Klein bottle and Hugo in 3D

A few evenings ago I got to scratch my itch in an opportunity to watch the film Hugo in 3D for the first time, courtesy JA. I can still rate this movie high on my would-I-ever-watch-it-again list. And to mark the event JA presented me with a Klein bottle which their 3D printer produced whilst we watched the film.

All 60mm of my very own Klein bottle

Most people are familiar with the Klein bottle, but not so many can follow its mathematics. Sentences like "an immersion is a differentiable function between differentiable manifolds whose derivative is everywhere injective", which occurs in Wikipedia's definition of the Klein bottle, leave me feeling I am too old...  However some attributes are more down to earth, like:

A Klein bottle has only one surface, just as a Möbius strip has only one side. But you might say that any bottle has only one surface - if you start at a point on the inside surface you can travel smoothly to the outside via the neck. The catch is that, topologically, both shapes should have zero wall thickness, just as a line is defined to have no width, and, if so, to get from inside to outside you have to negotiate an edge at the rim, and an edge is what divides two intersecting surfaces. With a Klein bottle with zero wall thickness, however, the transition from "inside" to "outside" is smooth and continuous: there is no edge, there truly is only one surface.

The Klein bottle is to a Möbius strip as a cube is to a square.  Thus a Klein bottle is properly a 4D shape, so that my very own pictured above is in fact only a 3D representation in which it must intersect itself (where the top bends over and disappears into the body) and that intersection is clearly a cheat because it creates an edge, a discontinuity which a true Klein bottle doesn't have. In 4D that intersection would, apparently, not occur thus the surface would be continuous.

I still use a 2D printer in my office. JA used a 3D printer to make my bottle. Roll on the 4D printer!

Back to Hugo: need I repeat how it is the perfect story in which each colourful and larger-than-life character is introduced in turn at the start and exeant at the end having gained in some way? Apart from Hugo Cabret who in contrast is a normal, coming-of-age kid who we love for his persistence.

Am I Hugo?

I may have said before that Hugo must rank as one of my most enjoyed films. There are so many aspects to the film that are executed so superbly. And yet, and here I quote Wikipedia: Hugo was also nominated for eight BAFTAs, winning two of the eight, and was nominated for three Golden Globe awards, earning Scorsese his third Golden Globe Award for Best Director. Despite this, the film was a commercial failure, grossing $185 million against its $150–$170 million budget. I remain sad that I never saw it on the big screen and in 3D.

Anyway, back to subject... When the uncle Claude died (actually in my case he became too involved with his business) I tacitly assumed full responsibility for our wood-burning boiler. At this time of the year we don't need central heating but it supplies all our hot water. Who here thinks, when they turn the hot tap on, that the water didn't just get hot all by itself? And what Gare Montparnasse passers by considered that the station clocks didn't just wind themselves up?

There are so many aspects of community life that one tends to take for granted. Someone has to wash those dishes you leave on the draining board late at night. Someone is keeping the front lawn mowed, and weeding the flower beds, cooking the dinner, etc... the list goes on!  And, no, I do not do all those things! 

Desert Island Films

On the BBC News website a few days ago I read with some disgust the editorial So long, 3DTV. Whilst some of what David Lee says may be true I will ardently defend all things 3D in spite of what he calls "plonker" glasses and mild eye strain. 3D technology was around long before my birth but went out of fashion after the war maybe due to the activities of a 1910 version of Mr Lee. There are some very passable 3D photographs from this era on display at Russborough House just down the road from us. Ever since my childhood I have longed to watch a 3D movie and my lust was not properly satisfied until 2009 when I saw James Cameron's awesome and archetypal Avatar in the cinema.

Avatar and the floating islands of Pandora

My first taste of proper 3D photography was at my parent's church. By "proper" I mean full colour stereoscopic and I thus exclude those red and blue glasses which did no more than tease the desire. Of course I'd love true immersive 3D like holograms and some virtual reality provide but, so far, this technology is not available to the masses. Some visiting missionary brought with him a slide show. Generally these were only marginally more interesting than a sermon but on this occasion the slides were 3D! Of course I made it my business to suss out the projection equipment which, I found, was more or less two projectors side by side Siamese twins style, projecting two separate 35mm stills. I understood the polaroid principle well enough although whether it was circular polarisation as is now used I know not. We were all issued with polarising glasses and - wow! I can still see in my mind one slide in which there were flowers in the foreground which literally flowed out of the frame of the screen and towards the audience.

