Capturing Video at the Speed of Light

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Dec 142011
 

When I was a child I used to amuse myself by imagining how things would look if light moved at a few meters per second. I thought it would be cool if you could walk into a dark room, turn on the light and watch as the light spread throughout the scene. Wielding a flashlight would be interesting – you could easily make curved beams.

Now these guys have built a camera fast enough to show the same effect:

Of course, they do cheat a bit by only taking a 1 dimensional slice at a time and relying on the fact that they can repeatably fire identical pulses of light to make their images. Still this is exactly what I imagined it would be like.

Now someone needs to build the high wattage laser targeting system capable of taking out houseflies without blinding humans that I invented when I was 9.

Air Swimmers

 Culture, Links  No Responses »
Aug 152011
 

I have to make a choice sometime soon – do I get an iPhone4 now or do I wait for the (unannounced, possibly mythical) iPhone5?

It turns out that what I really want is one of these:

Not sure I can get work to spring for one though.

Gulp

 Culture  No Responses »
Aug 122011
 

OK, it’s an ad but this short animation from Aardman is very well done.

The “making of” video is also worth a look, although it must be the first behind-the-scenes featurette that features more product placement than the main feature (a Nokia N8 you say? Tell me more…) but it shows the effort they went to.

State Highway Death : Turn Right for Murder

 Culture, my projects  1 Response »
Jun 092011
 

Here is our entry for the 2011 48 Hour Film Competition:



Watch on Youtube

The reviews were not kind, but everyone had fun making it. The elements this year were a character called Bobby Young, the dialog “What have you got”, a piece of bent wire, and the film had to end on a freeze frame. Our genre was “Road Movie”, to be honest I think we ended up with more of a revenge film (one of the other genres) but I think we got in enough travel to make it count.

My contribution was mainly as the camera operation, although I helped write the original script and directed the odd scene. It is my fault that Bobby is out of focus in the last scene – hi-def video is unforgiving.

A Name and a Number – 48 Hours Filmmaking Competition

 Culture, my projects  No Responses »
Apr 282010
 

2 weekends ago I participated in the annual 48 Hours Filmmaking Competition. Each team had to make a film containing a character named Sydney, a broken toy, the line “When you look at it that way”, and a dolly zoom. Cutting straight to the chase, here is the result:

(view on youtube)

I don’t think it turned out too badly – technical limitations aside I think we had a fairly decent story. The audience seemed to enjoy the film during the showing and the reviews have been generally favourable (more or less.) Unfortunately we were disqualified from the judging due to technical problems with the master we submitted on the day, but it didn’t matter in the end. One of the other teams in our heat submitted a brilliant film that was always going to be the finalist.

This is not the first time I have been involved in the 48 Hours Competition. I did it about 5 years ago with a much more professional team in Auckland. The experience was so stressful that I almost didn’t take the opportunity this year but I am glad that I did.

Bevan, the producer/director, assembled a random collection of people with little/no experience, many of whom could not be present for the whole weekend. Our equipment consisted of an 10 year old handicam (borrowed on the understanding that the owner’s daughter would be cast), a tripod and (for part of the time) some lights. So unlike my previous experience which involved hours of makeup, set dressing, rehearsing with proper actors and messing around with lighting rigs we just got on and shot stuff as we could. We actually had most of the shots on film by mid-afternoon on Saturday, about the time my previous team started shooting!

In case you are wondering, I was the main camera operator by dint of my knowledge of white balance. Having a camera with no-focus ring and no way to control the aperture made the job pretty simple. I only dropped the camera on concrete once, it actually worked better afterwards.

I think the strength of A Name and A Number is the story, a lot of films in the competition look and sound better but have plots that don’t resolve properly. If you think our film doesn’t go anywhere you should see some of the others. Although the film is humorous, the story is told in a serious tone (it was originally intended to be a psychological drama) which I think helps – a lot of the entries try to be funny which is hard to (intentionally) pull off. Lame drama is more watchable than a lame comedy.

The Aliens Rap

 Culture  9 Responses »
Feb 032010
 

Following up on the epic 10 minute rap summary of Robocop, the same team has released Aliens:


open at youtube.com

Watching this reminds me what a great film Aliens turned out to be and how Avatar (by the same director) pales in comparison. It’s not that Avatar was terrible but nobody is going to be making 10 minute rap songs about it in 25 years.

quick update: Hey, they’ve done Terminator 2 as well!

The Phantom Menace Was Not a Very Good Movie

 Culture  5 Responses »
Dec 172009
 

I own all of the Star Wars DVDs except for one – The Phantom Menace. Even the weakest of the others have a certain charm, but TPM was stupid through and through. Even the title is stupid! I have yet to work out exactly what the titular menace actually was. Although the story includes several menaces, none of them seem particularly phantomastical. Unless the menace was supposed to be Palpatine’s amazingly convoluted plan, but that plot point doesn’t really bear fruit until the second film.

Anyway, I haven’t given The Phantom Menace much thought since it first came out but this guy certainly has:




Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

Even if you ignore the affectations of the reviewer, he has some pretty insightful points about how TPM fails as a movie.

Clifford Stoll and TED Talks

 Computer, Culture  No Responses »
May 092008
 

I was about 15 when I first read The Cuckoo’s Egg by Clifford Stoll, and it left a pretty big impression on me. Something about Stoll’s endearingly rambling tale of ingenuity in the face of what turned out to be a case of major international espionage really opened my eyes, and I think the book should be required reading for anyone considering a career in programming.

TED talks are something I have only recently been introduced to, but it turns out they have been around forever. Consisting basically of some dudes asking some other guys to give some short talks on stuff at a conference, TED has managed to attract some big names speaking about the big issues, with the odd juggler thrown in for good measure. Over 200(!) of the TED talks are available online, either through YouTube or as a podcast, and I highly recommend them.

Being a fan of both Clifford Stoll and TED Talks, imagine my delight when a podcast of Stoll giving a talk at TED showed up in iTunes. Here he is talking about – well he talks about a lot of things…

By the way, I strongly agree with his views on the roll of computers in education.

War of the Worlds

 Culture  1 Response »
Sep 162007
 

The War of the Worlds(warning, site features music and Richard Burton) stage show is is coming to Auckland at the end of the month. I am of course going, since it combines 4 of my favorite things: analogue synth-cheese, giant alien robots, large string sections and holographs. On paper, it should be an awesome show.

On a related note, I thought the recent remake of War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise was fairly average. Sure it looked good, but the story was pretty unengaging. Perhaps the original book doesn’t really lend itself to an action movie, the protagonist spends the whole plot running away from invincible creatures who die off by themselves just as all hope seems lost. Anyway, while grubbing around on YouTube, I found a clip of the best part:



(requires sound – direct link)

Star Trek:The Sitcom

 Culture, Links  No Responses »
Mar 222007
 

I am going to assume that we all liked Star Trek:The Next Generation when it was on. However only the most ardent fan would refuse to concede that there were some problems with the show. It was fairly cheesy (even for the late eighties) and its oh-so-earnest attitude made the future look like a fairly dull place to live. Also, I think it will take longer than 400 years for skin tight uniforms to be adopted by any organisation that wants the galaxy to take it seriously.

Over a decade later (has it been that long already?), ST:TNG is ready for a face lift. Have you ever wondered what the show would look like if revisited with the most powerful post-production technique known to man; the laugh track? Me neither, but someone has:



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