Later That Same Year

I've now shot somewhere over fifty hours of footage at the farm. The EX1 is 'tapeless' - that is, all video is recorded to a solid-state card. Each time I start/stop the camera, a new clip is created. They run anywhere from a few frames to over a half-hour. Most are 30 seconds to two minutes, except for interviews. To-date, I have something over four thousand clips. The log of the clips has grown to over 160 pages.

This past week, I met with a very good editor with credits going back to the seventies and as recent as this month. It was a very affirming experience - and also a very challenging one. Much more to do. Some things to catch up on. So far it's been a one-man band and because of that I've missed a lot, made a lot of technical mistakes, left the microphone off at times, failed to focus properly, set the camera at the wrong color temp., etc. In fact, I've made just about every mistake possible. I also need to do more work on getting to the true essence of the story.

But the project moves along. I'll try to publish some stills in the next few weeks.

Every three-and-a-half years, more or less...

...I update my blog. Gee, I wonder why no one reads it?

Life has moved on and sixteen months ago I took a rather deep plunge back into video. I went out and bought a 'prosumer' Sony EX1 HD camera.


It's really more pro than -sumer. It has been used quite a bit by CNN, including aerial shots of the Inauguration last January; it was used in the feature Public Enemy for secondary video in tight spaces. In any event it takes just glorious video in full, native 1080p (as well as several other formats).





I spent eight months getting to know the camera (for example, understanding what the fifty-six buttons and switches are for). During that same time I migrated from Adobe Premiere Pro, which I used on the Pemaquid film to Final Cut Studio 2, another steep learning curve. It happens that the camera, it's solid state media and Apple tools play very nicely together.

In March of this year, I asked my friends Rob and Jan if I could do a little video during maple syrup season at their farm in my town of Dresden, Maine. Out of that grew an 8-minute piece on sap gathering that we showed on a loop on 'Maine Maple Sunday.' After that, we met and they agreed to put up with me through four seasons. (They may want to revisit that decision...) In any event, I'm just shy of half-way through that process and beginning to look for post-production help and for money to pay for post-production help.

The experience of working with these folks, with their helpers and apprentices, with their customers, has been a wonderful one. They have been generous with their time during a very difficult summer season.

To-date I've amassed about 33 hours of footage and will probably end up with something in the neighborhood of a hundred hours before it's over. That will eventually be whittled down to what? Some format with a length between one and three hours, I suspect.

I've taken on a good friend who recently retired as my 'Associate Producer,' meaning she does all the tough work and I get to play with the camera. She's quickly made herself indispensable and helps me to maintain a steady course.

More to follow as we continue through the seasons.

Pemaquid Dig Update

Fort William Henry, Pemaquid Maine.

In the December post, I talked about how I came to be editing a 28 year-old video of the archaeological dig at this 18th century fort.

Since that time, I've finished editing the 37 minute video and presented it to folks connected with the site and with the Maine Historical Commission. While working on the project, I was able to make contact with two of the summer interns: Ray Johnson, an Egyptologist, is now the director of the Epigraphic Survey at Chicago House in Luxor Egypt; Chuck Rand is now director of the Research Center at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, OK.

Some Restaurants in mid-coast Maine

When I rode into Maine from San Diego on my Honda 350 in August of 1972, I was so broke I spent most of my time on Route 1 so I could avoid the turnpike tolls. I didn't eat out a lot. Which was just as well because there weren't a whole lot of good restaurants then. Lots of pizza places. I'm sure there were some very good high-end places but I never visited them. I remember eating a lot of rice back then. I still do, but now I have other things with it. Besides bouillon. Here is a very idiosyncratic survey of a few restaurants in the Bath-Brunswick-Wiscasset-Damarascotta area that I like.

Brunswick, where I spend most of my time, had two 'good' - that is, more expensive 'family' restaurants when I first arrived, along with a couple of tired Cantonese chop suey houses and a few bars. Within months of my arrival - in fact, most likely because of my arrival - the Bowdoin Steak House was born and that remained for a long time the 'hippest' good quality restaurant around. (Alas, it is no more. It's now a very good German restaurant.) Now there are three Mexican, three Thai, two Indian restaurants, a good Italian, two German, a multi-Asian place, a whole range of youth oriented bars and brew pubs, the delightful Henry & Marty's and a whole slug of others that escape my mind at the moment.

