The Cosmonaut

Landing on the moon via iPhone

2010-03-02T10:22:14Z

A few days ago, NASA made public their first iPhone game at the AppStore: a LER (Lunar Electric Rover) simulator nonetheless, the vehicle with which they intend to go back to the Moon in 2020. The application allows you to travel around virtually on the Moon's surface and to explore several interesting spots, which are complemented by some info in a text.

The simulator is totally free and you can download it here: NASA LER Simulator.

(via Applesfera)

Remix: Extreme look variations

2010-03-01T11:04:38Z

Two of the most extreme Remixes in terms of the look of the visuals. Take a look, compare and, if you think you can do it better... take part in the contest and win prizes!

Original Teaser

Joriah Goad's remix

Jack Shadow's remix

Zinemastea 2.0-Perspectives

2010-02-25T11:55:08Z

These shop windows surprised us right in the Vitoria's city centre. They're courtesy of the Fundación KREA/Zinemastea 2.0, whose good organizing skills are far beyond our imagination. Thanks a million.

You have some of the pictures from 'The Cosmonaut' exhibition and the Transmedia seminar we gave on Flickr. In no time, you'll the slides we messed with on the Riot Cinema blog.

This goes to our Basque producers: look for us on tomorrow's El País!

Soviet space emblems in the cosmos

2010-02-18T11:51:32Z

Gabriel García, a follower of the project and a writer in the very interesting Zemiorka (a blog about astronautics and cosmonautics since, quoting their own words, 'anything can be related, in some way, to Sputnik') sends us to the link for one of the articles about the Soviet emblems carried by the various USSR Space missions. They were made of titanium, which is resistant to hostile atmospheres such as that of Venus, interestingly, 'one of the planets wich were privileged by the Soviet space program'.

The emblems (of which duplicates were later made for the high ranks, and little badges were made for the crew and the visitors in Star City; and which you can find in our online store) are an interesting effort to gather graphic information which ,in many occassions, contains a silhouette of the ship, its path, allusions to the mission and even the date. Therefore, they constitute an interesting source of information about missions which we don't know much about; missions which werer partial or complete failures.

By the way, those of you who want to know more about Star City, you have our director's diary (Nicolás Alcalá) available.

Star City.Interesting Facts
Moscow: day 5
Star City. 13:00
Star City. 11:00

Riot Cinema in Zinemastea (Vitoria)

2010-02-15T11:47:34Z

Riot Cinema Collective and The Cosmonaut are leaving for Vitoria, from the 22nd till the 24th of February. We've been invited by Krea Audiovisuales.

What's KREA? Promoted by the Obra Social from Caja Vital Kutxa, KREA Expresión Contemporánea is a resource centre, a place for education and knowledge which promotes professional meetings and a wide range of courses, seminars, workshops and conferences. Also, this is a leisure space and meeting point promoting modern creation from a multiple-task and network-oriented approach.

These days, Krea will be hosting the second edition of ZINEMASTEA, a six day encounter to share and reflect on new ways of understanding audiovisual works, where there will be workshops and activities by means of which they want to support the new possibilities offered by contemporary Cinema. (Nacho Vigalondo will be there too, he'll be giving a workshop about the potential in contemporary cinema).

Riot Cinema will be there on the 22nd of February to offer a workshop about Trasnmedia. KREA has given us the opportunity of sharing our view on Transmedia and how we're going to carry this out with university students and the people who might be interested in it (you can take a sneak peak here)

All you people in Vitoria, we'll be waiting for you! In the workshop, we'll be telling you what Transmedia means and why you won't stop hearing about it in the next few years. And since you're there, we'll tell you how you can make your project (film, short film novel, internet series) a transmedia project that will grant you your friends' jealousy and the public's admiration.

How? The workshop is free and anyone willing to attend can send his/her personal projects so we can choose 4 or 5 projects among the participants. In the practice part of the workshop, we'll be analyzing the project's possibilities in transmedia. Any ideas you may have, send them! To see all the info about the workhop, click on this.

