Global Financial Crisis and Books
December 11, 2008
While the entire world is facing the global financial crisis, publishers rush to get crisis books out. Not exactly a complaining, there are some interesting writings to check out. But I would like to know your ideas about this rush. Anyway, here are my suggestions for these months:
Global Financial Crisis and Books
The Subprime Solution: How Today’s Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It. In this trenchant book, best-selling economist Robert Shiller reveals the origins of the crisis and puts forward bold measures to solve it. He calls for an aggressive response, a restructuring of the institutional foundations of the financial system that will not only allow people once again to buy and sell homes with confidence, but will create the conditions for greater prosperity in America and throughout the deeply interconnected world economy.
The New Paradigm for Financial Markets. George Soros argues that the current crisis differs from the various financial crises that preceded it. He bases that assertion on the hypothesis that the explosion of the US housing bubble acted as the detonator for a much larger “super-bubble” that has been developing since the 1980s. The underlying trend in the super-bubble has been the ever-increasing use of credit and leverage.
The Finance Crisis and Rescue: What Went Wrong? Why? What Lessons Can Be Learned?. It features thought leaders from the Rotman School explaining the financial crisis and rescue from a variety of perspectives.
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Creating Clouds
July 23, 2008
Frank Kane job is very particular… he creates clouds! He can do it through his C++ library for real-time sky and 3D cloud rendering, used worldwide by scores of games and visual simulation applications on the Windows platform.
Its name is SilverLining.
Creating Clouds
Manuel Marino: Your sky and clouds library is impressive :)
Frank Kane: Thanks! SilverLining is a software library that allows real-time computer graphics developers to physically simulate the rendering of the sky, clouds, precipitation, and astronomical objects. You can specify any time at any location for pretty much any weather conditions, and SilverLining will draw what the sky would look like quickly enough for games and flight simulators.
Can we say that creating clouds is a form of Art?
It’s funny, because I didn’t go into this project thinking of it as a form of art at all – in fact it was quite the opposite and based on pure science; we went through almost a century worth of academic research into how light scatters through the atmosphere and clouds, the nature of precipitation, computing the location of the sun, moon, stars… stuff like that – and SilverLining was just meant to be a real-time implementation of the raw physics behind what makes the sky look the way it does.
However, a few months ago, I found myself standing inside New York’s Museum of Modern Art looking at an interactive art exhibit that featured SilverLining as part of it, running on a flat-panel display (this was Jonathan Harris’s and Sep Kemvar’s “I Want You To Want Me” piece. So there’s my sky rendering software, on display in the same building that houses works by Picasso and countless other other Art greats. It was surreal. So yes, Art and technology very much can live together.
Did you receive many requests of your library from game developers?
Yes, many game developers use SilverLining, and it’s even been ported to the XBox. But, we have just as many, if not more customers, in the visual simulation industry or “serious games” – people who create simulators for the military, for example – and also from broadcast video customers. A few people are working on using SilverLining for TV weather reports.
What do you think about the indie scene?
Well, I got my start as an independent game developer myself, so it’s a great way to people to learn and demonstrate that they have the skills and the drive to create something great and something big, if they do want to move on to larger projects. The growth of casual games and things like XBox Live have made it possible for indie game developers to carve out their own niche again, which is great. The world needs more people who are as passionate about their work as indie developers are.
What do you think about how internet became in 2008? What do you think about its future?
It’ll be interesting to see what direction social apps go in the long run. Will the world continue to support a few big social “portals” like Facebook and MySpace, or will a more open, simpler solution take over? Will people stay glued to their iPhones watching people Twitter about what they are doing? I think at some point we’re going to see a big divide between people who are very attached to their technology 24/7 with mobile devices, and people who rebel against the whole thing and become something akin to Luddites. It’ll be interesting to watch.
What do you think about the future of technology in general?
It all hinges on our educational system and the value society places on technology. In the US, we’ve had a real problem with a lack of interest in technology and science in general, and an educational system that does not do a good job at all in math and science.
Fortunately, there are other countries where this is not the case, and unless we see some big reforms here in the US, fewer technological advances will come from here. Already, most good technical workers here come from other countries – and our country’s restrictions on immigration and work visas make it increasingly hard to hire them. Who knows, perhaps the growth of the indie scene will counteract that effect by creating more interest in software engineering within our own country. Right now, it’s just really hard to find good developers, and that limits what the industry is able to create.
