The Thrownaways

I recently watched a movie called “Trancendence.” It was directed by Wally Pfister, a fellow film purist. And savior. He is usually Christopher Nolan’s cinematographer. But he directed this movie. It’s great. A lot of high concepts. Fascinating questions of life and death and how long we should preserve humanity. In other words, far smarter than me. I know smarter people have questions about it. But I just like the emotion is conveys.

As I was watching the movie, a thing occurred to me. There is a character in the movie that denies all technology. Hippie shit, at the surface. When we finally discover it is the last grasp at humanity. What this movie posits is that we transcend humanity. Since we destroy what we create. An A.I. would know better.

As I was watching the credits I saw that Nathan Maguinness was the visual FX supervisor. When I was much younger and desperate to work in any movie field…I contacted Nathan. At the time, he owned an Oscar winning FX house called Asylum. I didn’t want a job. I just had questions. Also, I found out he was into vintage motorcycles. So we had that in common.

He actually responded to my email. It was unbelievable. A guy who is busy took the time to answer my stupid questions. A nobody.

A few years later, Asylum went bust. They, like many other FX house went under, due to outsourcing. It’s funny when you consider that the amount of FX work went up, but the amount of small boutique VFX shops went under. What did that tell me? Hollywood are scumbags.

Anyway, it was great to see Nathan’s name on something. Especially as you will see his genius at work in this movie. More importantly, it seems a band of throwaways or deserted, like film lovers or VFX artists can band together and still create. That when Hollywood, or for that matter ANY industry, turns their back on you, you can find people who share your passion to group together and build your own clubhouse.