Also, The Cosmonaut will have its space too (and a big one, for that matter): during all week in Zinemastea, there will be an exhibition about The Cosmonaut presenting all the achievements the project has obtained until this day, in addition to artistic sketches from Art and Wardrobe (we'll be even showing the script of the short film which existed previous to the project the way it is now!). Finally, there will be a meeting where we'll be explaining the project in depth.

And we never stop: On the 18th, Gabriela and Carola will be giving a conference at the Universidad de Gandía. And on the 25th, Nico will be at Pamplona's uni... We should clone ourselves one of these days!

Screenplay

2010-02-11T15:08:37Z

Work in progress.

Light Echoes

2010-02-10T15:10:16Z

The Sun. The centre (or rather, the elliptic focus) around which our planet travels. Our biggest source for electromagnetic energy. It's the sustenance of almost every form of life on the planet. It's the conductor of Earth's climate and meteorology...

However, perhaps the Spanish expression 'Astro Rey' ('King of the Stars') might be a little too much for it. In spite of it being brighter than 85% of the existing stars in the Milky Way, the Sun is still just a 'simple' medium G2 spectral type star in the immensity of the Universe... or -no need to go that far- our galaxy.

According to one of the latest posts on Aula Geek, some time around January 2002, the V838 Monocerotis star became 600 thousand times brighter than our 'humble' neighbour. This phenomenon is known as a light echo. A truly spectacular sight. :P

Russian films to sink a battleship

2010-02-09T10:08:12Z

We're flipping out after finding the birubirFilm channel on Youtube, This channel's full of Russian cinema, both modern and from the Soviet era. You can find films ranging from Andrei Tarkovsky's cult ones to great classics such us The Irony Of Fate. Also, there's plenty of animation cinema and hard-to-find rarities; all of them with English subtitles (they're also available on Veoh).

The truth is that such an amount of materials can be overwhelming at first sight, and it's hard to know where to start, so... do you feel like recommending your favourite Russian films in 'comments'?

Lost in Space

2010-02-08T12:03:11Z

Some people believe that somewhere out in the vast darkness of Space, at about 15,000 million kilometres from the Sun, the first human being is about to cross the border of our Solar System to interstellar space. His body, perfectly preserved, is frozen at -270ºC. His little capsule's been silently drifting away from Earth at 29,000km/h for the past 45 years. He's the original lost cosmonaut whose spaceship ascended but, instead of descending afterwards, it simply kept following its course.

It's the latest fashion in Cold War legends: that in the origin of the Space era (in the late 50s and during the 60s), the Soviet Union had two Space programs; one of them was public and the other one was 'dark' and, in this one, they carried out much riskier missions, even suicidal. It was assumed that the Russia's dark operations, had they ever existed, would be kept a secret forever.

Lost in Space is an article compiling some of the stories about cosmonauts lost in Space during the first years of the Space Race. The connecting thread is the story of Achille and Giovanni Judica-Cordiglia, two Italian brothers whose peculiar hobby was to intercept radio transmissions from Soviet spaceship. The brothers claim having been able to record, more than once, the last moments of the Soviet cosmonauts who died during failed missions.

"Come in... come in... come in... Listen! Come in! Talk to me! I am hot! I am hot! Come in! What? Forty-five? What? Fifty? Yes. Yes, yes, breathing. Oxygen, oxygen... I am hot. This... isn't this dangerous?"

Today we know that the brothers were being watched by the KGB. It was probably their big shot to fame (after appearing on the Fiera di Sogni contest, where they won the opportunity of visiting the NASA) what saved their lives. Nearly half a century afterwards, in a completely different context, a KGB agent in charge of the brothers agrees to being interviewed anonymously.

"They had to be dealt with - an accident perhaps - but then that TV programme happened and they were famous. That saved their lives. I was glad; they were good kids."

Also horrifying are the statements by Mikhail Rudenko (a retired aerospace engineer), in which he talks about the suicidal missions undertaken by three cosmonauts between 1957 and 1959, who were simply launched to Space without anything which might enable them to get back into the atmosphere.
Most of the statements about the obscure beginnings of the Space Race are not backed by any source. However, it's notorious the ability with which the Soviet Uniot has hidden the existence of certain facts or people. They've simply been erased from History. Although it may remind you of the ineffable Ivan Istochnikov case, the story of cosmonaut Grigoriy Nelyubov -a founding member of th Sochi Six who was 'erased'- is the perfect example.

