Mike Seymour, Mark Christiansen and Jason Diamond discuss the visual effects of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness.
Click on the image below to listen online or subscribe for free in iTunes.
THE AIRMEN AND THE HEADHUNTERS
In 1944, a U.S. bomber was hit by Japanese anti-aircraft fire, and the crew bailed out and parachuted into the wilderness. They were taken in and protected by members of the Dayak tribe - the "wild men of Borneo," who were infamous for their custom of hunting and smoking enemy heads. Months later, the airmen were found by an eccentric British Major who devised an ingenious plan to rescue the men. A crazy true story that's almost impossible to believe.
This would make an amazing motion picture.
CICADAS
This has been going on every night in our backyard for the past few weeks. Amazing creatures.
taken in our yard....emerging...
on the move...
EAST SIDE ACCESS
The biggest public transit infrastructure effort in the US is almost completely invisible — unless you’re 160 feet underground. The East Side Access project will connect the Long Island Railroad to New York’s Grand Central Terminal via a massive tunnel under the East River.
Read the full story on Wired.
ANATOMY OF A LOGO: STAR WARS
Click on the image below to visit the "Tenth Letter of the Alphabet" blog to read a fun and informative story on the evolution of the now famous "Star Wars" logo.
SIGGRAPH 2013: TECHNICAL PAPERS PREVIEW
VFX SHOW #168 IRON MAN 3
Here's the latest VFX Show on Iron Man 3. Mike Seymour, Ian Failles and I talk about the film, the visual effects and debate the merits of a couple of superhero trilogies. Click on the images below to listen online or subscribe for free in iTunes.
OVERVIEW
On the 40th anniversary of the famous ‘Blue Marble’ photograph taken of Earth from space, Planetary Collective presents a short film documenting astronauts’ life-changing stories of seeing the Earth from the outside – a perspective-altering experience often described as the Overview Effect.
The Overview Effect, first described by author Frank White in 1987, is an experience that transforms astronauts’ perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it. Common features of the experience are a feeling of awe for the planet, a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.
‘Overview’ is a short film that explores this phenomenon through interviews with five astronauts who have experienced the Overview Effect. The film also features insights from commentators and thinkers on the wider implications and importance of this understanding for society, and our relationship to the environment.
RAY HARRYHAUSEN 1920 - 2013
VFX SHOW #167 OBLIVION
Mike Seymour, Matt Wallin and TyRuben Ellingson make an "effective team" as they talk about Sci-Fi, clones and the Joseph Kosinski film, “Oblivion”.
Click on the image below to listen online or subscribe for free in iTunes.
The Bubble Ship designed by Daniel Simon.
Click this image to visit the webpage of designer Daniel Simon.
THE ROSE (SATURN'S VORTEX NORTHERN STORM)
The spinning vortex of Saturn's north polar storm resembles a deep red rose of giant proportions surrounded by green foliage in this false-color image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Measurements have sized the eye at a staggering 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers) across with cloud speeds as fast as 330 miles per hour (150 meters per second).
This image is among the first sunlit views of Saturn's north pole captured by Cassini's imaging cameras. When the spacecraft arrived in the Saturnian system in 2004, it was northern winter and the north pole was in darkness. Saturn's north pole was last imaged under sunlight by NASA's Voyager 2 in 1981; however, the observation geometry did not allow for detailed views of the poles. Consequently, it is not known how long this newly discovered north-polar hurricane has been active.
The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 27, 2012, using a combination of spectral filters sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light. The images filtered at 890 nanometers are projected as blue. The images filtered at 728 nanometers are projected as green, and images filtered at 752 nanometers are projected as red. In this scheme, red indicates low clouds and green indicates high ones.
The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 261,000 miles (419,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 94 degrees. Image scale is 1 mile (2 kilometers) per pixel. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
FREEFLY MōVI - SINGLE OPERATOR
Freefly's MōVI used to shoot this footage without a second operator for tilt/focus, etc. One operator handheld.
BLACKMAGIC POCKET CINEMA CAMERA
We'll see. I pulled the trigger on this thing today and it ships sometime in July 2013. Looks like its essentially the promise of simply a sensor on the end of some great glass. At a price point of just under 1K, Lossless CinemaDNG RAW and Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) at 1920 x 1080, 13 stops of dynamic range, it looks to be a revelation. Click on the seemingly ridiculous image below to read more on Blackmagic Design's site.
ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM
Did Archimedes invent the first computer only to have it fall in to the hands of the Romans and eventually make its way to the Arabs who then used it as a template for the Astrolabe?
PBS Nova: Ancient Computer explores the story in a fascinating documentary. A Greek shipwreck holds the remains of an intricate bronze machine that turns out to be the world's first computer.
Click on the image below to watch online.
MōVI - DIGITAL 3-AXIS GYRO-STABILIZED HANDHELD CAMERA GIMBAL
This short by Vincent Laforet was shot with the The "MōVI" - a digital 3-axis gyro-stabilized handheld camera gimbal. The completely silent device weighs under 3.5 pounds bare and can be operated solo, or with the help of a second "gimbal" operator with a joystick to pull off some incredible moves. To read more about it go to: wp.me/pjtZ0-2a4 The resulting video from this shoot is at: vimeo.com/62917185
To download extra features go to: vimeo.com/ondemand/movi
All proceeds from the "Tip Jar" and Vimeo on Demand will benefit the Lollipop theater network lollipoptheater.org/ - a nonprofit organization that arranges showings of first-run movies to children confined to hospitals.
PROJECT PINOCCHIO: AUTODESK LABS
Project Pinocchio is a free technology preview that leverages Autodesk's powerful 3D design and animation tools to provide you with a web-based laboratory where you can create fully-rigged custom 3D characters. Design a creation of your own or modify existing stock characters using a variety of pre-defined body types, facial features, and clothing styles for inclusion in 3D games, animations, and scenes.
MAPPING COLOR
I've been working with two of my colleagues from VCU, Robert Meganck and Peter Martin, for the last year or so developing a software application for realtime color analysis of both still and moving images. We are presenting our work at TEDx in Richmond, VA this Friday. It should be a lot of fun and help us finance the final push to get our application out of the alpha stage and into the hands of creatives and industry. We put together a website briefly exploring the concept and we will continue to update the site as continued development and release dates approach.
Click on the image below to visit our site:
1982 BLADE RUNNER PRODUCERS NOTES
1982 Ridley Scott classic Blade Runner went through a long and tortured development process, including several recuts and the addition of a monotone voice-over that was famously hated by star Harrison Ford. Despite being included partly because of executive pressure to make the film less confusing, at least one of the film's producers seemed to loathe it as well, according to an apparent page of screening notes posted on Reddit. Dated from January 1982, around six months before the film launched, the notes are mostly from executive producers Jerry Perenchio and Bud Yorkin at Tandem, one of the three production companies attached to the film. "This movie gets worse every screening," writes Perenchio. "Why is this voice-over track so terrible, hopefully this is not being dubbed in. He sounds drugged, were they all on drugs when they did this?"
A fascinating look inside the depths of the process. Read the entire set of notes below.
TEDx RVA
Robert Meganck, Peter Martin and I are going to be giving a TEDx talk on Friday, March 22nd in Richmond, VA.
Click on the image to find out more about our talk and how you can attend or watch the live stream.
FREEFLY CINESTAR WITH 3 AXIS GIMBAL
Amazing.