Of the Thai, I like the Bankok Garden in the Fort Andross Mill down at the end of Maine Street, I'm not crazy about either of the Indian restaurants but I've had some wonderful times with friends and family - and decent food - at Bombay Mahal on the east side of Maine Street. Henry & Marty's is a bit precious but has wonderful food. Marty is usually in the kitchen; Henry is naturally gregarious and can usually be found making the rounds of the tables. Marty, by the way, can also be heard in various concert halls in Maine and around New England as a concert pianist. The Great Impasta (get it?) across the street from H&M's is good but I always feel kind of claustrophobic when I'm in there.

What else. Well, there's my guilty pleasure, Fat Boy's drive-in on the road between Brunswick and Cook's Corner. They have, hands down, the absolutely best onion rings in the world. Bar none. They've been around for years and cars start circling the empty parking lot in early April waiting for it to open. In the summer the place is packed from eleven 'til two and through the dinner hour. Their fresh fish sandwich is very good. Makes you feel a little better about eating those onion rings. And if you're lucky (or not) you'll hear the din of ancient Lockeed Electras dressed up as P3 Orions, keeping our shores safe from Iraqui submarines.

One of my favorite places is the Humble Gourmet. It's out at 103 Pleasant Street, south (okay, west - but it seems south) of the main part of town, just before it splits and becomes one way. It's practically impossible to find. It's between a bar and a vacuum cleaner place across from Brunswick True-Valu hardware. They have wonderful and interesting sandwiches (my favorite is the Charlane) great soups, quiche, salads, fresh bread, wonderful and reasonably priced baked goods, a small assortment of wines and hot sauces (go figure) and the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. All of their baked goods are wonderful but the Chocolate chip cookies exist on a separate plane of being. If you ever wondered what the phrase 'to die for' meant, try one of those cookies, especially when they are warm. Go to Fat Boys, have a fresh fish sandwich and some onion rings then finish off your meal with a chocolate cookie from the Humble. You can pretty much figure on shaving a couple months off your life - but it's worth it. God, it's worth it. And if you are having a party, the Humble is definitely the place to cater it. Yup. Good people: Sandy and Chris - and wonderful, humble food.

Forget Cook's Corner, the shopping center about a third of the way to Bath. Franchise city - except for a little eatery inside Bookland, one of the few remaining independent booksellers. It's not bad for a light lunch. Some interesting things, unfortunately most are heated in a microwave, but it's kind of pleasant to sit there and eat and read.

Bath has a couple of good restaurants. They used to have Kristina's at the top of the hill near the old courthouse, but it's morphed into a place called Mae's which I've never been in. I still see the same assortment of Saabs and Volvos so I expect they have kept up the standards of the previous owner.

We go down to the Kennebec Tavern now and then. So-so food but it's right on the water and that counts for a lot. There is also a place called Beale Street Barbeque from which we frequently get take out but I have to say that even though it's good, it ain't the same as the real thing served on a fluorescent-lit worn Formica table in the deep south. Pierce's, for example, near Williamsburg, VA.

For pizza, beer and a heavy dose of shipbuilders (the best ships in the world are built right across the street) check out the Cabin on Washington Street. They opened the year I came to Maine and since that time I've burnt the roof of my mouth countless times - and had some pretty good pizza.

Crossing the Kennebec from Bath to Woolwich, bear right toward Reed State Park and take a left on the Robinhood road (six or eight miles out) to the Robinhood Free Meetinghouse. One of the finest restaurants in the area. Make reservations.

Between Woolwich the Kennebec and the Sheepscot there isn't much. I'd avoid 'The taste of Maine.' I've never been there but I've been to another restaurant owned by the same family and I'll never return.

For breakfast, Karen's Kitchen (about half-way between the two rivers on Route 1, near the Wiscasset Trading Post canoe place) is very good with a good dose of local color. Another good local restaurant is the Sea Basket. Everything is fried but done right. Excellent fish, good onion rings, great chowder. And for entertainment afterward, wander through Big Al's across the street.

In Wiscasset, you have Sarah's - big portions, nice view of the river - and across the street Red's Eats: take out with the best lobster rolls on earth. They have been written up in most of the major papers and have been interviewed by Japanese film crews. You can't miss it: look for the line around the corner. There is also Treats, if you can stand the snooty help: over priced baked goods and coffee; pretty good sandwiches, large selection of wine, good bread.

