An Attempted Reconstruction of a Deleted Sequence from The Mummy (1932)

The Mummy (1932) is the definitive version of a certain sub-genre of horror film: the fallen priest of the old religion of Ancient Egypt who is cursed yet is reincarnated to act out his revenge and his love in the modern world. It is shot in fabulous black and white, and stars many character actors that are immediately recognizable from other Universal horror films. Boris Karloff saying "I have waited over 3,000 years to read the scroll of Isis" is a peak moment for me in this or any film.

This fall, men will wear fez's and women will wear headgear with fantasy elements.

Apparently there was a sequence which was filmed but deleted in which our Mummy, Imhotep, explains to the romantic interest, the mummy's intended victim, about her past lives through history. This sequence was cut from the film and it is believed that none of the footage survives.

But apparently publicity stills from this sequence do survive, and someone has made an effort to recreate the sequence on Yourtube in a form of "slideshow" set to music.

The person who made this "slideshow" did a very good job, I think. I do not know enough about this situation to be able to judge whether she has this all correct. But it certainly feels plausible, and is worth reviewing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3YOuRyq_08&feature=related

The Museum of Forrest J. Ackerman

[Colleagues have asked, where is a picture of Wendy Wahrman?  When I get a suitable picture of Wendy I will post it]. 

Once upon a time I had met most of the working west coast writers of science fiction, or at least the ones who came to the Westercon, the west coast science fiction convention.  This was no big deal, pretty much anyone who attended Westercon could meet them, they were very approachable.  This included such authors as Harlan Ellison, Larry Niven, Poul Anderson and Jerry Pournelle, just to name a few. Someone I knew about, but had never met, was Forrest J. Ackerman.

"Forry", as he was known, was quite famous in that world. He was a pioneer and contemporary of Robert Heinlein and people of that generation, and had made a living as a writer, an editor, a publisher and a literary agent all in the area of science fiction.   Science fiction is to literature as puppetry is to theatre, it doesn't get much respect.   And it is very difficult to make a living as a writer of fiction no matter what genre the writer works in.   He published none other than "Famous Monsters" magazine.  He probably wrote the first ever story for Vampirella.

This is Vampirella in her pre-sex goddess form.  No kinky leather jumpsuit at this time.

Forrest was also famous in this world of science fiction for his vast collection of all kinds of memorabilia from the worlds of horror, science fiction, and fantasy.  Such items as Bela Lugosi's cape from Dracula, and the mask from Creature from the Black Lagoon. He collected with the passion and obsession of all great collectors and kept everything in a great old mansion in the Hollywood Hills.

To give you an idea of what we are dealing with here, consider this link, which has a scan of a letter from a 14 year old Forry to Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the reply from Mr. Burroughs.     

One day a good friend of mine, a pioneer of the ARPANET who lived in Palo Alto, and a fan of science fiction, asked me to arrange a tour of Forrest's mansion for him.  The idea was that I was a local, and he wasn't, so I should do this.    As it happened, I knew Mr. Ackerman's phone number, because everyone who knew science fiction knew his phone number.  It was (213) MOON FAN.

 So I gathered up my courage and out of the blue one afternoon, I gave him a call.

"Mr. Ackerman," I said, "my name is Michael Wahrman, but you don't know me, but we of course know of you and of your famous collection and a friend and I wanted to know if there was a time when people could come see this collection. Perhaps you might have an open house one day a year or something like that. If you do have a way for people to tour your collection, we would very much like to do so."

I can not begin to write in a way that expresses how Forrest Ackerman used to speak. I want you to imagine in your mind that his lines are being spoken by Boris Karloff in The Mummy (1932).

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then he said "What is your name again?"

"Well, my name is Michael Wahrman, but I am pretty sure you have never heard of me".

"How do you spell that", he asked.

"Well, its spelled W-A-H-R-M-A-N, why do you ask?"

