IMAX in a Basement

Five years ago today, something incredible happened, but not many people noticed. Humanity landed a spacecraft on the surface of an alien moon after a seven-year journey. There was not a live human being on the spacecraft in literal sense, so the world and media turned mostly a blind eye.

But that’s a narrow way to look at it. The Huygens lander was hand built, carried by the hand built Cassini spacecraft – a labor of incredible dedication by scientist, engineers, technicians and more that devoted a huge chunk of their lives to send it.

And it took incredible photographs as well as recording audio as it descended. We made it, flew it there and have the pictures to prove it. It changed my life – “Outside In” is the direct result of the Cassini-Huygens mission and my mission to put the incredible exploration of our universe in the context so that we will one day understand what a huge event took place five years ago.

A quote from the man himself is appropriate today, for many reasons:

“How vast these Orbs must be, and how inconsiderable this Earth, the Theatre upon which all our mighty Designs, all our Navigations, and all our Wars are transacted, is when compared to them. A very fit consideration, and matter of Reflection, for those Kings and Princes who sacrifice the Lives of so many People, only to flatter their Ambition in being Masters of some pitiful corner of this small Spot.”

-Christiaan Huygens, “New Conjectures Concerning the Planetary Worlds, Their Inhabitants and Productions, c. 1690.

More from JPL on the anniversay…

UPDATE – just to clarify, the Saturn and Earth Images are temp,  just slapped them on for reference. Final layouts coming.

It’s been quiet on the blog but I’m in the midst of redoing everything – website, computer infrastructure, fundraising plans… in prep for the big push to get the film done.

Click here for the first draft of the logo but it basically clashes with the imagery from the film. Below is v2 with Earth and Saturn friendly colors with some actual images for comparison.

copyright & trademark SV2 Studios

For your holiday pleasure, here’s a brand spanking new shot – raw, unprocessed, that Cassini took of the intriguing moon of Enceladus and its icy jets of mystery… (Pic link fixed)

Just awesome… click on image for more details.

Sunlight Glint from lake on Titan

Advance heads-up: Thanks to a tip from Mike Malaska, “Outside In” is aiming to get a table at Astronomy Days at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, January 30th and 31st. I will be showing some never-before seen stuff from the film (that will likely never be posted online) as well as tips on how to animate your own astro images.

Mark your calendars – more info here. More details soon.

I saw some comments on the crew of Storm Chasers shooting footage for the new IMAX flick “Tornado Alley” of which I saw some teaser footage at the GSCA conference. People can’t wait to see the “IMAX video” they are shooting.

Which brings up an interesting point -- we are now in the midst of a new generation who has no idea what “film” is -- never seen film, never touched it and have no idea of what “film” is. It might as well be a steam powered car.

The digital revolution has exploded all over the world in pretty much every arena. IMAX is notable exception. IMAX is actually a just a company -- what we are really talking about here is often called “Giant Screen Cinema” or more precisely, “15/70mm film“.

Currently, there is not digital technology that can capture and project anywhere near the clarity, color and brightness of 15/70mm film on the huge screens found in real IMAX theaters. I have to say “real” as IMAX created a marketing/brand problem by rolling out digital solution that they simply call “IMAX” but in fact is only found in multiplex theater complexes and only works on screens much, much smaller than “real” IMAX theaters.

What exactly is 15/70mm?

It’s 70mm film -- that’s already twice as wide as the 35mm film that your typical Hollywood film uses.  It’s turned sideways so you can get a much larger image -- about 11 times larger, than 35mm. And 35mm is much higher resolution than most video cameras. The “15″ part of “15/70mm” refers to the 15 “perfs” or squarish holes along the side of the film. 15 of these keep the film very stable and still in the camera and projector.

Of course, it gets much more technical and involved than that -- but the bottom line is, IMAX = film, not video and probably for some years to come. There are companies working on higher resolution cameras and projectors but in the near future, there is nothing digital that approaches what 15/70mm cameras, film or projectors can do.

Of course, there is a catch and it’s as big as the advantages -- it’s crazy expensive, the camera, projectors are enormous, loud and power hungry and post production is daunting. But the experience of watching IMAX is more than worth it.

“2001: A Space Odyssey” was the key film in my life. Watching it on a 9″ monitor in a public library in 1985 – I realized then I wanted to become a filmmaker. “Outside In” is also dedicated to Stanley Kubrick – who very much influenced me as a filmmaker and this film as well.

So, when I saw this, I was quite happy. Get yours now.