the revival of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, which starred Alex Baldwin and Jessica Lang. Different New York credits included On the Waterfront, One Day Wonder and Tarantulas Dancing. The same yr he first appeared on Broadway, he additionally landed his first display screen function, which was in Sidney Lumet's A Stranger Among Us. Since 1992, he’s appeared in over 20 films. He’s been Tony Soprano in over 70 episodes.

Other actors, who've either made their name or learned invaluable performing lessons within the theatre before turning into a part of the digital entertainment trade, embody Martin Sheen, Stockard Channing, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Duvall, Meryl Streep, and Swoosie Kurtz. These actors have labored arduous to learn their craft on what was the primary appearing platform obtainable to humankind - the stay stage.

Movies are somewhat over one hundred years outdated and tv is about 75 years old. The formal theatre goes again over 2,500 years! It’s the true studying and testing ground for acting method, stamina, and talent that, as soon as honed, can then be transferred to every other venue.

Go to a Broadway show or a professional theatre close to you - chances are you'll catch a efficiency by somebody you’ll see break through on the tube within the next few years. One night, you’ll be sitting in your den or front room watching the next massive hit drama or sitcom and say, "Hey, didn’t we see that actor on the stage?" Yeah, you probably did, before they were famous. Very cool.

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Final Cut Pro (Mac) turning an awful video quality to something good?

I have this awful video clip. Just...awful.. Its like Michael J Fox was the cameraman. Its shaky and was shot with a digital cameras video function...so The quality isn't very good and there is a lot of shaky parts... Also, the footage shot was of slow moving trucks and cranes..so i have to double the speed. When I double the speed it looks like the camera man is going through a seizure... Motioncam doesn't seem to be fixing it. Is there other software i can use? or something? I'm new to mac and have had this macbook for 2 weeks..so I'm still learning.

Thanks

hi justin

yes your footage CAN be improved, but the software is expensive..
you can use software like MOTION (found in FINAL CUT STUDIO) or AFTER EFFECTS both use similar filters & plugins which can improve all sorts of aspects of the video clip.. but the learning curve can be pretty steep for a newcomer..

remember you don't get something for nothing though - every time you are processing your clip you will degrade certain aspects of the original.. but for shakey handheld shots i have seen AMAZING results with COREMELTs Lock & Load

good luck

EMMYS: Engineering Awards Announced; VOD Pioneer Time Warner Among Winners (Deadline Hollywood)

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has unveiled its 63rd Primetime Emmy
Engineering Awards, which will be handed out October 26 at the Renaissance
Hotel in Los Angeles in a ceremony hosted by _The Big Bang Theory_ co-star
Mayim Bialik. Time Warner and Time Warner Cable have won the Philo T.
Farnsworth Award for their "pioneering work in bringing true interactive and
versatile on-demand television to audiences as exemplified by the Full Service
Network," which was the forerunner of today's VOD services. The Charles F.
Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award will go to The Fox Group president of
engineering Andy Setos. Four Engineering Emmys also will be awarded, along
with certificates and a plaque, outlined in the TV academy's release:

> **Engineering Emmys** Four Engineering Emmys also will be awarded. Presented
to an individual, company or organization for engineering developments so
significant an improvement on existing methods or so innovative in nature that
they materially affect the transmission, recording or reception of television,
this year’s Engineering Emmy recipients are: IBM Corporation and Fox Networks
Group for media workflow transformation and pioneering the development and
application of LTFS (Linear Tape File System) in a broadcast environment
enabling real-time ...

Deadline Hollywood

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