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kottke.org posts about Steve McQueen

GoPro, Circa the 1960s

Back in the olden days, you just tied your cameraman right to the car:

GoPro 1960s

Looks almost as goofy as Google Glass. Legendary F1 driver Jackie Stewart wore this stills-only proto-GoPro at the Monaco Grand Prix in 1966 (though not during the actual race):

Gopro 1960s Stewart

Stewart ended up winning that race. I believe Stewart is also the model for this contraption, which looks like a film camera counterbalanced with a battery pack?

Gopro 1960s Stewart

That couldn’t have been comfortable. For some reason, neither of Stewart’s helmet cams are recognized by Wikipedia as being the first documented helmet cam, which is instead attributed to a motorcycle race in 1986:

Motorcycle Helmet Cam

Update: Another early use of the helmet cam comes from the world of skydiving. Here’s Bob Sinclair with a camera setup from 1961:

Gopro 1960s Parachute

(thx, david)

Update: Not even a bulky taped-up helmet camera can keep Steve McQueen from looking cool:

GoPro 1960s McQueen

Well, he just barely looks cool. McQueen wore the helmet during the filming of 1971’s Le Mans. While researching this, I came across another film featuring McQueen that used helmet cams to get footage: 1971s On Any Sunday, a documentary about motorcycle racing. (via @jackshafer)


Steve McQueen interviews Kanye West

I always forget about Interview magazine but I really shouldn’t because a) Warhol and b) they consistently pair interesting people together for interviews. Case in point: director Steve McQueen (Shame, 12 Years a Slave, not Bullitt) interviews Kanye West for the Feb 2014 issue.

MCQUEEN: You’ve been on the scene as an artist now for 10 years, which is impressive, given the level of interest and artistry that you’ve managed to sustain in your work. In the process, you’ve become incredibly influential. So you talk about doing all of these other things, which is great, but there’s really no amount of money that could make you more influential than you are now. So my question is: What are you going to do with all of the influence that you have right now?

WEST: Well, influence isn’t my definition of success-it’s a by-product of my creativity. I just want to create more. I would be fine with making less money. I actually spend the majority of my money attempting to create more things. Not buying things or solidifying myself or trying to make my house bigger, or trying to show people how many Louis Vuitton bags I can get, or buying my way to a good seat at the table. My definition of success, again, is getting my ideas out there.

Thanks to Jonathan at The Candler Blog for the pointer; he also notes Glenn Kenny’s super-apt comment:

Clearly the problem with most Kanye West interviews up until now has been the interviewer.