It’s Timey Wimey for a Female Doctor

Sophia Davidson Gluyas, Deakin University | On the 4th of August 2013 it was announced that Peter Capalidi would play the 12th Doctor. It’s a good piece of casting and I know Capaldi will do a great job, only I no longer hear any profundity in the resounding question of the show. Doctor Who? Well,…

Looking Back: On Shooting Miniatures for Science Fiction Movies

Alex Funke, ASC, Academy Award-winning visual-effects cinematographer | I’ve been shooting movies for almost fifty years, and shooting miniatures for over 30 years. I thought it would be worthwhile to take stock of what we’ve learned, and the principles we’ve followed. Incidentally, that’s not the “editorial we.” One of the most potent things about shooting…

Gregory Crewdson: Narrative, Time & SF Photography

Andrew Frost, College of Fine Arts, UNSW | The aura of the science fictional surrounds the work of photographer Gregory Crewdson. In series such as Twilight [1998-02] and Beneath The Roses [2003-06] Crewdson created oblique narratives where moments of dramatic realisation were contrasted with surreal idylls. In one image of the Twilight series, for example,…

Science fiction cities

Carl Abbott, School of Urban Studies and Planning, Portland State University, USA | Nothing says trouble like a city smashed to smithereens on screen. Meteors and earthquakes, tsunamis and glaciers, earthly monsters and alien invaders – moviegoers might think that the only thing science fiction does with cities is demolish them with big budget special…

Nightfall

U.S. Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, Tragedy or Farce?

Brent Bellamy, University of Alberta | “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851 for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. And the same caricature occurs in…

Gravity

Forces of Gravity

Kevin Fisher, University of Otago | Intertitles over a black screen preface the first representational images of Gravity (2013) with a series of physical facts about space: the extremes of temperature, the lack of any pressure or atmosphere; culminating with the assertion that “the human body cannot live in space”. The first scene, which introduces…

Future Mughal Empire

Rhian Sheehan I [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/122255919″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]   Bio: Rhian Sheehan is an award winning New Zealand composer and recording artist. He has composed a variety of film and television projects, as well as the scores for seven fulldome planetarium shows.   When Doves Fly It was an uncanny moment entering the building we…

Episode Two

“To create today is to create dangerously. Any publication is an act, and that act exposes one to the passions of an age that forgives nothing.” – Albert Camus Deletion can involve cathartic residues, and the experience of being erased can be an intensely powerful and affective one. Deletion inspires through the fear of losing…