98F-5
Photography by Rich Johnson
98F-5Photography by Rich Johnson |
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| I get the message after work. "I'm with NHK, Japanese Public Television. We're doing a series on craft, and are interested in taping a segment on sand sculpture. Would you be interested?" I call them back. It can't hurt; many are called, few are taped. |
| Build number: | 98F-5 (lifetime start #132) |
| Date: | March 7 |
| Location: | Venice Breakwater, on the flat |
| Start: | 1300; building time: approx 4 hours (see text) |
| Height: | 4.3 feet |
| Base: | 1.75 feet, cylindric |
| Photography: | color neg w/XA2; color trans w/LX and 6X7; 2 TMX120 w/6X7 |
| Story: | "Fame" |
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"Larry, we've recieved the go-ahead." "OK. When do you want to do it?" I figure there'll be some negotiation; I told them how the tide affects sculpture timing. "We'd like to do the taping on the beach March 7th." Thus starts my introduction to flexibility in the making of television shows. "That will work, if we start about 8AM. We have to start early because of the short day." Pure luck in their timing. "We'll be there." I tell myself it's just another sand sculpture. There'll be a camera and a couple of people to operate it, but sand is sand and I know how to deal with that. I load up and head for the beach under a pellucid sky through the warming morning. There are two trucks and about ten people standing around when I get to the beach. They aren't even close to being set up. Ando-san offers a lame apology and the sun starts racing me across the sky. They want this shot and that, and each has to be rehearsed. When I finally get to build a base, it turns out they told me the wrong spot and it must be moved. It takes an hour to rehearse and shoot moving the form to the base. The afternoon is well advanced by the time I finally get a chance to touch tool to sand. It's not all bad. The caterer has a tent set up, and the food is good. There are six willing helpers to move sand. So this is what it's like to be "The Talent." Still, I'm left with trying to get a seven-hour project done in four, and no amount of fame will make me a better sculptor..
Sand flies. There's no time for contemplation or detail. I fall into the sand and don't come out until half an hour before sunset. The camera moves, people call and respond and I'm only peripherally aware of it. It's far from my best effort. Parts of it look good, but by my standards it's just not a sculpture. The rest of the people here, passersby drawn by the machinery of movies and the moviemakers themselves, have no idea of this and think it's great. Rich knows better. Call it a good four-hour sculpture. Still, it owns the beach. My sculpture collects the late sunlight and re-radiates it warmly, outshining all the expensive hard equipment surrounding it. I photograph quickly, doing the last of it after sunset with the big camera on its tripod and half-second exposures.
Thoroughly dazed I pack up in the day's last light.
Notes as of October 1999: The show was broadcast in Asia in December of 1998. I received a copy in late January and have watched it a few times. It's a reasonably good, if only workmanlike, presentation of what I do. It has all the look of something designed by committee. Otomo-san told me it had been completely re-edited in Tokyo by someone else, and then shrugged his shoulders. He has gone to othe projects. Considering all the people and equipment they had I'd hoped for more. I like Kalle's one-man production better. | ||||||||||
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Original: 98 December 27 (direct to HTML) Photography by Richard Johnson
All contents copyright 1998 by
Larry Nelson | ||||||||||
98f05rpt.htm 99 October 23