After a pause he said, mysteriously,  "You may come by, whenever you wish."

Well, that's odd, I thought.   But I made an appointment and my friend came to town and we went to this fabulous house somewhere in the Hollywood Hills and we were received by Forrest, shown around, and introduced to his lovely wife, the former Wendy Wahrman.   She greeted me with a fabulous Hungarian or perhaps eastern European accent saying "Ah, Wahrman.   An old family name.  From Hungary".

It is almost certain that Wendy and I were related. Its a very unusual name. Associated with a specific intellectual (jewish) elite of Europe. Only a few black sheep with that name came to this country, most of them were killed in the Holocaust, a few went to Israel, so you do not find many Wahrman's on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

I am looking for a suitable picture for Wendy Wahrman Ackerman, but haven't found one yet.

I will always remember Mr Ackerman, now dead these many years, and his amazing hospitality to a total stranger, and with this fabulous voice, doing a perfect horror movie rendition: "You may come by, whenever you wish".

Wikipedia page for Forrest Ackerman:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_J_Ackerman

A link to a first edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula, signed by Forry, Christopher Lee, and many others.
http://turhansbeycompany.tumblr.com/post/33611652054/hotmonsters-panicbeats-forrest-j-ackermans

Remembering Monsanto's Adventure Through Inner Space

[Revised 1/15/2013]

If you grew up on Southern California in the 1960s as I did there is a good chance that you share certain cultural experiences, a baseline as it were, with your fellow Southern California adolescents.

Some of us went surfing, some did not; some obsessed on and drew hot rod cars (e.g. RatFink and Big Daddy Roth) and some did not. Perhaps you went to that famous intersection where you could buy Red Devil or Black Cat fireworks, just about everyone went there.  (1)

But whoever you were, if you lived in Southern California, you went to Disneyland and went on the Adventure Through Inner Space, the Mighty Microscope, and experienced the world inside an ice crystal and the perils of shrinking ourselves to smaller than a molecule.

I always remember that anguished question "Dare I enter the world of the nucleus itself?  No!  I must turn back!  Or I will go on shrinking, forever!"  

The Adventure Through Inner Space was replaced (nothing could replace it, of course, not really) with Star Tours. How could they ? Well, they could. Time marches on, and Tomorrowland is not "1960s land" after all. Even if the 1960s was the highest expression of American Culture, it apparently did not fit in to the new Tomorrowland.

Then several years ago, Disney released a 6 CD boxed-set of audio from the original Disneyland, including the complete soundtrack of Adventure Through Inner Space.  This included what you heard while waiting in line (the preshow) and what you heard while exiting the attraction (the post show).  For the first time, I could hear exactly what was being said.  I sent excerpts to various friends who I knew had grown up in S. Calif to see if they would recognize it and got a reaction from every one.

I thought about doing some computer simulation of this attraction, in schematic form, without too much attempt to recreate it really, but just a bit of an outline.   Then I discovered, to my amazement, that someone out there took the time and energy to do a very detailed 3D simulation of this cultural landmark, attempting to preserve it for future generations.   His name is Steve Wesson and I have a link to his website and to the 3D simulation of the attraction in all its glory at the bottom of this post.

Simulated water molecules in the recreation of the attraction.  The original was projected, and so this is not so far from that.  Are these water molecules (H2O) or do we perhaps have hidden Mickeys?

But the real world interferes even with this selfless and probono work. Someone has posted the 3D simulation of the Mighty Microscope on Youtube where you can enjoy it free of cost, but he did so without asking Wesson, who would like to make some money on his work.  Of course, he doesn't own the intellectual property either, the Walt Disney Company does.  So its a little sticky.

But we won't worry too much about that.   I invite you to review this amazing simulation on Youtube and to visit Steve Wesson's site as well. Possibly you will even send him some money via Paypal or something to reward his extraordinary effort and devotion to the excellence of theme park attractions.

