Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
PKD's Scramble Suit In A Scanner Darkly Movie Trailer
The highly anticipated movie version of Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly will (probably) appear in theaters this summer. A new trailer highlights the look and feel of the film. The trailer emphasizes elements found in Dick's work; it is a dark vision of an America in which everyone is continually monitored and recorded.
One of the more interesting elements of the trailer is that it clearly illustrates the scramble suit, an intriguing piece of technovelgy. The suit is worn to give a perfectly anonymous appearance to undercover police detectives.
(Keanu Reeves in a scramble suit)
The scramble suit ... consisted of a multifaceted quartz lens hooked up to a million and a half physiognomic fraction-representations of various people: men and women, children, with every variant encoded and then projected outward in all directions equally onto a superthin shroudlike membrane large enough to fit around an average human.As the computer looped through its banks, it projected every conceivable eye color, hair color, shape and type of nose, formation of teeth, configuration of facial bone structure - the entire shroudlike membrane took on whatever physical characteristics were projected at any nanosecond, then switched to the next...
(Read more about Philip K. Dick's scramble suit)
At the end of another exhausting day of paranoid investigation, the suit can be removed, and one's ordinary identity resumed.
(The scramble suit comes off)
The unusual look of the film is achieved with a technique known as interpolated rotoscoping, in which a program called Rotoshop determines vector keyframes of timed images, and then interpolates frames automatically to achieve smooth animation. Older viewers of the film will probably be reminded of a similar technique used by Seventies filmmaker Ralph Bakshi (I'm thinking of the Ringwraiths in particular). Even older viewers might remember that Walt Disney used a similar technique of basing animation directly on filmed live action in the very first animated film Snow White (completed in 1937). Marjorie Belcher was filmed pantomiming the actions of Snow White; initial tracings for the animators were taken directly off the moviola.
For comparison, you might want to take a look at the mimetic polycarbon suit worn by Lupus Yonderboy in William Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer.
The new movie trailer is available all over the web (try here); I found an interesting description of the creation of Snow White here.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/22/2006)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 4 )
Related News Stories - (" Clothing ")
Don't Want To Wear A TIght Shiny Bodysuit?
'He looked a good bit like an elderly, fat beetle.' - Robert Heinlein, 1942.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...' - JG Ballard, 1970.
Rigid Metallic Clothing From Science Fiction To You
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.' - Edmond Hamilton, 1932.
iPhone Pocket All Sold Out!
'A long, strong, slender net...' - Margaret St. Clair, 1949.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Sleeper Drones Lie in Wait
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
Warfare Goes Underground In Ukraine
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
3D Printed Organs From Space
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo
'At first I was struck by the large size of these bees..'
DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
How To Settle An Argument Between Two Robots
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
The Wind Phone Calls Those Who Have Passed On
'Only I heard that!'
Don't Want To Wear A TIght Shiny Bodysuit?
'He looked a good bit like an elderly, fat beetle.'
Light Society: Simulates Earth-Scale Society With A Billion AI Agents
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
Satyress Centaur Robot Horror Reminds Everyone Of Something
'Fess was very dutiful'
When Colds Threaten You Can't Do This - Or Can You?
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
Beautiful Visualization of Dawn Spacecraft
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
Biological War: A Scenario
'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
Pole-Dancing Stripperbot Robot
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
Collective Superintelligence Is At Hand!
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
Instant Journalists: Ordinary People With Cell Phones
'We'll show them whose planet this is!'
