Scale

There is a wonderful and infinitely thrilling sense of vertigo that goes along with science. The mind boggling numbers, the impossible to comprehend tracks of space not only in the macro universe but also the micro is amazing. It scares the shit out of a lot of people who's reaction is to feel insignificant or immaterial. They seem to feel the vastness of space only serves to make them smaller. In the words of Richard Dawkins, "some people find this thought disturbing, I find the reality thrilling."

There was a wonderful exhibit at the natural history museum in Boston. Though it might have been the science museum, in fact it probably was. The exhibit consisted of a big room. In the center of the room was a giant globe, at least two stories high, ringed by a walk way. Set on displays along the walk way were plagues and objects, from the size of a grain of sand up through a beach ball. Each plaque read with a note on the comparative size of the object to the giant sphere if the object where A and the sphere B. For instance a pingpong ball might be labeled "if the sphere is jupiter this is the earth." From the macro to the micro, comparing the ball to a microbe and the sphere to a drop of water and such. I remember this being the most delightful exhibit in the museum as it allowed the mind to venture into that terrifying and thrilling realm of imaginary SCALE!

More thrilling even than the vastness of space or the constant interchange of atoms, I think, is the capacity for the human mind to comprehend and hold even a fraction of the information, or to infer, from almost nothing, things we can not even see! The capacity for the human mind to expostulate and imagine and THINK.

Anyway but...

Just watched UP, thank you Chris and Lindsey. I was genuinely surprised and pleased. It is nice to see Pixar going through it's growing stages.

Toy Story 3 though... why people!? Why!?

Potter Picture

In the appendices of his autobiography, Something Like an Autobiography Kurosawa Akira wrote concerning film lighting, "I think for example that the current method of lighting for color film is wrong. In order to bring out the colors, the entire frame is flooded with light. I always say the lighting should be treated as it is for black-and-white film, whether the colors are strong or not, so that the shadows come out right." I agree with him.

Cinematography goes through trends like any other artistic medium. We went through a terrible "blue phase" and a "slow motion action phase" (To be fair I do not believe that Picasso ever had a SMA phase in his work, oh well, art history's loss I suppose) And we are now only just struggling to free ourselves of the horrible "well they did it in LOTR so can we phase".

We seem to be finally coming to terms with SFx and CGI. And it seems that the most successful application of CGI is not by making the Fx more lifelike but making the film more picturelike.

I just finished watching the latest Harry Potter film. Now, say what you like about Harry Potter and the Harry Potter films (I myself only like the franchise passingly, sleep with a man who finds the concept of the films offensive and live with a woman who refuses even to read the fifth book) but one must admit that, while the scripts become briefer and briefer, and the characters less and less developed the cinematography for the last few films has been expetional.

Mr. Yates and his crew seem to take the black and white approach to lighting. Unlike many films that attempt to film a reality this film seemed to ackowledge that the difference between film and real life is that in film you can see the world however you like. You can change the colour and the mood with lighting, it is a medium to create a picture and a mood, not a documentary. And one of the things you can do is, by framing, lighting and choice of colour or lack there of create a piece of art that is beautiful in itself.

The SFx phase we're going through means that more and more film is being shot with half sets or on green screen. This craft has never really been perfected but it seems now that instead of attempting to hid it filmmakers are ackowledging it's presence in their picture by effecting the film just a little to make it seem more contiguous. This was ushered in by LOTR I believe.

This is not a negative thing, so long as the filmmaker is aware of it and makes sure the effect is consistant throughout the film even when the Fx shots are not there.

The result of proper application and an artistic eye is almost davinciesque (not a bunch of effeminate men with disturbingly curly hair) in its use of chiaroscuro. It's artisticly refreshing.

Unrolling

Evolution, from the Latin for the unrolling of a book.

How wonderfully elegant!

As you grow up there are fewer and fewer instances of that wonderful little expansive feeling when you realized the etymology of a word.

The more you know the bigger the world is!

It nice to know that feeling doesn't go away.

Potato

Human being do not like pointlessness. We hate it. There must be a certain amount of satisfaction in working as a farmer. Every year your work, mindless, and grueling though it may be, produces. You have a potato, and that potato can feed somebody, or become another potato.

I see art like this. I may not produce food but I produce something new, something that wasn't there before. I produce ideas and concepts, I am a vessel for the dissemination of culture. Culture is a potato. Likewise as an academic I learn, not only because I want to, but simply to know because someone should know! Knowledge is a potato. A potato that can feed someone or become another potato (metaphorically of course). One idea inspires many others! That's what academic discussion is for.

Even on the very edge of "worth it", the fringe of commercialism, working for a salary produces potatoes. I work and I am given potatoes to eat, or place holders which represent potatoes that I can exchange for real potatoes. And the work itself, if it is productive, creates a sort of potato. When I make a latte, even though that latte is simply a luxury, nothing important, I have created a latte. It was nothing but component parts before I made it, perhaps the person who ordered it could not make one for themselves. I have given them a potato.

This is worth it.

When I am confronted with the abstract I become disheartened. We live in a world that is frequently devoid of potatoes. If I write a paper that I learn from, even if it is a bad paper I have gained a potato. If I write a paper that I do not learn from but teaches another person I have given them a potato. If, however, I have to write a paper that does not educate me or anyone else there are no potatoes, only a piece of paper, and you can not "eat" paper. An entire subset of our world runs on this paper. An entire population starved and potatoless, simply passing around pieces of paper, taxes, reports, burocracy. Things that are necessary only because we have created a completely artificial environment for them to mater in.

Yes, I must do my homework because I will get a grade. But that grade is paper. If I do not learn anything I have not gained anything really. There is no potato.

I don't know about you but I like potatoes.

. . .

The last week of school, two MAJOR projects due that I have hardly even started in on, (I haven't started one at all) and I have an inexplicable desire to watch The Seven Samurai.

. . . The Hell!?

Maru!

BEST CAT VIDEO E-V-E-R!

You have to watch it all the way through.