Binary Bonsai

Californium Neutron Flux Multiplier

Michael Heilemann — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:32:50 +0000

It's a thing. Kodak used it for their secret nuclear reactor. No, seriously.

(via Kottke)

"There's something alive down there!"

Michael Heilemann — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:35:29 +0000

"Something not us."

Into the Dark Woods

Michael Heilemann — Tue, 08 May 2012 00:51:26 +0000

With Angelo Badalamenti channelling David Lynch.

2012, Ladies and Gentlemen

Michael Heilemann — Mon, 07 May 2012 23:49:16 +0000

Tekeli-li

Michael Heilemann — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:50:13 +0000

Judging from what he knows about Prometheus's story, Del Toro doubts that his adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness will get off the ground any time soon, which sucks for him seeing as how he's been trying for a very, very long time. But, having read the screenplay, I'm personally relieved. Not because I don't want to see this particular story made into a film, I think it would be a marvelous film in fact, but because the story in the screenplay had nothing to do with At The Mountains of Madness.

That's one for The Hobbit and one for At the Mountains of Madness. Someone up there likes me... or... is indifferent about me, as the case might be...

"I'm in the 'Avatar' Business"

Michael Heilemann — Sun, 06 May 2012 18:09:05 +0000

James Cameron goes George Lucas:

I’ve divided my time over the last 16 years over deep ocean exploration and filmmaking. I’ve made two movies in 16 years, and I’ve done eight expeditions. Last year I basically completely disbanded my production company’s development arm. So I’m not interested in developing anything. I’m in the “Avatar” business. Period. That’s it. I’m making “Avatar 2,” “Avatar 3,” maybe “Avatar 4,” and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them. I’m not interested in taking scripts. And that all sounds I suppose a little bit restricted, but the point is I think within the “Avatar” landscape I can say everything I need to say that I think needs to be said, in terms of the state of the world and what I think we need to be doing about it.

Say what you will about Avatar, I re-watched it recently and found it less boring than I remembered it, though it could still do with a kick in the story department, but for a movie which takes place almost entirely outside, in jungles, in mountains, in water, this bit is pretty incredible:

There were zero… I can’t say zero exteriors. We did one night in the parking lot next to the sound stage. But there were no locations.

May the Fourth

Michael Heilemann — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:37:20 +0000

This is one of my favorite McQuarrie paintings, one I recently bought a glorious print of from Dreams and Vision Press. Not the Cloud City since introduced in Empire, it's depicting the floating Imperial Prison on Alderaan from one of the earlier drafts of Star Wars, modelled on the side of an aircraft carrier, with a few exotic buildings topping it off. Worth noticing of course are the five Colin Cantwell prototype tie fighters, and the then Millenium Falcon (known as the Pirate Ship in the scripts) getting ready to dock.

May the fourth be with you.

Great iOS Cursor Movement Prototype

Michael Heilemann — Fri, 04 May 2012 00:08:40 +0000

Do want.

Drew Struzan

Michael Heilemann — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:14:33 +0000

While the Hollywood marketing departments have committed creative suicide long ago, and are now being run seemingly by a batch of monkeys — admittedly relatively well-trained, but monkeys nonetheless — there was a time when artists like Drew Struzan helped shape the magic of cinema from well before the audience saw the first frame of the film. He is arguably the greatest poster artist to have worked in Hollywood, and his style is indelibly linked with many of the great movies of past decades, in the minds of the film fans who've grown up in his epoc.

Well, there's a documentary in the works, and while it's almost done, it's run out of money, and needs your help to crawl the last couple of feet across the finish line.

Far Away

Michael Heilemann — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:23:34 +0000

I'm tripping on Red Dead Redemption (and spaghetti westerns in general) these days, as well as its amazing soundtrack, and I came across this live rendition of Jose Gonzales's Far Away, recorded on a rooftop a few blocks from the Squarespace Office.

Great song, amazing game

Portal's Community Level Builder

Michael Heilemann — Wed, 02 May 2012 03:30:57 +0000

Absolutely amazing. Having been a level designer for over a decade, I can't stress how impressed I am with this. Granted, they can do this because the environments of Portal supports it, but that's part of the brilliance, isn't it?

Monco

Michael Heilemann — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:51:36 +0000

Geek

Michael Heilemann — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:58:40 +0000

Being a geek is all about your own personal level of enthusiasm, not how your level of enthusiasm measures up to others. If you like something so much that a casual mention of it makes your whole being light up like a halogen lamp, if hearing a stranger fondly mention your favorite book or game is instant grounds for friendship, if you have ever found yourself bouncing out of your chair because something you learned blew your mind so hard that you physically could not contain yourself — you are a geek

More Al

Michael Heilemann — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:42:34 +0000

Al Williamson's Flash

Michael Heilemann — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:30:27 +0000

Orson Welles on Repetition

Michael Heilemann — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:14:20 +0000

Q: A critic who admires your work very much said that, in The Trial, you were repeating yourself…
Welles: Exactly, I repeated myself. I believe we do it all the time. We always take up certain elements again. How can it be avoided? An actor’s voice always has the same timbre and, consequently, he repeats himself. It is the same for a singer, a painter…There are always certain things that come back, for they are part of one’s personality, of one’s style. If these things didn’t come into play, a personality would be so complex that it would become impossible to identify it.

Fincher on Taking Responsibility

Michael Heilemann — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:03:53 +0000

“What you learn from that first [film] - and I don’t call it ‘trial by fire’; I call it ‘baptism by fire’ - is that you are going to have to take all of the responsibility, because basically when it gets right down to it, you are going to get all of the blame, so you might as well have made all of the decisions that led to people either liking it or disliking it. There’s nothing worse than hearing somebody say, ‘Oh, you made that movie? I thought that movie sucked,’ and you have to agree with them, you know?”

...and five more thoughts on filmmaking from David Fincher.

Valve's New Employee Handbook

Michael Heilemann — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 21:06:50 +0000

You'll want to read this.

I have so much love for Valve, I don't know where to put it all anymore. Aside from consistently putting out games that are genuinely innovative and fantastic, to see that they're actually run like this just makes me want to give them a huge hug.

I know a certain game company that I may or may not have worked at, which could do with a quick perusing of this book, and perhaps a few minutes contemplation on whether their practices might need some revisiting.

The Complete Star Wars Storyboards

Michael Heilemann — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:26:29 +0000

Click for high-res version.

It frustrates me to no end that whenever I go hunting for Star Wars storyboards on Google Images (I do this more often than you'd think), I usually end up with links to a Flickr set which has long since been taken down. My own Flickr set that is. Long story short, Lucasfilm asked Flickr to take it down, they did so promptly, without asking, or indeed saving any of the images on there (including some images that Lucasfilm had no rights over, though that didn't stop Flickr), and I largely stopped using Flickr that very day.

All bitterness about Flickr aside, I love the old storyboards, and it looks like Lucasfilm is getting ready to put something along the lines of The Complete Star Wars Storyboards into production, which with the quality level of their recent making-of books, would be a fantastic addition to any collection

Part of another book TBA, in embryonic form. twitter.com/jwrinzler/stat…
— J. W. Rinzler (@jwrinzler) April 12, 2012

Instagram as an island economy

Michael Heilemann — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:57:50 +0000

There are some people who only produce comments or "likes," the virtual society equivalent of apes picking lice off other apes.

Don't know if it's true, but it's funny.