Produced in collaboration with the Rubin Museum of Art in NYC, “The Known Universe” is a 6 minute animation that elegantly provides viewers with some perspective on our place in the universe. With almost 8 million views, it is the top-rated “Science & Technology” video of all time on YouTube.
I was the producer, co-writer, and also handled text and compositing in After Effects. Scientific and curatorial direction was provided by Dr. Ben Oppenheimer. The visualization was rendered and flown by Dr. Carter Emmart, director of Astrovisualization for production and education at the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History. Rendering software was Uniview by SCISS.
I was the Associate Producer for the 4th “Space Show” from the American Museum of Natural History, “Journey to the Stars.” Based on extensive scientific data from AMNH scientists and worldwide collaborators, “Stars” is a planetarium experience including a soundtrack by composer Robert Miller and narration from Whoopi Goldberg. It launched at AMNH in 2009 and now plays in multiple planetariums worldwide.
I also produced the flatscreen/DVD version and distribution versions for unidirectional and tilt domes.
For dome projection, the original media was spherical at approximately 4K diameter pixels. Click the stills below to view 1920×1080 flatscreen captures.
The planetarium show “Journey To The Stars” from the American Museum of Natural History, for which I served as Associate Producer, included a beautiful symphonic soundtrack from composer Robert Miller.
When the project was complete, I worked as producer with Robert and audio engineer (aka WIZARD) Peter Hylenski to prepare a soundtrack album. This involved reducing the 24+ tracks of the final planetarium mix down to stereo, remixing and mastering all tracks, replacing midi piano with newly-recorded “real piano,” and recording Robert performing piano-only versions of several of the themes.
The additional recording was done at Avatar Studios (formerly the Power Station) in NYC. Final mastering was done by Sterling Sound.
The soundtrack is available on iTunes (store link) and other digital stores.
Track “Solar Neighborhood, part 2″
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I produced the Turntables kiosk for the Design Zone exhibit at the Oregon Museum of Science and Technology in summer of 2010. Design was by OMSI and programming was by Dan Schechter.
For this project, I also wrote 8 original pieces in 4 pairs, designed to be played simultaneously in separate speakers to allow users to try and match the beats while also viewing a dynamic graph of the BPM (beats per minute).
Here are four examples of the tracks I provided. OMSI wanted the tracks in a wide varieties of styles, fairly simple and beat-oriented, and interesting for kids. The first two are a pair – notice they are in the same key and designed to playback well overlapping at almost any offset where the beats match.
Track “1024L”
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Track “1024R”
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Track “1027L”
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Track “1029R”
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I produced this site as a joint development between the Cary Institute of Ecological Studies and the American Museum of Natural History.
The site provides background information and data visualization tools for understanding the zebra mussel as an invasive species along the Hudson River. Students are given background information on zebra mussels, scientific techniques to sample relevant parameter, and 3 different kinds of graphing and analysis, each updating dynamically via Javascript and the highcharts.com engine.
