Jeremy and Sean head back to Other Ocean to regroup with Mike and Kevin for a Starlords project post-mortem discussion. Suffice to say, the team is ecstatic about the reception at California Extreme. Thank you all for watching this series and making Bits to Atoms possible!
We all had a brief flirtation with wireless charging some years ago—Google, Nokia, and a few others equipped their phones with Qi-standard charging. That didn't last long, though. Wireless charging faded away only to come surging back when Apple embraced the technology in 2017. Now, everyone is making wireless charging pads, but they all have the same limitations. That's where Archon comes in. This recently funded Kickstarter campaign turns your desk or table into a wireless charger.
Wireless charging, of course, still involves a wire that connects your pad to the wall. You just don't have to plug anything into your phone. In the early days of wireless charging, the drawbacks overrode the convenience. Sure, you could set your phone down and it would charge, but it did so very slowly. We're talking 5W or less. Today's wireless charging can be faster—some phones can do as much as 15W with the right hardware.
This video is sponsored by Universal Pictures and Mortal Engines.
In New Zealand, Adam Savage sat down with Mortal Engines visual effects supervisor (and fellow ILM alum) Ken McGaugh to talk about the challenges of bringing director Christian Rivers' vision to life. Here's an excerpt; watch the full interview below.
Adam Savage: Describe to me the beginning of a project like Mortal Engines. When are you brought in during the process?
Ken McGaugh: Usually I'm brought in during pre-production. When they start planning on building the sets, how they're going to execute the shots, that's where my involvement would come in. It's making those decisions about what should be in camera versus what should be visual effects. There's lots of constraints around that that are out of our control.
Adam Savage: Right.
Ken McGaugh: That includes the size of the stages that they're building the sets in. I mean, obviously, if we had our way, they'd build complete sets and we'd reserve the visual effects to just what was absolutely required to be visual effects. But that's where visual effects really comes in: It is removing those constraints that filmmakers have, allowing them to go beyond the physical constraints they have when shooting.
On Instagram, @salzmoto asked, "Outside of special effects, what career paths do you see opening up for makers and polymaths in general? How might someone make a career out of collecting hands-on skills in a world so currently obsessed with digital things?" Here's Adam's answer, and if you have a question for Adam, post it in the comments below!
We're back with more episodes of Projections, our show about virtual and augmented reality! This week, we review two new Oculus Go experiences: Covert, an asymmetrical spy game, and Virtual Desktop, the mobile port of the desktop VR app. Plus, a few Oculus Go picks for new users who may be getting this headset for the holidays.
For this week's project, Kayte and Norm experiment with a modelmaking technique using off-the-shelf hairspray as a way to create realistic paint chipping. We apply this to a few test pieces and then to a garage kit from Machination Studio. We couldn't be happier with the results!
Jen Schachter visits the massive workshop of artist Nemo Gould to see how he makes his kinetic sculptures and how the storage of tools and found materials in his shop influences how he builds.
Adam Savage sits down with director Christian Rivers and producer Peter Jackson to talk about the process of adapting the Mortal Engines book series into the upcoming film. It's a wide-ranging discussion about world building, telling cinematic stories, and the collaborative process of filmmaking at this scale. (This video is sponsored by Universal Pictures and Mortal Engines.)
