#robert ripley

[ultraozzie3000]

Some Pitiful Melodies

Sigmund Gottfried Spaeth (1885–1965) sought to popularize classical music and improve the musical tastes of the masses by meeting the public wherever he could find them, from vaudeville halls to national radio broadcasts. September 1, 1934 cover by William Steig. Born in a line of three generations of Lutheran clergymen, Spaeth chose a different path and became a musicologist who sought to…

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Alien 3 • Dir. David Fincher

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Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

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Ripley (Steven Zaillian, 2024).

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panavisionofficial

“Yeah, I can't remember what we shot with. I have to call Erik Brown. He's my lifeline,” jokes legendary #DOP Robert Elswit ASC, as we sat down to discuss Ripley.

“I've worked with [director] Steven [Zaillian] before, and like all cinematographers, he believes that the way something's lit is actually a way to affect people's emotions. There are a lot of directors who actually don't believe that, but Steven is one of those who feels very strongly that there's an emotional message that the lighting in a movie delivers.

I had a copy of the Patricia Highsmith series of the latest series of Ripley books with these beautiful covers and black and white images, and Steven said that as he was writing, he just saw the whole thing in monochrome. As we got more into it, and as I read the script, I realized that a big part of the agenda of the backstory is Caravaggio. Steven and I would talk about how Caravaggio invented the whole idea of how the light is playing an emotional, dramatic purpose in his paintings. What was lighting the people and the objects in the room was very selectively realized— faces, arms, gestures—all almost theatrical looking. The lighting dominates the color palette. It dominates even the design in places. There are strong graphic images, but even if you look at them in black and white, which we were in the series, it's all about the light, which is actually a line that one of the characters says.

I didn’t want [lenses] that were too sharp and I think that's something that Dan [Sasaki] reacted to. He made something that was wide open but with no greasy, sharp, surveillance photography look. I don't know how [Dan Sasaki] does it, but we shot the whole series with just five lenses. Then there are the zooms that he made when we did the water scenes.

You can't make something like Ripley look like Ripley unless everybody's all in. It's the production, it’s [production designer] David Gropman, the great costume designers on the show, Gianni Casalnuovo and Maurizio Millenotti. Their sense of understanding of what tonal structure meant, and how to achieve an interesting kind of contrast of pictorial style in this series was essential."

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"Lollipops! And all free today!"

[tv-moments]

Ripley

Season 1, “III Sommerso”

Director: Steven Zaillian

DoP: Robert Elswit

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Next To Normal (2009, Broadway) - Digital Booklet Pics

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I think it's so sweet that Andrew has his two sisters (among others) there with him, and I REALLY want to see him "...have a little dance..." 😀❤️🕺

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A quick round up of updates on the blog including new characters added to the ASK LIST and a list of fics that went out last week:

Characters Added To Ask List:

Mike Mclusky

Robert Sawyer

New Fics:

Chicago Fire:

Playing For Keeps - Sam regrets what he said about your first night together.

Big Heart - Sam takes care of you after noticing you're in pain.

Chicago Med:

Winter Blues - Mitch struggles during the winter months.

The Wrong One - A disagreement leads Dean to reconsider his choices.

Zurich (NSFW) - Jack cancels his trip when he realises something is going on with you.

Cobra Kai:

White Roses - Daniel finds out you might not be as single as he thought.

Attention - Terry hasn't been paying you enough attention

The Red Room - Terry takes care of a threat.

Fire Country:

To The Moon & To Saturn - Bode finds a nerdy way to tell you how he feels.

Critical - Manny stays by your bedside after the crash.

Law & Order Criminal Intent - Toronto:

Who I’m Not - You remind Henry he’s not his father.

Fragile Heart - Henry has always believed love wasn't for him.

Mayans:

Home - Felipe knows your pregnant.

Mayor of Kingstown:

Hell or Highwater - You and Mike always find your way back to each other.

