Blogging cool shit by proxy
Yesterday, I stumbled across a reference to C’était un Rendezvous, a landmark cinema verité film by French director Claude Lelouch.
In the film, a real driver races through the streets of Paris, from one end to the other, reaching speeds of nearly 140 MPH. What makes this so noteworthy? A couple of things:
- The film was one of the first to use a gyro-stabilized camera mount; the random bumps and vibrations of the road that could have made the picture unwatchable are cancelled out.
- The mount necessitated a filming time of no more than 10 minutes. The actual film is shot in one take that runs about nine minutes.
- The director didn’t have the permits to shoot, so the street are filled with real traffic and real pedestrians. Verité, indeed.
You’ve got to see it to believe it.
Now, why title the blog post as I did?
Like I said, I found the links and the movie yesterday. I circulated it ’round my department, and watched the amazement spread.
But I didn’t actually blog it first; Doug did. So he gets props for actually, y’know, using his [spiffy new] blog. 