The holiday season is nearly over, which means that the piles of baked goods might finally be starting to dwindle (just in time for New Years’ resolution diets). Which means it’s also time to eat that gingerbread house! It was fun to look at for a while, though; here’s a few more that caught my eye…
When you take a gingerbread rocketship to the moon, is it still made of cheese? – wallyg (CC)
We all know that in today’s movies, “Green Screen” technology, also known as “ChromaKey”, is being used to create virtual environments that look just like the real thing. The extent to which ChromaKey is being used in a production remains largely unknown to most folks, but the following video will show you just how much can be done with the technology. Check it out:
By this time you’ve likely read plenty of Avatar reviews out there or, more likely, you’ve been to see the movie yourself. My own feelings about the cinematic quality of the film are mixed, but that’s not the point of this piece.
Because watching Avatar didn’t actually make me excited about watching Avatar, if that makes sense–it made me excited about watching future science fiction and fantasy movies in a way that no other film has to date.
I was lucky to be brought up in the 80s, at the height of the Jim Henson‘s workshop, when movies like The Dark Crystal defined my childhood and made me, at such a young age, truly believe in magic. Those were important years, and nothing inspired me so much as fantasy in film. The Last Unicorn, The Hobbit, Time Bandits: the list goes on.
But something happened with the introduction of CGI that, in some ways, have aged films of the last ten years more than those of the 80s and early 90s. It’s like we took a few steps back and had to redraw everything from scratch again. Watching some of the broom-flying scenes in the first Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone, for instance, or even some of the parts of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings already feel dated. It’s strange to think that the puppets and animation of my youth seem to hold up better in some ways. (Not all films held out, of course. There’s the weird case of the Ninja Turtles franchise, which started out surprisingly viable and not that bad in terms of animatronics, and then, by the third film, turned into a complete farce.)
Except now, I think the game has finally changed. WETA has demonstrated that, in the last ten years, CGI has truly gone beyond what seemed so monumental during The Lord of the Rings films in the early 2000s. I kept looking for those glaring errors, kept scanning the screen, the shots, for moments of real weakness (i.e. when Neville went on that errant broom ride in Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone and he looked a little better than a stuffed beanbag being flailed about; or those scenes in LOTR when the hobbits just didn’t look short enough, in spite of the camera tricks). But those that I found in Avatar were exceptionally minimal.
Avatar is not a great film, at least, not in terms of what the movie says or achieves from a thematic standpoint (in other words, it’s been done before… but I digress). However, the presentation, the experience of the film, the detail of the world and the remarkable depth of emotion conveyed in the CGI characters is something altogether new and thrilling for me, fangirl as I am of fantasy. While the 3D was a bit distracting at first, in the end I saw the importance of it. It was another layer of depth, another way to draw the audience into the world.
For years I have dreaded seeing fantasy adaptations for the screen, fearing that the result will never even graze the surface of my imagination. This includes nearly every film with a dragon made in the last two decades. Now, I say, bring it on. Let’s get some Pern on the screen, some worlds teeming with alien life, vast ancient monumental cities. Let’s really push the envelope now that we can do it well.
The aesthetic of Avatar, I think, far eclipsed everything else about it. I believed in the world even if I didn’t think the story was that great. Every bug, mushroom, flying creature, hairless dog, and fern frond was a painstakingly real and believable as my own back yard. And that is the key to good science fiction and fantasy: creating a believable world, a world in which you get blissfully, thoroughly lost, and regret having to come back from.
So, readers. What SF/F worlds do you want to see recreated on the big screen in the coming decade? Do you think that, now that the genre is appealing to a larger audience that we’ll have a chance to see more of our beloved books and TV shows in theaters? Or are there canon books that you’re still dreading, regardless of the advances in technology?
From the creator of Expialidocious, that awesome Mary Poppins electronica remix piece we posted a while ago, here’s “Upular”, a song which was produced in a similar way using chords, bass notes and vocal samples from the Disney Pixar film ‘Up’. Enjoy!
