science

The Dreamtime

thought_arcade — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:23:24 +0000

Hi everyone! I jus thought I'd post this. It's a rough edit (lots of it is still incomplete) from my latest film "The Dreamtime".

It's like Souvenirs, only completely different :)

Again, I stress this is NOT finished, and as usual it looks WAY better in HD then compressed on the web. I was trying to make a kinda cerebral psych-thriller with elements of horror. I always wanted it to be more of a drama than a horror per se.

The score is not yet finished, as are the opening titles, credits, etc. I was plagued by problems on this shoot (it was shot in 2 days.... actually a day and a half because we lost half a day given the previous soundstage user left all their sets intact and I had to take them apart).

Enjoy!

Damian

Aftermath

EternalSkyChaz — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 18:59:47 +0000

I am pleased to announce that my science fiction short, Aftermath is
officially back in production.

In addition, Robert Shenise, winner of 12 Telly awards and a NYS Emmy,
will be coming on board as my DP. As a result, Aftermath will now be
shot with a SONY Varicam and edited in HD.

Shoot dates:

September 8th from 9:00 until 3:00 (lots of extras and crew needed
needed - free lunch, water, soda)
September 9th from 10:00 until 2:00 (principals, skeleton crew and
featured extras only - free barbecue, water, soda)

Rain out dates:

The next two "rolling" weekends.

Keep in mind that this is only the first half of the film. The last
half may be shot next year in the summer.

I still very much need two attractive, young couples, late teens to mid
20's. Would help if one of the males looked a little "extreme" -
tattoos, rough around the edges.

RSVP to chaz@eternalsky.us ASAP to get involved.

Thank Science!

FableForge — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 13:08:13 +0000

I just want to take a moment to speak of something not necessarily film-related for a break.

Its this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2114428,00.html

That, I think, its a milestone as important as the printing press, or the light bulb. That should be in the front page of TIME magazine, it should be a huge event in CNN... but I guess it doesnt make sense for mass media to invest in such long term proposals when Sanjaya pays off immediately.

But the time will come when it does. Basically, what that link says, is that Venter, the guy who already made history by decoding the human genome, (remember the race?) now has performed the world's first genome transplant... which resulted in changing a living organism from one species... to another.

Like all breakthroughs (think of the discovery of penicillin for instance) at first glance this doesnt seem so huge, specially considering the living organism mentioned above, was a bacteria. But its a breakthrough, make no mistake about it. Read further down the article to know why: this was one of the two obstacles in the road to essentially having god-like powers of creation, by which I mean, the ability to -design- life. To truly, "create". Not tweak, which is what the human race has been doing, for instance, with the dog species for 6000 years. But to actually create.

First you need the ability to implant a genome into a living being, and have that living being BE the species of whatever genome you implanted. Once you have that capability, you need to be able to design genomes, which is where Venter's previous work will come into play too. In 10 years or so, computers will aid in the design process, to the degree where scientists will be able to plan entirely new species from the ground up.. design them with features, like cars.. then implant them into living beings using the process pioneered just now.. and voila: man-made life. Man-designed-and-made life.

And what would man do with that kind of power? Well, some of us would misuse it in biological warfare; think of a virus designed to be immune to all known medicine, 100% fatal, airborne and hardy to the elements. That could wipe us out. But the other side of coin is as bright as this one is dark:

[quote=Venter]One of the goals we have is trying to see if we could design cells to manufacture new types of fuel to break our dependency on oil and coal and try to do something about carbon dioxide[/quote]

Isnt that an elegant solution to the world's problems? The second part about carbon dioxide solves Global Warming (and with it hurricanes, floods, climate change, many endangered species etc) AND the first part about new types of fuel solves the Energy Crisis (and with it much of the middle eastern conflict, the future russian-chinese-american race for oil, heck, even poverty in a big way and a bunch of other wars) in a single, fell, microscopic swoop. If Venter succeeds he'll be one of humanity's greatest heroes.

Anyway.. that was my rant this morning. I had free time :)

Back to filmstuffs :)