We Are Astronomers @ IFF 2011

April 26, 2011 1:28 pm

It’s always so exciting going to a place for a first time and that’s what “We Are Astronomers” will be doing when it’s premiered in Portugal at IFF 2011.

IFF (Immersive Film Festival) is taking place from 29 April to May 1 at Centro Multimeios Espinho, Portugal. Sadly, none of the NSCC team will be going there physically but we will be there in spirit. We hope the festival is a massive success, Immerse Yourself!

We also have the short dome piece “Astronomer 2.0″ in the competitive section which is adapted from “We Are Astronomers”.

Check it out here but obviously it is much more awesome in a dome!

If you’re lucky enough to attend IFF we’d love to know what you think of “We Are Astronomers”. Comment on our blog or you can head on over to http://weareastronomers.com/

NSC Creative on tour @ Ecsite 2011

April 20, 2011 12:08 pm

We’re unleashing the fabulous Ruth Harvey on Warsaw, Poland for Ecsite 2011 25 – 28 May.

Ecsite is The European Network of Science Centres and Museums so there are going to be all kinds of crazy cats there including; peeps from Science Centres, Museums, Science Festivals, Natural History museums, zoos, aquariums, universities and research organisations to name but a few.

If you’d like to discuss how we can create new awesome content for you be sure to talk to Ruth at the event. If you’re not lucky enough to be in Poland then our door is always open, contact us and we can arrange a meeting at our Studio based at the National Space Centre, UK.

Fulldome UK… The aftermath!

April 6, 2011 4:45 pm

On the 12 and 13 March we attended Fulldome UK 2011. We’d brought an offering of ‘We Are Astronomers’ and Max Crow who did a marvellous job of talking about Storytelling in the dome.

Screengrab from Max’s “unique” presentation!

It was the first Fulldome event for some of the team so they’ve been interrogated and here are some of their thoughts:

“It was great to see what else is out there, how other studios (and individuals) are using the dome, initially on a traditional astronomy front, but secondly on a level of celebration, using the canvas in different, creative ways.” Austin Durose

“I think it would be ace for the recorded Workshops to be uploaded to youtube or vimeo. People who were there can review them and see the ones that they missed. Also at the same time it becomes a resource for other people to learn about Fulldome and acts as a way of promoting Fulldome and the event.” Liam Wardle

“Fulldome UK was a good opportunity for me to see NSC Creative’s work within the context of a much wider community, a community I previously didn’t really know existed. Seeing a wide range of work, commercial, artistic, technical demos and student alike, furthered my own understanding of Fulldomes capabilities. Alien Action, Jeepers Creepers, The Royal Pea, Fractals, Nano Cam and the Best of the Jena Fulldome Festival Reel where my highlights.” Ian Smith

There were some insightful talks on the history of projection, the language of immersive cinema, the challenges of bringing dance into the dome and some interesting tech demonstrations.

There were lots of new things to see in the dome so we’ve chosen our favourite from each day (and no, we are not allowed to choose our own show!).

Our winners for ‘Best Fulldome Thing of the Day’ were:

Alien Action – Saturday 12 March.

Rising (From Jena Best of Showreel) – Sunday 13 March.

Others worth a special mention were: Nanocam, Dynamic Earth (WIP excerpts), Jeepers Creepers and SpacePark360.

Alien Action is also our WINNER OF THE WEEKEND! This was way ahead in votes from our team and definitely the most memorable film of the weekend (partially because a few members of the team were singing along!)

There are some more snaps from our time at the festival over on our Facebook page here >

Thanks to the Fulldome UK team and ThinkTank for putting on a great event, roll on Fulldome UK 2012.

Fulldome UK 2011 Festival

March 8, 2011 3:55 pm

Thinktank in Birmingham will be hosting the 2nd Fulldome UK Festival this weekend! The event will include a screening of We Are Astronomers and a talk on storytelling in the dome by our very own Max Crow. This will be the first time that We Are Astronomers has been shown at Thinktank and we are of course very excited to see it in the Thinktank dome along with lot’s of other exciting work from an array of producers both home grown and from around the world.

We hope you’ll be joining us there.

For more information on attending the event visit Thinktank and Fulldome UK

My Cosmic Valentine

February 14, 2011 2:38 pm

If your one of the lucky couples to be spending a romantic evening at the National Space Centre tonight, you’re in for a cosmic treat! As well as all the other delights that are in store, space cocktails, a romantic four course dinner, cocktails in the rocket tower, and a journey through our beautiful galaxy, you’ll also get to see an ore inspiring fulldome fireworks display produced by NSC Creative. As a finale to the night we’ve created a dazzling display of fireworks to get your hearts beating and give you the chance to whisper sweet nothings to your loved ones.

