Science of the Movies

Nar visits the masterminds at Obscura Digital, who believe “the world is our canvas” and have the technology to prove it — from huge immersive video domes, interactive building surfaces, and multi-touch holograms! Watch Nar play with their holographic video game! Next he gets the zombie treatment from Quantum Creation FX, and interviews a mortician while undead. And finally he interviews Garrett Brown, the legendary inventor of the Steadicam, and gets a Steadicam boot camp from the master himself.

Nar rides a fake horse from Narnia'at Creature FX, survives a 100mph hurricane at John Frazier's FXPERTS, which creates weather fx for movies, meets Emily, the most convincing CG-created human and tests the physics behind the bus-jump scene in Speed.

Nar gets a lesson in puppet sculpting from the Chiodo Brothers, marionette makers for "Team America: World Police". Nar visits Technicolor to get a crash course in movie coloring. Animal Wrangler Jules Sylvester unleashes a roomful of creepy crawlers.

ILM uses motion capture fx to create Davy Jones' beard in Pirates of the Caribbean sequels; science of lighting at Mole Richardson; Flash Filmworks creates explosive chopper crashes for The Day the Earth Stood Still; makes low-tech squibs with Indy Mogul.

Nar helps FXPERTS reconstruct a 20-foot replica of Bumblebee from Transformers and morphs into a video game character at Image Metrics; the science of 3D moviemaking at Stereoscope; Nar gets his brain waves read by neuromarketing company fMRI.

Sound-design lesson at Todd-AO; night vision and thermal cameras from Sofradir EC; virtual set for the television series "24''; a nuclear scientist has a problem with Indiana Jones.