Zef

People like Brian Greene is the reason why I’m on Twitter. There is no reason to be science illiterate. If you have a question, someone will have the right answer, or guide you to the right answer. #science #STEM #STEAM

The lighting from the Vanity Fair Oscar Party Red Carpet looked so glowy and beautiful?! I think I know why! It's because they used a style of lighting that I've NEVER SEEN ANY OTHER RED CARPET USE! 🧵

You're watching a $248 million film and not a single green or blue screen was used. The alien is a handmade puppet. The cockpit physically rotates to simulate gravity. I looked at the production tech behind this 95% score, and the engineering is wild. Phil Lord and Chris Miller, directing their first live-action movie in 12 years, built the entire Hail Mary spacecraft as a real set at Shepperton Studios in England. Not a miniature. Not a digital model. A full-size ship interior you can walk through. Production designer Charlie Wood studied the International Space Station, Russia's Mir station, and the Boeing 747 cockpit to get the look right. He deliberately made the panels mismatched, because real spacecraft are assembled from parts made by different companies. Nothing matches perfectly. That's what makes it feel real. The cockpit is only about 8 feet wide. It sits on a mechanical platform that can tilt, spin, and shake, so when the ship changes direction or enters different gravity conditions, the whole set moves. Chairs end up on walls. Ladders flip direction. Gosling was suspended inside a spinning ring so he could float and move through the ship for real, reacting to actual hardware around him. No guessing where a wall might be added later. Then there's Rocky. He's the alien co-lead, and he's not CGI. Neal Scanlan, the creature designer who built the Porgs for Star Wars, spent a full year on this character. Over 300 designs before they landed on the final look. Rocky is a thin, hollow shell, 3D-printed from a digital sculpture, then hand-painted in see-through layers so light passes through him like skin. His arms pop off and swap out depending on the scene: one set has a closed fist for walking, another has tiny motorized fingers strong enough to pick up objects. Five puppeteers (nicknamed the "Rockyteers") operated him in every scene. James Ortiz, an award-winning puppet designer from New York theater, voiced Rocky and controlled him on set. When Scanlan met him, he told Ortiz, "You're Frank Oz, and I'm making Yoda for you." Every reaction Gosling gives to the alien is to something physically in front of him. Greig Fraser, who won the Oscar for shooting Dune, filmed the space scenes in the larger IMAX format (that taller image you see in IMAX theaters) and the Earth flashbacks in regular widescreen. Then the team did something unusual: they took the digital footage and printed it onto real film strips, twice, using two different types of film stock. Then they scanned those strips back into digital. It sounds redundant, but it adds a texture and warmth that you can only get from physical film. Fraser used the same technique on Dune and The Batman. Drew Goddard spent six years writing this screenplay. His last adaptation of Andy Weir's novel, The Martian, earned him an Oscar nomination. He described the challenge this way: a screenplay gets about 5% of a novel's word count. The lead is alone for most of the runtime. When he finally gets a co-star, that co-star doesn't speak English, communicates through sounds closer to whale song, and has no face. Goddard called it a screenwriter's nightmare, then said that difficulty was the whole point. He and the directors fought studio pushback to keep Weir's original ending intact. 95% from 212 critics. 98% from over 2,500 audience ratings. And the lead isn't a superhero, a cop, or a soldier. He's just an ordinary middle school science teacher.

Enjoy the moment

Never forget that "Barbenheimer" was NOT created by the studios, they had nothing to do it, it was created by fans and fueled by regular people without the help of any marketing department. Studios will NOT promote other movies that are not from their studio. This was a miracle.

Hollywood might be used to that white stuff but it’s rare to catch it behind the sign on the lower mountains Palms mixed with snow 🌴❄️

"I passionately hate the idea of being 'with it'; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time." -Orson Welles.

HOLLYWOOD Dreamin’ Hiked up to Dante’s Peak at an ungodly hour to capture this moonset over the sign. The things you do for the perfect photo.

Magic happens when the full moon and snow caps align over Los Angeles. Planning moonrises can be challenging but there are several online apps and tools now that can help. I specifically use planit pro. Seeing it all come together is the ultimate satisfaction 🌝

An extremely rare photo and one of my favorites. About 40 miles span from where I am standing to strawberry peak which doesn’t often get snow sitting at about ~6000 ft elevation. Once the sun sets the visibility of the city diminishes a lot. With extremely clear air, I was still able to capture the details of the skyline along with the beach and mountains for an insanely compressed single photograph. There aren’t a lot of well documented photos of LA from the SouthBay so I am happy that I have this one in my portfolio.

my therapist told me this and it hit me: “healing is so hard because it is a constant battle between your inner child who is scared and just wants safety.... your inner teenager who is angry and just wants justice.... and your current self-who is tired and just wants peace."

In honor of George Harrison's 83rd birthday. Billy Preston with Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Dhani Harrison performing "My Sweet Lord" at the George Harrison tribute concert (2002)

From the surf to the snow in one amazing LA day Did you know you can see the Los Angeles skyline with the SouthBay beaches lining the foreground and the snow capped San Gabriels in the background on a clear day? This is my favorite view of the city but one that only comes around on extremely clear days when we are lucky to get snow drop to the lower elevations.

this quote from Carl Jung hits so hard. “The world is full of people suffering from the effects of their own unlived life. They become bitter, critical, or rigid, not because the world is cruel to them, but because they have betrayed their own inner possibilities. The artist who never makes art becomes cynical about those who do. The lover who never risks loving mocks romance. The thinker who never commits to a philosophy sneers at belief itself. And yet, all of them suffer, because deep down they know: the life they mock is the life they were meant to live.”

if you quit, it won’t happen.

i'm a big fan of the "gps theory" when you miss a turn, your gps doesn't judge you, it recalculates. no matter how many detours you take, it finds another way forward. life works like that too. you'll make mistakes, but your destination doesn't vanish. the route just changes.