Stop Thinking - Robert needs to stop thinking and start doing.

NCIS - New Orleans:

The Fall - Dwayne knows you're heading for a fall.

SEAL Team:

Say it Again - You tell Eric how you feel for the first time.

SOA:

Yours - You and Nero put everything on the table.

Kings & Queens - You and Chibs marry under terrible circumstances.

Ass (NSFW) - Tig has always had a thing about your ass.

Top Gun Maverick:

Moonlight - Beau asks you a question about your wedding.

Yellowstone:

Final Words - Kayce discovers the truth about Lee.

More (NSFW) - Kayce tells you he needs more.

Missing You - You miss Kayce just as much as he misses you.

Until Your Dying Day - You make a promise to Lee.

Every Part of Me (NSFW) - Jamie wants to give you every part of himself.

Everything (NSFW) - Jamie wants everything with you.

Break Free - Jamie decides it's time to break free from Yellowstone.

Touch - After seven years in prison Walker's a little touch starved.

Everything You Dreamed (NSFW) - You are everything Walker could have dreamed and more.

The Other Woman (NSFW) - John was never meant to be with Evelyn.

With Me (NSFW) - Ryan and you send the night together for the first time.

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CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG 1968

Well, maybe my children like running wild in the street. Did that ever occur to you?

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“I don’t know if this means I’m gonna have to say goodbye to my family… but I don’t want that, I don’t want to say goodbye to you guys!”

Please don’t hate me, I truly believe we’ll #SaveStation19 and I won’t stop fighting until that day comes!! But in the meantime we have to say goodbye, so I had to do this… you know, just in case 😬🫣

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Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

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I've talked about Amanda Ripley's disaster survival book The Unthinkable before, and it turns out there's a new edition for 2024, if that's additional incentive to check it out. Today I'm remembering her chapter about Robert Olian, a bystander who attempted to rescue the survivors of Air Florida Flight 90 after the crash in the Potomac in 1982.

Olian saw the crash, and he and a few other witnesses stood on the shore of the freezing river, tied together a makeshift lifeline of scarves and jumper cables, and he set off with it to try to reach the survivors.

He was only a tiny portion of the way there when he realized he had bitten off way more than he could chew. As Ripley puts it:

At that point, Olian was just halfway there. He'd been in the water for about fifteen minutes. If it took another fifteen minutes to get to them, and it would probably take more since he was exhausted now, what would he do next? If he somehow summoned the strength to carry every one of them back across the football-filed length of water, it would take yet another thirty minutes at least. Realistically, there was no way his body--or the survivors--could last another forty-five minutes in that water. He remembers staring at the tail section of the plane and noticing how smooth it was. Even if he made it out there, there might be nothing to hold on to, he thought. "I was pretty sure I was gonna die," Olian says. "But that was OK. I had an internal calm and good feeling about that. I was not going to turn my back on those folks."

As you can tell from the bits of present tense, Olian did survive--a helicopter arrived and headed for him, thinking he was one of the plane passengers. He waved it toward the actual passengers to rescue them, while his fellow bystanders-turned-rescuers hauled him back to shore by the rope that was still tied to him.

Looking back, he said his motivation was a mix of overconfidence - at the time he jumped in, he truly believed he'd be strong enough to reach the survivors and help them, underestimating the depth of the water - and insecurity: he would have felt like a coward if he hadn't tried to help. And "If rational thought had entered my head at any point, I wouldn't have done it."

He didn't take off his steel-toed boots or remove the five pounds of keys in his pockets. He just jumped in. He needed to let those people know someone was trying to save them, he said later. That was all. "They had to see someone right now. If I was ever confident of anything in my life, it was this," he says in his slow, methodical way. "Worst-case scenario, I would be totally ineffective in saving them, but at least I would give them hope."

