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.
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.”
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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
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.
