Watch a 13-minute promotional short for 1982′s Blade Runner

In an effort to promote Blade Runner, the producers had this 13-minute short created for distribution at sci-fi conventions.

Let’s say you’ve been tasked with marketing a movie. It’s an ambitious film, one that simultaneously hopes to live up to the lofty standards of one of Philip K. Dick’s most beloved novels while also creating a vast, dystopian world that is equal parts unimaginably different from our own and a logical extension of current and near-future technology. In 2012 that wouldn’t be too difficult — just capture a few seconds of bombastic CGI, hire a deep-voiced narrator and cut a TV commercial that may or may not accurately reflect the film (but who cares as long as it puts people in the seats?) — but way back in 1982 it was a whole lot more difficult to entice notoriously picky sci-fi fans into the theater.

Thus, when faced by a similar situation for Ridley Scott’s phenomenal Blade Runner, the crew at M.K. Productions opted to put together a short, promotional movie to be distributed at various conventions around the country. According to Open Culture the short was a hit, and was widely circulated among sci-fi, horror and fantasy fan groups prior to Blade Runner’s theatrical debut. Whether or not it directly contributed to the movie’s success and current status as one of the all-time greatest sci-fi films Hollywood has ever created is debatable, but the vignette does serve as an undeniably cool look back at the creation of the film, and that’s a solid enough reason for us to embed the clip at the bottom of this post.

Along with the expected images and footage from Blade Runner, the short includes interviews with director Ridley Scott, special effects artist Douglas Trumbull and “futurist designer” Syd Mead. Normally we wouldn’t be this excited about what we now call a “behind the scenes featurette,” but in this case we’re utterly stoked to hear what these people have to say. If you’ve seen Blade Runner you know how masterfully crafted its futuristic world is, and there’s a very good reason why so many sci-fi movies, novels and video games created since 1982 have blatantly lifted ideas from Ridley Scott’s film.

More impressively, Blade Runner was created in an era where computer generated graphics weren’t really something Hollywood studios could use. They existed, certainly, but any CGI work was exorbitantly expensive, and few people had any idea how to effectively use the technology for making films. Thus, when you’re watching Blade Runner and being drawn in by the hyper-detailed detritus of that cyberpunk universe, everything you’re seeing was created by old-school practical visual effects work, making the film that much more stunning a feat.

Before you hit play on the embed below, we will give you a heads up that the footage is not exactly crystal-clear, 1080p HD quality. It is, after all, a 16mm movie from three decades ago, that was never really intended for public consumption. Thus, just be happy that this thing still exists, and that we can all use it to avoid dirtying our hands with any actual work on a lazy Tuesday afternoon.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

How tech could make party conventions suck less

Political conventions are obsolete and overfunded, but throwing a little tech in the mix could at least make the spectacle more fun to watch.

Besides a minor hurricane, the news in the next couple of weeks will be dominated by political convention coverage, even though it’s been 30 years since a convention wasn’t scripted and something actually interesting and historical occurred. I’ve already heard the term “taxpayer-funded infomercial” more times than I can count, and as of this writing, the Republican National Convention has only been taking place in my hometown of Tampa for one day.

The idea of spending untold millions to gather party faithful in a large arena to cast votes – in person, by voice – seems a little antiquated to me given all of the technological tools at our disposal.

Maybe these tools could save us the $18 million that the federal government gives each party for balloons, signs, and the other accoutrements that goes into a big party (not to mention the $50 million that each host city receives for security).

How about funding the conventions the same way we fund new iPod docks, niche documentaries and bad anime comics? I would favor a federal law stating that all convention costs must be raised on Kickstarter.

If you think about it, it’s the technological equivalent of passing around the hat for some pizza when you have friends over, except it’s thousands of friends and millions of pizzas. And peacefully having pizza seldom draws out anarchists who want to protest your pizza.

The only risk for the political establishment in a Kickstarter-funded convention is that it might not make as much money as the new Planetary Annihilation game, which would be embarrassing, but would also show just how little the general public cares about scripted conventions.

A Kickstarter campaign for convention money might net each party a few hundred thousand. That’s not small change, but it’s far less than what they’ve been used to operating with. The new conventions will look a lot like the annual Furniture Constructors Convention, held every year in beautiful Tulsa. I’ve heard that one is an absolute rager!

Which brings me to my next idea: put the convention on GoToMeeting, or a similar service, so that only the people who need to be involved can get involved and the rest of us can return to talking about Snooki’s baby.

It’s not like these people want an educated electorate anyway.

The less we know about a party’s platform, the better it is for everyone involved. The citizenry gets less frustrated at how fragmented and insulting our political process has become, and the politicians don’t have to answer uncomfortable questions.

But if we are still interested in informing the electorate, journalists play a major part.

Unfortunately at modern conventions, they play too big of one. There are roughly 5,000 delegates at each convention and more than 15,000 credentialed media members. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure we don’t need three people asking each delegate questions that we already know the answers to.

What I would be interested in is the journalists’ uncensored view of the convention. Therefore, every journalist should be provided with an anonymous Twitter handle so we can read less tweets like “Romney ate breakfast with his family at Waffle House” and more like “He didn’t wash his hands after using the restroom. In a Waffle House.” Some people would say that’s not journalism. They obviously haven’t seen what passes for journalism these days.

Finally, to allow us citizens to conduct some of our own journalism, popular apps should publicize their search statistics soon after the Republicans leave Tampa and the Democrats leave Charlotte. I, for one, would like to see what people searched Yelp! for while they were in my hometown. “Lap dance clubs” wouldn’t surprise me. It’s Tampa, after all. Neither would “Planned Parenthood clinics.” “Barbers that can do a high-top fade”? Now that would be surprising for the GOP.

I would also like to see Grindr’s results, even though they would definitely be NSFW.

The point I’m trying to make, in the snarky way that my readership now expects, is that it’s time for our democracy to adapt to the times. We have a wealth of available technology that can make this experience more fruitful and cost-effective for everyone. Instead, politicians only seem willing to use technology when they want money. It’s time to replace the obsolete convention process with ideas that better suit the era in which we live.

[Photo credit: Frontpage / Shutterstock.com]

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com