One year ago: Herb Farmer

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When Herb Farmer came from Buffalo to Los Angeles to enroll at USC, he ensured his role at the school by bringing along his camera.

‘When Herb arrived here . . . he was a pretty big man on campus because he had a camera and the school didn’t,’ Doug Wellman, the film school’s director of facilities and operations, said in 2008.

‘It became the official camera of USC cinema. And as Herb taught here and was a student here, he modified this camera. He added the 400-foot magazine. He added a motor drive. He added a variety of lenses . . . and he constantly improved it. And that is exactly what Herb has done for this entire school.’

Farmer, who filmed USC football games from the roof of the Coliseum press box, went on to oversee the school’s film archives and serve as a professor and associate dean of the School of Cinematic Arts. He died a year ago at age 89.

‘It’s been a wonderful life working with students here,’ he said at a 2008 campus celebration of his years at the university. ‘I’m grateful for the time that I’ve been able to put into it. And I’d do it again if I had to or could.’

Farmer’s news obituary appeared in The Times on Nov. 27, 2009.

-- Keith Thursby