By the 1930s, the “Akeley shot” was written into film scripts to indicate a shot of a rapidly moving subject in the foreground and a blurry background. Carl Akeley’s gyroscopic tripods were used by major studios through the late 1980s

there was a lot more to Carl than most people would guess, he invented shotcrete, was friends with President Teddy Roosevelt, was known as the father of taxidermy, and killed a leopard bare handed, by punching it down its throat. 

"out of the thicket came this gigantic fucking leopard screaming towards him teeth-first like a psychotic killer cat being launched out of a horrible predator-launching cannon. Unable to get his weapon back around quickly enough, Akeley dropped his gun and threw his arm up just in time to prevent the vicious beast from ripping out his throat. The leopard latched on to Akeley’s left hand, chomping down with all its might, and kicking at him with its back legs like a rabid 80-pound feral housecat intent on brutally mutilating him beyond recognition and burying his body in the back yard.

When his attempts to pull his hand out of the leopards’ jaws only made the creature bite down harder, Akeley, locked in a life or death fistfight with one of the most perfect predators nature ever created, did one of the most insane things ever – he punched his fist further into the leopard’s mouth.

Yes, you are reading that correctly. Carl Akeley, noted philanthropist and respected wildlife conservationist, punched a fucking leopard in the esophagus from the inside. The leopard gagged, Akeley pulled his hand out, and then he took the thing, body slammed it to the ground, and jumped on it with both knees, crushing it to death.

Akeley, bleeding profusely from horrific wounds on both hands, clawed to shit, still recovering from a recent battle with malaria, and barely able to stand, then picked up the leopard (despite a shattered hand), threw it over his shoulder, walked back to camp with it, and taxidermized it for a museum exhibit. "

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1491191564434558/permalink/1491195337767514/ (my facebook page of  the World's Greatest Adventurers) 

In 1909 Akeley accompanied Theodore Roosevelt on a year long expedition in Africa funded by the Smithsonian Institution and began working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where his efforts can still be seen in the Akeley African Hall of Mammals. 

While in Africa, Roosevelt convinced Akeley he should commercially produce his invention of “shotcrete” — a plaster gun he had used only a few years before to repair a crumbling facade of the Field Museum in Chicago. The cement gun used compressed air to shoot concrete like a firehose shoots water.

Akeley joined the Explorers Club in 1912, having been sponsored by three of the Club's seven Charter Members

The World Taxidermy & Fish Carving Championships awards gold medallions that bear Carl Akeley’s likeness—based on a photograph he had taken at Stein Photography in Milwaukee—to its “Best in World” winners. There is also a Carl Akeley Award for the most artistic mount at the World Show.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Akeley

I've wanted a reason to post Carl Akeley here in this blog for 7 years, and because of the car mounted gyro stabilized movie camera, I finally found one!