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	November 5, 2004

CANADA, BY COMPARISON Couldn't resist putting this up to compare with the last post. This shows, in red, the parts of Canada where at least 45% of voters in last June's election voted for conservative/christian parties. All Canada's major cities are blue by this criterion, except Calgary in SW Alberta. For those Americans who are thinking of coming to Canada and want to avoid such areas they are from West to East: The Eastern suburbs/exurbs of Vancouver BC, the Okanagan Valley in Central BC, the mountainous SE corner of BC, the stretch of BC from Prince Rupert on the West Coast up to the NE corner, all of Alberta except the City of Edmonton, rural South and Central Saskatchewan, rural SW Manitoba, the rural areas of South Central and far Eastern Ontario, the rural areas on the South Coast of New Brunswick and the North Coast of Nova Scotia. There are other parts of Canada that Canadians would call conservative, but by US standards they just don't measure up. Canadian readers will find this confusing because we use the opposite colour conventions (Liberal red and Tory blue), but I've reversed them so they're consistent with the US map. Interesting, eh? 6:54:18 PM  trackback []  comment []

THIS IS SCARY So much for red and blue states. (from LA Times via Doc Searls via Jon Husband) 5:18:04 PM  trackback []  comment []

INCREDIBLY, MAKE YOUR OWN MOVIE We need a break, I think, from the political posts today. But there's a lot in the hopper. Here's what's planned for How to Save the World for November: We'll Take Turns Being Strong: The Eight Fronts of the Resistance Against Bush [Politics - US] The Wisdom of Crowds in Business, Part 2 [Business - Innovation] Why I Sometimes Don't Make 'Sense' [Environmental Philosophy] The Abrogation of Personal Responsibility [Politics - the Political Process] The Power of Many (book review, and discussion on making the leap from virtual to face-to-face communication) [Technology] An Homage to Readers [Literature] Why You Can't Jam the Culture [Arts & Sciences] Reinventing Broadcast News [Business - Innovation] Writing 'Honest' Stories [Literature] Hunting for Intelligence [Politics - the Political Process] Surviving Trauma [Arts & Sciences] The Politics of Fear [Politics] Recipe for Bioterror [Politics] If you think any of these topics is especially interesting, steal it and start the discussion without me, and send me a link to your post, or e-mail me your thoughts if you're blogless. If you think there's something sorely missing, give me a nudge and I'll add it to the list. Today's post is inspired by a documentary on the new, critically-acclaimed animated film The Incredibles (don't judge it by the typically lame Disney website -- watch the 'Making Of' documentary instead). As intrigued as I was with Final Fantasy, it was merely high art. The Incredibles, by contrast, is pure science. Instead of the painstaking computer animation of most films, the producers of this film have developed what might be called 'meta-programming': They wrote simulation algorithms for each item of clothing, and for facial features and hair, that automatically program the realistic movement of these objects in response to an understanding of how the character 'wearing them' is 'moving'. And they do that even when the character makes moves that in the real world are physically impossible. This is artificial intelligence in action, and it's mind-blowing. This kind of programming, and visual AI, can actually stimulate your ability to imagine the impossible. It's powerful, important stuff. Among the most remarkable opportunities that this technology begins to introduce is the ability of amateurs to make our own movies. It's only been a decade since composing, recording and selling your own symphony or rock song, completely solo, even if you can't read music or play a note on any musical instrument, passed from being a fantasy to almost boringly commonplace. Final Fantasy raised the bar further, showing that for action films anyway, a synthetic actor is every bit as believable and sympathetic as the real thing (even moreso if the star is one of those ghastly and staggeringly incompetent scientology cultists). It is entirely conceivable to me that, before another decade has passed, anyone with a basic PC and a creative mind will be able to write, produce, direct and distribute, with no other technology and no assistance whatsoever, a credible, quality, full-length motion picture, complete with soundtrack. Imagine the consequences for: education and the teaching of language and the arts simulations and video games story and play writers, who'll be able, and perhaps expected, to write the soundtrack and provide the video as well music videos (will they evolve to become short stories, or fables, like Eminem's Mosh?) intellectual property law that today protects any 'representation' of a famous person from being used for commercial purposes without approval and payment of royalties (even editorial cartoonists have had to fight this law, to be able to pursue their craft) big-budget films and Oscar (no I won't put an R in a circle after it) categories the line in film between the real and the imaginary The Incredibles uses big-name stars for the voice-tracks. The question is why? It's not to draw crowds: Pixar is such a consistent and proven brand that it's all you need to credentialize your film. My guess is it's to lull the stars into a false sense of job security until voice replication software gets to the point 'real' actors are completely superfluous, and, just as Final Fantasy created characters that were larger than life, flawless, almost dreamily perfect (there is a theory that the more perfectly symmetrical and 'average' a person's facial features are, the more beautiful they are perceived to be, and real people can't get close to computer simulations by that standard), the nextgen synthetic voice will be more melodic, more ballsy, more perfect and fluid and seductive than any real voice. In fact, Writer-Director Brad Bird actually supplies some of the voices in the movie himself. He's been making movies since he was 11, and could probably have made this one completely by himself. Soon, we'll all be able to do so. Writing will never be the same. 11:35:39 AM  trackback []  comment []

© Copyright 2004 Dave Pollard. Last update: 01/12/2004; 6:01:42 PM.