We’d love to hear your comments on the event, in particular the fireworks display. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

InAVation

February 9, 2011 11:08 am

Exciting news! Global Immersion, our partners for the 2010 4DVenture at Our Dynamic Earth have won an award at the EMEA + InAVation awards held during the 5th ISE event in Amsterdam. They came top in the ‘Most InAVative Leisure or Entertainment Facility’ for Our Dynamic Earth, UK. They beat off stiff competition from three other worthy finalists. Last week Global Immersion sent us a thank you for our contribution to the project that won. A congratulations to everyone at Global Immersion and a ‘GO NSC CREATIVE!’ for us.

Cairo Children’s Museum

February 4, 2011 10:31 am

Here at NSC Creative we have been very busy working on a number of projects for the new Children’s Museum in Cairo. The main project is a dome show that takes the children on an adventure through time to meet their ancestors and the great pioneers of Egypt. We start with discovering how the ancient Pharaohs used the stars to build their tombs and temples. We continue to visit early Arabic astronomers, scientists and rulers, before finally travelling all the way back to the present day and look down on Earth from the edge of space.

We’re coming pretty close to the end of the project, watching all the pieces fall neatly into place!

Here’s a couple of screen shots:

Exploring an Arabic celestial sphere in an Alexandrian library.

We take to the skies in this pioneering flight down the Nile.

Paddle steamers on the Mahmudiyah Canal.

A future launch shuttle blasts off into space.

An Egyptian astronaut looks towards Earth from the international space station.

We’re also working on several other large projects for the museum, updates to follow soon.

Global Immersion Promo Video

February 2, 2011 2:45 pm

A little while back we made a promotional video for our good friends over at Global Immersion. It takes a look at what immersive solutions they have to offer and you even get a sneak peek at some of our content on the dome. The incredibly dramatic music is by Rhian Sheehan, the musician for We Are Astronomers. We’re really pleased with how it turned out and we’d love to hear your comments on it.

Imiloa Fulldome Film Festival 2010

11:35 am

NSC Creative attended their first ASTC conference in October on the beautiful Island of Hawaii, hosted by the Bishop museum.

This was the first time NSC Creative had attended an ASTC conference. ASTC was founded in 1973 and now has more than 540 members in 40 countries. Science Centre and Museum Members include not only science-technology centres and science museums, but also: nature centres, aquariums, planetariums, zoos, botanical gardens, space theatres, and natural history and children’s museums; this again giving the team further opportunity to offer content to new markets.

It provided an excellent opportunity to find out about other institutions and get feedback on its productions and was a great platform for new content ideas and finding out what NSC Creative customers really want to see.

We then travelled to Hilo, (the big island) for the world’s largest Fulldome festival held at the Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawaii.

The festival had 52 full length shows – the largest amount of content at a dome festival to date.   Participants came from over 11 countries around the globe.  Participants were a mix of Fulldome distributors, key decision makers looking to purchase new content from the Fulldome industry as well as our competitors / other film producers.

The selection of shows ranged from films that are standard features, 3D programs, children’s programming, large format film conversions, and unique individual films.

The festival is a great chance to evaluate and preview content as well as looking at what is new and also see how the content is received by a live audience. All shows submitted are voted on by a board of experts and, more importantly, the general public. The team was delighted to pick up an award at this event for best script for “We Are Astronomers”.

The festival gave NSC Creative the opportunity to evaluate any gaps in the market for content and information share with other film producers on a variety of industry related topics. The team had interest in some of its show licenses, which it is hoping to convert to sales.

Creative Growth

October 8, 2010 1:11 pm

Life was hard. Life was dark, windowless and claustrophobic. A core group of CG Artists confined to a small, dark studio. Oh how things have changed.

Well it’s been really great to get out of that place! To move to a larger, lighter and – I must say – cleaner studio. This time we have windows and natural light and all seems well with the world! The move also accommodated the arrival of four new members of our creative team who seem to be settling in nicely. The team has grown, the studio has up-scaled and morale has been boosted!

These are truly good times.

Here’s a big warm welcome to our new team members: Mathew Galley, Les Davis, Liam Wardle and Ian Smith. Enjoy the madness!