Monthly Archive for December, 2006

We All Win Time Magazine’s Person of the Year

Time Magazine has announced its Person of the Year and it is YOU! | via JM3

Time’s Person of the Year: You | In 2006, the World Wide Web became a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter | By LEV GROSSMAN | Posted Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006

“The “Great Man” theory of history is usually attributed to the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who wrote that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men.” He believed that it is the few, the powerful and the famous who shape our collective destiny as a species. That theory took a serious beating this year.”

read more

Wishing all a safe, prosperous and enjoyable 2007!

RH | GeoURL | NAC | Plazes | Dipity | outside.in | Mapufacture | Post Map


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Final Days

A Last Look Inside the Revere Sugar Refinery” …in Red Hook, Brooklyn, that is.

via Gothamist and BlueJake:

“Another photographer and I visited the Revere Sugar Refinery on Sunday, the day before real demolition began. We documented the interior of the iconic cone, and explored throughout the buildings in the complex. If you are interested in doing an article about our visit to the place, please contact me. You can see our photos here:

  • Revere Sugar Refinery photos
  • Mercurian’s Revere Sugar Refinery photos
  • Our best shot of Revere can be found at BlueJake.”

    You really have to see their photos of the Revere Sugar Refinery to appreciate this post.

    I have location scouted this place, as have many other New York City area location scouts over the years since the sugar refinery ceased refining operations. I dont know exactly when it closed for refining business, but it was definitely before my time.

    One of the interesting details I remember about the sugar refinery is the sunken ship. I wonder what has/will become of the sunken ship?

    I have my OWN photos of the sugar refinery “somewhere” from when I was last there in, maybe like, 1999 (?)

    In 1999 most of us still did our location scouting with film cameras and color prints (we are all pretty much all digital now) and when I put my location scouting folder together, like a good location scout, I gave all my photos to the photographer I was working for. The irony is, that same photographer decided to do some spring-cleaning a year or so back and asked me if I wanted their location library (which I was delighted to get, even tho it was three giant banker boxes full of of manila folders and prints!)

    …so I have the pics- “somewhere”.

    I never went back to the sugar refinery because, maybe a year after the first time I was there I called to make an appointment to location scout it for another job and the cranky old security guard (what was that guy’s name?) He was there just about every day for years.

    …but I digress- I called the guy and he told me he wasnt doing any more location scout tours, the location scouts “wasted all his time and never booked shoots there” (like he had somewhere else to be?)

    Anyway after that I wrote off the sugar refinery as a waste of research time and never called them again although I did hear, sometime later, maybe earlier in 2006(?), that the sugar refinery was tourable and shootable.

    All of which is pretty much moot; according to Jake Dobkin, “The iconic dome of Red Hook’s Revere Sugar Refinery will probably disappear sometime in the next couple of weeks.”

    …which is a shame to a location scout like myself- We location scouts survive by continually being able to pull visually interesting places such as the sugar refinery out of our hats for film directors and photographers; so, a landmark such as the Revere Sugar Refinery being demolished always makes my job just a little harder.

    It’s been a tough past year or so… Admittedly, my vision of the state-of-affairs-for-old-ruined-property-around-New-York-City is skewed :

    Another Red Hook icon, The New York Shipyard, went away in 2005. I blogged about it here.

    There was a BIG, very suspicious fire in Greenpoint this past summer that took a significant portion of the Greenpoint Terminal.

    Sometimes you just want a little grunge in your life!

    St Francis Hospital in Jersey City, NJ didnt really fall into the category of “old-ruined-property-around-New-York-City”, in fact, it was pretty convincing for a film location as a modern hospital. Saint Francis Hospital was recently sold to real estate developers. Reportedly it will be demolished and condos built in it’s place.

    LOL

    RH | GeoURL | NAC | Plazes | Dipity | outside.in | Mapufacture | Post Map


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    Google Maps Geocoder

    Google Maps Geocoder via Aemkei at Sumaato Blog

    The web-savvy location scout needing to create a means of including a searchable map with the ability to geocode locations will need a Google Maps API Key and the code contained on the Google Maps Geocoder page.

    I have customized the code to center the map on Columbus Circle, New York City, NY and customized the map size. I have also embedded it in this post using an iframe (thanks Rudin). The page that has been embedded can be seen here.

    This is really just a starting point for working with Google Maps, there are many more hacks and features that can be added to a map which I will report as I learn how to implement them!

    Just change the address in the box to an address for which you would like to know the map location and hit the GO button.

    Google Maps will give you the geocoded address (if it is in their quite massive database).

    RH | GeoURL | NAC | Plazes | Dipity | outside.in | Mapufacture | Post Map


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    Flickr Map

    This post would probably be more appropriately titled “How NOT to embed a Flickr Map”; it has been done quick-n-dirty using the url link to my Flickr Map inside an iframe and it looks it.

