Trying to fund road projects as gas taxes fizzle, 'Grand Budapest Hotel' cinematographer Robert Yeoman, and the influence of anonymous comments online
Could low gas prices be hurting road fixes?
People trust online comments as much as the CDC on vaccines
When it comes to the public's understanding of the measles and vaccinations, what matters the most: Reports in the media? Statements from the Centers for Disease Control? Anonymous comments made online?
Ioannis Kareklas, an assistant professor of marketing at Washington State University, has been looking into the question for a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Advertising.
Kareklas and his fellow researchers found that people were just as influenced by online comments from strangers as they were by PSAs from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines.
But the online comments didn't always hold equal weight. Kareklas explains that when online commenters were identified as either a doctor specializing in vaccines, a health care lobbyist, or an undergrad English major, the doctor's comments were more influential.
To hear the full interview with Ioannis Kareklas, click the link above.
Homeland Security and the immigration debate and did Brian Williams lie or just mis-remember
Every week Take Two looks for the stories people are talking about and the stories we should be paying attention to.
Our guests this week are Washington Post reporter Elahe Izahdi and syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette.
UK's vaccination attitude after the 2013 measles outbreak
BBC health editor James Gallagher explains how the UK reacted to the measles outbreak in 2013, and how vaccination attitudes have changed.
Bob Yeoman - Wes Anderson's secret weapon
The Wes Anderson movie, "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is up for nine Academy Awards this year, including Best Achievement in Cinematography. The nomination goes to Robert Yeoman - who's been behind the camera for nearly 50 feature films, including all of director Wes Anderson's live action films.
"I grew up in Chicago... and uh, I always loved movies as a kid. I started out as a young kid watching Jerry Lewis comedies and I went onto action movies... And in my town on Friday nights all of the kids would go to the local theater... We saw Hitchcock movies... They always had a profound influence on me..."
He says that it wasn't until he went to college did he figure that he could possibly make a career out of working behind a camera. Eventually, he met up with Wes Anderson.
"Wes wrote me a handwritten letter, which I still have... and he had been a fan of a film I had shot, "Drug Store Cowboy." And he contacted me and said, "I wrote a script, 'Bottle Rocket'" and would I read it, and if I liked it, would I come in and meet with him. And I read the script... I thought it was great and I went into meet him and he was a young kid who looked like he was a high school student. Kind of a skinny guy with big glasses... But you know, we just kind of hit it off. We seemed to agree on a lot of things... We seemed to be kind of on the same wavelength. And he hired me and I guess that was a great decision for me."
And it was that fruitful relationship that helped develop the signature Wes Anderson look, because as a cinematographer, Yeoman's behind the scenes helping craft it all.
"Well, Wes and I go to all of the locations beforehand and we talk very extensively how we plan to shoot the film. And he generally has very specific ideas. Sometimes he's not quite sure how he wants to shoot. And I'll throw ideas at him and he might say, 'Yeah, that's great,' or 'No, I prefer to do that.' And he has a lot of references, pictures, books, music and I just immerse myself in these references as best I can so that by the time we start shooting, Wes and I are so on the same page that everyday when I go into work I know pretty much what we're going to be doing."
But how did "The Grand Budapest Hotel" differ from Wes's other films like "The Life Aquatic?"
"I think it was a little bit larger canvas... but this one I think part of it has to do with... after he did 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' he came to kind of embrace the world of miniatures and stop motion animation. So, he incorporated some of that into our film. There's some miniature work there... Certainly the ski sequence... there's a lot of kind of miniatures and stop motion going on there. And he found this incredibly beautiful little city in Germany... and it's very picturesque... And we kind of set up camp there and we just discover all of these amazing old buildings and really cool locations all within close distance of our hotel. And being in the wintertime, even though it's difficult to work in January... I think just the snow gave it a magical quality. And I think the combination of that location and the wintertime and the miniatures and all of the other elements that we had gave the movie a storybook like quality to it. Which I think more than any other film that we worked on, I feel that has it going for it."
