Posts: 4

1. Jason Sapan starring in Flock of Seaguls video

   13.Jan.08, 22:00 EST
   
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   See Jason's lead role in the Flock of Seaguls video at:
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qLRVrhXW18
   
   

2. A Brief History of Holography

   28.Mar.07, 14:08 EDT
   
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   To fully understand the history of holography you need to have a basic idea of what a hologram is. Light is an electromagnetic wave. Holography uses the wave nature of light. Unlike a normal photograph that uses a lens to focus an image on a piece of film and simply records where there is light or no light, holography is a photographic technique that uses interfering waves of light to capture images that can be fully three dimensional. When waves of light meet they interfere in the same way waves of water interfere to make the kind of patterns you see when you throw rocks into a pond. It is the information in this type of wave pattern that is used to make holograms.
   
   It wasn’t until the invention of the LASER that true three dimensional holograms as you see today became a practical reality. A laser creates pure waves of light that march in phase like a marching band. These waves are said to be coherent. A coherent light makes it possible to record the light wave interference patterns of holography. Albert Einstein first theorized about the process which makes lasers possible called "Stimulated Emission" in 1917. The idea of the laser was first published in 1958 by Arthur Shawlow and Charles Townes who were working at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ. Theodore Maiman built the first working ruby laser in 1960 while working at Hughes Research Laboratories in Mailbu, California. This was closely followed by Ali Javan who invented the first gas laser, the Helium-Neon laser in December 1960 at Bell Labs. In 1963, Robert Hall, invented the semiconductor injection laser, known today as laser diodes, while working for General Electric laboratories in Schenectady, New York. However, in 1977, the US Patent Office awarded the basic patent for the laser to Gordon Gould, a doctoral student at Columbia University under Charles Townes, based on his idea from 1957. He didn't apply for a patent until 1959 on bad legal advice, but after 20 years of court cases he ultimately prevailed. He was the first person to coin the word LASER, which stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emision of Radiation.
   
   Holography came into being long before the laser was invented. Back in 1886 in France, Gabriel Lippmann developed a theory of using light wave interference to capture color in photography. He coated mercury on the back side of glass photographic plates to act as a mirror and bounce the light waves back through the emulsion and create wave interference. In 1891 he presented this theory along with some primitive examples of his interference color photographs to the Academy of Sciences. He was able to present perfect color photographs made by the Lumière brothers to the Academy in 1893. It was in 1894 that he published his complete theory. Lippmann won a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1908 based on this work. While head of the Physics Department at the Sorbonne, Lippmann was the thesis advisor to a Polish woman named Maria Sklodowska allowing her to use his lab for her work. He was so impressed that he introduced her to one of his best students, Pierre Curie, whom she later married. Marie Curie went on to become the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 along with her husband and Professor Antoine Henri Becquerel only two years after the Nobel Foundation was established, for their joint research on the radiation phenomena, and later in 1911 she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of radium and polonium.
   
   Like Einstein who did poorly at times in school and Edison, who was considered addle headed by his teacher and taken out of school, Lippmann had not been an outstanding student. He had neglected work that did not interest him. In fact, he failed the examination that would have qualified him as a teacher.
   
   Lippmann’s wave interference color photographs were the first holograms. There were no color dies. The colors were the result of the diffraction of light into its primary colors. In order to see the images you would have to hold the film at just the right angle to the light. They worked by the same principles as do holograms today.
   
   In 1915, at the age of 15, Dennis Gabor, a Hungarian, became interested in physics having studied the work of Gabriel Lippmann. In 1933, with Hitler’s rise to power, Gabor, a Jew like Lippmann before him, fled to England where he worked at British Thompson-Houston Research Laboratories in Rugby. While attempting to improve the resolving power of the electron microscope to make it capable to see single atoms, he serendipitously came upon his theory of wavefront reconstruction. He named it holography based on the Greek words holos for whole and graphe for message. In 1971, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his theory of holography.
   
