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Old School Sci-fi Short Starring Keir Dullea Utilizes Classic Effects
New submitter Wierzbowski85 (2852925) writes Indie Kickstarter-funded sci-fi short HENRi features classic visual effects and storytelling – with a twist. As detailed in Cinefex magazine (issue 134), the film itself utilizes a mixture of the old and the new — combining live-action sequences with puppetry, quarter-scale miniatures, and modern CGI. Speaking with Wired, the film's director said: "The goal was to seamlessly integrate these different techniques to create the world. My philosophy is that effects are merely a tool to help the story, and that in mind, we used pretty much every trick in the book." The film also stars genre legend Keir Dullea, of 2001: A Space Odyssey. In a making-of video for the film, Dullea says, "Having done 2001, [HENRi] was a wonderful homage to Stanley Kubrick and that film." The short is now available for free viewing online at Hulu.
> Sorry, currently our video library can only be watched from within the United States
It's nice that it's free and all, but it's unwatchable if you're not a resident of the finest country in the world.
Went to view the Hulu link and it tells me I'm not worthy because I'm not in the USA. That is just douche-baggery.
Shh.
I support any animated films, I refuse to watch any films with real humans in them. Hopefully they didn't overpay some douchebag from hollywood to do voices.
> Utilizes
Did you mean "uses"?
Why post it on Hulu, that's only available to a minority somewhere in North America.
Sorry, currently our video library can only be watched from within the United States
Well, f*ck you and your stupid short-film then!
Just 5 Minutes ago I deleted the open source Spring RTS and the shite they build. 3 different lobbys with 3 different technologies, none of which work or are documented, the one that works - a redo of a webbased lobby in QT called "Weblobby QT" (No joke, seriously ...), has no documentation whatsoever on getting it to work with an existing installation and the 90 seconds before the mono-based lobby crashed a 3rd time some guy told me, they'll redo the lobby for the Steam release. Jesus HB Crickey, if I wanted a steam game for which I have to hand in my name, credit card data, finger prints and my DNA, I'd certainly *not* do it for your shitty game. In fact, I did *not* buy the very neat Shadowrun Returns for linux precisely because it's only available on steam. ...
Just 5 minutes ago this Spring RTS crap! Planing to release on steam ... how about learning to programm first? ... Unbelievable. Now I come to /., click on the upper new story and now this.
Seriously, I'm sounding like a jerk right now, I know, but I get the impression that there are people doing open projects that have no business doing any such projects at all. What's the point in releasing your stuff for free (liberty) if you're relying on shitty flakey libraries and technologies (mono, etc.), especially if you're *increasing* the complexity of your product or its availability and deployment or - as in the case of this art-jerk movie - hand it over to some DRM ridden POS distribution corp. for distribution. ... If I had donated to this project, this would be precisely the moment where I'd be super-pissed.
My 2 cents. Sorry, I'm really pissed right now.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
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USA, population : 318,463,000
*Rest* of world, population : 6,727,537,000
That's a rather large population who could be donating to get this made that they've just alienated.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
I had to sit through an advert BEFORE watching the 20 minute short and then part-way through the short another advert comes up. Clicked on close. Buh-bye.
Sorry, currently our video library can only be watched from within the United States
half of that 6 .7 billion make $2.50 or less a day, 40 percent of that 6.7 billion have ony five percent of global income.
that 318 million get a quarter of that global income.
Nice business model :-(
No region blockages, etc.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I think this film was designed to make you want to go dig out your copy of 2001 and watch it. And in that, it succeeded.
Being a 21%er I did get to enjoy the film.
I'm just "this guy", you know?
I'm asking the same. The movie's creators know they are featured on /.. It is possible they read through the comments. They'll see Hulu is very unpopular. I'd like to ask them why they have chosen Hulu and not another, more international website, like youtube with ads enabled, for example.
I watched the film, despite the long commercials. Essentially (for me) it is was a waste of time.
A good scifi film should raise interesting questions (what is "intelligence", "human", "purpose"...) To some degree this film tries to achieve this. A computer more-or-less becomes self-aware on a long-dead spaceship. Okay, good start. However there is no point to it whatsoever. The computer sits in a chair and thinks and then watches the spaceship explode. Questions about why would someone send a (presumably) research vessel aimlessly into deep space, why design an AI that has no mission to accomplish (no programs, projects, repairs to do?), why did the crew die of old age (advanced spaceship and no cryo-storage?). Come on, a generational spaceship with crew being born, trained, and dying would be better. What destroyed the ship at the end?
