September 18, 2011
Voice Actor - Ron Pearlman
His video game credits include Lord Terrence Hood, Fleet Admiral in command of Earth's space defences against the Covenant in the games Halo 2 and Halo 3, Jagger Valance in The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, and Batman in Justice League Heroes. He is well-known by Fallout fans for narrating the introductory movies in the series, including uttering the famous phrase "War. War never changes." in each installment. He also voices "Slade" in the 2008 Turok game, and Emil Blonsky/Abomination in Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.
As an actor, he is best known for having played Vincent in the TV series Beauty and the Beast, Clay Morrow in Sons of Anarchy, and the comic book character Hellboy in both feature films.
Full List of Voice Over Credits:
* Batman: The Animated Series (1992–1993) (TV series) – Clayface
* Animaniacs (1993) (TV series) – Satan, Sgt. Sweete
* Phantom 2040 (1994) (TV series) – Graft
* Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (1995) (TV series) – Kurtis Stryker
* Fantastic Four (1995) (TV series) – Wizard, Hulk
* Aladdin (1994) (TV series) – Arbutus
* Iron Man (1995) (TV series) – Dr. Bruce Banner/The Hulk
* Chronomaster (1995) (video game) – Rene Korda
* Hey Arnold! (1996) (TV series) – Mickey Kaline
* Duckman (1996) (TV series) Roland Thompson
* Fallout (1997) (video game) – Butch Harris, narrator
* An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island (1998) – Grasping
* The New Batman Adventures (1997–1998) (TV series) – Clayface
* Fallout 2 (1998) (video game) – Narrator
* Superman: The Animated Series (1999) (TV series) – Jax-Ur
* Titan A.E. (2000) – Professor Sam Tucker
* Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel (2001) (video game) – Narrator
* Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter (2001) (video game) – Wylfdene
* Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu (2003) (video game) – Clayface
* True Crime: Streets of LA (2003) (video game) – Misha
* Lords of EverQuest (2003) (video game) – Lord Skass
* Justice League Unlimited (2004–2006) (TV series) – Clayface, Orion
* Teen Titans (2004–2006) (TV series) – Slade
* The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (2004) (video game) – Jagger Valance
* Danny Phantom (2004–2007) (TV series) – Mr. Lancer
* Halo 2 (2004) (video game) – Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood
* Gun (2005) (video game) – Mayor Hoodoo Brown
* Tarzan II (2005) – Kago
* The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (2005) (video game) – Emil Blonsky/The Abomination
* Teen Titans (2005) (video game) – Slade
* The Batman (2005) Killer Croc
* Scooby-Doo! in Where's My Mummy? (2005) – Hotep/Ancient One #2
* The Outfit (2005) (video game) – Tommy Mac
* Scooby-Doo! Pirates Ahoy! (2006) – Captain Skunkbeard/Biff Wellington
* Justice League Heroes (2006) (video game) – Bruce Wayne/Batman
* Hellboy: Sword of Storms (2006) (TV) – Hellboy
* Afro Samurai (2007) (TV) – Justice
* Kim Possible (2007) (TV) – Worhok
* Hellboy: Blood and Iron (2007) (TV) – Hellboy
* Battle for Terra (2007) – Elder Vorin
* Halo 3 (2007) (video game) – Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood
* Conan (2007) (video game) – Conan of Cimmeria
* Avatar: The Last Airbender (2007) (TV series) – Fire Lord Sozin
* Hellboy: The Science of Evil (2008) (video game) – Hellboy
* Fallout 3 (2008) (video game) – Narrator
* Turok (2008) (video game) – Slade
* Spirit of the Forest (2008) – Oak
* Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) (TV series) – Gha Nachkt
* Afro Samurai (2009) (video game) – Justice
* The Strain (2009) (audio book) – Narrator
* Fallout: New Vegas (2010) (video game) – Narrator
* Archer (2010) (TV series) – Ramon Limon
* Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2010) (TV series) – Doctor Double X
* Tangled (2010) Stabbington Brothers (voice)
* Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (2010) Bi-Beast and The Mandarin (voice)
Voice Actress - Tress MacNeille
Her most notable characters on The Simpsons include Agnes Skinner, Brandine Spuckler, and Lindsey Naegle, while her performance as Mom is her most notable Futurama role. Tress MacNeille became the voices of Betty Boop in 1998 (after Mae Questel's death) with Tara Strong and Daisy Duck in 1999.
