Sr. Rose & Fr. Ron Schmidt, SJ, may be on the Oscar show!

Sr. Rose & Fr. Ron Schmidt, SJ, may be on the Oscar show! February 1, 2009

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Bright and early this morning, accompanied by Sr. Hosea M., I went to the Sony Studios lot (down the street; formerly the MGM lot) to do an on-camera interview about “why I love movies” for a 3-minute film to lead off the Academy Awards show on Sunday, February 22.

80 people are being inteviewed for this short film, including such luminaries as Mickey Rooney (the small building where he and Judy Garland attended school while making movies can still be seen when you take the Sony tour). So, there’s no saying who will be in or who will be out of the final cut. No matter, it was not only fun, but also another fine learning experience about how media is “constructed.”

The taping was done in the Heidleberg Building (sound stage) where the Emerald City was constructed for The Wizard of Oz (then I wanted to know where they were hiding those flying monkeys; alas, they were not to be found.)

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Fr. Ron Schmidt, SJ, a filmmaker in his own right who serves at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Hollywood, was also interviewed (Ron’s father, by the way, was Arthur P. Schmidt who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Film Editing for Sunset Blvd in 1951. Ron’s brother  Arthur Schmidt, won Oscars for Best Editing for Forrest Gump and Who Framed Roger Rabbit and who will be honored with a lifetime achievement award this year by ACE – America Cinema Editors.)  

After the taping Ron did some research on the crew for this brief film that is scheduled to air at the beginning of the Academy Awards show and discovered the following (thanks to good ole www.IMDB.com!)

The director of this short film is Bennett Miller, who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director for Capote. The director of photography is Adam Kimmel, who was also the DP for Capote and Lars and the Real Girl.

The boom operator was named Don, and he knew Fr. Ron’s brother Greg Schmidt, a camera operator, from Mission Impossible II.

 

Both Ron and I agree that we were in quite illustrious company this morning, and we both had a most pleasant experience with some people who really love the movies.

 

See you at the Oscars! (Well, our Oscar Party!) And don’t forget to set your TiVo’s, DVR’s and VCR’s to begin taping right on time so you’ll catch the film. I think that no matter who is in it, it will be a nice piece to savor why people do love cinema.


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