And in the end, according to the survivors, he did. Watching a guy try to swim to you with a rope is at least something to do while you cling to the wreckage of your plane; the hope he might make it also gave them the motivation to keep clinging on and keep their heads above the freezing water. They survived long enough for the helicopter to arrive (one of the six surviving passengers, Arland D. Williams Jr., was caught on the wreckage and rather than spend time trying to work himself free, passed the rescue lines the helicopter dropped to the other five. Tragically, by the time rescuers returned to get him, he had drowned. He received a number of posthumous honors including a stretch of the repaired 14th Street bridge being named for him. Ripley gives Williams short shrift in her book and highlights examples of heroism from the other five passengers, but his Wikipedia page has links to other accounts in his honor.)

I guess some of this could be turned into an object lesson somehow. The importance of hope, observations about selflessness and heroism, the advice to, if you must attempt to swim across a frozen river, at least make sure someone's tied a cable to you so they can haul you back. Olian's always stuck with me as an example of a hero who failed in his rescue attempt and, if you were to be highly cynical, made a bit of a fool of himself - and yet he's inspiring all the same.

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To acknowledge all of those extraordinary people that Andrew thanked and congratulated, I'm adding the nominees from categories that don't always get attention, along with their interviews or featurettes.

Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Single Episode

Ripley - III Sommerso

John Bowers, Visual Effects Supervisor • Jason Tsang, Visual Effects Supervisor • Joseph Servodio, Visual Effects Producer • Maricel Pagulayan, Visual Effects Producer • Christopher White, Visual Effects Supervisor • Libby Hazell, Visual Effects Producer • Francois Sugny, Visual Effects Sequence Supervisor • Gaia Bussolati, Visual Effects Supervisor • Pepe Valencia, Visualization Supervisor

Outstanding Sound Editing For A Limited Or Anthology Series, Movie Or Special

Ripley - III Sommerso

Larry Zipf, Co-Supervising Sound Editor/ Sound Designer • Michael Feuser, Co-Supervising Sound Editor • Michael McMenomy, Dialogue Editor • Lidia Tamplenizza, Supervising ADR Editor • David Forshee, Sound Effects Editor • Bill R. Dean, Sound Effects Editor • Wyatt Sprague, Sound Effects Editor • Angelo Palazzo, Sound Effects Editor • Matt Haasch, Supervising Foley Editor • Igor Nikolic, Foley Editor • Dan Evans Farkas, Music Editor • Ben Schor, Music Editor • Jay Peck, Foley Artist • Sandra Fox, Foley Artist

Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie

Ripley - Vll Macabre Entertainment

Michael Barry, Re-Recording Mixer • Larry Zipf, Re-Recording Mixer • Maurizio Argentieri, Production Mixer • Michael Perfitt, Scoring Mixer

Outstanding Picture Editing For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie

Ripley - III Sommerso

Joshua Raymond Lee, Editor • David O. Rogers, Editor

Outstanding Period Costumes For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie

Ripley - IV La Dolce Vita

Maurizio Millenotti, Costume Designer • Gianni Casalnuovo, Costume Designer • Ernest Camilleri, Wardrobe Supervisor • Teresa D’Arienzo, Assistant Costume Designer • Francesco Morabito, Assistant Costume Design

Outstanding Production Design For A Narrative Period Or Fantasy Program (One Hour Or More)

Ripley

David Gropman, Production Designer • Karen Schulz Gropman, Art Director • Alex Santucci, Art Director • Alessandra Querzola, Set Decorator

Outstanding Cinematography For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie

Ripley - V Lucio

Robert Elswit, Director of Photography

Outstanding Casting For A Limited Or Anthology Series Or Movie

Ripley

Avy Kaufman, CSA, Casting by • Francesco Vedovati, Location Casting • Barbara Giordani, Location Casting

Sources 1st image, quote

[filmjunky-99]

a l i e n 3, 1992 🎬 dir. david fincher

'You owe it to us. You owe it to yourself.' - bishop 2