MacNeille has also provided voices on numerous other television shows and cartoons such as Animaniacs, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Histeria!, Hey Arnold! and Tiny Toon Adventures, listed below, as well as dubbing work on English language anime translations. She was also the voice of Leon from Lilly the Witch.
MacNeille sang and appeared in the music video (as Lucille Ball) with "Weird Al" Yankovic on his song, "Ricky", which was based on the I Love Lucy television show and parodied the song "Mickey" by Toni Basil.[1] MacNeille also appeared on Yankovic's 1999 album Running with Scissors, on the track "Jerry Springer". MacNeille performed in "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi". MacNeille also appeared as an angry anchorwoman in Elvira, Mistress of the Dark and served as the voice of Elvira's Great-Aunt Morganna Talbot. MacNeille was a member of The Groundlings for 10 years.
See her HUGE credit list here.
Things You Should Know About "Back To The Future"
Last month the Internet was forced to ponder the mysterious circumstances of the relationship between the nearly elderly Doc Brown and the teenage Marty McFly. (Writer Bob Gale says they’re just two of a pair, but we think Doc is actually Marty’s father, by way of Mary Steenbergen, from another dimension.) Now that that’s cleared up, let’s talk about the other things you didn’t know about this canonical film series. Put these in your Mr. Fusion and smoke it to the future.
See also the coverage of a real-life hoverboard.
Via motherboard
- The time machine wasn’t always a Delorean. In the first draft of the screenplay the time machine was a laser device housed in a room, and subsequently attached to a refrigerator. Director Robert Zemeckis chose to scrap the idea because he feared that children might start climbing into refrigerators and getting trapped inside. The Delorean entered the script in its third draft, chosen because its gull-wing doors would give it the look of an alien spacecraft, which it would be assumed to be in the year 1955. This draft of the script indicated the DeLorean could only time travel by driving into an atomic bomb test. The bomb test was eventually cut in order to reduce the budget.
- The head of Universal Pictures, Sid Sheinberg, insisted that nobody would see a movie with “future” in the title. In a memo to Robert Zemeckis, he said that the title should be changed to “Spaceman From Pluto”, tying in with the Marty-as-alien jokes in the film, and also suggested further changes like replacing the “I’m Darth Vader from planet Vulcan” line with “I am a spaceman from Pluto!” Steven Spielberg wrote back, thanking him for his wonderful “joke memo.” Sheinberg did succeed in changing Doc’s animal sidekick from a chimpanzee to a dog.
- Eric Stoltz was almost Marty McFly. Though Michael J. Fox had always been the first choice for Marty, he was unavailable due to scheduling conflicts with his work on the TV show “Family Ties.” Zemeckis cast Stoltz as Marty instead, based on his performance in the 1985 film, Mask. But after four weeks of filming, Zemeckis and the producers felt that Stoltz wasn’t right for the part and Stoltz agreed (Lea Thompson, chosen for her work with Stoltz on The Wild Life, stayed on). Fox was finally given leave from the show, but worked out a schedule to fulfill his commitment to both projects. During production, he averaged about five hours of sleep, with the bulk of the filming happening from 6pm to 6am, with the daylight scenes filmed on weekends.
- The “Mr. Fusion Home Energy Converter,” which is sitting on the Delorean when Doc returns from the future, is made from (among other things) a Krups coffee grinder and the hubcap from a Dodge Polaris.
- John Lithgow, Dudley Moore and Jeff Goldblum were all considered for the role of Doc Brown.
