Whichever of the above you choose, if you like what you see, you can purchase a better quality DVD version (see below).

See the Trailer and Get the DVD

Clicking the DVD image above or this link sends you to CreateSpace where the DVD of the movie can be purchased. There's a one-minute-long trailer there too. The DVD, of course, is higher in quality, in both picture and sound, than the free versions here. The neat thing is, when you get the DVD, you can watch the movie on your TV (or computer or whatever is attached to a DVD player). That's my favorite way to watch the movie, by the way, so that's why I offer it this way.

Spaceship Conductus

About the Video

Originally posted in early December, 2002, this video features the Conductus Productions mascot ship, Conductus. It shows the spaceship both on the outside and on the inside, and it demonstrates its flight capabilities, both in earth's atmosphere and in space, while it is on automatic pilot. A minor cosmetic fix was made to the video in April 2005. In May 2006, sound and music were added.

Behind the Making of the Video

The spaceship is a pure 3D computer model, based on the model depicted on the front page of this Web site. (Click this to see the cardboard model.) (The real Conductus is a cardboard object almost a foot long, with light-emitting diodes for lights and engines.) The cockpit control panel is made up of pictures of the Space Shuttle's control panels and the control panels of a modern, glass-cockpit Boeing 737. The pictures were cut up and pasted in different ways to create something which would spread across the entire dashboard of Conductus. All the other elements of the computer model of Conductus, such as the chairs, doors, lights, and such were created with 3D software.

Scenery for this video was created with 3D software as well. The green terrain which you see Conductus fly over in parts of the video is taken from actual terrain data of the main Hawaiian island. The terrain data comes from a computer file which was digitized by the U.S. Geological Survey. In one view, the terrain elevation data is exaggerated to make big mountains. In another view, the terrain elevation data is more diminished to create a flatter area. The result is two apparently different locations. The earth picture, visible when you see Conductus flying into space, is real. The stars around it, however, are software generated.

A set of seven separate scenes were created and rendered into videos, part time, over the course of about one year. Much time and effort was taken in measuring the cardboard model and producing the main virtual pieces of it. It also took many turns of the earth and effort (sorry, I couldn't think of anything clever to replace effort with) to create the virtual interior, such as the cockpit items, the doors, the lights, the push buttons on the walls, and the signs above the doors. Though the video doesn't show it, all the doors, which you see in one video segment, actually lead to different rooms. The rooms were empty at the time of the making of the video, so, since there isn't much to see, none of the rooms are shown. Please see the following schematic illustration of Conductus to see its rooms and other interior details (the dimensions indicated are those of the cardboard model, not the full-size ship): Conductus Floor Plan

Sound and music for the video were created using synthesizers and a custom recording of a hand drill changing speed (that's the whining sound when you see the spaceship flying from its stationary position to the mountains).

If you are interested in technical details concerning the Conductus craft, a draft has been posted, titled Conductus Spaceship Specifications.

As is true with all material on the Conductus Productions Web site, your comments are welcome. Please use this contact link.

About Megacosmic Voyage

Megagcosmic Voyage is a five-minute space animation put to music. The animation generally shows a trip through space, but there is a short story that goes with it if you wish to read it:

Behind Megacosmic Voyage

One big reason Megacosmic Voyage was made is that I really wanted to both show and see my realistic and fantastic visions of travelling through space. Another reason for the making of Megacosmic Voyage was to just make a music video. Yet another reason was to find something interesting to do with these 3D programs sitting on the hard drive.

When I decided to make the animation which eventually became Megacosmic Voyage, I was initially planning on just using imagery created in 3D programs to generate its scenes. After some time, I realized it would be nice to include real space scenes with the computer-generated scenes. Well, since I didn't have the means of taking pictures in space myself, I decided to use images from NASA. Many of the NASA images acquired were taken by astronauts, satellites, and space probes like Voyager and Magellan. Those images are exclusively of things in the solar system. Images of galaxies, nebulae, and such are mostly from the awesome, colorful images taken by the Hubble telescope. There is a spectacular image of the Sombrero Galaxy in Megacosmic Voyage which was taken from a new observatory in South America. I misplaced the observatory's name, but when I find it, I'll revise this paragraph to include it. The beginning of Megacosmic Voyage consists of animated scenes made from some pictures of the eastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area that were taken from a small plane a few years ago. I was the pilot of the plane, and my mother, Elizabeth Parashis, was the photographer of those pictures. One picture, which occurs after the scenes made from the small-plane pictures, was taken by me from the window of a 737 flying at its cruising altitude north towards Santa Barbara.

Even though Megacosmic Voyage is an animation, the real pictures used in it are stills, which were animated with 3D programs.

The music of Megacosmic Voyage is called Evening and Morning Sky. I created most of the music in 1999 (I made a prototype of the main melody in 1990, however, while playing the guitar), using a computer and music synth setup, and put it on my Conductus CD. It's one of my favorite music pieces on the CD, and it seemed to me that it would go well with the space scenes of Megacosmic Voyage.

