Site Refresh done

Made a number of change and improvements to the website:

  • Search is now easy from the menu bar
  • Added logo header at top
  • Font change for better layout especially on mobile
  • Facebook and Twitter feeds available with easy like and tweet options
  • Fundraising store integrated with site
  • Minor layout tweaks to improve readability and usability
  • Some tweaks to improve page load speeds

Let me know what you think. The site is built out of the WordPress Blog engine, so there are limitations on what can be done but the advantages of easy update, customization and integration for a non-web programmer like me far outweigh those.

Posted in News, website | Leave a comment
Posted on May 28, 2011 by avatar

MiniDoc on Outside In

A talented local filmmaker/photographer friend of mine, Ioannis Batsios, (or Yanni as his friends call him) just posted a mini-doc “Inside Outside In“. Yanni is a very early supporter of the film – he’s one of those people that just got the idea of the film right away and has been a great supporter all through the ups and downs.

He also happens to make some very nice films and photographs. Be sure to check out his website and blog. I’m very grateful he’s decided to document Outside In – the story about how this film has come to be is almost as interesting as the film itself.

Posted in Film, filmmaking | Leave a comment
Posted on May 20, 2011 by avatar

Outside In @ Astronomy Days – Footage Sneak Peak!

It’s an exciting honor for Outside In to be part of Astronomy Days at the NC Museum in Raleigh this weekend – May 21st and 22nd. Plus, Sunday at 3:30pm, I will be showing footage (including sneak peak at some new work-in-progress) in the WRAL HD Theater in the Museum.

But that’s not all. Marie and I will be there all weekend with a booth complete with a gorgeous print giveaway thanks to Mark Wagoner Productions, The Artery and Penland Custom Frames plus:

  • Free actual 70mm IMAX film frames
  • Team 11 sign-up info
  • Demo Footage
  • Free 5 X 7 prints from new footage

Plus, there will be tons of other cool astronomy & space stuff there including from Outside In supporters Mike Malaska & Ian Hewitt (Raleigh Astronomy Club) as well as NASA. Should be a great event with tons of stuff for the whole family.

Here’s the print we are giving away. To enter to win, all you have do to fill up a sign-up sheet at the event and/or make a donation in any amount. ALL PREVIOUS DONORS are automatically entered. If you are not a donor or can’t make it, just email your name, address and phone with the subject “Print Giveaway here.

The Print Giveaway

Image with Quote

Printing/Framing by Mark Wagoner Prod. The Artery & Penland Custom Frames

Posted in Film, News, space stuff | Leave a comment
Posted on May 17, 2011 by avatar

Outside In coverage @ Indiewire

Nice mention of the film on IndieWire. Read it here.

 

 

Posted in articles, Film, News | Leave a comment
Posted on April 15, 2011 by avatar

And It Begins – Giant AND Digital

I saw this story on the Big Movie Zone yesterday. It’s a major milestone for Outside In’s plans for distribution on the giant screen. The costs for distributing Outside In on film will be huge. However, the costs for digital distribution are a tiny fraction of that. But right now, the options for digital distribution of Outside In on the giant screen are just a handful of venues.

However, by the time the film is done, it’s starting to look like there will be plenty of digital giant screen venues ready and that’s exciting news for the film — and for all of you wanting to see it.

Source LF Examiner - www.lfexaminer.com

Unlike the standard multiplex movie theaters, IMAX™ theaters are still a world of film, sprockets and reels that run the huge 15/70mm film stock through giant projectors. This is because the technology to fill giant screens simply has not existed…until now. Previous projectors lacked resolution, contrast and especially brightness – so giant screen theaters have stayed with film for its quality and beauty on their huge screens.

However, film has its problems – it’s expensive, prone to dirt, scratches, weaving and more. And 15/70mm film used in IMAX™ is very, very, very expensive which has limited the creative choices available for creating and distributing giant screen films.

IMAX™, of course, knows this. A couple of years ago, they started installing IMAX™ theaters in larger multiplex theaters – which partially backfired when people realized they were not the giant film based screens of traditional IMAX film venues. The term “Liemax” was born and even Roger Ebert chimed in. But IMAX™ has continued to roll-out these theaters and while they are not film based giant screens, they are usually a step up from even good multiplex theaters with better projection and sound as well as IMAX™’s quality control processes.

A handful of smaller giants screens have just upgraded to IMAX™’s digital solution including my friends at Marble Kid’s Museum in Raleigh, NC. And IMAX™ is supposedly working on new solutions for larger giant screens – but those are not ready yet.

