Slashdot Mirror
Upcoming Film Based On Arthur C. Clarke Story
SoyChemist writes "The Wired Science blog has production stills and a story about a side project that several Industrial Light and Magic employees have been working on. They are producing the short story Maelstrom II as an independent film. The entire thing was shot in front of a bluescreen, so all of the sets and props will be CGI. The lone actor, Chuck Marra, plays a guy that hitches a ride on an electromagnetically launched freight capsule from the moon to earth. When the nuclear reactor that powers the catapult fails, he is thrown into space, but not far enough to escape lunar gravity — leading to an Apollo 13 style rescue mission. The original story was written by Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey."
I think we all know who Arthur C. Clarke. is.
Inhale.
... better. Intentional at least. The regular kind of sad teen suicide.
Take in as much air as you can. This story should last about as long as you can hold your breath, and then just a little bit longer. So listen as fast as you can.
A friend of mine, when he was 13 years old he heard about "pegging." This is when a guy gets banged up the butt with a dildo. Stimulate the prostate gland hard enough, and the rumor is you can have explosive hands-free orgasms. At that age, this friend's a little sex maniac. He's always jonesing for a better way to get his rocks off. He goes out to buy a carrot and some petroleum jelly. To conduct a little private research. Then he pictures how it's going to look at the supermarket checkout counter, the lonely carrot and petroleum jelly rolling down the conveyer belt toward the grocery store cashier. All the shoppers waiting in line, watching. Everyone seeing the big evening he has planned.
So my friend, he buys milk and eggs and sugar and a carrot, all the ingredients for a carrot cake. And Vaseline.
Like he's going home to stick a carrot cake up his butt.
At home, he whittles the carrot into a blunt tool. He slathers it with grease and grinds his ass down on it. Then, nothing. No orgasm. Nothing happens except it hurts.
Then, this kid, his mom yells it's supper time. She says to come down, right now.
He works the carrot out and stashes the slippery, filthy thing in the dirty clothes under his bed.
After dinner, he goes to find the carrot, and it's gone. All his dirty clothes, while he ate dinner, his mom grabbed them all to do laundry. No way could she not find the carrot, carefully shaped with a paring knife from her kitchen, still shiny with lube and stinky.
This friend of mine, he waits months under a black cloud, waiting for his folks to confront him. And they never do. Ever. Even now that he's grown up, that invisible carrot hangs over every Christmas dinner, every birthday party. Every Easter egg hunt with his kids, his parents' grandkids, that ghost carrot is hovering over all of them. That something too awful to name.
People in France have a phrase: "staircase wit." In French: esprit de l'escalier. It means that moment when you find the answer, but it's too late. Say you're at a party and someone insults you. You have to say something. So under pressure, with everybody watching, you say something lame. But the moment you leave the party....
As you start down the stairway, then-magic. You come up with the perfect thing you should've said. The perfect crippling put-down.
That's the spirit of the stairway.
The trouble is, even the French don't have a phrase for the stupid things you actually do say under pressure. Those stupid, desperate things you actually think or do.
Some deeds are too low to even get a name. Too low to even get talked about.
Looking back, kid-psych experts, school counselors now say that most of the last peak in teen suicide was kids trying to choke while they beat off. Their folks would find them, a towel twisted around their kid's neck, the towel tied to the rod in their bedroom closet, the kid dead. Dead sperm everywhere. Of course the folks cleaned up. They put some pants on their kid. They made it look
Another friend of mine, a kid from school, his older brother in the Navy said how guys in the Middle East jack off different than we do here. This brother was stationed in some camel country where the public market sells what could be fancy letter openers. Each fancy tool is just a thin rod of polished brass or silver, maybe as long as your hand, with a big tip at one end, either a big metal ball or the kind of fancy carved handle you'd see on a sword. This Navy brother says how Arab guys get their dick hard and then insert this metal rod inside the whole length of their boner. They jack off with the rod inside, and it makes getting off so much better. More intense.
It's this big brother who travels around the world,
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
globaltics.net
I love independent films and I've got high hopes for this--if anyone could do up an amazing indie film, it'd be ILM. More importantly, I hope this opens up the door a little more for indie films to debut in regular theatres but unfortunately, I'd have to travel pretty far to find a theatre playing something like this and I live in D.C.!
That said, he is a great author though from what I've read about him as a man, he is rumoured to be a bit pompous--but you know, he is credited with being the first to conceive a geostationary communications satellite so maybe he deserves to have a movie made for him and his ego stroked a little?
My work here is dung.
"Film" eh? I'll just ask you what other movie you recently saw that was filmed entirely in front of a blue screen and features minimal human acting, and you'll get the point.
Of course, because you're a nerd, you're going to hate it, and you know already you're going to hate it, but you're going to shell out your rent money to see it anyway. Make a night of it. Bring your girlfoh who am I kidding here.