I'm not sure exactly when I started making Megacosmic Voyage, but I'm pretty sure it was some time in the summer of 2000. I finally finished toward the end of May 2001. I would work on it in some of my spare time, though not all of it. I suppose that's one good reason the animation took almost a year. But, another reason is that it does take time to conjur up and make scenes with 3D animation programs. It would take hours, and sometimes a full day, for animation programs to render the scenes of Megacosmic Voyage, which average around eight seconds in length. Finally, it was quite a task to collect and sort NASA images. I didn't use all that I acquired, but I did collect a lot of them, mainly from the NASA Web site, but also from various books containing nice NASA photos, which were scanned by me. By the way, I found the act of collecting the NASA photos to be a fun activity. It's like rock or stamp collecting (I personally find rock collecting to be the bigger thrill, but they both have their special place).

Megacosmic Voyage is here for you to see, and even download, free. I hope you enjoy it. Where is it, you ask? Um, look higher up.

Size: 62.6 Megabytes / Length: 7 Minutes 18 Seconds
(May take some time to download.)

Buy Stuff with The Cat Which Hated Its Food Art on It Conductus Productions Shop

The Cat Which Hated Its Food is an animation made by Andy Pritchard, George Parashis, and Steve Purple Hays, and brought to you by Conductus Productions. This crude yet highly charming animation of over seven minutes in length, which is accompanied by narration, text, sound, and music, is based on a picture story on this site which is also titled The Cat Which Hated Its Food, believe it or not, and which is written by George Parashis.

For all ages, The Cat Which Hated Its Food is about a cat which doesn't like the food it is fed, so it tries to get fed the food it likes through several clever (for a cat anyway) methods. One of them finally works, and everything is then okay!

Andy Pritchard was the animator. He made the animations with animation software he created titled Tracer. And on the seventh day, He rested. Check out Andy's Web site, which has a link to the downloadable Tracer, among other excellent things: http://website.lineone.net/~andy.pritchard.

George Parashis was the narrator, a sound maker, and a music scorer for the animation, and is the author of the original picture story. You are right now at this megalomaniac's Web site, which he likes to think of as his benevolent cyber empire, for the purpose of bringing joy and happiness to the world. Really!

Steve Purple Hays was a sound maker and music scorer for the animation, who was called upon by George Parashis to help out with the surprisingly enormous sound and music tasks, since Steve has lots of sound, music equipment, and "the right stuff." He came through with some indispensable, great material, which makes him a hero, and that's why the ladies love him. For instance, that purr in the animation clip above is him (note: in standard English, the proper word is he, not him, because him is here used, improperly, as a subject, not as an object--as it technically should be, but the author thought that he seemed a bit too Elizabethan, and he therefore opted to go with the more oft used idiom of using him) purring. Music from his band, The Hip Hop Hippies, was also used in the animation.

Space Animations

These short space animations were made using 3D software and, in some cases, photographs. They are meant to be demo's of what can be done by Conductus Productions for clients, and they are short bits of entertainment for everyone else. They may also, in some cases, foreshadow future, more involved productions.

Danger in the Void Length: 1 Minute 11 Seconds

Various Movies

In this section are various movies that aren't yet put into a category. They are usually small animations just a handful of seconds long, demonstrating an animation technique or something that is hopefully interesting in short form.

Planet Zatox: Land of the Living Rocks Length: 39 Seconds This movie displays a talking rock, organically animated. Has sound, which makes it twice as interesting, so turn the volume up and put those headphones on.

Purple and Green Snake Size: 15.4 Megabytes / Length: 34 Seconds See that snake? It'll slither along when you play the movie. Has sound and music. You must listen. How Made I love knowing how such things are done, so I'll tell you: The background is a photograph. I took it along some hike path one fine day. The big rock is not real, but it has a real rock texture (it's painted with the picture of a real rock). The plants and the chess piece are some nice stock CG models that came with my CG software (I gave the chess piece a stone texture). Notice the one flower that follows the snake like a radar dish. Another changes color subtly. Most of the grass is real, but I planted CG grass here and there, especially around the snake's path, so it would look more like the snake was in the scene, and not floating over a picture (which it really is). You'll notice the background picture catches shadows. The software takes care of that. The leaves that move when the snake slithers are CG versions of some leaf photographs I took. It may be hard to notice in this small video, but the snake pushes some pebbles as it moves. This was done to make it seem like the snake is actually touching the ground. Many more pebbles would have helped, but it is intense manual labor to add and move each pebble, so I stopped when I thought enough were just getting the job done. For those who know a little about 3D animation, the snake moves through the use of an IK skeleton. The trick was to add many bones. Too few gave the snake discrete kinks in its body. So, the snake has enough bones to make it look like it has an actual spinal column when viewing the IK skeleton. Finally, the sound and music: The slithering sounds are from microphone-recorded objects and paper being scooted along plastic and pavement. The music was made with music software playing software instruments. Nifty tune, eh?

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Movie Software

If you are looking for software to create and edit your own CG movies, see below, and click.

Movie Service

Do you need a movie for your--say--movie, commercial, or composition? Then, let me tell you, you're at the right place. Movies with virtual models (spaceships, planets, creatures, plants) and scenery, and stop-motion movies are my specialty. Perhaps you merely need a movie idea, or you want a script. I can help you with those things too.

Price and terms negotiable. Please click here and make your request.

Conductus Productions: Movies
Copyright © 2008 Conductus Productions

Printed on recycled paper.

To buy a bumper sticker with this snake on it, click here.