The video on Youtbe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA3uFkF1A9o

The Steve Wesson site:

http://themightymicroscope.com/home.htm

_______________________________________

1. The intersection was somewhere out in the San Fernando Valley, possibly near San Fernando Road itself.   I was very young and being driven by my father so I probably did not even know exactly where it was.

Linked In "Endorsements" Out of the Blue

Well, I don't exactly understand what is going on, but apparently LinkedIn automatically solicits my friends for "endorsements", which I think means that they are willing to say something nice.   I don't really know what to make of it, but it is reassuring given my horrible situation to get these nice emails that says that so-and-so has endorsed me.  It certainly couldn't hurt!

I have thanked most of these friends by email, but I thought I would also publicly say thank you here. Thanks  to Craig Reynolds, Bruce Borden, Maija Beeton, Robert Swanson, Dave Seig, Phil Zucco, Sylvie Rueff, Allan Battino, Jim Tucker and Bill Bishop for your endorsements.  I appreciate it very much.

Politics Is a Continuation of War by Other Means

The following is an editorial about recent politics in Washington involving the Petraeus resignation.   In this editorial, I express my real opinion about the Republicans and if that is upsetting to you, you may wish to stop reading.   

When I started this blog, I made the conscious decision that one thing I was going to do here was to express myself honestly about some of the politics and hypocrisy I have observed in my so-called life.   This is the second such editorial in a series, the first is here.

One more time we have a situation where the Republicans demonstrate amazing hypocrisy and a willingness to damage America in any way they can as part of their pursuit of power.   In an attempt to damage a member of the the Obama Administration they have slandered and probably succeeded in destroying the career of a loyal and competent soldier.  

The situation as I understand it is this.   The FBI failed to notify Congress that they were investigating a senior administration official.  Presumably the investigation itself was initiated by right wing Republicans looking to generate dirt to manipulate the Presidential election.  The investigation failed to find any wrongdoing and the investigation was dropped.  Some right wing FBI agents decided to disclose confidential personal information collected during the investigation to their allies in the Republican party in congress, who used this information to attack and slander a person who was innocent of all wrongdoing.

Having an affair is not a crime in this country.   If it were, there would be a lot of criminals walking around.  And Republicans of all people should be the last people to point fingers.

This post has been rewritten to be a little less negative.  Are we so powerless that we can not even control our own FBI ?   Are we so stupid that Republicans can not see how evil their elected representatives are?

Maybe its just that the Republicans are desperate men.   I dont know, I am not going to worry about it here on this Blog, I have better things to do with my time.

Will Glamorous Spies Seduce Our Systems Administrators?

Now you can waste hours of your life reading new documents on the National Security Agency's "What's New" page which should really be titled "What's Newly Declassified"....

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/whats_new/index.shtml

In particular, a paper written in 1991 called "Out of Control" spells out the vulnerability that comes from having classified material on systems with a systems administrator(s) with access to everything.

The specific conclusion was that systems administrators would become the targets of HUMINT operations by foreign intelligence services looking for root passwords.  The sysadmin could become the new "lonely cipher clerk" that is compromised by the beautiful foreign agent as seen during the cold war.

But first I must see your root password.

Would our loyal sysadmins be vulnerable to this insidious attack by attractive secret agents?  I think the answer is clearly "yes, they would".   An obvious countermeasure is to make sure that systems administrators are very good looking, well-adjusted and with healthy romantic lives. Presumably arranging a healthy romance for our sysadmins will become a standard part of counterintelligence in our nation's defense infrastructure or be a prerequisite for assignment to this sensitive position.

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_quarterly/Out_of_Control.pdf

The seductive femme fatale is Honor Blackman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_Blackman

Reality vs Visual Effects: The Case of the F-15 Over Afghanistan

I regularly stumble across pictures from the real world that look fake to me.   I believe that if this picture was used in a movie, that is if there was a scene that looked like this, people would complain about the bad and obviously fake visual effects.

