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Designing the Computer UIs In Movies

Posted by kdawson on from the film-over dept.

xandroid points out an NPR interview with Mark Coleran, who "...designs the fancy-but-fake graphics that flash across computers in the movies. He has worked on a laundry list of blockbusters: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Ultimatum, Children of Men, Mission Impossible III, and many more. He says a lot of the inspiration for computer screens comes from video games." The main point of these fake movie UIs is different than that of real UIs: to tell a story very quickly, not to reveal and enable function.

7 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. Re:so hes the guy to blame by negRo_slim · · Score: 4, Informative

    Last I heard (back when TechTV was still going) the majority of the UIs are done with Stardock.

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    On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
  2. Stardock Systems in the 90s had stuff used for thi by Locutus · · Score: 3, Informative

    In the 90s, with the OO( Object Oriented ) Workplace Shell on OS/2, a company called Stardock Systems came up with a great desktop enhancing package( Object Desktop ) which I'd heard was also being used to build screens for the film industry. It really made an OS/2 desktop pop and back then, only the NextStep UI can close to the default WPS. I don't think anything came close to what Stardock did with the WPS using their desktop extension Object Desktop.

    The article could have went into what they use and what they've used. It was pretty shallow without that info IMO.

    LoB

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    "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
  3. Re:Jurassic xterms by Thelasko · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's a UNIX system! I know this!

    That system used in Jurassic Park actually exists. It's called fsn and it has an open source alternative called tdfsb.

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    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  4. Re:It's as simple as Ninnle! by Soul-Burn666 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, the 3D GUI in Jurassic Park did exist.
    Although the official page is already down, you can check the internet archive version here. (Also seems down at the moment, quite sad though).
    It was an experimental file system navigator called FSN, written by Silicon Graphics. Who else would try to push 3D even where it's not that useful?

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    ^_^
  5. Re:Clever girl by this+great+guy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Life isn't a soap opera. Life isn't a love story. Life isn't about looking like Brad Pitt. Life isn't an action movie. You aren't Vin Diesel.

    Hahaha... Yes I am.

    - Vin Diesel.

  6. Re:Clever girl by Thinboy00 · · Score: 3, Informative

    compositing

    IIRC compiz is older than Aero (i.e. Vista etc.).

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    $ make available
  7. Re:"Narrative Causality"... by Thinboy00 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Then why are there all those characters who smoke cigarettes and drink Coca Cola?

    Actually, that helps to fund the movie. Coke probably pays good money to keep the characters from drinking Pepsi instead.

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    $ make available