    I’ll post a better way to do this once I find it. For now, the MapSack Widget mentioned in this post is a much more elegant solution.

  • 7/5/2008: Actually, it looks as if Flickr has cleaned up its code so to allow itself to be embedded in an iframe much more attractively :-)
  • feed Uploads from RRichardHobbs, with geodata
    • L1060081-AT-South-Mtn-Pass-Rd-HHSPNY | Monday, 8 June 2009, 9:27 am
      RRichardHobbs posted a photo: Appalachian Trail marker, South Mountain Pass Road, Hudson Highlands State Park, NY
    • anthonys-nose-pano-ANHHSPNY-1 | Monday, 1 June 2009, 7:56 pm
      RRichardHobbs posted a photo: pano at Anthony’s Nose, Hudson Highlands State Park, NY. …Mary’s back …Hudson River in background
    • L1060032-garter-snake-HHSPNY | Monday, 1 June 2009, 7:56 pm
      RRichardHobbs posted a photo: garter snake in Hudson Highlands State Park, NY

    RH | GeoURL | NAC | Plazes | Dipity | outside.in | Mapufacture | Post Map


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    New York City Movie Mapper

    Metaphilm Movie Mapper via Deisel Powered Nuns:

    Movie Mapper is an online database of film locations in New York City (Part of the Metaphilm website)

    About the Mapper | Manhattan on Film

    “New York City is Hollywood’s most famous front lot, and is filmed entertainment’s number one location for film on the planet. When you travel to New York City you will constantly find yourself saying, “Wait, I know this place” or, “Hey, I’ve seen that somewhere”—it’ll get to the point of déjà vu where you’ll start to wonder if you once lived here. You have. You do. By spending 5000-plus hours watching film and television growing up, chances are good you’ve already spent several weeks in New York City without even being here.”

    read more

    feed Metaphilm

    RH | GeoURL | NAC | Plazes | Dipity | outside.in | Mapufacture | Post Map


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    BananAlbum!

    Actually, this is Bananr running locally and embedded using an iframe.

  • Bananr uses your Flickr i.d. to create a photo album using your Flickr photos.
  • Here is my Bananr running on bananr.com. You can only display ALL your Flickr photos this way (hey, whatta you want? it’s free) and admittedly your Flickr photos page can do the same thing. (Here’s mine).bananr.com is very simple: Just surf to bananr.com, follow the instructions to retrieve your Flickr i.d. using idgettr and plug it in to the bananr.com form and away you go!There are more options available if you download and install Bananr to your own website.

    Bananalbum itself is a skin that needs to be dropped into a local installation of JAlbum (Windows), a free photo album creation program. Bananalbum creates the neccesary files for the web photo album, which you then upload to your website. All these tasks can be completed inside a ruuning copy of JAlbum. If you are using a Mac, look on the Bananalbum website, there is Album Creator for Mac.

    There is also a Picasa template available on the Bananalbum website.

    With tweaks bananr.com or Bananalbum could be useful to a location scout. Your mileage may vary with your experience as a webmaster.

    feed Rudin blog

    RH | GeoURL | NAC | Plazes | Dipity | outside.in | Mapufacture | Post Map


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    An Embedded Flickr Slideshow

    Via Paul Stamatiou HOW TO Quickie: Embedded Flickr Slideshows

    Yet another web trick the aspiring location scout might want for presenting locations.

    The embedding code makes use of an iframe or embed tag. I prefer the embed tag.

    Hover your mouse over the slideshow window and celebrate the ajax!

    feed PaulStamatiou.com
    • Turning 23 | Tuesday, 30 June 2009, 12:00 am
      Not much to say today other than I’m now 23 years of age! Posting around here has been a little slow and will continue to be for a while. I caught s. […]
    • WordPress How To: Change Your Blog’s Permalinks | Monday, 22 June 2009, 7:16 am
      I recently did the unthinkable. I changed the URL structure of my blog’s URLs. Long considered a scary territory, along with moving domains, due to. […]
    • CLEAR Launches 4G WiMAX in Atlanta | Wednesday, 17 June 2009, 3:22 am
      If you live in Atlanta, you’ll be happy to hear that there’s a new ISP in town. And I’m not talking about just any type of Internet connection.. […]

    RH | GeoURL | NAC | Plazes | Dipity | outside.in | Mapufacture | Post Map


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    Mapsack Widget

    Here is a way to imbed your Flickr photos on your website using the Mapsack Flickr Widget, which could be useful for a location scout wishing to present locations to a client at the same time illustrating said locations’ geographic postion(s).

    You will need a Flickr account (and some photos in that account that have been geotagged).

    Unless you have some experience working with Wordpress don’t bother. If you have no idea what the term “javascript” means, then don’t bother.

