Through an extraordinary public-private collaboration, the Museum of the City of New York and the Borough President’s Office worked together to digitize this unique resource and assure its preservation and access to the public.

For the first time ever, the opportunity exists to explore the island of Manhattan as it existed two centuries ago. Zoom in to view individual villas, woods, marshes, hills, and ponds that once stood on the site of today’s skyscrapers, row houses, asphalt, and subway tunnels, and to learn the fascinating history of the ownership of the changing landscape of Manhattan.

Vietnam’s Hang Son Doong cave is the largest in the world, with caverns big enough to fit an entire city street inside them. These awe-inspiring photos take you inside the beautiful, alien world of the Hang Son Doong cave.

The cave was, amazingly enough, only discovered twenty years ago, and is just now being properly surveyed. National Geographic has a fascinating longer piece on the recent explorations of the cave, but the real highlight has to be the nearly two dozen amazing photographs from inside the cave.

This tiny jungle, nicknamed the “Garden of Edam”, formed underneath a collapsed roof of the cave, which allowed first light and then vegetation to make its way inside the cave. I don’t know if anyone’s officially confirmed it, but I think we can safely say this is the largest jungle inside a cave in the entire world. And then some images look like they are from another planet altogether:

These algae-covered ribs were formed by water overflowing the pools, reshaping them into what we see now. These awesome photos are still just a tiny sample of the wonders of the Hang Son Doong, so be sure to head over to National Geographic to take a look.

Photographs by Carsten Peter/National Geographic.

Four photographers from Industrial Light & Magic meticulously photographed details of specific locations of New York from several vantage points. They shot from the street, from cherry pickers and perched high above buildings such as the Chrysler and Met Life tower. HERE is a link to a New York Times slide show about this one critical aspect of the Avengers production.

“They shot photography for about eight weeks, a pretty massive shoot for us,” said the visual effects supervisor Jeff White.

The VFX department had to first stitch the panoramas together from approximately 275,000. Then all the people and cars had to be removed. Anything static that should be in motion, had to be painted out. CGI then added back in cars, New Yorkers and hot dog stands.

THIS is more great coverage from fxguide about the VFX if you really want to nerd out. There is even a 50MB Panoramic file one can download

The toy was built by Kenji Ishida and JS Robotics and has 22 servo motors that control its transformation and movements.

MCA’s Criterion top ten

Adam Yauch, one-third of the pioneering hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, has died at the age of 48.

Yauch co-founded the Beastie Boys with Mike “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horowitz in 1979. The band started off as a hardcore punk group, but soon began experimenting with hip-hop. The band broke big with their first proper album, Licensed to Ill, in 1986, and further albums Paul’s Boutique, Check Your Head and Ill Communication cemented the band as a true superstar act.

In addition to his career with the Beastie Boys, Yauch was heavily involved in the movement to free Tibet and co-organized the Tibetan Freedom Concerts of the late Nineties. In 2002, he launched the film production company Oscilloscope Laboratories.

Red Laser, courtesy of TheVerge.com

That was quick. Just two days to the hour after RED challenged the world with a 4K camera showdown on June 4th, the company is pulling the plug on the competition. RED’s founder and CEO Jim Jannard announced the cancellation on his company’s site, saying “several companies have refused to participate” and “the grief and complication don’t warrant the effort.” (TheVerge.com)

More on this…

Color variations projecting B&W films using 4K projectors.

This is an interesting short piece and thread about projecting black and white films in DCP using 4K projectors.

READ HERE.

A timelapse of our recent “Hose” production for 3M’s Scotch-Brite brand through Grey NY.