uss enterprise -e sneak peak

Howdy and here is a sneak peak from next years ships of the line calendar, just sent off the full image to Doug (Monkey Man) Drexler a few days ago and thought I’d share a little bit of the big picture.

 

Enjoy!

bay 2

Psycho 1960, filming locations, a then and now look celebrating the 50’s anniversarry part 2

1960 poster

Here is part two of the then and now pictorial documenting the filming locations of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic “PSYCHO” Yesterdays installment featured the opening pan across the Phoenix Arizona skyline. The pan ends with a slow zoom on a distant hotel building. The scene is then cut to a high shot looking down on a few floors of hotel windows. Another cut takes place and from a fly’s point of view the camera moves into the slightly opened window and onto a sound stage at Universal pictures. When I was gathering my reference frames from the film I thought this entire sequence was shot at Universal. The lighting on the window looked like stage lighting and I left it at that. But the more I looked at that sequence, the more I got to thinking that there is to much roof and cornice detail on that wall and it might not be an exterior set piece after all.  I examined the pics I took of the PHX police Building (AKA the hotel) and the cornice pieces matched the close up shot.  Directly across the street and to the West of the Hotel is a much larger building that is now a part of the Luhrs complex. YES!  it had to be. Mr. Hitchcock had set up a shot looking down on the hotel from this building. Thankfully in my collection of pictures from that PHX shoot day I had some pics of that Luhrs complex and there was a phone number posted in one of the windows. I gave it a call and yet another adventure was about to take place. The Building had sold since I took my shots and the entire complex was closed. I must have gotten passed onto to at least 6 different phone numbers and company’s till I finally got the right one. I reached a firm that knew of the construction company that was handling the renovation and they passed me onto them. Finally I was almost there. I got the number to a gentleman named Dharmesh Petel and he was the property manager in charge of the building.  I gave him a call from CA and explained what I was doing and asked if I could get into the building to try and find where the film was shot.  Mr. Petel couldn’t allow that for insurance reasons so I asked if I was to send him a grab from the film, could he match up the shot and snap a picture for me. He said he would be happy to see what he could do and in a few days I received an email with a perfectly lined up image matching Hitchcock’s framing exactly. Dharmesh’s picture was  a great addition to piecing together this sequence and I couldn’t be more thankful. Mr. Petel has recently finished the Phoenix project and is now out in California working on another. Here is a collection of images that helped to make this then and now comparison complete.  Be sure to stay tuned for the next installment! Enjoy and all of these picture are loaded with text. This site allows you to click on any picture and will give you a load of zoom options so you can see all the tiny details.

this is #10 in the PHX panoramic sequence.

this image shows where the shot was taken from and which window the camera zoomed in on.

another view showing the details of Mr. Hithcock’s shot.

a grab of the window from the 1960 film

image 1 from Dharmesh Petel

and image #2 from Dharmesh Petel

this is Dharmesh’s image framed to match the films version!!