    Use the links and info given in this post to explore for yourself and complete your project to your own end. DO NOT contact me for support and please understand that I accept no responsibility for anything you do (or undo) to your website playing around with any of these toys. Otherwise- have fun!

    feed MapSack Blog

    RH | GeoURL | NAC | Plazes | Dipity | outside.in | Mapufacture | Post Map


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    Wikimapia

    More of me playing around with online maps and geotagging, from the Wikimapia FAQ:

    Wikimapia is a Web 2.0 project to describe the whole planet Earth. It was created by Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev, inspired by Google Maps and Wikipedia.”

    read more


  • My Wikimapia Profile
  • feed SimplePie: Weblog and Links
    • OpenID for comments | Friday, 15 May 2009, 9:02 pm
      We’re now supporting a technology called OpenID for comments. What does that mean for you? It means that you can sign-in and comment on our blog wit. […]
    • New SimplePie Screencasts | Saturday, 28 February 2009, 3:51 pm
      It would appear that this is the season for SimplePie screencasts! In the past two days, I’ve discovered a few new SimplePie-related screencasts, an. […]
    • Deprecating SimplePie Live! | Friday, 20 February 2009, 9:14 pm
      Although SimplePie Live! was a cool concept, and something that I would have liked to see be successful, I simply haven’t had the time to put into i. […]

    RH | GeoURL | NAC | Plazes | Dipity | outside.in | Mapufacture | Post Map


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    Irish Castles

    The Times Online - Irish Castles | December 10, 2006 | In defence of Irish castles - Where can I get to quickly?

    When it comes to castles, the Scots, not to mention the Welsh and English, usually have the edge on the Irish. But when it comes to the unsung delights of Malahide Castle, there is an outside chance that the Irish might even have managed to outshine their neighbours.

    A 15 minute drive from Dublin Airport, or a short ride on the D suburban railway from O’Connell Street if you happen to be part of a stag or hen party and a hangover precludes any proximity to a steering wheel, Malahide is a castle to make a Hollywood location scout coo with delight, ticking off the turrets, battlements, gothic windows and sea views.”

    read more

    feed Film News from Times Online
    • Strawberry and Chocolate | Wednesday, 1 July 2009, 8:05 pm
    • Public Enemies | Wednesday, 1 July 2009, 8:02 pm
    • Hollywood just got younger | Wednesday, 1 July 2009, 8:01 pm
      In Hollywood the recent news that Miley Cyrus is to star in a remake of The Bodyguard and that Zac Efron will headline a new version of Saturday Night. […]

    RH | GeoURL | NAC | Plazes | Dipity | outside.in | Mapufacture | Post Map


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    Mapkit / Platial

    MapKit | 7/5/2008 | MapKit is now Platial

    Lately I have been investigating map sites and various map mashups that utilise Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, geotagging and various mapping api’s. Many map sites and their respective features are free and have possibilities for use by location scouts such as myself especially with regard to logistics.

    Below is Mapkit by Platial. It features the ability to add multiple locations on a map and create multiple maps per account enabling, for an example, a location scout or location manager to create different maps (with multiple locations on each map, if needed) for different shoot days of a single production, or for different productions.



  • About Platial
  • My Platial Profile
  • Places tagged: location scout - Platial.com
  • Update 2/5/2008 Mapkit has addded advertising on its maps since I last checked. Its looks pretty evil, but I suppose Mapkit needs sponsors to stay in business. At least the text ads appear to be travel related… RH
  • feed Rrhobbs Nyc.locationscout.us
    • nyc.locationscout.us | Wednesday, 6 December 2006, 2:35 am
      R. Richard Hobbs New York City area Location and Production Services for Film, Photo, Video and TV web: www.rrhobbs.comMap this on Platial
    • nyc.locationscout.us | Wednesday, 6 December 2006, 2:18 am
      R. Richard Hobbs | New York City area Location and Production Services for Film, Photo, Video and TV | web: http://nyc.locationscout.us/Map this on Pl. […]

    RH | GeoURL | NAC | Plazes | Dipity | outside.in | Mapufacture | Post Map


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    Frappr

    I am currently exploring a number of interactive maps mashups that can be used by location scouts.

    Frappr is a free online interactive maps service.

    “Frappr” is “web2.0-speak” for “friend map”

    Frappr - About Us

    In 2007, Platial acquired Frappr! Read about Platial here.

    “Frappr! Maps are like a triple mash-up of an online guest book, a hit log and a map — three services that, combined, create a fun and visually appealing environment that will keep Web site visitors coming back for more.. ” …read the rest

    – Kun, Frappr! co-founder

    Locations of visitors to this page

    Clustr Maps (above) is similar to the current Frappr.


    Frappr HQ (at Platial) placemark on a Google Map using GeoPress

    RH | GeoURL | NAC | Plazes | Dipity | outside.in | Mapufacture | Post Map


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