---don't make me break out my red pen.
I didn't know Arthur C Clark was catapulted into space. I'm looking forward to seeing the story of his life...
The original story was written by Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Oh, that Arthur C. Clarke.
sic transit gloria mundi
I'm still waiting for Rendezvous with Rama to come out. They used to have some info up at the domain name, which is registered by Revelations Entertainment and was supposed to be sponsored by Intel. If the IMDB page is accurate, this might be coming out in a few years... but it's been simmering for about a decade so who knows how accurate that is.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Does anyone else see this as a lose-lose for these budding filmmakers? If the project is a success, ILM will own any distribution rights to it, since it was made with company resources. Meanwhile, these guys spent undoubtedly countless nights and weekends working on it, without pay. What will they have to show for it but a spot in the credits?
Downgoing Film Based on Arthur C. Clarke Story
The entire thing was shot in front of a bluescreen
As if I really care which OS they used...
oh, wait...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I thought the original idea for 2001 was the short story _The Sentinel_.
Sounds like a great deal. Having something good to add to your portfolio increases your chances at a better job in the future.
I've turned lots of crappy jobs on my resume into stepping stones to a better position.
There was no rescue for Apollo 13. They had to figure out how to get home safely just by following the directions of the crew on the ground. Thank goodness, they had Tom Hanks. :-p
The words entire thing was shot in front of a bluescreen don't exactly fill me with confidence these days. In fact I'd say that the record for such movies is poor, only Sin City really having managed to avoid being bland and dull. Dear filmmakers: yes CGI can save you money, and show you new interesting visions, but you STILL HAVE TO WORK ON THE BASICS like making convincing characters and interactions between them ... and actors find it hard to produce that if you make them work in front of a bluescreen.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
How about a show about a rat chef? Not much human acting there, and its raking in the cash.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I may be wrong, but I think there aren't many places cooler than ILM to work for.
It is also quite impressive that _all_ the props will be CGI. It must have been incredibly painful to sync them with a live actor.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
As long as they refrained from making any sequels. I found "Rendezvous with Rama" to be one of the most compelling science fiction stories ever. It was well written and had interesting characters you could empathize with and root for. It also had a great plot with realistic and entertaining challenges for the characters to overcome. The sequels were a huge letdown. Instead of being about exploring this mysterious alien craft and protecting it from hasty actions by planetary governments, the second book is more of a soap opera with the human characters fighting petty squabbles and acting in ways that strain credibility.
As Gwyneth Paltrow said while working on Sky Captain, an all blue screen job, "I get to go home at night and sleep in my own bed." This after filming the scene where they're in a blizzard on a mountain at night. The mountain is CG, the blizzard is CG, and the weather is LA. Beats having to go on location to Outer Nowhere.
Norris? I thought I saw his name. Wrong Chuck.
In space, Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. He moves solar winds and kicks asteroids.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
how much dialoge can you have in a movie with only one actor?
not much.
can too
can not
can too
can not
can
can't
can
can't
With modern (hyper)sensitivities, ecologists will likely decry the damage to the lunar landscape.
I hope it's better than 2001: A Space Travesty
I sold the domain rendezvouswithrama.com 7 years ago to a production company that involved Morgan Freeman partnering with Intel to create a movie version of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama ... nothing's ever come of it.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I hope it does well. Sir Arthur C Clarke and many other writers have tons of excellent short stories. The "Wind from the Sun", "The Sentinel", "The Nine billion names of God", "A Meeting with Medusa" to name a few from Clarke. It would be really neat to see some of these turned into short movies.
YT
I'm really looking forward to this; finally the talent and resources of someone like ILM can be used independently of the dumbed-down, over-hyped and commercialized Hollywood establishment. And don't worry about waiting for your local consolidated theater chain to decide to show it to you, just wait for the DVD. Then you can see it when and where you want, without paying for parking or $5 popcorn, with no cell phones or noisy patrons making loud or stupid remarks, and you won't have to pay $10 to watch 25 minutes of commercials and "approved" previews before the movie begins on their schedule. The "big screen" is hardly worth it anymore.
btw, the garden scenes in Casshern were a joy to my eyes.
I speak England very best
All of them had some props. If I got the pictures right, this one has no prop whatsoever - even the spacesuit or the ladder the actor pretends to climb do not exist, not even as a blue-screen prop.
This _is_ painful.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Just FYI. So, yeah, big surprise he's a liberal.
For a forum with "It's funny laugh" headlines and "funny" moderations, we should expect a fair number of jokes (hopefully in good taste).
Those who can't stand them can go look elsewhere.
(although we do seem to be off topic now... hmmm... )
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
My objection goes to your 'painful'. That's all.
I speak England very best