ome 30 years ago, a half-million letters were sent to U.S. President Gerald Ford, asking that the first space shuttle be named after the Federation starship Enterprise. This campaign by Star Trek fans was successful, and is the inspiration for a new crusade emerging on the Web. The target this time? The international space station.
Organized by Babylon 5 fan Jack Bennett, I.S.S. Babylon is devoted to making it easy for other devotees of the show to lobby the forces behind the international space station. The hope is that the station might one day officially be dubbed in honor of the Babylon project. A simple site in terms of both content and design, its primary function is to provide contact information. Web and snail addresses are posted here for the European Space Agency, NASA authorities and even the U.S. president. This makes it easy to deluge the station's movers and shakers with messages urging them to name the station after the popular TV series.
Given the international nature of the space station project, the I.S.S. Babylon campaign is a more complex challenge than the one which faced Trek fans 30 years earlier. They must sway decision makers in more than one country, after all. However, the page goes to great pains to point out
that Babylon 5 has wide international appeal and a global fan following, and argues that this makes the name even more appropriate. It also includes links to articles which show a widespread desire among the public to give the I.S.S. some kind of a name, as well as a survey in Russia which included Babylon as a popular potential name for the station.
Finally, the page also includes a detailed diagram of the station itself, and links to pages about B5 and the space program. Its capper is a brief e-mail from Babylon 5 series creator J. Michael Straczynski, giving his blessing to the whole endeavor.
— A.M. Dellamonica
Site of the Week — August 13, 2001
he making of films for the Internet has reached dazzling heights of sophistication these days, a far cry from the humble origins of Web video. Set to debut this summer is an Internet-only film which, judging from its lavish, multifeatured official Web site, will earn kudos for its savvy and daring. And in this case, the publicity for the film is nearly equal to the feature itself.
Radius the movie—with primary shooting accomplished in only six days, and budgeted at a mere $80,000—concerns a crew of humans and their post-crash-landing mission to arm a bomb that will destroy a nest of their alien enemies, the Gemini. A jazzy trailer takes a bit of time to download, but is well worth the wait. Directed by Helmut Kobler, the film stars Catalina Larranaga and Matt McCoy, as well as a handful of other fine professionals. Philipp Timme, the director of photography, was responsible for destroying the White House in Independence Day and the Mir space station in Armageddon, while Adam Howard, the visual effects supervisor, won four Emmys for his FX compositing work on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager.
Also offered via downloadable clips are intriguing glimpses into how the SFX were created. Anecdotes and tales of preproduction, production (Death Valley is not the most hospitable landscape, but does simulate alien planets quite well) and post-production abound, as well as an ongoing activity log, so that visitors to the site can participate in the creation of the film all the way through to its launch in the late summer.
— Paul Di Filippo
Site of the Week — August 6, 2001
he British firm Paper Tiger is the preeminent contemporary publisher of art books which focus on the fantastic. (One of their newest publications, The Art of Chesley Bonestell, was recently reviewed in Science Fiction Weekly.) They produce gorgeous, comprehensive surveys of the careers of any number of painters, and now these collections can be sampled online.
The front page of the Paper Tiger Online Fantasy Art Gallery offers the names of some 40 artists, from Tom Abba to David Wyatt. Clicking on one brings up a host of images from that particular painter. Clicking on each thumbnail brings up an enlarged version. (Not, unfortunately, enlarged enough to fill the monitor, but only to occupy a quarter-screen-sized window, which seems the site's one drawback.) Along with this wealth of visual beauty—I particularly enjoyed Ron Walotsky's selection--comes a brief biography and overview of the artist, and in some cases a linked interview and contact information. Most artists earn a single page of paintings, though some others receive two.
Four links off the main page lead to such sites as the Jan P. Krasny SF Gallery, with its concentration on the work of a single artist. But two of the links are dead, and need to be updated.
Though not a substitute for the Paper Tiger books themselves, this gallery will nonetheless whet your appetite for the printed collections.
— Paul Di Filippo
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