The Dark Knight Rises Trailer

Christmas has come early for many, as Warner Bros. has released a trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. Admittedly, even I found myself avidly waiting for the HD trailer to download, so it's safe to assume I'm definitely part of that crowd.

Judging by what's been glimpsed so far, be it leaked photos of Catwoman riding the Batpod, as well as her in in a fight scene holding a half-eaten apple, a significant portion of the final instalment will be set in daylight during winter. In the trailer itself, one other key scene being part of a huge melee in Gotham’s financial district (actually shot on Wall Street). As Batman faces Bane for powerful blows to be traded, I wondered whether the snow in the financial district scene is a nod to Bruce's early training with Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins. An epic training setting in the snowy mountains of Bhutan carried through subtly to the final epic film of the series. Added to that is the gas that Bane relies on which is concocted from one of Ra's formulas. With these elements featured, however subtle, are a nice touch in bringing the trilogy full circle.

The Dark Knight Rises is released on 20th July, directed by Chris Nolan (Inception, the Prestige, Memento)

Watch the trailer on Apple

Frozen Planet

After managing to pick up my jaw from the floor I can finally enthuse about this. The most expensive screensaver for your TV; Frozen Planet will be hard to ignore over the coming weeks. The licence fee is worth it alone for this enchanting and captivating new television series. I could go on introducing the show, but seriously, just head straight over to iPlayer, if you haven't already.

Or, make the most of your HD TV and pre-order the boxset here

Win a luxury ski break in Chamonix

Glamour has teamed up with Timberland to offer one reader and three friends a winter break to Chamonix. The lucky group will spend 3 nights at boutique hotel The Clubhouse. The hotel is so exclusive there are just seven rooms, each with teak-decked 'rainforest' showers, REN toilets and Flatscreen TVs. Unwind at the end of a day's skiing at the uber cool Milk & Honey bar.

Look good as you ski/snowboard the famous Mont Blanc as there's also £1000 spending money, plus £200 each to spend at Timberland.

*Competition now closed*

More on The Clubhouse
Timberland winter shopping

Top image: Getty

Top Gear episodes go on Facebook

Dog sledge training, check. Arctic Doctor with shotgun, check. Heavily modified Toyota pick-up truck, check. Denim and corduroy, can remain at home. It's the Top Gear Polar race.

Admittedly, I haven't actually seen the episode, but I've posted this article because whenever I've stumbled on an episode of Top Gear, it usually ends up being an enjoyable and entertaining experience.

The BBC has developed a video-on-demand app for Facebook that will allow users of the website to rent a limited number of Top Gear episodes using Facebook Credits.

Users at a cost of 15 Facebook Credits (93p) can rent the episode for 48 hours. Other episodes available include US Road Trip and Vietnam Road Trip.

Here's the Facebook page so you can like the link and get watching. But with over 9 million fans already, chances are you already have!

Grab a tea, here's a few facts

Hammond arrived in the Arctic Circle a week earlier than Jeremy and James to take a crash course in dog-sledging. Much of his journey was done either on skis or standing on the back of a sled, and this while facing a steady stream of flying dog poo. Yuck!

The race was to reach the Magnetic North Pole, and not the True North Pole. The True North Pole is a fixed cartographical point which relates to time as well as position, the Magnetic North Pole (the one your compass points at) actually moves slowly over time due to magnetic changes in the Earth's core. So you could find yourself at the True North Pole and still need to travel north to reach the Magnetic North Pole.

It was because of this that Richard never actually made it to the Pole. Communications between the two teams were unreliable at best, and after Jeremy and James arrived, Richard was so far behind. The crew saw it cruel to make him go the extra distance just so Clarkson could gloat.

The polar bear is the largest land carnivore on the planet. It can run as fast as a race horse, has an incredibly keen sense of smell, and is the type of bear most likely to prey on humans. Apparently the crew encountered lots of them. In fact, the doctor who accompanied Hammond's team, and who travels to the Arctic Circle every year, said he'd seen more bears on this trip than any other he'd made. The shotgun wasn't for show.


Illustration: katejonesdesign.co.uk
Facts via BBC Top Gear site

Is anything more refreshing than a Coors Beer? Apparently nothing, but frozen tight pants come close.

Let's face it when the ad breaks come back on, they are loud, really loud. Maybe perhaps due to being broadcast with compressed audio files which can be ear-shatteringly intrusive even when you're two rooms from the lounge. Who knows? But enough of the technical stuff. One advert came on, that made me dig out the remote from the back of the sofa, fumble for the mute button, to see the mighty Jean-Claude Van Damme muse about his ice cold pants. Complete with mullet and double denim, here's a past glory action figure that clearly doesn't mind taking the mick out of himself. Grab a Coors Light and enjoy...

