Harlan and I have returned to Dunhuang to follow-up with the Dunhuang Academy team on the implementation of techniques presented at our digitization training here last June.  Arriving without much in the way of progress updates from the DA team, we were very pleasantly surprised to see that they have been hard at work during the last three months, shooting caves, stitching a large volume of files, and managing data.  The work they are doing is markedly improved when compared to what we viewed on the planning trip 14 months ago.  They are truly becoming a world-class production studio, and we are very pleased to have had the opportunity to teach and work with them on this project.  There is one additional follow-up trip planned for this grant in the spring.  Harlan and I look forward to seeing even greater progress in both production work and international communications over the next six months.

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The third annual meeting of the Oncofertility Consortium will be held next week, September 13-15, in Chicago, Illinois. Over 150 participants from the U.S. and abroad will discuss the latest breakthroughs in the science and clinical applications of fertility preservation methods for cancer patients. More information on the event, including a meeting agenda, can be found here.

NUAMPS is doing a three camera shoot as well as broadcasting the conference using Adobe Connect. Mark Skala is directing and Mike Curtis is providing support for Adobe Connect as well as coordinating the presentations.

Tune into the conference using Adobe Connect here: http://nwuniversity.na3.acrobat.com/oncofertility/

For more information about the Oncofertility Consortium check out: http://oncofertility.northwestern.edu or http://blog.oncofertility.northwestern.edu

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Here is the Movie Poster:

Here is the trailer:

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Rare Africa Photos Go Online, Open New Options for Africa Research

EVANSTON, Ill. — This week — for the first time ever — a searchable collection of thousands of rare photographs chronicling Europe’s colonization of East Africa becomes available to anyone with an Internet connection anywhere in the world, thanks to the efforts of staff at Northwestern University Library.

The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs: 1860-1960 began attracting the interest of Africa scholars and others in 2002 when it was acquired by Northwestern’s Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies. The library officially launches the online collection today (June 25).

(READ THE REST OF ARTICLE HERE)

NUIT A&RT NUAMPS and the Winterton Collection

The Digitization of the Winterton collection for NUL Digital Collections and the Herskovitz Library was a great project that we collaborated with the NUL library. Stefani Foster and a large crew of A&RT digital specialists worked for a year with Claire Stewart, David Easterbrooke, and the NUL staff on the imaging of the collection. It is a great example of the type of work that can be accomplished with the collaboration of many different groups within the University.

More NUIT A&RT NUAMPS posts about digitization and cultural heritage projects.

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Jon and I attended the CSA Preparation Workshop last night at the Young Women’s Leadership Charter School.  The workshop had two sessions one part focused on basic knowledge of the heart and the other focused on professionalism.  The professionalism portion included first impressions, introducing yourself, table manors, dress and much more.  The workshop was well received by the CSA Sisters.

There is more information about the CSA program on the new Women’s Health Science Program Website.

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As a plus, we found a great use for one of my favorite rigging accessories, the short-barreled cross (shown below in the Modern Studio Equipment showroom), as a fixed cross brace at the crown of the rig.

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From Los Angeles

To Dunhuang

Focusing on the just the people and equipment looks like this:

Which when it all works, enables us to have sequences of meetings concerning ongoing and future projects, in Beijing, Xian and Dunhuang. It enables us to do three days of classroom teaching seminars, install, set up and teach on a new digitization platform for the Dunhuang Academy. Finally have the teams break out and begin a relatively huge multi year digitization project that will be independent of our group, beyond consultation and quality checks as requested. These efforts require the coordination of large teams at Northwestern, our suppliers, and in the Academy here in Dunhuang.

I am heading back today, leaving Stefani, Chris and Jim here for the last four days of the on-site in cave consultation.

The whole team

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After several delays and confusion as to the exact whereabouts of the driver and our shipment, the truck finally arrived on Monday morning. Everything was carefully unloaded and an inventory was taken. The equipment was divided up between three different teams and moved to the caves. Unfortunately a small sandstorm kicked up which made the moving task much more difficult. Everyone moved to the first cave where the first rig was assembled as a group.

There were a few minor bugs that needed to be worked out, but otherwise the new design was very optimistically received. Once some key points were reinforced about the assembly process, the teams were split up and sent to the two remaining caves to assemble the new rigs on their own. We were all encouraged by the success of their attempts. Other than a small track leveling problem. the teams did well.

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Today I spoke to the DA training teams about Photoshop techniques before unveiling schematics of the new rigging. Both were very well received, and the digitization teams are very excited to start work with the SpeedRail rigs from Modern Studio Equipment in L.A. Unfortunately, due to a shipping delay (the latest in a series of near-catastrophes concerning the rigging), we were unable to stick to our schedule for the rest of the afternoon, which was to entail unpacking and separating out equipment for each of the teams. The transport truck is reported to be about 6 hours away now, and our fingers are crossed that the shipment will be on-site by tomorrow at 8:30 AM, as promised. Once it arrives, we can finish our sorting and inventory and at last get out into the caves and begin Phase 2 of our visit, the hands-on portion of the training.

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We’ve just completed our second day of training at the Dunhuang Academy. Today’s topics covered lighting, data management, and server. Jim began the day with a presentation which carried basic lighting topics from yesterday into a more detailed discussion of lighting techniques particular to the cave photography.

After lunch I presented on data management techniques and suggested workflow for digitization projects. Again, while covering some basic file management techniques, this talk targeted the particular needs of cave digitization. Afterwards we had an open discussion about shared production storage and archive requirements as the Dunhuang Academy digitization teams begin full-scale photographic efforts.

Tomorrow we begin the day with a presentation by Stefani on post-production practices. While being in the classroom has been nice, tomorrow afternoon we are scheduled to begin the real work of teaching hands-on application of the various principles we have covered.

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