I feel this film is a weird cross not of 2001, but of "A.I." (where the entire point is to see the robot play out the end of humanity to far-future space aliens discovering the ruins) and "Silent Running" which details a man trying to save the last bio-habitat space station by sending it out into deep space before Earth can destroy it. At the end of the film he hides the habitat in deep space so Earth can't find it, and beyond their reach. So effectively it is the same thing as destroyed, and pointless.
The commercials were more interesting than the movie. The film technique may be impressive and noteworthy. However to me I'd rather watch a film with so-so technique that is entertaining (ex "Avatar") vs something that is avant-garde and boring (ex: "HENRi", "Blue")
Why didn't they just post it to a private web server with no public facing ports?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I bought and downloaded and watched this almost two years ago, why in the world is it making the 'news' now? It's pretty, but the story felt kind of.. absent, like it was trying to riff off of some of the great sci-fi of the past and not really putting it all together. to make anything particularly coherent.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Too bad they didn't mention Karen Allen's contributions to the project.
I thought she brought a wonderful character to life for the film.
One of the few films that left so many mysteries that a sequel could really add to the story rather than take away from it. I've seen many Indy films over the years, some good or bad, but this one truly, really served the Story and not the FX. It has an Alien (the Astronomer room bit) aspect to it. It has a 2001 aspect to it. It has an end of the human race aspect to it. And an innocent child alone in the dark, exploring his memories aspect to it. Even a Terminator/T2 spin on it. And a Prometheus aspect to it.
I think the story might even be able to go on "after" but that would depend on a good story.
it reminds me of all the 1970's SciFi stories and paperbacks (shortly after the Apollo missions) I read as a child that explored the "Big Picture" of human thought, and adventure.. like "Childhoods End" by Arthur C. Clarke. And "that" is another aspect of the Story.. how like [ It's not the End.. but only the Beginning ]
Bring on IPv6 - it breaks region checks from these annoying pricks that insist on placing artificial barriers to aid with regional price gouging.
To each their own. I must have watched something different, because I really enjoyed it. Totally picked up on the classic sci-fi references. It worked for me on an emotional level as well. Slightly confused about the ending... but I think he was killed by the death (birth?) of a star. If that's the case, a star going supernova is a rather beautiful and spectacular way to end ones life. That was poignant to me.
The fact that anything at all in it isn't a shitty CGI cartoon, or the fact that it doesn't suck?
I looked into it again and there you go - it turns out some evil pricks are populating the IP region lookup library with IPv6 addresses just so that they can continue with the regional price gouging.
However one of the things being strongly considered for widespread implementation is roaming IPv6 addresses so that you keep the address for your phone, laptop or whatever no matter where you are on the planet. With such a thing you can have reliable point to point communication instead of having to rely on someone in the middle like Skype (who very recently cut off all devices that used their older protocol). With such a thing you are not tied to a region and regional blocking for price gouging should not occur, but probably will anyway.
It opened fine for me in Firefox with Media Hint - after the obligatory ad of course! But, yeah, Hulu is a terrible choice to host an "indie" short.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
"You'll need a Hulu Plus account to watch."
Hi – I'm Eli, I directed HENRi. I normally don't interact with forums or comments concerning my work – once a project is out there, it's fair game. However, I was made aware of the heated discussion here at /. about the film being released on Hulu, and I wanted to clear up a few things.
First, I want to apologize to those of you outside of the U.S. who were unable to view the film due to Hulu's territory restrictions. I certainly want anyone who wishes to see the film to be able to do so, regardless of where they are located in the world. More on that later.
Second, we didn't specifically pick Hulu for distribution. After the festival run we licensed the film with Shorts International and IndieFlix. These two companies then distributed the film with their partners across multiple platforms for maximum exposure – including OnDemand and TV programming, educational use, and streaming / digital download services. Hulu is the latest viewing option to go live, and the first "free" option for those who don't mind a few commercials. Hulu also has region restrictions, which is unfortunate and out of our control.
For our non-U.S. based friends, there are several ways to check out the film. On our website we use a service called Distrify – which allows you to stream or download a copy of the film, and the making-of doc, for a small fee. There are no international restrictions, and we kept the price point at the lowest possible option. For those of you who subscribe to IndieFlix, we are available on their service, which can be accessed around the world. We also sell region-free DVDs and Blu-rays.
I hope that clears up any confusion or frustration some of you had. Many thanks to those of you who have watched the film and supported us. So say we all.
Best,
Eli Sasich
'nuff said.
It's Margot Kidder, not Karen Allen - but yes, she's wonderful.
You lost all credibility when you said you'd prefer Avatar... yikes.
...and at a reasonable price. DRM free and no geo-restrictions:
http://www.henrithefilm.com/