This is quite a cool trip down memory lane and kinda makes me miss those old text based interfaces.
The other thing I always enjoy checking out is the "code" being edited on screen - I remember spotting some great code in the movie Antitrust, but I cant remember what it was unfortunately.
Same here; I tend to pause movies and read stuff out of the GUIs/code displays. I remember that on StarGate: The Ark of Truth movie there's some JavaScript-like webpage code that was supposed to be the source code of dangerous aliens. StarGate TV series also featured some C and Java-like code; surprisingly, some of those places should actually contain a meaningful text, not code.
yeah, legendary and omitted? maybe too much source material for that..hehe; and if you wanna talk about the sound fx that go with the GUIs.....the insane work and science behind all the Trek sounds is craziness....all for a few blips and beeps..hehe...
In addition to visual effects, I was asked to record myself using a unix terminal doing technologically feasible things. I took extra care in babysitting the elements through to final composite to ensure that the content would not be artistically altered beyond that feasibility. I take representing digital culture in film very seriously in lieu of having grown up in a world of very badly researched user interface greeble…. In Tron, the hacker was not supposed to be snooping around on a network; he was supposed to kill a process. So we went with posix kill and also had him pipe ps into grep. I also ended up using emacs eshell to make the terminal more l33t. The team was delighted to see my emacs performance — splitting the editor into nested panes and running different modes. I was tickled that I got emacs into a block buster movie. -- Josh Nimoy
The cool thing here is that since the GUIs were designed to be a part of a larger movie, they were specifically designed to advance the plot along. So when looking for a bad guy in a criminal database, for instance, the UI displays just what the audience needs to know to move the plot along -- "Bad guy just released from prison. Previously arrested for homicide"
Even when the UI is complex, it's to advance along a certain plot point -- that the actor is interfacing with or observing some hugely complicated computer system. And even then, whatever you need to know clearly stands out from the background UI art
Contrast that to the way people actually interface with computers -- all the information that is not necessary, the searching and ferreting out of little bits of data here and there that you then need to assemble, or the waste of time absorbing information that advances nothing at all (lolcats, anyone?)
At first, back when they thought a cool UI was simple text, nobody noticed. But now as computers become more immersive, it's clearer and clearer that the idea of a computer advancing along an external story is becoming tougher to dramatize -- because life isn't external to the system like it was before. The good guy doesn't do a bunch of outside, physical stuff and then type a question or two into a simple terminal and then get a simple answer. Instead stories are more about how technology melds with the person. Because of the change to immersive versus interactive relationships with technology, I think these stories are going to be much more difficult for writers and directors to master. For instance (trying to make up some example) little 10-year-old Joey may spend all his free time playing his favorite game, until he meets a killer online and over the period of several months the killer worms his way into the household, setting off a conflict between all of Joey's family. There could be a hell of a lot of drama and tension if hat happened in the real world, but trying to put that in a video format in a 2-hour slot looks really, really tough.
It's a shame that the sneakers one does not show a UI, but what was supposed to be encrypted data. There were several UIs that appeared in it (banking, telephone, power-grid).
16 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 51.9 ms ] threadThe other thing I always enjoy checking out is the "code" being edited on screen - I remember spotting some great code in the movie Antitrust, but I cant remember what it was unfortunately.
FWIW, I completely agree that adding more stuff to the page when the user scrolls to the bottom is just annoying.
EDIT: Request sent.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lj6wytUwrf1qd...
Source:
http://jtnimoy.net/workviewer.php?q=178
P.S. I love the word "greeble":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble
Even when the UI is complex, it's to advance along a certain plot point -- that the actor is interfacing with or observing some hugely complicated computer system. And even then, whatever you need to know clearly stands out from the background UI art
Contrast that to the way people actually interface with computers -- all the information that is not necessary, the searching and ferreting out of little bits of data here and there that you then need to assemble, or the waste of time absorbing information that advances nothing at all (lolcats, anyone?)
At first, back when they thought a cool UI was simple text, nobody noticed. But now as computers become more immersive, it's clearer and clearer that the idea of a computer advancing along an external story is becoming tougher to dramatize -- because life isn't external to the system like it was before. The good guy doesn't do a bunch of outside, physical stuff and then type a question or two into a simple terminal and then get a simple answer. Instead stories are more about how technology melds with the person. Because of the change to immersive versus interactive relationships with technology, I think these stories are going to be much more difficult for writers and directors to master. For instance (trying to make up some example) little 10-year-old Joey may spend all his free time playing his favorite game, until he meets a killer online and over the period of several months the killer worms his way into the household, setting off a conflict between all of Joey's family. There could be a hell of a lot of drama and tension if hat happened in the real world, but trying to put that in a video format in a 2-hour slot looks really, really tough.