Master
of Ceremonies Richard Silverberg looks on as Pattaya City Expats Club member
David Garmaise introduces his presentation, called ‘Hats Off’, showcasing
the sometimes beautiful, sometimes bizarre hats worn to the royal wedding.
Was that hat really worth US$130,000? Pattaya City Expats
Club member David Garmaise said he watched some video of the recent royal
wedding in London and noticed the myriad of hats worn by many of the ladies
in attendance. This gave him the idea for creating a video production of his
own showing the various hats, including the one worn by Princess Beatrice
that was recently auctioned on EBay for US$130,000.
‘Hawaii
Bob’ Sutterfield (of ‘Frugal Freddy’ fame - a weekly visit to one or other
of Pattaya’s ‘good food and good value’ restaurants) announces this week’s
Frugal Freddy venue, the El Paso Steakhouse on Pattaya South Rd just before
Shell.
David is an avid producer of DVDs using video clips from
movies, concerts, and other sources. Adding in some music, he created his
“Hats Off” production for presentation at the Club’s Sunday, May 29, 2011,
meeting at the Amari’s Tavern by the Sea Restaurant. Many of these hats are
really beyond description and you would have needed to be there to
appreciate it. But if you didn’t watch the royal wedding and were not at the
meeting to appreciate the video, you can still view the hats by using your
Internet search engine; just type in “hats at the royal wedding.”
David’s hobby is to collect classic movies, shows, and
other events then excerpt interesting portions into his own DVD
presentation. David has entertained his fellow Club members and guests with
his productions including clips from famous movies, stage plays, and musical
concerts. So to everyone’s enjoyment he also included another video
presentation entitled “Ordinary Families.” But, as he warned the audience
prior to the start, these clips from movies were not necessarily ordinary
families.
Board
member Al Serrato advises members of the activities of the Spanish speaking
club; for more information, contact Al through our website,
www.pattayacityexpats .com
The video began with a couple of quotations about
families: “Family: A social unit where the father is concerned with parking
space, the children with outer space, and the mother with closet space,” by
Evan Esar and, “A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men,
women, an occasional animal, and the common cold,” by Ogden Nash. These
quotations were followed by over a dozen clips taken from such movies as
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore starring Ellen Burstyn (1974);
Arsenic and Old Lace starring Cary Grant (1944); Kramer vs. Kramer
starring Dustin Hoffman (1979), Meet the Fockers starring Ben Stiller
(2004); and Ordinary People, an award winning movie starring Sandra
Bullock, Donald Sutherland, and Timothy Hutton (1980). He also included
clips from a couple of movies starring Katherine Hepburn, we can’t get too
much of Katherine - Lion in Winter (1968) and On Golden Pond
(1981). All the scenes showed some aspect of the relationship between family
members that were portrayed in the movie.
After presenting the videos, David gave some insight into
how he goes about preparing them. He said that putting the clips together
was not overly time consuming if you are using the right software. But,
finding the scenes to excerpt was a different matter as you had to spend
time in viewing the movies to find the scenes that fit into the theme of the
presentation.
After David answered several questions, Master of
Ceremonies Richard Silverberg brought everyone up to date on upcoming events
and called on “Hawaii” Bob Sutterfield to conduct the always interesting
Open Forum where questions are asked and answered about living in Thailand,
movies playing in Pattaya are critiqued, Pattaya restaurants are
recommended, and sometimes a joke or two are told to add a little humor.
