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My Astrophotography in the Movie Project Hail Mary (rpastro.square.site)
DorkyPup 30 minutes ago [-]
This is incredible and wonderful news, huge congratulations! As someone who works at the intersection of design and engineering, the detail about delivering "starless versions" so the credit typography doesn't compete with the bright stars is exactly the kind of invisible technical problem-solving I love reading about on here.

On a personal note, I find it very refreshing to hear that a major studio opted for real captured photography. Love that they specifically wanted the authenticity of real narrowband data and that speaks to the production team's vision. Enjoy the premiere night, feel incredibly proud. I was already planning on watching the movie this weekend (it releases here on the 26th) and now I'm doubly excited because I know this neat little tidbit.

I'm pretty sure this "Dad did something crazy" moment is going to be a core memory for your kids. Congrats!

vintagedave 20 minutes ago [-]
I'm curious how the starless versions are created. From the steps at the end, I couldn't see a 'this is how stars are removed' step. Maybe it's part of stacking (but most stars would remain present?) or the calibration process treating stars as noise?
roblh 10 minutes ago [-]
I feel like the stars are probably pretty easy to mask out since they’re very bright relative to the rest of the image. Once you have the mask, each one is small enough that you could probably fill it with the values from adjacent pixels. Kinda like sensor mapping to hide dead pixels. That’s just a guess though, I’m sure there’s more to it than that.
j_bum 48 minutes ago [-]
Incredible work, OP. What a proud feeling you must have. Congrats!!

My wife and I saw the movie this weekend, we thought it was great. I adored the book, yet I recognize a book can’t be perfectly translated to the screen.

I thought the directors did a good enough job at translating the sci-fi into something the masses would enjoy.

Kudos to you

superchink 17 minutes ago [-]
Would you recommend reading the book first?
zyberzero 7 minutes ago [-]
Not the parent, but I've seen the movie and read the book. I think there are a few gaps in the movie that's explained by the book, but there are some artistic freedom as well between the book and the film.

I would recommend reading the book first at least.

throw0101d 49 minutes ago [-]
Somewhat related, nature photographer/youtuber Danni Connor had her recording of a red squirrel used in the movie Dune (Part 1) for the sound of the desert mouse (muad'dib). Her interviewing with (Oscar-winning) sound designer Mark Mangini on it:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtfzjehDg74

* transcript: https://otter.ai/u/PA9dbWFA7BgPgLZN9CSo1WFAjXk

* https://www.iflscience.com/wildlife-photographers-viral-squi...

* https://markmangini.com/Mark_Mangini/Blog/Entries/2021/11/7_...

Story of her 'adopting' the squirrels:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tDlh62AVPo

The name of the squirrel is "Baby Pear"; her viral tweet:

* https://twitter.com/DaniConnorWild/status/127534941750838476...

shubhamjain 40 minutes ago [-]
Amazing! Kudos to Hollywood, for going to this length to license the work, credit the author, involve him in the project. To respect realism as a goal for its own, even though "no one will notice" and a similar image might be "just a prompt away." I know how common is the latter these days.
tomasphan 34 minutes ago [-]
I doubt that good looking IMAX quality astrophotography is just a prompt away.
0x38B 51 minutes ago [-]
Me and my brother just saw the movie tonight and we stayed for the credits. I thought the images were beautiful.
40 minutes ago [-]
1 days ago [-]
ferreyadinarta 24 minutes ago [-]
Wow, congratulations!!
double07zip 38 minutes ago [-]
This is amazing. Your photos are art!
poulpy123 1 hours ago [-]
nice !
inaros 2 days ago [-]
Dont waste your money. Terrible movie. Demeanor oscillates between unfunny jokes at adolescent or bro style like in Deadpool level...or even worst, child level Disney interactions. Directors dont understand SciFi and clearly dont like Scifi.

Ryan Gosling is no actor capable of carrying a movie by himself, and visually there is nothing worth of IMAX. You will get more wonders in a regular made for TV Andor or Star Trek episode.

Despite 12 posts here in the last few days, (nice try Amazon), one thing continues to be true: Almost anything from Amazon Studios is shite. It is amazing the level of reviews they managed to pull off on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes.

Just download the torrent and you will see there is nothing here...and you will thank me for the time and money saved.

kdaker 1 days ago [-]
OP, who seem like an accomplished astrophotographer is sharing a proud moment involving his work. All you can say is how bad the movie is? You can share this in on a post about the movie itself. Btw beautiful photographs OP.
quietbritishjim 50 minutes ago [-]
I don't see any reason to suggest the HN submitter is the same as the article author, especially considering the high volume of submitted articles by the submitter.
inaros 24 hours ago [-]
Its seems the post is part of a coordinated pump on the movie here by Amazon Studios. As you can see, if you look at the amount of related post coordinated with the release. And never seen for any other movie...
jebarker 8 minutes ago [-]
> Its seems the post is part of a coordinated pump on the movie here by Amazon Studios

Is there any evidence for this?

dwringer 44 minutes ago [-]
People have been talking about the book on here since it came out; I see no reason to believe people aren't genuinely interested in it. I loved it, personally.
dcminter 1 hours ago [-]
Even if promotional (which I doubt even if other posts are), this ticks the 'is interesting and not shallow' box for me.
Sharlin 1 hours ago [-]
As another data point, a local well-respected popular astronomy magazine was quite impressed by the movie, relative to Hollywood standards anyway. Translated link: https://www-avaruus-fi.translate.goog/uutiset/tahtiharrastus...
vintagedave 14 minutes ago [-]
Deadpool's humour was violent and crude. I don't remember anything like that at all in Project Hail Mary.

