Pic pick: Filmmaking flowchart

I got this from a director and film school instructor. Click to zoomify.

Pic pick: Hitch's "Rear Window" cameo

Screw CGI, no. 6: Chilean volcano ash cloud lightning

From National Geographic's Pictures We Love: Best of October:

Photograph by Ricardo Mohr, My Shot

Remember the scene from the Radiers of the Lost Ark when the ark is opened? Or an apocalyptic vision out of Hellboy or some "End Times" thriller?  This isn't that, but I'd believe it if it was. Instead, it's something far cooler...

A cloud of lightning-topped ash rises toward a starry sky during the June eruption of southern Chile's Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano complex in a picture submitted to My Shot in October. The summer eruption grounded flights in Chile and neighboring Argentina.

This month officials began evacuating people from the immediate vicinity of the Hudson Volcano, 470 miles (756 kilometers) south of Puyehue-Cordón Caulle, according to the Associated Press. Recent releases of steam and ash from the volcano have had authorities in Chile and Argentina on high alert, AP reports.

According to National Geographic, these little-understood "dirty thunderstorms" may get sparked up when "rock fragments, ash, and ice particles in the plume collide to produce static charges — just as ice particles collide to create charge in regular thunderstorms."

Utterly wowed by this image and what it depicts, I plugged the keywords Chile ash cloud lightning volcano into Google Images and got my mind wow-ified a bunch more:

National Geographic

National Geographic

NASA / Astronomy Picture of the Day

National Geographic

The News Tribune

Hat tip: Boing Boing

Damn, it feels good to be a monsta

Chillin' between takes with Boris Karloff, the gentleman actor who starred in my favorite of the various Universal classic monster series.

On the set of Son of Frankenstein.

Below: November 23, 1938: Karloff is treated to a birthday surprise on the set of Son of Frankenstein. Before the day was over, there would be another reason to celebrate as Boris’ daughter, Sara, was born.

Hitchcock's "Angry Birds"

These have been making the rounds. I love it when people are clever.

From Dandingeroz Designs, created by Dan Eijah Fajardo, aka Dandingeroz, and Pedro Kramer, a.k.a. Badbasilisk. It's currently up for voting as a Threadless t-shirt design. Via MyModernMet.

Via Flickr user Zero-Lives

Pic pick: Unnatural things alive or dead

Always sound advice...

(Can you name this movie?)

Pic pick: Abe Lincoln, Ghostbuster

Seeing as how we're temporarily paused during this year's Octoberfilms [subset: Corman/Price/Poe] series, here's a little filler that's both seasonal and stirringly historical. Hey, who you really gonna call?

Via How to be a Retronaut and Tauntr

Screw CGI, no. 5: A flash from above

Perseid Below
Credit: Ron Garan, ISS Expedition 28 Crew, NASA

This remarkable view captured by astronaut Ron Garan looks down on a Perseid meteor. From Garan's perspective onboard the International Space Station orbiting at an altitude of about 380 kilometers, the Perseid meteors streak below, swept up dust left from comet Swift-Tuttle heated to incandescence. The glowing comet dust grains are traveling at about 60 kilometers per second through the denser atmosphere around 100 kilometers above Earth's surface. In this case, the foreshortened meteor flash is right of frame center, below the curving limb of the Earth and a layer of greenish airglow.

A larger version (4256 x 2832, resolution 240) with more info is at APOD.

More at Talking Points Memo.

Pic pick: Dept. of Silly Walks (Silly Meme Division)

via Tumblr

via crazygadgets.com

Via ayelie.deviantart.com

via cicatrix on Flickr

via Stupidco.com

via uncrate.com

via memebase

via Society6

Pic pick: It's a mad, mad, mad, mad Hendrix

It's not movie-related, but there's too much to love here to not share it. That's the Sept. '67 issue, by the way.

Via LIFE archives

First drafts we're glad didn't get produced

Pic pick: L&H

Laurel & Hardy, Liberty (1929, directed by Leo McCarey, produced by Hal Roach), looking down S. Broadway and Olympic Blvd., LA.

Pic pick: Screw CGI, no. 2

Click to embiggen (1744 x 600).

Comet Between Fireworks and Lightning

Credit & Copyright: Antti Kemppainen

January 2007, Perth, Australia, Comet McNaught. From Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Previously on Screw CGI.

Pic pick: Catherine Deneuve at Cannes, 1997

via ana-lee.livejournal.com

Pic pick: Cinema Paradiso

Yeah, I sometimes feel like that too.

Pic pick: Movie Narrative Charts

Click to embiggen.

Via xkcd, of course.

Pic Pick: Screw CGI

If this image doesn't move you, you're beyond human reach.

Via Astronomy Picture of the Day, which provides info and context.

Pic pick: Perspective

When I have a suckass day, I put it all into perspective by thinking about the men's room attendant at the International House of Asparagus.

Pic pick: Uh oh

Pic pick: Soylent Green is ... enticingly marketed!

By Javier B. at Vintage Ads for Fictional Futures (Mark A. Rayner).
Context, if needed: Soylent Green