- Disney, offered early dibs on the film, rejected it because of its incestuous overtones. They thought that the story of a mother falling in love with her son – even if by virtue of time travel – was too controversial. Other studios reportedly worried that the film was not risqué enough, compared to contemporaneous teen comedies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), or Revenge of the Nerds (1984).
- Doc’s name, Emmett, comes from the word “time,” spelled backwards and pronounced as syllables (em-it). His middle name is “Lathrop,” which is “portal” backwards, with an extra “h” inserted in the middle.
- Ronald Reagan really liked it. He was reportedly so amused by Doc Brown’s disbelief (in the 1950s) that Reagan could become president that he had the projectionist stop and replay the scene. Reagan also referenced the film in his 1986 State of the Union address: “As they said in the film Back to the Future, ‘Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.’”
- Christopher Lloyd based his performance as Doc Brown on a combination of Albert Einstein and conductor Leopold Stokowski. His pronunciation of gigawatts as “jigowatts” was based on the now antiquated way a physicist-consultant to the film said the word.
- It took a mere 9 and a half weeks from the day the film was wrapped to its release, an unprecedentedly short lead time for a major movie release.
- In the original script, Doc Brown and Marty fund their time machine by selling bootleg videos.
The original theatrical trailer
- Michael J. Fox is only ten days younger than Lea Thompson, who plays his mother, and is almost three years older than his on-screen dad, Crispin Glover.
- The script never called for Marty to repeatedly bang his head on the gull-wing door of the DeLorean; this was improvised during filming as the door mechanism became faulty.
- When Doc Brown first sends his dog Einstein “one minute” into the future, the time elapsed between when the DeLorean disappears and reappears is actually 1 minute 21 seconds, just as the reappearance occurred at 1:21am, and the flux capacitor required 1.21 jigowatts of electricity.
- Christopher Lloyd always wanted to do one more movie, in which Marty and Doc Brown time-travel back to Ancient Rome.
- When Marty pretends to be Darth Vader “from the planet Vulcan,” he plays a tape labeled “Van Halen” to scare George out of his sleep. It was actually an untitled Eddie Van Halen song written for that 1984 movie The Wild Life, which featured Lea Thompson.
- “To be continued,” the end card, was inserted just before the credits on the VHS release of the film, but was omitted from the 2002 DVD release. The cliff-hanger ending was originally intended as a joke, not as a set-up to a sequel. If they had intended a sequel at the time, according to script writer Bob Gale, Jennifer wouldn’t have entered the car at the end, a problem that the 2nd film addresses by having her rendered unconscious.
- When the Doc Brown of 1955 sees the videotape of himself explaining the time machine, he begins speaking to a picture frame of Thomas A. Edison; the other portraits on the mantle depict Sir Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein.
- While Marty and Jennifer credit Doc for the line, “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything,” Doc never says the line once in any of the Back to the Future movies.
- Einstein was left in a suspended animation kennel when Doc headed back to 1985 to pick up Marty (and Jennifer, who happened to be there) to bring them to 2015.
- Billy Zane makes his first on-screen appearance in this film as “Match”, one of Biff’s cronies.
- The Academy Award for Best Picture in 1955 – the year that Marty McFly travels to — was called Marty. Both films also feature a diner owner name Lou.
- The film’s action doesn’t actually begin on July 3, 1985, the release date of the film, but on October 26, 1985. The future.
- Bob Gale has said he was inspired to write the film after discovering his father’s high school yearbook and wondering whether he would have been friends with his father as a teenager.
Here is a fan-made trailer that envisions the film as if it were directed by a time-traveling J.J. Abrams:
See also the coverage of a real-life hoverboard.
