Chels ariel’s Weblog

One of my favorites movies is Men in Black. I watch this time and time again, and I think all would agree that it wouldn’t be as great without the special effects. Peter M. Chesney was the mastermind behind the creation of this. He has done special effects for so many classics such as Honey I shrunk the Kids. Chesney made aliens that seemed very real. In the beginning the main alien pulled a farmer’s body off and wear’s it for himself. They incorporated many special types of equipments like the flying ball with no gravity. The alien’s knew how to function computers. They also had out of this world weapons. The memory eraser was also called. When you looked into it, it was able to take your memory to a specific date and time. The car that Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones drove, was able to travel at warp speed. An alien was also living in a human beings head. These are just some that I can come up with off of the top of my head. As you can see the film had many effects that made the movie action packed and amazing to watch. I think it was very creative. It made the production very valuable. A lot of hard work and brainstorming was obviously put into it.

Here is a  list of company’s that provided the effects for Men in Black, gathered from imdb.com.

Special Effects

Autumn Light Entertainment (digital effects)

Banned from the Ranch Entertainment (BFTRE) (alien languages)

Cinovation Studios (alien make-up effects)

Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) (special visual effects and animation)

K.N.B. Effects Group (additional alien make-up effects)

Les Productions Pascal Blais (additional alien make-up effects)

ME FX (additional alien makeup effects)

Mo 42 Special Effects (main titles sequence)

Mo42 Special Effects (main titles sequence)

Open Films (main title sequence)

Question Mark FX (additional digital effects)

Steve Johnson’s XFX Inc. (additional alien makeup effects)

Storyboard Inc. (additional alien make-up effects)

VisionArt

Visual Concept Engineering (VCE) (additional visual effects)

In comparison to other movies with special effects I think Men in Black was really good. However there are more recent movies such as Lord of The Rings that use more advance effects due to the growth of technology.

Three facts I learned:

1.             Blue screen is a technique allows actors and scale models to find themselves in totally imaginary situations — in space ships, dangling from rope bridges over gorges, flying through the air (a la Superman) — and have it look completely real in the theater.

2.             Fizt is an animation program that can speed up the production of special effects — in some cases by a factor of more than 150 to 1 — and can also make the effects appear more life-like than has been possible with less sophisticated programs.

3.             RenderMan Interface Bytestream (RIB), very simply, is the file format used to pass scene information (model data, lights, camera, shaders, attributes, and options) to a RenderMan renderer to control image that it will render.

 What is an urban legend?

An urban legend is basically a made up story or event. They sound so believable yet they’re untrue. Sometimes they may have been based off of something true, but then they are exaggerated.

After reading through the links from the URL above, talk about three urban legends you’ve never heard of that you believe some people could fall for and explain why you think they might believe them?

1.       Drinking bleach can help a drug user beat drug testing.

People may believe that because bleach is known to be something that completely cleanses or disinfects. Therefore people may think hey, it must be able to filter drugs our the body too. Also, drug addicts who are getting tested, maybe so apprehensive of the results that they are up to try anything, so I think they would believe it.

2.       The Bachelor’s Aaron Buerge got three contestants from the show pregnant.

This is a rumor made about the famous TV show. Let’s face it, people like to hear dirt. We are always hearing new scandals about celebrities, that we tend to believe. I think a lot of people would hear this and start passing it on to all their friends.

3.       Chihuahuas are actually a type of rodent bred to resemble dogs.

I think this is believable because so many people make fun of these dogs to begin with. I personally don’t find them cute. I’ve heard many people say they look like big rats etc. Therefore, saying that they really are from rodents’ sounds possible.

After your researching, were there any urban legends mentioned that you had heard of? – did you believe or disbelieve them from the onset?

Yes, as I researched I did come across urban legends that I had heard of. I did believe some of them that I later found out were false. However there are some, I have heard of but didn’t believe because they sound way too absurd.

Why is the Web so prone to these types of “stories?”

The web is a breeding ground for the creation and publishing of these “stories” because any and everything is put on the web. It is so easy to publish any tupe of ludicrous information an individual may choose. People know that putting these “stories” on the web can solicit many views. Sometimes people just surf the web out of boredom and may begin reading through these urban legends.