Upcoming Discovery Series - "When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions"

This documentary begins Sunday, June 8, 2008.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/nasa/nasa.html?campaign=dsc-nasa08-1-spe012

It's supposed to feature a great deal of never-before-seen footage--much will show film footage of a rotating sphere, I'm sure.

Although I can understand the faking of static RE images, has anyone on this forum addressed the RE video that's so often featured by NASA? If so, would someone mind posting the thread link, and I'll read about it there?

I've worked with programs like Photoshop (started in 1990 with ver. 1.0) and AfterEffects since they first arrived, and I've seen a great deal of near pristine fakery in both static images and video, so I wouldn't be surprised to see NASA, or any organization engaging is such forgeries. The faking of static images didn't require Photoshop prior to its launch (excuse the pun)--airbrush, acetate, and a fisheye lens were more than sufficient.

Anyway, if the possible video fakery of a sphere underneath the floating astronauts, or space station, has been addressed in a previous thread, I'd greatly appreciate the link. Thanks.

You are quite correct in assessing the irrelevance of photoshop.  "photoshop" makes a good word as an adjective to describe cheap and easy home user image manipulation.

But SGI UNIX systems were doing far more in the 80's.  Heck, look at Jurassic Park released in 1993.  That is well beyond the image manipulation range that most people would associate with photoshop jobs.

And yes, there are fascinating non-cgi techniques.  One can go back to Fritz Lang's 1927 Metropolis, or FW Murnau's Sunrise to see some fantastic film work before computer manipulation was conceived in the minds of men.

Ron Howard's Apollo 13 was nothing out of the ordinary for film work, but the images presented were faked much cheaper than shooting in actual "space".

You are quite correct in assessing the irrelevance of photoshop.  "photoshop" makes a good word as an adjective to describe cheap and easy home user image manipulation.

But SGI UNIX systems were doing far more in the 80's.  Heck, look at Jurassic Park released in 1993.  That is well beyond the image manipulation range that most people would associate with photoshop jobs.

And yes, there are fascinating non-cgi techniques.  One can go back to Fritz Lang's 1927 Metropolis, or FW Murnau's Sunrise to see some fantastic film work before computer manipulation was conceived in the minds of men.

Ron Howard's Apollo 13 was nothing out of the ordinary for film work, but the images presented were faked much cheaper than shooting in actual "space".

Good point. I'm not sure what the CGI capabilities were during the Apollo program. I believe it was during the mid-70s that it started appearing in major film productions; but like a good magician's trick, sometimes we're shocked at how simple a solution was used once it's revealed.

Quote from: lived_eht_asan on June 02, 2008, 09:27:48 AM

You are quite correct in assessing the irrelevance of photoshop.  "photoshop" makes a good word as an adjective to describe cheap and easy home user image manipulation.

But SGI UNIX systems were doing far more in the 80's.  Heck, look at Jurassic Park released in 1993.  That is well beyond the image manipulation range that most people would associate with photoshop jobs.

And yes, there are fascinating non-cgi techniques.  One can go back to Fritz Lang's 1927 Metropolis, or FW Murnau's Sunrise to see some fantastic film work before computer manipulation was conceived in the minds of men.

Ron Howard's Apollo 13 was nothing out of the ordinary for film work, but the images presented were faked much cheaper than shooting in actual "space".

Good point. I'm not sure what the CGI capabilities were during the Apollo program. I believe it was during the mid-70s that it started appearing in major film productions; but like a good magician's trick, sometimes we're shocked at how simple a solution was used once it's revealed.

And I think we can assume that if NASA was developing the technology themselves for their own use, they could easily have had it long before Hollywood did.

I saw a documentary on Saturday about a guy who escaped from an Afghan cave-prison by building himself an armoured suit! It was awesome!

I saw a documentary on Saturday about a guy who escaped from an Afghan cave-prison by building himself an armoured suit! It was awesome!

WE BUILT THIS IN A FIELD IN FLORIDA WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!