Via motherboard
September 17, 2011
The Importance of Character
I've always believed that great characters are the foundation for awesome children’s projects. In fact, in animated feature films there seems to this "story is king" motto, made famous by Pixar owners and directors. As I have been working in the animation industry for over 12 years now, I see more and more evidence of the theory that Character takes higher president (and entertainment value) over Story. I'm not saying that Story is over-rated, of course the age-old debate "which is more important, or which comes first? Story or Character" is always a fascinating subject to me. I believe you remember and associate with Characters first and foremost, of course Characters cannot survive without a survive without a good story for them to live in, but Story does not exist without a structured and entertaining Story to support that character.
That’s why I was excited about the recent coverage on the research from educational animation advisor, Alexis Lauricella. As Alexis’ study, “Toddlers Learning from Socially Meaningful Video Characters,” concludes, social relationships that children develop with a character impact their ability to learn from media. In the case of her study, toddlers who saw a sequencing task performed by the beloved Elmo were significantly more able to perform the task themselves than two control groups. That's why places like Disneyland and Disney World work so well in my opinion, the children (of a certain age) truly believe those costumed characters are real, and that's what makes the experience so magical to them. Micky, Goofy, Dora, Elmo and all other characters on site get related by their on-screen animated selves, and the kids make that association with the characters they watch and love on television.
In addition, I've recently read a study out of the University of California, Riverside on the importance of social relationships with media characters. The study, “Media as Social Partners: The Social Nature of Young Children’s Learning From Screen Media,” had equally telling results. Similar to Alexis’ work, this paper cites the social nature of learning from screen media, concluding that there is a direct correlation between a child’s relationship with on-screen characters and their comprehension of information presented.
Through personal experience, my 3 year old daughter has formed these bonds with on-screen characters to a profound level. Calliou, Pocoyo , and Toupee & Binoo are just some of the characters she loves to watch. I observe her reactions and how much she looks forward to what the characters do next.
Characters do not survive without story, and story does not survive without character, but the more I see the relationship between my daughter and the on-screen characters that she truly believes are 100% real, it makes me think that characters should be created, designed and developed first. Of course the younger the age demographic a cartoon is for, the simpler the stories will be, but it's still a testament to the power of characters and how much kids believe in these characters.
Even when I think about films like Star Wars, Die Hard, Blade Runner, Alien, and Star Trek... what is the first thing I remember when I recall these films? Is it the story or the characters in those stories? Of course I always remember the characters first. The same goes for classic cartoons new and old.
Sure when you say "Homer Simpson" instantly some quotes, catch-phrases and brief moments of funniness come to mind. But when you say Simpsons, you think of the characters within that series more so that specific stories. Simpson relies a lot on it's huge cast of characters along with its writing. Of course the best of those two worlds is what creates truly great television or film.
From Spongebob to Harry Potter, characters are developed around a strong story structure. These structures I made to have the character grow, face conflicts and evolve within their own universe. One TV series I love to follow is House. This series is the epitome of the saying "the story writes itself". Why? Because the producers and creators of this show masterfully created a complex, intriguing, and detailed main character.
House often clashes with his fellow physicians, including his own diagnostic team, because many of his hypotheses about patients' illnesses are based on subtle or controversial insights. His flouting of hospital rules and procedures frequently runs him afoul of his boss, hospital administrator and Dean of Medicine Dr. Lisa Cuddy. When you create such a thoroughly well-thought out character such as Dr. House, the scripts really do write themselves, simply because when you have a character created with such a detailed personality and back story you simply have to create the situation and how the character will react and engage in that situation becomes obvious, and thus, the stories write themselves. The creation of a strong character had to come first.
This is all leading me back to the study regarding the social relationships that children develop with a character impact their ability to learn from media. Showing how children will only connect with appealing characters, characters that happen to be educational in their performances is just a nice bonus.
And that's my random rant of the day.
That’s why I was excited about the recent coverage on the research from educational animation advisor, Alexis Lauricella. As Alexis’ study, “Toddlers Learning from Socially Meaningful Video Characters,” concludes, social relationships that children develop with a character impact their ability to learn from media. In the case of her study, toddlers who saw a sequencing task performed by the beloved Elmo were significantly more able to perform the task themselves than two control groups. That's why places like Disneyland and Disney World work so well in my opinion, the children (of a certain age) truly believe those costumed characters are real, and that's what makes the experience so magical to them. Micky, Goofy, Dora, Elmo and all other characters on site get related by their on-screen animated selves, and the kids make that association with the characters they watch and love on television.
