Thanks to a small piece on AOPA Online (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association), a wonderful insight into a hitherto unheard of organisation and a most charming story.
That organisation is Mawson’s Huts Foundation, an Australian organisation that describes itself as:
The Mawson’s Huts Foundation has been established to conserve in perpetuity for the Australian people the unique, historical buildings known as Mawson’s Huts, base for one of the most significant expeditions in Antarctic history. The Foundation’s website provides a variety of resources concerning current and future efforts to conserve the huts and information about the archaeology and heritage of the site.
Sir Douglas Mawson was an Australian Antarctic explorer and geologist born in 1882. More background from the Mawson’s Huts website:
Sir Douglas Mawson, a geologist, who led the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911, landed a party of
Sir Douglas Mawson
18 at Cape Denison on Commonwealth Bay in January, 1912, and remained there until December 1913. The site was not visited again until Mawson returned in 1931 with the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition and then not again until the 1950’s. Only a concerted public campaign would save and conserve this historic site for all Australians, and the Mawson’s Huts Foundation was formed in 1996 for this purpose.
Creativity, Integrity and commercialism – are there conflicts?
This is guest post from Magnus Dennison. Magnus is a Cinematographer who, together with his wife, Katja Roberts, runs a film production company in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the North-East of England. Their company is called Meerkat Films. Magnus writes about integrity in film making.
I am going to write about film producers who have made creative choices to ensure their films are commercial successes. My question is whether these films lose their integrity when the motivation for making them becomes financial.
A little about my background. I am an independent film producer working in the UK and don’t profess to be an expert on these matters; the views expressed here are simply my opinion.
I will start by presenting one of my favourite films: ‘The Lives of Others’ (2006) directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The team has, in my opinion, made one of the most powerful films of the decade. But more interestingly, they have made many choices that have preserved the integrity of the story at the risk of reducing commercial viability.
It is obvious why they have done this; they are passionate about the artistry and the integrity of the film, more than the financial gain. The film is very slow paced and the tension builds so gradually you’re almost unaware of it until you are completely engrossed.
I have always associated France with surrealism after, at a fairly young age, seeing those amazing photos of early 1920s surrealist art by Duchamp, Ernst and others. In recent days this surrealist experience has returned with a vengeance in the bizarre case of Roman Polanski, with a reported 62% of French people believing that the arrest of Polanski in Switzerland was an unjustified affront to a long-standing resident “artist” and citizen of France.
The strongest condemnation of this arrest was initially by the French Minister of Culture, Mr Frédéric Mitterand, who said the affair “had no sense” and who expressed his “profound emotion” at the arrest of this “film director of international repute.”
One man’s mission to stop the killing and capture of dolphins.
A dolphin is one of the most beautiful creatures on this planet.
I was going to write a very long Post setting out the reasons why everyone who cares for these creatures needs to get involved. But, in the end, a few links and extracts achieve that much more effectively than several hundred words from me.
Recently I was asked to run a detail lasting 4 hours in an Airbus simulator, for a film crew coming from Australia.
I was told by the training office that this was just operating the instructor panel on the simulator to help them get the information they needed regarding certain situations that would be explained in a television documentary to be aired on a Sunday evening weekly program.
A320 simulator 'cockpit'.
Apparently the various people involved had visited Airbus, and were due to return to Australia for interviews with some of the major airlines operating Airbus aircraft.
I soon gathered that the likely scenario was to be the loss of instrumentation and automation as experienced by an A380 crew recently, and what might have been the case with the A330 lost over the Atlantic.
When the original Post on Barnstorming was published on this Blog on September, 18th, we had an enormous response from viewers and the Post had one of the highest ever figures.
Anyway, the producers have just announced,
Announcing the Houston Premier of Barnstorming October 17! We will be screening the film at the 1940 Air Terminal Museum, Hobby Airport, Houston, Texas. Showtimes are 11:00 am and for the fundraising “Hobby Hangar Hop” in the evening. For more information visit the museum website!
Being based at the moment in Sonora State in Mexico and this being my first summer, those immortal words in Robin William’s film Good Morning, Vietnam keep coming to mind. Here’s an excerpt from the script that covers that exchange between Adrian Cronauer (RW) and Roosevelt, somewhere out in the jungle.
Donnersmarck. The team has, in my opinion, made one of the most powerful films of the decade. But more interestingly, they have made many choices that have preserved the integrity of the story at the risk of reducing commercial viability.
Learning from Dogs 