Here is a picture of a fighter being refueled at night over Afghanistan.

Examine the picture (click on it to enlarge it) and then read my notes below.   These are the notes that I would give the technical director of the shot to help him or her understand what some of the problems are.

An F-15E Strike Eagle from the 391st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, refuels Dec. 12 during a combat mission. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon)

1. The camera seems to be in an improbable position.  But it isn't, this is a camera on the refueling aircraft, completely normal.

2. The background (terrain) looks overly simple, it needs more detail.   That's how a lot of Afghanistan looks in winter at night.

3. The motion blur looks wrong.   But it isn't, the background is blurred because we are travelling fast over the ground, the airplane is not blurred because it has matched our speed.  The camera is at an oblique angle and the ground closer to the bottom of the picture is travelling "faster", e.g. more screen distance vertically, than the terrain in the upper part of the picture, hence the motion blur in the bottom of the picture is visibly more than the blur near the top, and this is correct.

4. You can see inside the cockpit.  That is correct, very high visibility these cockpits. And lots of illumination from the refueling boom.

5. The fighter itself is too low detail.  It looks like a model.   But it isn't.  F15s look like that from this point of view.  If you got up close you would see more detail, but it is deliberately supposed to be a sortof even grey from a distance (its a form of camouflage).

6. There appears to be a matte line around the front of the aircraft.   Yes there does appear to be a matte line, but it isn't.  It is the dark sky reflecting in the metal of the nose as it curves down.   It just looks like it has been outlined.

7. The lighting looks weird.   Its not your imagination, the lighting is weird.  We have a refueling boom with some sort of really bright (sodium?) light on it, a very bright moon illuminating everything with a blue-white light, reflections from the moon off the ground, illumination inside the fighter.  This is weird lighting.   That's just the way it is, or was, that night over Afghanistan.

In fact, it is a picture of a fighter at night over Afghanistan in winter being refueled.  It looks like that.   I think this is very amusing.

The original picture is at
http://www.strategypage.com/military_photos/military_photos_20121106215639.aspx

The Mystery of the Original Star Wars Trailer

This is a post about the mystery of the first or original Star Wars (1977) trailer. I saw this trailer about a year before the movie came out, then never saw it again. All the billions of people I knew who worked on the later films at ILM and Lucasarts never saw this trailer. I think I have found it on Youtube, but first I want to explain what it was.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, a low budget science fiction film with the odd name of "Star Wars" was being made. Its director had made a successful film in a completely different genre, but this was not the same, and very few people knew what to make of it. Generally the people who read the script and the people who were working on it did not think it would do very well.

But a number of things happened that changed that.

One of those things is something that was very unusual back in 1976 but is common today: the premarketing of the film at various fan conventions, such as science fiction conventions or ComicCon. A friend of George Lucas from Film School, whose name is Charlie Lippincott I believe, went to science fiction conventions around the country: Worldcon, Westercon, etc and gave a presentation and showed footage from the film on 16 mm.

Back then, people had never seen anything like this. We had been fed garbage from the studios like Logan's Run (1976) and otherwise treated with contempt.

I happened to be at the 1976 Westercon by LAX that year and I saw the presentation. We made him show the trailer twice and this is what I recall.

1. There was no John Williams music. The score for the film had not been composed yet, so they used a basic tone repeated to give some suspense, 2. There was a voice over saying things like "the story of a boy, a girl and a universe" and "coming to your galaxy this summer". 3. There was a shot of a little robot falling on its face (this was R2D2 and this shot was not in the final movie), 4. There was a shot of some strange older guy with a glowing sword in a bar, 5. There was a shot of a spaceship being attacked by smaller spaceships, the camera POV was moving as if it was in one of those smaller spaceships, 6. There was a shot of two people jumping over a chasm with a rope in classic swashbuckler style.

R2D2 is starting to fall.

Bang!

