Chernokids

This is a thought provoking animation by a group of students at Supinfocom in the south of France.  It imagines the children of Chernobyl in an altogether different light to how they are portrayed in the media and some of you may not be too happy about that.

However, its content is one that will resonate with many and is proof positive that many young animators are using the form to challenge our perceptions and to create striking and challenging work.

Chernokids was created by the five strong team of Marion Petegnief ,Matthieu Bernadat ,Nils Boussuge, Florence Ciuccoli and Clément Deltour.  It seems particularly prescient at the moment because of what is happening at the site of a number of nuclear power plants in Japan but was made last year for their graduation project. Still, timeliness aside, it has been shortlisted for a number of different animation competitions and will, one can only hope, win a few of them.  It really does represent a superlative effort on the part of these five undergraduates who will no doubt go on to great things either in the French animation industry or beyond.

Supinfocum is a school with something of a global reputation – and is in its twenty third year of existence.  It is situated in the town of Arles in the south of France and services the Valenciennes region (and indeed beyond).

If the Earth Stood Still

Image Credit Flickr User Noel Zia Lee

Over at Esri (who develop Geographic Information Systems Software), Witold Fraczek has written this fascinating account about what would happen if the Earth stood still. Unlike the Science Fiction film with the similar title, this is not within the realms of fantast. Fraczek models exactly what would happen if our planet stopped rotating using extremely sophisticted software modelling. The results lead for uncomfortable but fascinating reading. Get your science hats on now, ladies and gentlemen.

Witold Fraczek is a longtime employee of Esri who currently works in the Application Prototype Lab. He received his doctorate in the application of GIS in forestry from Agricultural University and master's degrees in hydrology from the University of Warsaw, Poland, and remote sensing from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

If the Earth Stood Still