Archive for the 'Audio & Video' Category

Start your broomsticks, 17th century London is waiting….

For a moment, let us pretend we are flying our broomsticks through 17th century London. Come on, you know you want to. Let’s go!

 

 

Prize-Winning Animation Lets You Fly Through 17th Century London

 

 

“Six students from De Montfort University have created a stellar 3D representation of 17th century London, as it existed before The Great Fire of 1666. The three-minute video provides a realistic animation of Tudor London, and particularly a section called Pudding Lane where the fire started. As Londonist notes, “Although most of the buildings are conjectural, the students used a realistic street pattern [taken from historical maps] and even included the hanging signs of genuine inns and businesses” mentioned in diaries from the period. For their efforts, the De Montfort team was awarded first prize in the Off the Map contest, a competition run by The British Library and video game developers GameCity and Crytek. You can find more information about how the animation came together over at the animators’ blog, plus at The British Library’s Digital Scholarship blog…”

 

Watch in amazement, below —

 

 

 

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The Allusive Source of The Scent of Raindrops

The mysterious smell of rain…

(“Petrichor” is the word for it.)

 

More about this here.

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The Resurrection of an Egyptian Princess…

May you be merry this Halloween and dance alongside the spirits…

 

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Also, we hope you watch and enjoy this film! —  The Monster by Georges Méliès. (It’s about an attempt to bring an Egyptian princess back to life…)

 

 

“A 1903 film directed by French filmmaker Georges Méliès and, as is common with his films, starring the man himself. The story centres on the chaotic, and ultimately futile, attempt to bring a dead Egyptian Princess back to life. According to the Lubin Catolog:

 

An Egyptian prince has lost his beloved wife and he has sought a dervish who dwells at the base of the sphinx. The prince promises him a vast fortune if the dervish will only give him the opportunity of gazing once more upon the features of his wife. The dervish accepts the offer. He brings in from a neighboring tomb the receptacle containing the remains of the princess. He opens it and removes the skeleton, which he places upon the ground close beside him. Then, turning to the moon and raising his arms outstretched toward it, he invokes the moon to give back life to her who is no more.

The skeleton begins to move about, becomes animated, and arises. The dervish puts it upon a bench and covers it with a white linen; a masque conceals its ghostly face. At a second invocation the skeleton begins again to move, arises, and performs a weird dance…”

 

– Read more about it here, at the fabulous Public Domain Review.

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