MIHS alum combines love of film, history and language in book

By the time Richard Kroon graduated from high school, he had attended a dozen different schools, mostly in Western Washington. These included three high schools: Coupeville, Oak Harbor and Mercer Island, where he graduated in 1982.

By Reporter Staff • October 26, 2010 12:53 pm
Former MIHS student Richard Kroon wrote this book and is donating copies to the high school.
Former MIHS student Richard Kroon wrote this book and is donating copies to the high school.

By the time Richard Kroon graduated from high school, he had attended a dozen different schools, mostly in Western Washington. These included three high schools: Coupeville, Oak Harbor and Mercer Island, where he graduated in 1982.

“I usually tell people that my parents were itinerant farm workers, but the real story is far less interesting — we just moved around a lot,” said Kroon. “I took my first film class at Mercer Island High School and shot my first film using a borrowed Super-8 camera. I was hooked. Years later, I decided to combine my love of film with my love of language and write a dictionary. After all, how long could it take?”

Seven years after he started his ambitious dictionary project, it was finally finished. It is called “A/V A to Z: An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Media, Entertainment and Other Audiovisual Terms.”

Kroon credits some his love of language to his time at Mercer Island High School.

“My favorite teacher (Mrs. Braman) is no longer teaching, but she is on the School Board,” he said in an e-mail. “I actually attended 12 different schools before graduating (including grades 4-6 and a quarter of 7th grade on the Island) from Mercer Island High School. I had an easy time of it, academically, until I returned to Mercer Island for 11th grade. Mrs. Braman gave me my first C on an English paper I’d received in high school. That came as quite a shock. By the last semester of my senior year, I was her TA and taking three English classes at the same time. I had to get special permission to add an extra period to my schedule to do that.”

Kroon will visit the high school later this week to donate copies of his book.

Kroon’s book, “A/V A to Z” was published by McFarland & Company in July of this year. It is nearly 800 pages long and includes the definitions over 10,000 words and phrases covering the full life cycle of an audiovisual across all content forms and media. In addition, the definitions are illustrated with more than 600 storyboards, production stills, posters, equipment photos and technical diagrams. Historical images illustrate key terms.

“A/V A to Z: An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Media, Entertainment and Other Audiovisual Terms” can be found at media retailers. It is presently available at Amazon.com for $169.45.