Revolutions

Because it's Friday: Star Wars, remixed

This is just amazing: a shot-for-shot recreation of the original Star Wars movie (well actually, the 1997 Special Edition), made by fans.

 

Star Wars Uncut was the brainchild of Casey Pugh, who created a crowdsourcing website where budding sci-fi moviemakers could select a 15-second clip to portray, and the best ones selected by the fans. (This LA Times article explains the background of the project.) The film was actually released in 2010 (and won a Creative Arts Emmy for Interative Fiction), but I'd never heard of it until this week, when it was released on YouTube. I've been watching it in 20-minute chunks after work, and it's amazing. Once you get over the fact that the actors, set and style changes every couple of shots, it's a great way to re-live the Star Wars experience while seeing some truly amazing creativity. The recreations range from fully-realized animations and professionally-produced performances, to little kids acting out the roles in their bedrooms with blankets for costumes. Kudos to the usually IP-protective Lucasfilm folks for allowing this project to happen and then be so freely available on the web -- this is truly what remixing is all about. (And by the way, if you haven't seen the Everything is a Remix series on Vimeo -- and you should -- this is exactly the kind of example of creativity that is so often stymied by restrictive IP rules.)

Star Wars Uncut: Episode IV: A New Hope

Because it's Friday: Movie Poster Cliches

The principle of "small multiples" — displaying multiple charts of the same type to compare differences — was introduced by Bill Cleveland and popularized by Edward Tufte and the "lattice" package in R. Now, the same principle is applied to movie posters in this display of "Over-Used Movie Poster Clichés":



Apparently, a couple standing back-to-back on the poster is a good indicator of a tough-love relationship between the protagonists, and an all-yellow background indicates an adorable indie-flick. Follow the link below for more examples:

FlavorWire: Visual Representations of 15 Over-Used Movie Poster Clichés

 

Because it's Friday: Movie stars sing 'Hello'

This is just wonderful:

From the description, I'd assumed that the movie clips would be autotuned to the song, but that appears not to be the case. Matthijs Vlot spent a lot of time finding lines of (approximately) the right pitch here. I predict many other songs will follow in this vein.

Have a great weekend!

Vimeo: Hello from ant1mat3rie  

 

Because it's Friday: Frosty, too frosty

Here's how to make a cold beer undrinkable in less than 10 seconds:

 

Supercooled liquids, slowly chilled below their freezing point, can become solid almost instantly when given a nucleus to freeze around (here, I suppose it's the sudden pressure that causes part of the beer to solidify? Not exactly sure what the mechanism is, to be honest). If you've ever heated a cup of water in the microwave, and then had it violently boil when you put a spoon in to stir it, it's kind of the same effect with superheated liquids. Don't do this, BTW -- Phil Plait has apparently had the same dangerous experience, as he explains in the blog post where I found this video.

Because it's Friday: Projected Reality

The short film below was filmed in real time, with no postprocessing or other manipulation of the captured film:

 

The CGI effects were projected onto the walls and other white spaces using ordinary projectors; puppetry and other practical effects realized the rest of the vision. I was incredulous at first: projected effects like these depend a lot on the POV of the viewer, and the camera moves around a lot here. But from the making of video I learned that the cameras are tracked using Playstation Move controllers, and the CGI is rendered in real time according to the POV. (I'm an Xbox rather than a PS3 guy myself, so I should point out that the Xbox Kinect has a similar demonstration.) The ultimate effect is pretty convincing! You can see more examples at the link below.

Great Films Fill Rooms: Making Of

A happy Christmas to all from Revolution Analytics!

Today marks the start of the Christmas holiday period for the team at Revolution Analytics, and we'll be taking a few days off from blogging while we relax with our families. However you celebrate the season, we wish all of our readers and customers the very best, and we look forward to seeing you again in the New Year.

In the meantime, in the spirit of Because It's Friday, I leave you with the crew of the British Navy ship HMS Ocean. The crew deployed in April for a seven-week training exercise, but has since been diverted to Libya. When they learned they'd be home for Christmas, they put together the video below. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

 

Because it's Friday: Robot Spider

This robot has six radially-symmetric four-jointed wheel-tipped legs, but no top or bottom. It can also pick up object, climb fences, slink under low gaps ... and is close to being able to do cartwheels:

 

The researcher/creators at Osaka say it could be used for rescue work or building maintenance. I think it'd make a fun toy to play with ... if they can figure out the power supply issues so it doesn't have to be tethered.

 

Because it's Friday: Gallium

I'd never really come across the element gallium before seeing the video below (except as a doping agent in superconductors). Apparently it's pretty neat stuff: kinda like mercury, except solid at room temperature but melts in warm water. And if you introduce it to other metals, like aluminium, it flows right through them, creating an alloy and weakening the structure:

 

Kinda cool.

The internet is the intersection of everything

Two of my passions combine in one tumblr: Biostatistics Ryan Gosling. (via)

Because it's Friday: Surreptitious CGI

I'm a sucker for schlocky sci-fi movies with lots of special effects and CGI (computer-generated imagery). But I didn't realize until seeing this just how many "ordinary" movies and TV shows employ CGI effects:

Even if you're not making a "special-effects" movie, it's apparently a lot cheaper to set up a green-screen and composite in a shot of Paris than it is to go on location. I also learned from this Quora discussion (with contributions from seveal film-industry experts) that most shots of ocean these days are computer-generated: it's easier to simulate the surface and waves than it is to deal with weather, camera movement, etc.

Quora: What are things in movies you don't expect to be CGI, but that typically are? (via Jeremy Howard)