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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Wednesday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news
this week 11/03/2010 The final curtain
falls on Movies101 – it was a wonderful show ….. My
friend and client Bob Glatzer, the Producer of KPBX’s Movies 101, died on October 15th while
I was on vacation, and I learned the sad news when I returned home and
checked my email, which I don’t check while I’m on vacation- specifically to avoid any of the bad
news that email can bring. Bob
and I shared the common background of being boys growing up in New York City,
and although he was years older than me we could recall experiences we shared
there, like going to Loews movie theater, eating at the Automat restaurant,
and visiting Central Park and other Manhattan landmarks. One
time I lent him a picture
book I have on Manhattan in the
1950’s
and I can
remember how excited he was that he found a picture in it of a girl he had
gone to school with. I
first met Bob here in Spokane at the Folk Life Exhibit during Expo 74 that he
was the director of, and I also met a friend of Bob’s - Utah Phillips
who was the folk host and a very entertaining
storyteller.
Years
later when Bob started doing his show on KPBX in the 1990’s he asked me
to work with him on developing a website, and it was exciting to work with
him and to see it grow and flourish. We discussed what he wanted on it, and
he wanted it to be very simple – no glitz – so people could
easily read his movie reviews. Content always trumps glitz. Most
of you probably don’t know that there’s several websites known as
“Internet Wayback Machines” that allow you to see any
website in its various stages over the years. If you read this
review online on my Raw Bytes
website you can see these evolutionary screens over a decade….. It
was an exciting adventure working with Bob on his website; we had tens of
thousands of hits monthly hits and several online banner or movie review
advertisers, as we were fully engaged in E-commerce. But
the best part of our relationship was him educating me on understanding
movies; what makes a movie great, and how to look at and understand movies. His
Book Beyond
Popcorn truly opened up a new world of movie appreciation for me, and reading its
chapters are like completing a
course in film school. Its
many chapters include
his choices for the best film – The Godfather – and
the 2nd best musical – The Commitments – a little
known film on an Irish soul-music band we would have all missed, if not for
Bob, what the other Oscars are all about, why we cry at the movies, and a
list of all the films you have to see before you die. And
I will always sit in a darkened movie theater until the final credit rolls
off the screen, as he taught me all I’ll ever need to know about
credits and their importance. There
are so many movies he introduced me to through his website and the various
workshops and film festivals he directed; Smoke Signals – about
son’s reconciliation with their fathers, and Artanarjuat The Fast Runner – a
Cannes Film Winner about an Inuit legend- are 2 superb movies that readily come
to mind. In
today’s world of talking heads and constantly changing opinion polls,
it’s a refreshing rarity to find someone who sticks to their guns and
calls things like they see them, while at the same time educating and opening
up a new world to you . Such
a man was Bob Glatzer. For Raw
Bytes This is
Frank Delaney (C) 2010
MTA Micro Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbxmenu.html (509)624-7230 Movies101 Screen Evolution online (We
launched www.movies101.com in 1999,
with a very simple design, using a picture of a movie reel we’d found
somewhere on the web, and a favorite picture of Bob sitting in the back seat
of an old car:
About
a year later in May 2000 I had found those spinning movie reels that became a
permanent part of the website, and we put up a different picture of Bob too:
In
2001 Bob’s book “Beyond Popcorn” was published, and we
added that to the website and he went on a book promotion tour across the country:
In
2003 we added some movie footlights to give us an updated look, and our
website traffic had increased to several thousand hits a month.
In
2006 we did another update, using his favorite “Halloween” color
scheme of orange and black:
In
2007 I designed a new welcome screen which featured a darkened movie theater
with people watching a Bogart/McCall scene from Casablanca:
And
in 2008 we did another update – still using his Halloween colors
– and still using the spinning movie reels:
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end of screens) |
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