By Sam Sabzehzar | October 4, 2011
Paying Tribute: Vilmos Zsigmond and Janusz Kaminski, who won an Oscar for his cinematography on Spielberg's film, Schindler's List.
Last month was Pain Awareness Month and with many medical marijuana patients experiencing chronic pain, some dispensaries recognized September by providing donations to pain management research.
Filmmaker Melissa Balin, co-director of the documentary film version of Jack Herer’s historical and groundbreaking book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, makes Make It Stop (above), a PSA for pain awareness month, with two of Hollywood’s best cinematographers.
Below is a behind-the-scenes from a color-correction day at Technicolor, with Vilmos Zsigmond, DP of such film as The Deer Hunter, Deliverance, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, to name a few of the more than 80 films in his career that spans seven decades.
Mr. Zsigmond was filling in for his life-long friend, Laszlo Kovacs, who passed away after shooting the Operation Operation project for pain awareness.
The two cinematographers were the only two to film the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, and after sneaking out of their country with the film, were able to share with the world the only images of the revolution.
Vilmos recently topped the list of the world’s best DPs (Director of Photography), with Kovacs coming in fifth, which was posted on IMDb.com.
Melissa Balin is currently working on projects related to the current American version, or America Harvest, taking place around many cities across the U.S. inspired by the Occupy Wall Street action.
Occupy Los Angeles is the launching pad for the director’s latest project, where she has collaborated with Shepard Fairey in Obey Giant’s Vote For Change campaign. Balin tells The Hollywood Reporter “The Revolution may not be televised, but it will be Tweeted.”
To Follow on Twitter their current project, their hashtags are #DemandsForChange, as well as #LetThemEatCake and #BloodlessRevolution, inspired by the images of the aristocracy sipping champaign from the balconies of Wall Street’s buildings and the We Are the 99%.
We the People, the 99% at least, in order to form a more perfect Union, starts with tools to fight back the people with guns.
But to fight back and win against people and governments who are reduced to use violence to protect their structured way of life is to fight with IDEAS, which, according to another revolutionary, are bulletproof, and best told through art, and shared through social media outlets to audience in the millions of people at the same time.
For Laszlo and Vilmos, who shot with film cameras and carried on foot the film cans of shoot footage through treacherous terrain during their escape, their images can be viewed online, next to their Academy Award winning photography, is their revolutionary footage.
Now, images and ideas can be captured by millions and shared to billions, but not everyone will go on to win an award for their work. And in Revolutions, Freedom is the reward, and there is no such thing as first place. But there is cake.
