By KATHY DeSALVO
If you couldnt make it to the 1999 North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Jan. 4, you would still have had access to one of the more significant car events of the yearathe unveiling of BMWs new X5, billed as the worlds first sports activity vehicleavia a live Webcast.
Created by Fallon McElligott, Minneapolis, the Webcast took place the day of the auto show, from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m. EST, and was highlighted by a video presentation and a press conference featuring speakers Jack Pitney, BMW director of corporate communications, Victor H. Doolan, president of BMW of North America, and Wolfgang Reitzle, a member of German parent company BMW AGs board of management. The actual unveiling of the X5 followed, accompanied by a performance by MOMIX, a troupe of performance artists, who danced in silver outfits with skis and rollerblades. Users can view the Webcast online for the next three months by logging onto BMWs Web site, www.bmwusa.com, and clicking on the archive. (The Real Player plug-in is required for viewing.)
Fallon also created and uploaded that day a new section about the X5 for the BMW of North America Web site. The section includes a gallery of images, background on the vehicle and its availability and information about the Webcast. Users who had registered as guests of the Web site received e-mail announcements prior to the event.
Fallon account executive Cori Van Brunt, who served as the Webcasts producer, explained that the client came up with the idea of a Webcast in order to create a buzz about the X5, which wont be available to the public until October. Said Van Brunt, It will be the biggest launch for BMW this year. They have no other vehicle like the X5, and so we definitely wanted to come out with something big and very exciting to set this launch apart from any other that wed done. That led them to the idea of using the North American International Auto Show, the biggest U.S. automotive event, for the unveiling.
Mark Sandau, Fallons multimedia group manager who served as the technical lead and the director of the Webcast, said the two-camera shoot was largely confined to the press area. It was kind of difficult to find stuff to shoot at the beginning, said Sandau. We treated it as a live event; we tried to do a lot of wide shots so as not to miss anything.
Sandau added that his crew took into consideration the technical limitations inherent in producing a Webcast. You have to realize the final destination of what people are going to see when they see this, he said. Some things that are in play in photography and video dont apply to a Webcast. This is a relatively small image, the frame rate is quite slow, it doesnt react very well to things like quick-cuts and high contrast. Youll notice there arent any cuts, but there are a lot of long dissolves, which gave the encoder a chance to catch up so it didnt break up the image.
[The Webcast] actually turned out to be a blessing with the [bad] weather they had in Detroit, noted Van Brunt. So many flights were cancelled, and the press who were unable to get into town were able to access the Webcast. She said this also proved true for several BMW executives who were unable to fly into Detroit.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More