However, others have stepped in and this new theater points to an exploding world of digital giant screens. My interest is not in IMAX™ vs. these others. My hope is they all win so that more and more cities have quality giant screen theaters available in the next few years, hopefully screening Outside In :)

Posted in articles, Film, News | Leave a comment
Posted on April 10, 2011 by avatar

Getting the Word Out

Now that the viral action has died down to a few thousand hits a day (of course, more still in one day than the 10 months previous), I’m working hard on leveraging the exposure for the film. I got some PR/Marketing friends to help with a press release to send out to the giant screen and indie film industry. I want to thank David Horne, Deborah Bryant and Laurie Brackett for helping out.

The press release went out this morning and already is on the Giant Screen Cinema Association Site here.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 29th, 2011

FIRST FOOTAGE FROM BASEMENT IMAX FILM “OUTSIDE IN” GOES VIRAL WITH 2.5 MILLION HITS

Sixty seconds can be powerful. Just ask Stephen van Vuuren, creator of the “IMAX in a Basement” film, Outside In, currently in production.  The first minute of footage has seen over 2.5 million views and 800,000 plays in the last two weeks. The viral video has gone global.

With views in more than 200 countries, it is catching the attention of news outlets in Germany, France, Spain, Brazil, Italy, Greece Turkey, Japan and more. Major media outlets covering the clip include Wired, Gizmodo, Discovery Channel Canada, Slashdot, News.Com (AU), and MSNBC.com. The Daily Mail (UK) commented on the footage, comparing Outside In’s artfulness to Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“It has been an amazing, exciting, and humbling couple of weeks,” says filmmaker Stephen van Vuuren. “To know that people around the world are as moved by these beautiful images as I am and that they are also thrilled to know they will see them on the giant-screen soon – it’s all been an incredible experience.”

The clip (www.vimeo.com/11386048) features a brief recap of Stephen van Vuuren’s years of ground-breaking work in creating full motion animation at IMAX resolution using real images from the Cassini-Huygens Mission. Saturn and its moons and rings are brought to life by van Vuuren’s advanced photographic animation techniques — all without the use of 3D models or 3D CGI. Around the world, viewers have been awe-struck by the beautiful images of the ringed planet.

Bloggers and space science news feeds picked up the video on March 7th from io9.com, a leading science-fiction/ futurism site, which served as the viral catalyst. By March 11th, the footage had received several hundred thousand hits and aired on Discovery Canada’s “The Daily Planet. “

The worldwide attention caught NASA’s eye and the video clip became NASA’s “Astronomy Picture of the Day” (APOD) on March 15th, a tremendous honor for an art film by a non-scientist. The APOD exposure not only led to a huge spike in views, but van Vuuren was approached by leading scientists from global space agencies seeking permission to use the ground-breaking footage.

Thousands of fans on blogs, email, Facebook, and Twitter expressed their enthusiasm for seeing “Outside In” on the giant screen. One such fan, a man from the Czech Republic, tracked down van Vuuren on Facebook and wrote him this simple note:

Dear Mr. van Vuuren,
I have just seen the first footage of the Outside-In Project on your website and it is probably the most beautiful thing I have seen in my entire life.

For more, visit the “IMAX in a Basement” blog www.outsideinthemovie.com/imaxinabasement/

About Outside In: “Outside In” is a feature-length, giant screen/IMAX film that artistically brings stunning real photographs of space exploration to life using ground-breaking techniques in creating full motion picture footage from still images. Accompanied by powerful music, immersive sound design and key quotes from Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, T.S. Eliot and more, “Outside In” takes audiences on a 14 billion light journey of the mind, heart and spirit from the big bang to the near future via the Cassini-Huygens Mission at Saturn. For more information, visit www.outsideinthemovie.com or find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/outsideinthemovie Twitter @outsideinmovie

# # #

 

Posted in Film, News | Leave a comment
Posted on March 29, 2011 by avatar

More than Just a Viral Video

There have a been a lot of great things that have come from the global exposure over the past couple of weeks. But one thing for me stands out. When I was in high school, I had good math/science scores and thought I wanted to be scientist. In fact I was accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984 – but could not afford to go.

But I quickly discovered I’m an artist not a scientist – and after seeing “2001: A Space Odyssey”, I was called to be a filmmaker. But one doubt that occasionally pops up for me is that “art does not really matter” – that making films does not cure cancer or feed starving people.