Ladies and Gentlegeeks, behold: The guys behind the Mac or PC rap are back with “I’m on a Mac”, a new song that ought to make Apple fanboys and girls pat themselves on the back, and users of other platforms cringe from the absurdity of it all.
Warning: Song contains strong language.
Thanks Tina!
By Jimmy Rogers (@me)
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Well it’s that time of year….of flu’s and rhinos (Rhinoviruses) and sniffles, OH MY! Yes, everyone seems to be getting sick. With all of these things going on, it might get you thinking…why now? Why do we always get sick more in the winter? Well to answer that question let’s look at the conventional wisdom. If you ask just about anybody off the street, they’ll tell you that the cold somehow weakens your body (maybe your immune system) and makes you more susceptible to disease. How do they know this? Well their mothers told them, of course!
Everyone has heard the phrase “Bundle up or you’ll catch a cold!” But how accurate is that statement really? Our body depends on an idea known as “homeostasis,” which describes the ability of a system to maintain itself. While the outer temperature of your body varies widely based on environmental conditions, the core temperature remains constant. Most people have a core body temperature of 98.6°F (37.0°C). If you think about it, the only time that your temperature changes is when you have a fever. Fevers only happen when the body specifically raises its temperature to fight off infections.
So how does this affect our initial question? Well, if your internal temperature remains fairly constant in any weather, why does sickness increase in the winter? Almost every microbiology course I’ve taken has posed this question, because it’s a good one to make you think scientifically instead of anecdotally (relying on “conventional wisdom”).
As it turns out, one of the other effects of winter is that people tend to stay indoors more often. When the population stays indoors (in a closed air system) and in the presence of others for an extended period, the rate of infection increases. This is because at any given time, there are a few individuals infected with one of the many reoccurring (endemic) diseases. If those people had only limited contact with others, they might spread their colds or they might not. When they stay inside with everyone else, though, they successfully infect many more people.
While this answer may surprise some of you, I think the more impressive take-away is the regulatory ability of the human body. Despite cold winds or a scorching sun, we maintain that core body temperature like it’s our job. In some respects, it IS our body’s job. All living things must find ways to maintain internal conditions such as temperature, pH, and sources of energy. Without the existence of homeostasis, life as we know it would be impossible in our constantly changing world!
Have more questions on disease or homeostasis? Leave a comment or ask me on Twitter and I’ll try to puzzle it out with you!
Every year, there are millions and millions of random facts and statistics gathered by researchers, scientists, and analysts. These numbers are often times too large to interpret and the shear magnitude of the numbers can be overwhelming. Here are 20 figures scaled down to 60 seconds in order to grasp how wild some of these numbers are.
By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
I saw Sherlock Holmes this weekend and what the New York Times calls “intermittently diverting” I would reclassify as “wildly entertaining,” but then, I realized that perhaps I just have a fondness for literary-characters-turned-action-heroes. No, it’s not for the Holmes purist; we all know that Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes wasn’t so much for physical violence, but I can’t help but agree with Guy Ritchie that if he were, that calculating mind might not be a bad asset in a brawl.
The whole idea makes me go back to The League of Extraordinary Gentleman (and I should note since I’m mentioning it fondly that I refer to the graphic novel rather than the film) where literary heroes jump off the page into proto-super-heroes. And in Sherlock Holmes we get that same kind of steampunky atmosphere in a greasy picture of Victorian London that makes it pretty visually spectacular for those of you who like that sort of thing.
Whatever geeky button this film pushes for me, I think there may be more to come. After all, Natalie Portman is going to turn Elizabeth Bennet into a zombie-slaying action heroine in the film adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Some think it’s literary blasphemy, to which I say: we’re not burning books here! You can still read/enjoy/love the original – but with another Holmes beating guys up and getting caught in explosions, it’s like two for the price of one.
So what’s next in the world of literary action heroes? Lockwood as an undercover ghost hunter in Wuthering Heights? Great Expectations‘ Estella trained not just to break men’s hearts but to break their skulls? Gone with the Wind as a space opera with Scarlet as a planet-hopping black widow? The possibilities are endless!