Yeoman joins Alex in the studio to talk about his first Oscar nomination ever.
LA's community colleges prep for changes: a four-year degree, more federal funds for students
Community colleges in the Los Angeles area are preparing for some big changes, including a new four-year degree, more federal funds under an Obama-backed proposal and the hiring of up to 150 new faculty.
The Los Angeles Community College district is the largest in the nation, with some 150,000 students. This week, students head back to campus for the Spring semester.
Francisco Rodriguez is the chancellor of the LA district. It's his first year heading up the nine-campus system.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:
On the proposal for a four-year degree in dental hygiene at West Los Angeles College
"First and foremost, it provides the needs that our employers are telling us they need. Secondly, the wonderful news about this is that a student can get this degree for around $10,500. If you shop around in schools, the wonderful schools in this area, the costs can be anywhere from $80,000 to $100,000 for the exact same degree."
On the hiring of up to 150 faculty
"The faculty are full-time, tenure-track faculty in all academic disciplines, including librarians and counselors, in general transfer education as well as career and technical education...does it mean more classes? Absolutely."
On meeting goals to provide more support for students in basic skills classes
"We are making process. We're certainly not there yet. It's too soon to tell what early interventions we've put into place – our accelerated learning, our compressed environments, the new tools that we're putting into place, new technology, new teaching and learning andragogy for adult learning, if you will – but the initial views when we start to disaggregate the data suggests that our students come in academically prepared, they do very well. And I was very clear that it's a national phenomenon that when the students don't come in college-ready, the rate of success drops off precipitously."
More tech world parents homeschooling their kids
Jason Tanz looked into homeschooling in the tech world for the latest edition of Wired Magazine, and found more parents are taking the DIY approach.
New study explores why birds fly in V formation
For those who've wondered why birds tend to fly in a V patterns and how they figure out who goes where, Bernhard Voelkl has some answers.
Voelkl is a professor in the zoology department at Oxford University and he's just published a study on this topic in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"It was fascinating that besides being such a familiar sight, we know so little about it," Voelkl said.
The study focused on the Ibis. The young birds had to be trained on a migration route and were tracked with GPS loggers. Because they were trained, researchers could handle the birds at the end of each day and gather information from the GPS tracker.
Voelkl says the study found the birds fly this way to save energy, and they even take turns leading.
"At the end of the day, all birds were leading the flock for a good amount of time," he said. "Every bird is just monitoring the bird next to it, and after spending several seconds behind this bird, it can take over and then it is leading for a few seconds."
California balloon circles the world in 12 days
Scientists in San Jose, California, launched a 6-foot wide balloon two weeks ago, carefully constructed out of a plastic-type material.
Since then it successfully circumnavigated the globe in just 12 days and...it's still going.
Ron Meadows from the California Near Space Project tells Alex Cohen his team never expected this kind of success.
Check the progress of the balloon
Voodoo and cannibalism: The man behind today's zombie craze
Fans of the hit AMC show, "The Walking Dead," were treated to the first episode in the second half of the fifth season on Sunday night.
The program has become one of the most successful television shows ever, and there's no surprise that people love zombies.
But none of the zombie fare out there, from "The Walking Dead" to "Night of the Living Dead" and everything in between, would have been possible were it not for a man named William Seabrook.
In 1928, Seabrook came face to face with a zombie in Haiti. Emily Matchar recently wrote about him for the online publication The Atavist and she joined the show from Hong Kong to talk more about it.
Vidiots will get a second chance thanks to donations
Vidiots, the beloved video rental store in Santa Monica, will get a second chance after all.
After nearly 30 years in business, the store said it was going to close due to the competition from online streaming.
But thanks to the donations from film producer Megan Ellison and longtime customer Leonard Lipman, Vidiots will stay open for some time.
But how did Vidiots get its start? The store initially had 800 titles and was underfunded. But their selection made them stand out. As the years went on, they became a resource for the film community.
Patty Polinger, one of the store's founders, joined Take Two to tell us more.