A film (or any other experience) that ranks high in my pecking order is one that I would gladly enjoy twice, thrice, perhaps any number of times and, when asked after watching a film whether I enjoyed it or not, you will get very little response from me if it was good. To put into words anything so wonderful would be travesty, sacrilege, deprecative. The principle applies equally to 2D as well. The multiple viewings must be suitably temporally spaced else it might amount to over-indulgence: a first slice of strawberry cheesecake delights but the second too soon after might make one feel sick.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

I know folk for whom the cinema holds little or no pleasure but, for me, a good film on the big screen is hard to beat. I recently took my grandchildren to a theatre performance of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I was very well done and the boy and girl actors were very endearing but it did not compare to the 1968 film version.

My parents held out against TV until I was a teenager and, even then, watching was restricted. Colour was in its infancy: we settled on the cheaper and more reliable monochrome. Likewise going to the cinema or theatre was both a rarity and a treat, and it has remained so all through my life. There are things that I love doing but that does not necessarily mean that I indulge myself in them. There are other people to consider and, we are told, God watches all. In spite of these restrictions I have managed to watch a number of films of which the following have stood up to my test of time. You might detect a common denominator.

Julie Andrews

Many folk today, especially youngsters, pour scorn on The Sound of Music but I have to say I loved it and would gladly watch it many times more. I love the mountain grandeur and the music, and I will admit that I kind of fell in love with Julie and I remember my father cautioning me of this folly.

Mark Lester

My mother took me to see Oliver (1986) in a large cinema in Southampton. Of all the musicals I have seen I think Oliver ranks the highest. Although it was disappointing to hear, more recently, that Mark didn't actually sing any of his songs! One particular "wow" moment was experiencing surround sound wittingly for the first time as Oliver and the Artful emerge from a narrow side street into the open square in front of St Paul's.

Mowgli

The 1967 cartoon version of The Jungle Book met the test. I have watched this film many times and still enjoy it. And yet the sequel I have seen only once.

Polar Express

We watched Polar Express (2004) one Christmas on DVD. It was the first entirely animated film in which the characters were sufficiently human to instil an emotional response and thus another archetype for me.  I discovered that it might be possible to fall in love with a virtual avatar! Surprisingly for a staid establishment, the IET publishes some interesting thoughts here in an article "Love and sex in the Robotic Age". And anyway (back to Polar Express) as I have mentioned elsewhere,I loved the railway theme particularly where the train leaves the track.

Neel Sethi as Mowgli

I've only had the chance to watch Favreau's excellent 2016 version of Jungle Book in glorious 3D once, but I reckon it meets the test and I look forward to a sequel.

Magnificent set in Hugo

Some while back I posted my approval after watching Martin Scorsese's Hugo (2011, ) and later alluded to its making. I have watched this film several times though regrettably not in 3D, and regard it as an artistic masterpiece and also amazing acting by Asa Butterfield speaking of whom his The Space Between Us (2017) looks like it might be worth testing although some reviews are rather damning.

In all it seems I am an incurable romantic.

Dreams and Floaters

Love-eye-floaters

They say we dream all the time, but rarely remember unless we happen to wake during a dream. In my dreams I often have memories, for example that I have been in a particular place before - they say this is common, that dreams have their own set of recollections that need not concur with awake memories.

The other night I dreamed I was going along a road - probably running barefoot - and found it didn't go anywhere so retraced my steps back over a river bridge to a junction I had remembered passing. I took the other path hoping that it would lead me back home. This road ended abruptly at the river and I found myself on a boat which took me to city build on either side of a deep valley. My vantage point gave me a panorama of both the complex architecture and the deep, rocky river gorge below. In my dream I remembered that in a previous dream (so I knew I was in a dream!) I had been amazed at the finesse of detail - so I made a point of testing this - I found I could make out striations in the rocks by the river maybe half a mile beneath me, could resolve the guy wires supporting a distant radio mast atop a fantastic building caught in rosy evening light: and the sheer glut of detail surrounding me reminded me of the film Hugo.

