Yes, there really is such a contest, and you have until November 18th to submit your entry. The folks at the animation software company Toon Boom have teamed up with Shatner’s My Outer Space to put the competition together. According to the contest page you become a member of My Outer Space (it’s free), and then download three William Shatner audio clips which are 22 seconds long each. Using the Personal Learning Edition of Toon Boom Animate or Animate Pro (free download), you then design, storyboard, and animate your own video to create an imaginative finished product. Prizes in this contest include online animation courses, a full suite of animation software, and the grand prize is getting to work on a full animation project being developed at My Outer Space. Have fun building!
There is a new trailer for the UK show Misfits which is about to launch into season 2. If you enjoyed Heroes back when they were good and you like intelligent comedy, this may just be the show for you. A group of scruffy young folks on a Community Service sentence get struck by lightning and develop strange powers. This program actually won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for Best Drama, awarded in June. So far as I know, no one is currently planning to bring this to the US; I hope that changes soon.
TOR Dot Com didn’t do a full month of Steampunk this year, but they are doing a Steampunk Fortnight. Besides the many articles they have posted in the 42 or so hours since they started, they have also posted two excellent stories: Clockwork Fairies by Cat Rambo, and The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder. And if you can’t get enough Steampunk there, consider becoming a part of the project to Build the Charles Babbage Analytical Engine, as posted by the BBC. As someone who has ranted about Ada and Charlie, inventor of computer programming and the computer respectively back in the 1830’s, you probably already know I am supporting this one!
One of my favorite J-Rock groups is Scandal, who started out as four actresses in training. Each was advised to learn a musical instrument to round out their skill set; so they chose 4 different ones and formed a kick-ass band. You mostly only hear them in North America on Anime DVDs, when they come through on tour, or periodically on a J-Melo broadcast. And while over here they are best known for their contributions to K-ON and other anime, they have a ton of top quality non-anime music as well, and more fans than you might suspect (some of whom can sing their entire catalog in Japanese). Did I mention the have won some awards, including the Viewers Choice Awards on J-Melo?
Hopefully you have been attending the USA Science and Engineering Festival since it opened on the 10th, either on the national mall and surrounding area or at any of the Satellite Events taking place at 50 locations in twenty different states. It goes on through the 24th, and I wanted to remind everyone that for the final weekend they are doing a Grand Finale Expo. That runs from 10AM to 5:30PM on Saturday and Sunday, the 23rd and 24th, with more than 1,500 hands-on activities and over 75 stage shows. Hope to see you there!
This Friday’s offering is a bit different, but looks like it could be interesting. Hereafter is a film directed by Clint Eastwood about a psychic who sees the afterlife and a few people he connects with deeply. I am not a fan of Clint Eastwood, Psychics, or near-death phenomena, but the trailer makes me think that perhaps there is something about this movie that would make it worthwhile. Of course, that’s what I thought about The Last Airbender trailer, and once the film actually started the guy sitting behind me kept nudging me to stop me from snoring. I think I will wait until this one is on a service I get anyways, like Netflix or HBO, rather than take another expensive nap in a darkened room full of strangers.