Loom: Blade Runner style 4K short film by Luke Scott
"He is an acclaimed commercial director who has pushed through his work to step out of the shadow of his father, Ridley Scott. And now Luke Scott is transcending boundaries in video technology with a visually-arresting 20-minute short film, Loom. Shot in coordination with RED Camera, the sci-fi short features Giovanni Ribisi and Jellybean Howie, although cinematographer Dariusz Wolski just might be its star.
The film follows Ribisi's character Tommy - a lab tech who genetically modifies meat and begins a dangerous at-home experiment he struggles to perfect. It ends with a monologue taken from the conclusion of Darwin's Origin of Species, leaving many of the story's questions left unanswered. 'There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved,' says Howie's character.
Visually, Scott - who directs for his father's production company RSA - gives nod to the filmmaker's 1982 classic Blade Runner, shooting the piece in the tone and style of the dystopian thriller. Constructed for 3D, the piece was crafted to test the limits of the colour range and exposure, allowing viewers to see fine details often lost in dark scenes.
RED initially presented Loom at the 2012 National Association of Broadcasters [NAB] Show this past April. The company has since continued to screen the film, and on Wednesday President Jarred Land released it online via REDUSER, with a disclaimer for cinephiles."
(Jennifer Madison, 31 August 2012, Mail Online)
Fig. 1 published on 28 Aug 2012 by ENTV, YouTube
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: the first true science fiction novel
"What many might consider to be true science fiction began to emerge during the Enlightenment in the early 16th Century as the Western world's understanding of science blossomed. Others identify Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, published in 1818 as the Industrial Revolution gathered pace, as the first true science fiction novel. Today it tends to be seen very much as gothic horror, but it relies heavily on extrapolating then current scientific understanding to extreme fantastical ends."
(Lynne Hardy, 1 August 2011, Celebrating Science)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Cyberpunk: the future has already happened
"Cyberpunk' is a 60-minute documentary, the ad for which states: 'What started as a book became a literary movement. What was a literary movement became a subculture'.
And that's one of the major flaws of this film. It perpetuates the general myth that everything 'cyberpunk' expanded out of 'Neuromancer' and Gibson's vision. In truth, most of the stuff covered here (virtual reality, hacking, industrial music, cybernetics, designer drugs, anarchy) was already developing quite nicely before Lord Gibson, Chairman Bruce, and the rest (Shirley, Rucker, Shiner) were kind enough to provide a fictional universe in which to fuse these disparate explorations.
The production of 'Cyberpunk' is very inconsistent, too -- some parts are professional documentary, while other parts have the odor of quick-cash opportunism. The breathy women narrator is ultimately aggravating, oh-ing and ah-ing over all this stuff.
But there is some good material here, including interviews with Gibson, Leary, Scott Fisher (of NASA/Ames), Brenda Laurel, Vernon Reed (Living Color), Bill Leeb (Front Line Assembly) and others. There's also some cool computer graphics (circa 1989) and an industrial soundtrack with Front Line Assembly, Ministry, and Severed Heads.
'Cyberpunk' is still a must-see since it's the only documentary about cyberpunk that we have."
(G. Branwyn)
Fig.1 Produced and Directed by Marianne Trench and Peter von Brandenberg, Intercon Productions, 1990.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