In addition, I've recently read a study out of the University of California, Riverside on the importance of social relationships with media characters. The study, “Media as Social Partners: The Social Nature of Young Children’s Learning From Screen Media,” had equally telling results. Similar to Alexis’ work, this paper cites the social nature of learning from screen media, concluding that there is a direct correlation between a child’s relationship with on-screen characters and their comprehension of information presented.
Through personal experience, my 3 year old daughter has formed these bonds with on-screen characters to a profound level. Calliou, Pocoyo , and Toupee & Binoo are just some of the characters she loves to watch. I observe her reactions and how much she looks forward to what the characters do next.
Characters do not survive without story, and story does not survive without character, but the more I see the relationship between my daughter and the on-screen characters that she truly believes are 100% real, it makes me think that characters should be created, designed and developed first. Of course the younger the age demographic a cartoon is for, the simpler the stories will be, but it's still a testament to the power of characters and how much kids believe in these characters.
Even when I think about films like Star Wars, Die Hard, Blade Runner, Alien, and Star Trek... what is the first thing I remember when I recall these films? Is it the story or the characters in those stories? Of course I always remember the characters first. The same goes for classic cartoons new and old.
Sure when you say "Homer Simpson" instantly some quotes, catch-phrases and brief moments of funniness come to mind. But when you say Simpsons, you think of the characters within that series more so that specific stories. Simpson relies a lot on it's huge cast of characters along with its writing. Of course the best of those two worlds is what creates truly great television or film.
From Spongebob to Harry Potter, characters are developed around a strong story structure. These structures I made to have the character grow, face conflicts and evolve within their own universe. One TV series I love to follow is House. This series is the epitome of the saying "the story writes itself". Why? Because the producers and creators of this show masterfully created a complex, intriguing, and detailed main character.
House often clashes with his fellow physicians, including his own diagnostic team, because many of his hypotheses about patients' illnesses are based on subtle or controversial insights. His flouting of hospital rules and procedures frequently runs him afoul of his boss, hospital administrator and Dean of Medicine Dr. Lisa Cuddy. When you create such a thoroughly well-thought out character such as Dr. House, the scripts really do write themselves, simply because when you have a character created with such a detailed personality and back story you simply have to create the situation and how the character will react and engage in that situation becomes obvious, and thus, the stories write themselves. The creation of a strong character had to come first.
This is all leading me back to the study regarding the social relationships that children develop with a character impact their ability to learn from media. Showing how children will only connect with appealing characters, characters that happen to be educational in their performances is just a nice bonus.
And that's my random rant of the day.
September 16, 2011
September 15, 2011
How Big Are Solar Flares?
A solar flare is a sudden brightening observed over the Sun surface or the solar limb, which is interpreted as a large energy release of up to 6 × 1025 joules of energy (about a sixth of the total energy output of the Sun each second). The flare ejects clouds of electrons, ions, and atoms through the corona into space. These clouds typically reach the earth a day or two after the event.
But exactly how big are these solar flares? An eye opening perspective.
But exactly how big are these solar flares? An eye opening perspective.
September 14, 2011
Sensational Rock Formations: Moeraki Boulders
The Moeraki Boulders are unusually large and spherical boulders lying along a stretch of Koekohe Beach on the wave cut Otago coast of New Zealand between Moeraki and Hampden. They occur scattered either as isolated or clusters of boulders within a stretch of beach where they have been protected in a scientific reserve.
The erosion by wave action of mudstone, comprising local bedrock and landslides, frequently exposes embedded isolated boulders. Take a look at hese boulders have been exhumed from the mudstone enclosing them and concentrated on the beach by coastal erosion.
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