Epic Green Screen Magic

By now, I think we all know that just because a person on a TV show is standing on top of a mountain or in front of a humongous space ship doesn’t make it true. Most movie go-ers know that “movie magic” makes things possible. But do we know how they did it exactly? Where is the blue screen? Is it only the actor and a giant green wall behind them? This video can help give you a better picture of what goes on during shooting:

What really amazes me too is the confidence of the production team. There are basically saying, “Just stand right there and pretend you are walking on the moon — I’ll make it look like you are.”

February 19th, 2010 by DS2 | No Comments »


The Real World: Farmville Edition

There are tons and tons of free and cutesy games on Facebook. Some are not fun at all *cough*Fishville*cough* and most of them can never be beaten. I, as a gamer, am not used to that at all. Even on-going RPGs (e.g., WoW) at least have end-game content so you have something to strive for.  So, for these Facebook time-wasters games, you have to make up your own goals. For Farmville, my goal was to have a Black character running plantation — complete with a hedge maze!

Along the way, Farmville has special animals that you can collect from that yield fun items. For example, you collect chocolate milk from the brown cow and you collect ice cubes from the penguin. Fun, right? One day, a baby elephant was available. I got one and placed him in the middle of my beautiful maze. Then, just as I was living in my fantasy world with my Black man running his plantation, I was snapped back to reality and quite shocked when I went to collect from the Baby Elephant.

Man alive! This game is too real for me!

Collecting Ivory

Ever wanted to find out what happens when games stop being polite and start getting real?

February 2nd, 2010 by DS2 | 4 Comments »