A photo of the Sochi Six, airbrushed to eleminate Grigoriy Nelyubov

Engineer and journalist Jim Osberg -famous for his sceptical view on conspiracy theories- has written two interesting articles in which he presents the reasons why he doesn't believe the Judica-Cordiglia story, based on the lack of evidence and some illogical facts. You can read them here and here (PDF, 116KB y 48KB).

Fernando Bovaira

2010-02-04T22:02:40Z

Fernando Bovaira is the producer of all Amenábar's films.

.... and in this report on La 2 RTVE, in minute 4:49, he talks about us.But he doesn't know it :P

Remix Me, Baby!

2010-02-02T15:53:15Z

From the start we've intended The Cosmonaut to be a participatory experience. An experience that might help us prove the power of using free licenses. Having played with different options and after a serious trial period, we are launching in collaboration with The Auteurs the first remix contest that will help us achieve just that: the Teaser Remix Experience.

You can enter the contest from our Download section

We have put at your disposal 30 video clips (we haven't even used half of them :P), sound environment, CGI, music (two samples of Artemyev's soundtrack for Tarkovski's Solarys), voiceovers in Russian and English and title backgrounds, everything you need is in there!.

You have until the 31st of March to send in your remix teaser.
The winners will be announced in this year's edition of the Yuri's Night.

The prizes? For now we'll give you a preview: special edition 'The Comsonaut' LOMO LCA cameras and the charming pop Russian spark of sequential OKTOMAT's..

To bring you this contest we've been working side by side with:

The Auteurs - Online cinematéque and distributor of The Criterion Collection, has collaborated with Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation. With more than a million users it has become THE place to watch, recommend, comment and debate -and now even edit- auteur cinema online :)

Garage - A division of The Auteurs Garage is a collaborative initiative, an online film school that has been recently launched to connect filmmakers from all over the world to work in editing, filming and production projects. Perhaps you've heard of it 'cause it's been generating loads of buzz.

Lomography Spain - Spain's official representative of the photographic phenomenon born in Russia -with strong ties to military photography- a few decades ago. A few months ago they helped us put together " Dreams of the Cosmonaut", a collaborative experience where hundreds of lomo photos explored the Universe of a film that hasn't even been born yet. Now they've put at your disposal all that material licensed under CC and will award the best remixers with cameras of Russian names :)

Unifest - After four editions where more than 80 universities from over 30 countries have participated, UNIFEST celebrates its fifth anniversary giving out over 8000€ in prizes to University students. The definitive festival when it comes to cinema created by university students. We will soon reveal the prizes UNIFEST will give-out to university student remixers.

UOC - A regular collaborator of The Cosmonaut, the Universidad Oberta de Catalunya is Spain's most renowned University in new media education; collaborative creation, free software, transmedia, crowdsourcing: these are all familiar words to their syllabus. Eager to try and experiment with new things they are happy to support initiatives like the Teaser Remix Experience. The how's and when's will soon be revealed :)

SafeCreative - the first online copyright registry in the world: global, free, open and independent. It offers creators the opportunity to register and host their works and supports all kinds of licences (from traditional copyright to Creative Commons to à la carte licenses). Part of an ambitious collaboration with Riot Cinema, SC will eventually host the film and all our raw footage. What's more, they'll aid us in figuring out the semantic ID of the film online, in other words, the best way to let users know which licenses are free and which are restricted without confusing links, no added documentation and without altering the film itself.

The Internet Archive - A non-profit organization whose main purpose is to preserve all free licensed multimedia, or those works filmmakers have decided to share freely. It's by far the largest open source film, audio and text archive. The Cosmonaut, and all raw footage, will be hosted in the "Open Source Video" section.

The Remix step by step :)

2010-02-02T14:06:00Z

We begin in the section 'Downloads' and go all the way to the Garage website.

1) Download the clips . You can take a peek (left click) or save them (right click:saves file as...).

