Thursday, February 21, 2008
Special Effects and the Invisible Octopus
The special effects you see on TV and in the movies have gotten so good that the audience has come to expect it. There are glitches: I thought the special effects in some of the Batman iterations were poor. But for the most part they are awesome. One oddity is that in many ways the special effects on TV shows is even better than many movies. CSI Miami, on the The Dead Zone, on many TV shows, even with their tight shooting schedules and throwaway culture, produce spectacular results. In fact, if you have ever been to a museum to view the work of “video artists” you realize quickly that many commercials are more sophisticated, technically and aesthetically, than the best video art. Video art is really video craft and the pop culture is good at that sort of craft.
The audience thus immersed in multitudinous instances of great special effects can be left jaded. But Nature always trumps our best efforts.
Here is a video that looks like a special effect — just a casual example really of what Nature can do. (I found this after hearing a reference to it in a science podcast. The story was that a scientist was filming underwater, with no particular aim, and just came upon this mind-blowing display):
As if the octopus of itself weren't spectacular enough — an amazing looking beast — but the creature also has a physiology of true genius; apparently chameleon like creatures can change color via a matrix of dots in their skin, like those mixes achieved in print via screens of CMYK. How the form morph is achieved — grasping the object's silhouette and achieving such stunning sculptural simulation is a skill I've never seen explained. You wonder if a baby octopus has to learn the skills and thus occasionally be corrected by parent: “No dear, you are a little too red, shade it more to the celadon color I taught you”.