We thought it was great and we all went to see the movie the day it opened. That plus the Time Magazine feature on the film generated enough business so that lines wrapped around the block at the 50 theaters in the 50 cities that the film opened in.   The publicity and word of mouth of that first weekend / week of business started the snowball rolling.

No big deal, nothing strange here, except that this hugely successful film, with all the paraphenalia and media and all my friends working at ILM and no one ever saw that trailer again. No one. None of my friends at ILM or anywhere else had ever seen this trailer. It was easy to tell. You would ask if the trailer had John Williams music and the answer was always yes. This trailer had completely disappeared.

Today, I came across a very bad quality dub of something that claims to be an original Star Wars trailer.

It might very well be. It has the elements that I recall, and it has things I do not recall. But this was a long time ago, so I am going to say that this might have been the trailer, or something very close to it. Now was it worth the wait? I am not sure, it is hard, very hard to put yourself back 30+ years and remember what you were like and what the world was like.

But if this is the trailer I remembered, then the mystery is explained.  It is filled with shots that never made it into the final film as well as what I think are early visual effects tests that also never made it into the film.

Here is the trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gvqpFbRKtQ

Visual Effects Stoops to New Low to Visualize Skydiving Cats

I want to thank Yayoi Wakabayashi for pointing out one of the truly, genuinely stupid use of visual effects in recent history: skydiving cats.  Guess what, they didn't actually throw cats out a window, they used the magic of visual effects to execute this abomination.

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2012/11/16/tsr-moos-skydiving-cats-controversy.cnn#/video/us/2012/11/16/tsr-moos-skydiving-cats-controversy.cnn

With great power comes great responsibility and clearly these people are not up to using visual effects responsibly.

Visualization and Employment in the Defense and Intelligence Field

Just for fun, and because the grass is always greener, I decided to look at the job openings at a major computer technology defense contractor: SAIC. SAIC used to be a small (e.g. maybe 500 people) company in San Diego renowned for treating its people well and doing cool things for three-letter agencies that they could not talk about. I knew that they had grown since then, and I knew that the national security business was experiencing major growth, but I was still surprised.  Amazed actually.

SAIC now has over 40,000 employees, all over the country and the world. They have over 3,500 current job openings, and all of the ones I looked at had been listed in the last 60 days.  So SAIC is gigantic and is growing like mad.  

Job titles on Internet employment lists vary from useful to useless as we all know.  Nevertheless, I am an expert reader of such things and scanned about 1/2 of the jobs open at SAIC, pulling out 1 or 2 a page for further review.   The first thing that pops right out at you and waves their arms around so you can't miss it is that almost all these jobs require a security clearance.  Not merely that you are willing to get a security clearance, no, they require that you have it already, active, in order to apply.  Of the 30 or 40 jobs I happened to pick because they sounded interesting or possibly relevant all but 1 or 2 required an active security clearance.   Since you as an individual can not keep a security clearance active easily, this means that you were either in the military, working for a defense contractor or you were your own defense contractor and needed a security clearance within the last (approximately) two years (it varies, based on the type of security clearance), or it would have lapsed automatically.

But this gets better.  It isn't just any security clearance that you are supposed to have, its a Top Secret / SCI clearance.  Whats funny about that is that Top Secret is a classification, but SCI is not, its something else, an "access ticket" I think.   Just because you have a ticket to one compartment, doesn't mean that you can automatically have a ticket to another, it means you have a need-to-know for that first compartment.  I presume that it is easier to clear someone for a new compartment if they have had a ticket to another one in the past.  I guess.

So of the 30 or 40 jobs I read beyond the job title, all but a few required a clearance of some sort, and most of them TS/SCI.   One of the few that did not require this was, ironically, the one job I found that looked like it might use Visualization as part of its job description.     This is yet more (anecdotal) evidence that graphics and visualization is a poorly regarded niche specialization outside of a few industries.

Wikipedia page on security clearances
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_clearance