If you want to save time, you can download them directly in TWO PACKS (ZIP file). Don't forget you have EXTRAS:129 MB of audio, images, etc...all in HD.

(If you want, you can click from here)

2) Edit them using your favourite video editor.

3) Export them to Vimeo.
They explain you how to...

4) Upload them to Vimeo.

If you don't have a user account, you should create one. It's simple and it's free. Plus, they're serious guys that make the sharing of movies, for streaming addicts like us or our friends at The Auteurs, a delight. And nop, they're not paying us to say this -sigh!..

5) In the Garage page, click "UPLOAD FILM".

If you don't have an account at The Auteurs, you'll have to create one. It's quite straightforward; all you need is a username, an email and a password. No spam, no endless registration forms, no BS. What else can you do at The Auteurs? Buff! Check it out! (yes, we're huge fans, and no, they're not paying us either :P )....

6) Fill in the form and insert the Vimeo ID for your video: this is the number in the URL of your video. Be cheeky and tag yourself as "Director" (afterall, you made the damn thing!). Then click "UPLOAD".

If you want to participate in any other Garage project you might have to include the Garage logo in your piece. You don't have to do so for the Remix Experience.

Remember to have an 448x252 pix. image -or similar- at hand (if it's not the same size it'll flatten it a bit. Although it's barely noticeable :P ) to represent your Remix. Select an image that is eye-catching and original, remember there'll be many other videos!

(Click to see original size)

About the hosting of the materials.

2010-02-02T13:43:25Z

All the material is first hosted at The Internet Archive.

If you have any problems, you can go to our directory and download the clips individually (1) or in two packs (2).

... and we have a copy at SafeCreative.

If you continue to have download problems, you can download the materials from their website. Access our directory, search for what you want, click on it, and in the details page look for the button "Download this work".

In SC you'll find all our material hosted in 2 packs, the extras and official teasers in HD.

Still hungry for images? Three more teasers of "The Cosmonaut"!

2010-02-01T13:22:15Z

As from tomorrow you can take part in the Teaser Remix Experience we have developed along with the guys from TheAuteurs.com. You'll be able to create your own The Cosmonaut teasers...and win prizes!

Thanks for making our first one a complete success, for commenting on it, for criticizing it...tomorrow you'll be able to take it apart, edit, copy, modify it and make a parody of it, why not? :)

The third and fourth teasers include music composed by Edvard Artemyev, who has along with Andrei Tarkovski created one of the most memorable composer-director tandems in the history of cinema. Artemyev has been wonderful to us. He wrote this letter a few months ago (we couldn't help but get teary-eyed) and has ceded the rights for this theme to the project, so we may use it freely. The song is included in the remix package material.

All the material is licensed under CC By-SA 3.0 PLUS (+) Some of the material, e.g Artemyev's music, may only be used in the context of The Cosmonaut. More info at Vimeo.
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Flashmob (entertainment at zero gravity)

2010-01-31T11:51:38Z

Maybe you've read about it. Or somebody told you.
Or you walked by.
Or even better: you were ther with us.

It was great that our 'training' was one of the first projects by Improva España, who are American Improve Everywhere's little brother. They had already surprised and shocked everybody when they imported the 'No Pants Day' to our 'Metro' (our underground system).

Dozens of strangers gathered at the very special Sol terminus, stuffed in kitchen foil to call people's attention even more: the action involved spontaneously fainting for 3 minutes, after which the area was cordoned off and the participants could enjoy a few minutes of zero gravity, much to the amazement of the peolpe passing by, onlookers... and the Police (who were there in huge numbers, as they usually are in Sol).

The best thing? The people who joined us without knowing about the film and who went home wiht some kitchen foil on their heads, some cosmonautic freebies, and a weird experience: that of doing something with everyone else :)

And this is how Daniel Torrelló saw it, in our Flickr...

... and in this video on vimeo.

A 'flash mob' is, according to Wikipedia, an English term referring to 'a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse. The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails.The term is generally not applied to events organized by public relations firms, protests, and publicity stunts.'

See you at our next flash adventure? :)