   In the former Soviet Union, Yuri Denisyuk had read Lippmann’s description of interference photography and realized it could be used to record three dimensional images. He began his experiments in 1958 using a highly filtered mercury discharge tube as his light source, since the laser did not yet exist. He published his work in 1962 and received scathing reviews in the Soviet Union. But these were the first three dimensional reflection holograms. Denisyuk did not know of Gabor’s work.
   
   Emmett Leith, while working on a top secret radar research project in 1958 independently reinvented holography, never having heard of Gabor. His work was not published until 1961. With the invention of the Helium-neon laser, he and his assistant Juris Upatniks introduced their work in three dimensional laser transmission holography to the public. They did not know of the work of Denisyuk.
   
   © Holographic Studios, 2006

3. History of Holographic Studios

   28.Mar.07, 14:03 EDT
   
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   Holographic Studios is located on the East Side of midtown Manhattan in a century old former blacksmith forge. When this brownstone building was constructed, there were no automobiles, airplanes, telephones, computers, blackberrys, cell phones, electric lights, radio, television, refrigeration, central heating and almost every modern convenience that we now take for granted. The streets outside were made of cobble stones. And horses and walking were the means of transportation. A blacksmith would heat iron over the hot coals until it glowed red and then he would shape it into the three dimensional shape of a horse shoe. Today we use a red laser beam to record three dimensional objects in the same space through holography. So although much has changed, much also remains the same.
   
   As you may know, Manhattan Island ("island of hills") is the center of the five boroughs (counties) that make up New York City. When the Dutch first arrived on their ships on the North River (now called the Hudson River in honor of the explorer Henry Hudson) in 1624, they named their colony Nieuw Nederland (New Netherland) and the city Nieuw Amsterdam (New Amsterdam) which Peter Minuit purchased from Chief Seyseys of the Canarsies in 1626 for 60 guilders worth of trinkets (often said to be worth $24 US dollars, but more like $20,000 today). The native New Yorkers called Weckquaessgeeksands lived for thousands of years on the forested lands where Holographic Studios now stands. They were soon displaced by the Dutch. These Native Americans were Algonquins. The local Algonguins called themselves Lenni-Lenape, but were called Deleware Indians by the settlers because they first encountered them along the shores of the Deleware River. The English displaced the Dutch in 1664 and the colony was renamed as New York to honor the King of England's brother, the Duke of York.
   
   General Horatio Gates built his farmhouse a few blocks south of here on 2nd Avenue at 21st Street and named it Rose Hill. The neighborhood still retains that name to this day. Gates commanded the Continental Army troops who won the first American victory in the War of Independence from England at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, considered by many historians to be the turning point of the Revolutionary War. Incidentally, it was the bold leadership in that battle by General Benedict Arnold that is said to have carried the day. Years later Arnold betrayed the Continental Army and plotted the surrender of the American fort at West Point, New York to the British. After his defeat and capture by General Gates, the English General "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne returned home in disgrace never to be given another command. When news of the outcome of the battle reached Europe, France entered the war on the side of the colonies and helped the colonies achieve independence.
   
   As the city expanded by leaps and bounds in the mid to late 1800s with wave after wave of immigration, the farm was subdivided and sold off to make way for the gridiron of brownstones on local streets that now make up the city. One of these brownstones housed the blacksmith's forge that we now occupy. After many decades of service, it found it self increasingly isolated in a world of automobiles. When it closed, a medical instruments company took over the space. They used the forge to fabricate the surgical tools used in the obstetrics ward at nearby Bellevue Hospital. In the 20th century the stately brownstones increasing have become dwarfed by the skyscrapers that rise like mushrooms on these ancient fields and forests. It is on this former forest, then farmland, and then forge that Holographic Studios now stands.
   