Across the river in Edgecomb is Bintliff's Ocean Grill. Very good, excellent service, excellent but not memorable. Wonderful evening view across the river toward the setting sun. Bintliff's is by far the best restaurant to inhabit that particular location. Many have tried; few have succeeded.

And finally (for this region) I have to mention The Breakfast Place in Damarascotta. It's small, the kitchen is the size of a walk-in closet, the wait can be interminable - and that's after you get a table - but they have absolutely wonderful breakfasts. Nobody comes close. Just be patient.

Okay, that's my summary of a few of the restaurants I like along that stretch of the coast.

Enjoy!

Film of Archaeological Excavations at Pemaquid, Maine

A Work in Progress

In 1978 I borrowed an early semi-pro video camera from a local cable station and filled several of the old 3/4" UMatic tapes with video of an archeological dig near South Bristol, Maine that had begun a decade earlier and continued for another decade after that. An amateur archeologist and delightful woman, Helen Camp, had spearheaded the activities beginning in the mid-sixties when a neighbor, plowing his field, turned bits of bricks and clay pipes. The photo is a still from that 28 year-old video.

Three forts had been built on the site, largely on top of one another: Ft. Charles, 1677; Ft. William Henry, 1692; Ft. Frederick, 1729.

Digging began in earnest the spring of 1965 and by 1973 they had excavated fourteen structures and found a Native American burial ground.

I'd been interested in film since I was a kid. (In fact, I was an internationally known filmmaker by the time I was fifteen, having edited a bit of 8mm film I'd taken of a series of hydroplane races on the Detroit River. A neighbor helped me edit it and suggested I send a copy to her friends in New Zealand. They responded with kind letter and a souvenir model Maori dugout canoe.) In the mid-seventies I was exploring work in video and thought a short piece on the Pemaquid excavation might make a nice addition to a demo reel.

I made perhaps three or four trips to the excavation and interviewed Mrs. Camp, Bob Bradley, then Maine State Historian and three young volunteers, one identified as Ray Johnson who was then studying Egyptology at the University of Chicago, A fellow I know only as Chuck and a third, English fellow whose name I never got. We filmed outside and inside on rainy days .

Ironically, as I was traveling to another site to film some establishing footage from across the bay, I ran into a newsworthy event, filmed it, edited it and with it got a job doing professional video work. As a result I never found time to edit the Pemaquid footage. Years passed. I moved three times, married, had two children, ran a business for eight years, changed careers three times, sent my kids off to college and in the past year once again began to think of the Pemaquid footage. After 28 years was there anything left on the tapes? Could I even find a machine to play them?

I work at a small college and called the Instructional Technology person who told me that they only had one of these old machines and were barely able to keep it running. I was welcome to use it but I knew I'd need one for a block of time and I'd want to set it up to dub to digital format. In August, I went on eBay and found one for under $50 including shipping. It was a first rate Sony VP7020 in excellent condition and proved to be the perfect machine to dub my eleven tapes to digital8 format.

I've spent the past month or so reviewing the footage, teaching myself to use Adobe Premiere Pro and making trial edits. In an odd way, waiting until digital video had made its way down to consumer video ultimately should make for a better film. The video was marginal at best. This was early on in field video history. Local news stations were still using film to gather news items; the most common professional news gathering camera, the RCA TK76 cost $42,000. I was using a pretty basic camera at a fraction of the cost and of considerably lower quality. Had I edited it then, using the standard method of dubbing from one tape to another, I would have lost what little information I had. Furthermore, I never could have afforded the editing time to complete the project. Today, I have a full palate of tools, including color correction and other technical enhancements that were simply out of reach 28 years ago.

So, I'm in mid-edit. If anyone has information on the Pemaquid excavations during that era, I'd love to hear from you. I've made contact with a local historian and hope to work with the Maine Historical Commission and the Friends of Colonial Pemaquid on this project. My main goal, though, is to bring closure to the project and to honor Helen Camp and the folks who worked with her.

Who Built My Boat?

Years ago I bought a beautiful little wooden outboard runabout. Its frame is cedar; the seats, decking and transom are solid mahogany. It's of late '50s vintage, complete with mahogany fins. So far, I've been unable to determine the make. I bought it here in Maine and it is likely it was made in New England or Eastern Canada. Any leads as to the make would be appreciated.