I rank Hugo among the best films I have ever watched, along with (to name a few) Oliver, the Sound of Music, Avatar and the new Jungle Book. I rank it highly because (in order) it is intensely beautiful, because it is about a boy discovering himself, because of its unashamedly story-book feel particularly in the way the major characters are so cleverly exaggerated, and because I liked the music. Indeed the only character that comes across at all normal is the boy Hugo himself (Asa Butterfield). Maybe you have not seen the film? You should. Here are some stills to wet your appetite and illustrate what I am saying. In a still, sadly resolution (hence quality, detail) is lost along with the dimensions of time and depth (I strongly regret that I did not see the film in 3D), just as audio quality is lost in monaural listening. The film is one continual feast for the eye - it is impossible to take in all the detail before the scene changes. Click on the images to enlarge them.

Speaking of finesse - the word aptly describes the degree of detail generated by the Fabry–Pérot interferometer. Had I not fallen for the colour and intricacy found in electronics I would surely have become a physicist specialising in optics. I have some friends who are into photography in a big way and they, at least, respect optics, but for the most part folk take sight and the fact that we can see in 3D for granted, not to mention movies and the ubiquitous digital camera to boot. Perhaps you have never taken a camera apart to study the compound lenses, or disassembled a flat screen monitor to find out how it is so evenly illuminated? You should.

Looking at this diagram it is frankly amazing that we can see as well as we can. In fact we can't - the brain adjusts for many imperfections in our eyesight but, together, I reckon they do a pretty good job. I am so glad that I can see. Even if I have largely lost the ability to accommodate - I have needed reading glasses for several years and now even my far vision needs some correction. Recently I invested in a pair of those cheap generic reading glasses with the lowest power and these work well for my far vision though I do not generally need them. Donning them whilst watching a film or movie I discover a new level of detail that I had forgotten existed.

I suppose we all see floaters to varying degrees. And I suppose everyone has "played" with their eyes - screwing up your eyelids to allow only a tiny slit of light to pass through and observing the fancy interference patterns when looking at a source of light. So you will recognise my title picture - these are basically Newton's Rings, which are closely related to the fringes generated by the interferometer.  Apparently vision artifacts like this have been observed in distant history: I guess back then they had little else to do than screw up their eyes or build the occasional pyramid.

The making of Hugo

So how much of those wonderfully detailed scenes in 'Hugo' are real? Not a lot it seems, but that does not, for me, detract from the intense beauty of the film. Isn't that the magic of fiction, of art generally, to enhance, exaggerate, colour, heighten, extend reality? Isn't this exactly what a story teller, a politician, a preacher does to "make a point". Arguably we might not be creators in the strictest sense of the word, but we can still imagine. They can't take that away from us. Imagination is the stuff of wonder and wonder is what makes things wonderful.

You can find several youtube videos on 'the making of Hugo' but this one on Vimeo is perhaps the best and it is in HD. Colour separation overlay or "chroma-key" is used extensively - this technique has been around since the early days of TV but here of course it is enhanced by animated backdrops created by computer.

Chroma-key in action

The original author Brian Selznick whose book the film is based on mixes some real history of  Georges Méliès with his plot and so it is no surprise to find that Hugo's train-crash nightmare is based on a real accident in which a train forgot to stop in a terminus station.

Train wreck at Montparnasse 1895

The Hugo version

in perspective

How I would love to be involved in the making of such a film - behind the scenes of course - I greatly admire the likes of Asa Butterfield but the only acting I can do is the fool.

Nausia

Paris backdrop - click to enlarge

Tuesday morning. The day before yesterday I was busy as ever, like, ran home from Blessington (from Baltiboys bridge along the lake shore), mended rips in the tunnel plastic, co-hosted a dinner party for 12, then wham... In bed all Monday with stomach cramps and nausea. A bug that has being making the rounds here. So everything in my life froze - I wonder did the world at large notice? In the evening I watched the fantasy 'Hugo' in HD (I had seen before but on a flight so VLD, poor contrast and non-existent sound) and was amazed by the detail in the backdrops of Paris and by the character portrayal - a very beautiful film.