Category Archives: SciFi

I’ve started experimenting with computer animation

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That’s right.  This former model builder and stop motion animator is embracing the evil, evil world of CGI.

Way back in the before time when I was a kid, my first step into narrative film-making was stop motion animation.  I was a model builder and it was a natural step.  It was also the only way for me to create the SciFi worlds I saw in my young head.  Since then as technology advanced I always wanted to try computer animation.  In fact, when I bought my first non-linear editing system, it was a toss up between that and a Kinetix 3Dmax system.  I went the editing route and I have the heavy iron D/Vision workstation holding my door open to prove it!  Cut to today:

Right now I’m experimenting with DAZ studio which is free software for the new CGI/Illustration market.  (Go check out anything traditionally illustrated with paintings like romance novel covers and chances are you will see a CGI image created with DAZ models.)  DAZ also has a marketplace where you can buy reasonably priced CGI characters, clothes, environments, and yes, spaceships!  Right now I’m at the basic learning stage.  I have goals like: “Can I make a character stand in a room, set a camera, and render it properly?”  Well, what do you think?  (click to embiggen)

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Space: 1999 original 44 inch Eagle One special effects model!

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Check out this video of the original Space: 1999 Eagle One 44 inch special effects model as it appears today!  See the inner workings including the crude pilots in the cockpit and how the rocket engines shoot out compressed air!  Fabulous!

…The Original 44 inch Eagle One special effects model, from the 1970s Gerry Anderson television series Space: 1999. The only large model available at the start of filming (it was later joined by two other similar models at that size) it featured heavily in most episodes – and was crashed many times. Now 35 years old, it has been damaged and painted several times over the years but was given a major refurbishment in 2002 to return it to it’s studio appearance and more importantly to prevent it falling apart. It should now easily last for another 35+!

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Steam Powered Giraffe is a music group not a robot giraffe

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We saw Steam Powered Giraffe at the Steampunk World’s Fair last weekend.  Well sort of…  It was really crowded in the tent where they were performing and we were stuck outside, but we stayed for a few songs.  We saw a couple of good musical groups (and a few not so good) but these guys were the most “steampunky.”

We weren’t sure what this act was until we saw them.  I thought maybe it was a big robot giraffe.  There WAS a big robot there but it wasn’t a giraffe.  Actually it wasn’t even a robot, just a statue of a robot, but it was cool.  Most of the fair was like that, wandering around wondering what was going on.

Amazing old school special effects from Space: 1999

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Brian Johnson is a well known special effects genius who worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Space: 1999, and The Empire Strikes Back. He is not a good TV host. In spite of his dry delivery this documentary ends up being a treasure anyway. It’s a behind the scenes look at how they created the Eagle model shots in Space: 1999. All the composting was done in camera – no blue screen, no optical printers. The SPFX shots were one strip of film directly from the camera.

My first glimpse of Star Wars was through Ralph McQuarrie’s eyes

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Below is a full page Log Entry from Starlog magazine, issue number six. My dad picked it up for me at the airport as he was coming home from a business trip. As I flipped through the pages I slowly realized that I enjoyed almost all the articles. Up to that point I knew I liked Star Trek re-runs on TV but I liked a lot of other unrelated things too. I didn’t understand the concept of a genre until I saw all these wonderful articles grouped together in one magazine. I decided I liked Science Fiction. It was a revelation that shaped the direction of my life.

The Star Wars preview from page nine was my first glimpse of the SciFi explosion that was to come in just a few short weeks. The blurb itself was forgettable (and as it turns out, highly inaccurate.) What dominated the page were two paintings. The scenes were so far out that they really didn’t register with me at first. Surely these were just paintings and the movie won’t look like this… right?

Younglings reading this won’t understand but before Star Wars, nothing like it existed. It was so far beyond what anyone had seen before. The commercials on TV left you stunned. The movie played in the theater for 25 weeks even in the small town I grew up in. That’s half a year. Some people went to the theater to see it 20 and 30 times.

Star Wars not only changed the course of cinema, it changed my life. It solidified my love of Science Fiction and eventually convinced me that I wanted to dedicate my life to making movies. I’ve been doing it ever since. And it all started with this one page in a magazine dominated by these two magnificent paintings.

Thank you Ralph McQuarrie. You changed my life.

The Mercury Men… finally!

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Big, big news today.  The Mercury Men is a highly anticipated, independently created, dramatic sci-fi online video series.  There’s been buzz about it literally for years and now, finally, it’s about to be released to the public.  It will be shown for free “soon” on Syfy’s website.  Check out the trailer:

Here’s the official announcement on the Mercury Men blog.  Congratulations to Chris Preksta and everyone else who obviously worked very hard to make all this happen.  I can’t wait to see the show!

Leo Laporte Jayne Hat 2.0 unboxing on TWiT live

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Here’s the letter CAT wrote to Leo:

Hi Leo!

Two years ago, (almost exactly) I had the idea to make you a Jayne Hat so that you would have something to wear during your new venture on TWITlive.  When you received the hat, I was so excited to see that you really appreciated it.

Over the years, fans of both TWIT and LetsKnit2gether would send me pictures of you, your daughter and others wearing your hat as part of a “Jayne Hat sightings” picture collection.

Recently, someone sent me a picture and pointed me to a video of Colleen happily wearing the Jayne Hat as she was leaving the TWIT cottage for her new adventure at Google. Now, although I am thrilled that amongst all the hats that you have in your collection, she chose the Jayne Hat to grace the halls of Google, I couldn’t leave you without one.

So, here is Jayne Hat #2.  Wear it well and remember, “A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he’s not afraid of anything”.

Thanks for all your support,

CAT
LetsKnit2gether.com