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Month: July 2020

AI Enhanced Moon Landing

AI Enhanced Moon Landing

Historic footage from the Apollo Moon landings is not so great. The footage is often grainy, blurry, and in some cases (to conserve film) only 24, 12, 6, or even 1 frame per second.

A photo and film restoration specialist, who goes by the name of DutchSteamMachine, has worked some AI magic to enhance original Apollo film, creating strikingly clear and vivid video clips and images. Read more about the technique here.

Apollo 15’s landing site at Hadley Rille in 60 fps (originally 12 fps)

Apollo 11 First Steps on the moon in 24fps, originally filmed in 12fps.

Mandalorian filming

Mandalorian filming

Watch this great video on how the Unreal game engine and a nearly 360 degree LED stage/video wall has transformed how special effects are done for films like The Mandalorian. It’s a complete game changer because it solves almost all the problems relating to green screens and digital effects.

Update: I recently listened to a talk at PAX 2021 that included A J Wedding from Orbital Virtual Studios that worked with Robert Rodriguez on the LED studio setup.

American Animals

American Animals

I think they wanted things to come easy for them. They didn’t want to work for a transformative experience. They didn’t want to help other people achieve a transformative experience. I find them all very selfish.

I still have trouble figuring out how a person crosses a line in their own mind, to be willing to hurt another person to get what they want. I think once you’ve crossed that line, I think it’s a dangerous line to cross.

It makes me wonder if they really know why they did it.

-Betty Jean Gouch

American Animals is a 2018 movie based on the true story of four young men who attempt to execute an audacious (and ill executed) art heist by stealing 2 rare Audubon books from a nearby library’s special collections. Struggling to find meaning in their dull lives, they formulate a daring plan for the robbery only to watch their mistakes and reality catch up with them.

The quote comes one of the real life office workers who encountered them when they tried to steal the books. Of all the characters, I think she grasps the humanity of the situation the best.

Mother 2 interview with Shigesato Itoi

Mother 2 interview with Shigesato Itoi

GameCenter CX is a Japanese show with comedian Shinya Arino (one half of the comedy duo Yoiko) who plays home console video games from previous decades and usually attempts to get the game’s ending within a single day. The show has been on-air since 2003 and has gone for over 15 seasons and hundreds of episodes. You can watch re-runs on Twitch.

When Arino played through Shigesato Itoi’s game Mother 2 (released in North America as EarthBound), Itoi came to visit Arino Kacho while he made his way through the game. They talked about their memories of the game on the 30th anniversary of the original Mother title.

Read the transcripts of their discussion here:
https://www.1101.com/gccxmother/en/

Fractal moving art

Fractal moving art

Pouff creates moving images using fractal math, and makes their own music to go with. Their YouTube channel is loaded with colorful and hypnotic visuals, like this clip of intricate, organic looking structures, accented by brilliant backlighting.