It was a buddy film, and an American one, so had that culture in its humour, sure. But it was light-hearted and quite fun.

ggambetta 46 minutes ago [-]
That's just, like, your opinion, man. I loved the book and I loved the movie.
kvgr 1 hours ago [-]
Why are some people so narrow minded? Different style, get over it. Not everything SciFi must be "true scifi like Star Trek". This rant reminds me of Big Bang theory.
izzydata 31 minutes ago [-]
Star Trek is true scifi? I always considered it to be soft scifi due to it being more about social issues in space rather than the more hard scifi about the fictional science. At least the book of Project Hail Mary is closer to hard scifi than Star Trek as they spend a lot of time describing the science. The movie rightfully skips most of this tedium in favor of a beautiful spectacle.

This is the first time I've heard of the idea of "true" scifi though.

ceejayoz 24 minutes ago [-]
Star Trek is largely fantasy.
ceejayoz 1 hours ago [-]
I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Consider the possibility that your opinions are not universal.

throw0101d 48 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
inaros 42 minutes ago [-]
I heard children loved the rock...

Now go to IMDB:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12042730/reviews/?rating=1&ref_...

sort by worst review and you will see the comments and reviews make a lot of sense...If you believe like some of commentators this is a 10/10 movie, you also probably believe these reviews are not manipulated...

ceejayoz 26 minutes ago [-]
> sort by worst review

This is about the worst methodology you could possibly use here.

> If you believe like some of commentators this is a 10/10 movie, you also probably believe these reviews are not manipulated…

100% of online reviews should be treated as manipulated.

throw0101d 15 minutes ago [-]
> sort by worst review

Now go to IMDb again:

* https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12042730/ratings/?ref_=tt_ov_ra...

and look at the score distribution.

47 minutes ago [-]
kevinsync 41 minutes ago [-]
I don’t even know what to say here -- you’re entitled to your opinion obviously, and I disagree with it deeply, and the spirit of HN is to avoid personal attacks and reply with curiosity, but you kinda laid it out very plainly above. Where’s your imagination gone? Your connection to child-like wonder? Empathy for your fellow man?

Project Hail Mary isn’t Arrival, it’s ET mixed with Castaway. It’s about friendship and loneliness and the fragility of the human experience and the triumph of the human spirit!

Normally I’d just say “you didn’t get it, it wasn’t for you” but given the insufferable and total dismissal above, I’d wager it actually IS for you LOL but you chose not to receive the message.

Anyways, everybody’s a critic these days, I get that. I’d just encourage people to soften a bit and appreciate things for what they are (not what we want them to be)

johnbarron 29 minutes ago [-]
>> It’s about friendship and loneliness and the fragility of the human experience and the triumph of the human spirit!

So is every Disney movie and that is what this but with the crappy Amazon Studios take on it.

>> Anyways, everybody’s a critic these days,

Do you believe a movie can objectively be considered good or bad? If you do you then believe some are better critics than others, the same some way some are better Coders than others or better Basketball players than others?

inaros 40 minutes ago [-]
I dont think people realize how bad this movie is, how there is no actual SciFi on it, and how manipulated the reviews are.

You have been warned: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12042730/reviews/?rating=1&ref_...

Its a kids movie with Deadpool level jokes on it...

austinthetaco 35 minutes ago [-]
This is hn not reddit. This feels like a wildly out of place and inappropriate comment for this kind of discussion.
johnbarron 23 minutes ago [-]
The movie got 12 posts here on HN, pumped by Amazon Studios within the day of release but suddenly it cant be discussed?
austinthetaco 16 minutes ago [-]
If you have some proof of astroturfing you should write a blog and then share on hn, it might make for a very good post here. otherwise it feels wildly inappropriate (not to mention incredibly unlikely that they would spend marketing money on astroturfing here of all places). Andy Weir has written some books that are incredibly successful in the tech industry circles with Hail Mary being the current most popular if not slightly under The Martian, chances are there's just going to be a lot of talk about it. But even if there is astroturfing, telling people to not watch the movie in a thread where someone is showing off their space photography is inappropriate and misplaced.
inaros 3 minutes ago [-]
The author of the great Astrophotography is not the OP of the HN post.

And that is already one starting and possible isolated indicator of astroturfing, ....when the movie related posts got no traction, they went looking for related subjects...

dahart 5 minutes ago [-]
Those handful of 1-star reviews seem the same as the 1-star reviews on all movies, including all of the good movies you probably liked: “boring”, “overhyped”, “doesn’t live up to the book”, etc.. Are they manipulated? Go ahead and name a movie you like without looking at the reviews first, if you dare, and then let’s check the reviews.

I liked the movie and loved the book. Did you read the book? You seeing to be ignoring opinions from real people in this thread. What if the good reviews are as genuine as the bad ones? All I can conclude from bad reviews is that some people have different taste than me, and occasionally some people are in a bad mood when they watch something and it spoils the experience.

What is an example of actual SciFi? What do you mean about there not being any?

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