What will you develop in the future, new libraries? New projects?
I still have a few plans for making SilverLining even better, so I think that will keep me busy for awhile. Beyond that, I have lots of ideas – some involving computer graphics and some not – so if SilverLining gets to a point where it’s about as good as it can get, well, we’ll see.
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How to film an award winning movie with no money
February 4, 2008
This is a very interesting story about a director with a great idea but no money. Kely McClung is a director writer actor editor. He’s been able to film his movie with no money and very low resources. But he made it! The award winning Blood Ties is his first feature film. His first short film, AM Session, was recently nominated for HBO’s Short Film Award. Here’s what he wrote for us.
How to film an award winning movie with no money
The four year, twenty-three day, ninety-three minute movie!
Yeah, yeah. The movie’s not that long, it just has been for me. Everyone else, besides friends and family, will get to see the 93 minute version. And the reality is, I might be on it another couple years, though what anyone sees will still be the 93 minute version.
“Blood Ties” was filmed with no money by a crew of three in both the US and Thailand (with just a few moments over the border into Cambodia). Just to make things a bit more complicated, we filmed in the mountains of Virginia, Washington D.C. on the Mall, The Port of Miami, and Atlanta. Our crew numbers stayed at a maximum of three and our cast grew to 154.
And post production? Me. Sound, visual effects, editing, ADR, Foley, graphics, titles, music? Me. Which is not to say everything is great, it’s just what we could afford on a no budget movie. Every time I’d get ready to fire myself, I’d remember that I’m the only guy I could afford! And even with that, I definitely had some long talks with myself.
Is it worth watching? We hope so, and our success on the beginning of the film circuit says we might be right.
Blood Ties won The Action on Film International Film Festival’s “Action Film of the Year”, The Audience Award for “Best Director” at the Big Bang Film Festival, “Best of the Festival” at the Indie Fest USA International Film Festival, “Best Visual Effects” at the same, and has been nominated for various other awards at various other festivals.
Could I teach something about directing? Yeah, probably, even though Blood Ties is a first movie. About editing? Yeah, I’m known as a strong editor. After Effects, sound editing, composing for film, and 200 other subjects involved in making a movie? I’m pretty sure I could. But that’s not want I want to teach or preach or pass on in these few words.
The lesson I hope to share right now is in creating a vision – not only of the movie and what you want it to be but how you want to be perceived – keeping it in mind, and striving toward it with as little compromise as possible no matter how long it takes. Knowing that in twenty or thirty years, your first film won’t matter in the scheme of things except that it will always be, no matter how successful or not, your first film.
One of the things to strive for is surrounding yourself with a strong cheering section. My film partner, my family, my amazing girlfriend. Though they might not physically take on the work, without them, there is no movie.
My film partner, Robert Pralgo put up the initial money, as well as a seemingly endless trickle of money since. He also co-starred, help cast, pushed, pulled and dared me to make a better movie than what we thought was possible.
My family never talked down to me even though I am the one brother of five who they all have to worry about if I have a roof over my head.
And the Amazing Amanda let me see the movie from many different angles, again setting me up to challenge myself to make it even stronger.
Our crew of three rotated several times, and our cast gave their all because they somehow knew that I believed in what I was doing. There would be no movie without all of their many efforts. I give credit to almost everyone I meet and genuinely mean and feel it. They color the way I look at myself and my work, and are reflected in the images jumping around on screen.
And jump around they do! Blood Ties embraced the hand held look simply because I knew where I was wanting to shoot, a tripod, a dolly, or a steadicam would get us arrested. “You mean you aren’t supposed to shoot on the Mall or the Port or in the streets of a foreign country without permission?” Permission is relatively easy to get, if you pay for it. And that just wasn’t part of the budget!
I am sure I could talk about the making of the movie for the about the same length of time it took to make it. And maybe I’ll get the chance to write more. There is a lot more information on our website and other people are starting to talk and write as well.
What I hope with this introduction is to pass on the challenge to others to make the movies they want to see. To learn and persevere. To look at the art around them and if they find themselves saying “I could do that” – then to do it!
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