So it was a real thrill for me when Prof. Mark McCaughrean, Head of the Research & Scientific Support Department, European Space Agency (ESA), emailed me asking for permission to use the clip in his presentations, including updating European governments on ESA’s work. ESA is a critical part of the Cassini-Huygens Mission. ESA was responsible for the amazing Huygens lander which successfully put down on Saturn’s moon Titan, delivering stunning images and data. Many European scientists are deeply involved in various aspects of the mission overall.

Future missions to explore our solar system require the whole globe – it’s too much for any one country. And it’s often hard to excite governments and voters about the value of these amazing missions. If this clip – and ultimately the finished film – can be just a small part of expanding space exploration, then I feel I can truly give back to all the scientists whose lifelong work has allowed us to see these incredible images.

Posted in Film | Leave a comment
Posted on March 25, 2011 by avatar

Sometimes It’s the Little Things…

I have no idea who sent this but it arrived a couple of days ago. I’ve been slammed with all the attention and the work on how to best leverage the exposure. But with thoughts of this swirling around in my head, I walked out to my mailbox.

Sometimes it really is the simple, small gestures in life, from someone I will likely never know or meet, that matter.

click for larger image

Posted in Film, musings, raising money, Supporters | Leave a comment
Posted on March 23, 2011 by avatar

Astronomy Picture of the Day – the Power of Image

It’s been a whirlwind since early yesterday a.m. – being selected, especially as a non-scientist for the NASA’s “Astronomy Picture of the Day” is a huge honor and totally unexpected. It’s also a hugely popular site (I had no idea how popular) — the views of the clip in the last 36 hours are many times the viral hits from last week.

And I’ve had very nice emails from major space scientists around the world wanting to use the clip in various ways – it’s overwhelming, humbling and exciting to see this “work-in-progress” clip being used to inform, persuade and entertain.

But what has really brought tears to my eyes are thousands of comments and I’d thought I’d share just a few:

(from Czech Republic)
Dear Mr. van Vuuren,
I have just seen the first footage of the Outside-In-Project on your website and it is probably the most beautiful thing I have seen in my entire life.

(Daily Mail Online, UK)
The result is a seamless journey that is spectacular in its originality and otherworldliness, perhaps even rivaling the majesty of Stanley Kubrick’s timeless 2001: A Space Odyssey.

(from blog Comment)
…that’s real. That is a real picture of Saturn. That is a real picture of Saturn’s moons.
…I’m sorry, world, but you’re going to have to get by without me today, because my mind has been thoroughly boggled. Can you imagine what someone like Galileo would’ve given to be able to see something like this?!

(from al.com)
We here at Science Links have looked at many videos over the last few months, but we haven’t seen anything as stunning as this.

(from unknownskywalker on tumblr.com)
OMG – mind officially blown! What an incredible labour of love this is … take the 2 and a half minutes to watch this, then imagine it in IMAX! Book my tickets ASAP

(from APOD forum)
As a child, I dreamed of traveling in space. The best images we had back then were Chesley Bonestell’s paintings. This video brought tears to my eyes – beautiful and amazing, because the images are real.

And that’s just a tiny fraction of the thousands of comments including people debating how the clip was done, it is “science, art, both or neither” and so many, many people moved to tears by it. Even the occasional “I was unimpressed” (which have been surprisingly few considering the nature of the ‘net), is good it makes people aware still of these amazing images.

The most meaningful part to me is that this clip is a tiny part of the amazing journey from the time we first looked up to the stars, to the many scientist and engineers that dedicated their lives to bringing this images home. My mission with the images has always been to preserve those photons as closely as possible until one day they bounce off an 8-story screen into our eyes.


OMG – mind officially blown! What an incredible labour of love this is … take the 2 and a half minutes to watch this, then imagine it in IMAX!

Book my tickets ASAP

Posted in Film, News, saturn cassini, space stuff | Leave a comment
Posted on March 16, 2011 by avatar

Daily Planet Clip Online!

The viral buzz on the new footage clip caught the interest of The Daily Planet on Discovery Channel Canada. Note 30 second pre-roll and then it runs from 4:30 until 5:10 or so. They also mention it at the top of the show (March 11th, Clip 1).

http://watch.discoverychannel.ca/daily-planet/march-2011/daily-planet—march-09-2011/#clip432742

Posted in Film, News, space stuff | Leave a comment
Posted on March 15, 2011 by avatar