   © Holographic Studios, 2006

4. History of Jason Sapan in Holography

   28.Mar.07, 13:57 EDT
   
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   Holographic Studios was founded and is operated by Jason Sapan. His professional career in the field began in 1968 demonstrating holography at an exhibition called "A Science Tune In," for Time,Inc. at their New York City headquarters, the Time-Life Building, across the street from Radio City Music Hall. The exhibition was created and run by Bell Laboratories. This was the first public exhibition of holography in America.
   
   In the early 1970's Sapan worked at the Record Plant Studios, a world class recording studio in midtown Manhattan.  Much of his time was spent on the road in the famous Wally Heider remote truck recording live concerts.  Sapan worked with John Lennon, Dizzy Gillespie, B.B. King, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Tammy Wynette, George Jones,  Jack Bruce, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Philharmonic, Sonny Rollins, Roberta Flack, and Alice Cooper among many others. 
   
   After that he worked at Sapan Engineering producing commercial display holography before opening the Holographic Studios in the late 1970's. In 1990, he was awarded the prestigious Golden OMA from the Point of Purchase Art Institute (POPAI) for his signed and numbered limited edition holograms for Hyatt.
   
   One of his friends from his days working at Record Plant, Jack Douglas,  hired him to do a hologram business card.  When he was ready to show the hologram, Douglas told him to bring it to a former monastery in Westchester, NY where he was recording.  Sapan drove up and ran into several of his former co-workers who were all working there recording a group.  One of the people there that he didn't know came up to him to ask more about the hologram.  It was the first one he had seen and they spoke all night long.  At the end of the evening this person finally introduced himself.  Sapan said hi and introduced himself.  The person seemed shocked that Sapan didn't know who he was so he introduced himself again.  He said his name was Steve Tyler and that he had a band called Aerosmith.  Sapan was clueless as to who he was or who the band was.  So they became friends and Sapan was later commissioned to produce holograms for Tyler andAerosmith.  This kind of thing became a recurrent theme in Sapan's career.
   
   Mr. Sapan has lectured extensively. He has taught college level beginner and advanced Holography at the School of Visual Arts. Some of the other schools he has lectured at include NYU, University of Vermont, The Art Institute of Chicago, Ohio State University, CCNY, and the Nantucket Island School of Art and Design. Industry groups such as the Huntsville, Alabama (NASA) chapter of the Optical Society of America and the Westchester Photographic Society have featured him as their keynote speaker.
   
   For many years Jason Sapan was the portrait holographer for the Museum of Holography in New York City.
   
   Jason Sapan is also well known for his pioneering use of laser lighting shows and special effects. In 1977, he created the opening logo for the CBS Sports Spectacular. He produced laser lighting effects at Studio 54 in New York City. His work was featured on television in an episode of The Equalizer. Over the years his laser shows have been commissioned by clients including Mobil Oil, Hewlett Packard, Arista Records, and The Philadelphia Stock Market. He has created many photographic laser effects in print ads. Some of his more notable projects have been for Macy's, Radio Shack, and Revlon. Not surprisingly, his art has appeared on the covers of Art Direction, Science & Mechanics, and Discothekin magazines.
   
   One day a producer from England came in to hire Sapan to do laser efects for a music video for and 80's band called Flock of Seaguls.  After a short time, the producer asked Sapan if he would be interested in acting in the video as a scientist in a take off of the 50's science fiction classic film, The Day the Earth Stood Still.  He agreed and acted and did the laser effects as well.  As an interesting sidenote, Sapan became the first person to ever receive an on screen credit on MTV in a music video.
   
   Mr. Sapan has also worked in the field of Vibration Analysis. He has worked for Kenward Oliphant, Acoustical Consultants Inc., and Frank Hubach Associates. Most of the work he performed was for computer chip manufacturers such as IBM, Fairchild, Motorola, and AMD. In this line of work accelerometers are used to detect and isolate low frequency vibration that would interfere with sub micron work. He has used his expertise in this field in analysing sources of troublesome vibration in holography laboratories including one at Bell Laboratories in Homdel, NJ.
   
   © Holographic Studios, 2007