The website



Jean-Claude doing the rounds

The muscles from brussels

Hard Target: Best scenes

JCVD

Inside the Human Body

Here's a series that's got all the charm of Innerspace but with bags of science fact. Over the last few weeks Michael Mosley has been taking us on an engrossing journey exploring the wonders of the human body (with the help of some superb state-of-the-art graphics). Such scenes include the epic story of sperm fusing with an egg to create life, as well as following Wim Hoff 'The Iceman' swimming in glacial lakes so cold they would kill a normal person. Catch the rest of the fascinating BBC 1 series on iPlayer.

More about the series

Tilt-Shift Tutorial

Tilt-shift photography (miniature faking) has been doing the heavy rounds for a while now. If you're a designer like me, you only have to go on Behance where shrinking Shetland ponies and Eiffel Towers dosn't seem to be wearing thin yet.

So, how you achieve the effect? I've put together these steps to guide you through the technique.

Step 1: Photo Selection
When choosing a photograph for the tilt-shift effect, keep in mind that you want to give the impression of a miniature model. For this tilt-shift Photoshop tutorial, the image I've chosen is Blackcomb mountain in Whistler:

Step 2. Enter Quick Mask Mode
Open the image in Photoshop and enter Quick Mask Mode by pressing Q on the keyboard, or select the Quick Mask icon as shown in the Tool Palette below:

Step 3. Choose Gradient Tool
Choose the Gradient Tool by pressing G on the keyboard, or select the Gradient Tool icon. Be sure to choose the Reflected Gradient option (the fourth icon along before the Mode drop-down).

Step 4. Draw A Line
Draw a vertical line; the start point will be the centre of the in-focus area, and the end will be where the transition from in-focus to out-of-focus is completed. This step, and the subsequent two steps, will need a fair degree of trial and error.

Step 5. View Mask Area
The middle of the mask is where the in-focus area will be, gradually losing focus towards the edges. Note the out-of-focus effect is yet to be applied.

Step 6. Return To Standard Mode
Press Q on the keyboard to exit Quick Mask Mode and return to Standard Mode, or press the icon on the Tool Palette as shown below. The area to apply the focus effect to will be surrounded by the "marching ants" selection lines:

Step 7. Open Lens Blur Interface
Choose Filter > Blur > Lens Blur:

Step 8. Review Effect And Tweak Settings
Hopefully, you will start to see a pleasing focus effect. The Photoshop default settings for Lens Blur are a good place to start, but experiment with them to improve the effect. If you are unhappy with the position of the focus area, go back to Step 4 and try drawing a line in a different place or with a different centre of focus.

Step 9. Exit Lens Blur Interface
Assuming you were happy with the image preview in Step 8, click OK to accept the settings.

Step 10. Remove Selection Boundary

Press CTRL-D on the keyboard to remove the "marching ants" selection boundary.

Step 11. Open Hue/Saturation Adjustment Interface
You may want to boost the colour saturation, to improve the effect. Remember that model scenery is often brightly painted so enhancing the saturation helps trick the eye. Press CTRL-U on the keyboard or select Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation:

Step 12. Boost Saturation
In this example, we boost the Master saturation to +40.

Step 13. Open Curves Adjustment Interface

Help to increase the contrast of the image slightly by using the Curves adjustment. Press CTRL-M on the keyboard or select Image > Adjustments > Curves:

Step 14. Adjust Curves

In this example we use a very small S-shaped curve to increase contrast. Take care not to over-do this step; sometimes it's not necessary at all.

Here's the finished image:

Miniature models are usually viewed from above so try and choose a photo with an elevated viewpoint. Buildings, roads, traffic and railways are excellent choices but make sure there is a reasonable wide angle of view. 

Tilt-shift doing the rounds

Daniel Espirito Santo

Keith Loutit
http://vimeo.com/1785993
www.keithloutit.com 

Inception - Fortress Level

“Couldn't somebody have dreamt up a 
goddamn beach?” - Fischer

People can be hard to please, really really hard to please. Apparently a number of viewers felt the fortress level in Inception was one of the weakest scenes of an otherwise engaging and intelligent film. To them, it heavily references a level in a computer game, to Chris Nolan, it was his opportunity to play homage to On her Majesty's Secret Service, a bond film he has admitted he was very much inspired by. You can't help but suspect that some viewers just want to find a chink in the armour. But a film, no matter how amazing it is, isn't without it's flaws. Even if the fortress scene looks like it's straight out of a computer game, and that's the worst thing about Inception, I can live with that. 



Filming for the fortress level took place in a ski resort in Alberta, Canada. Once the huge task of constructing the set was complete, film crew waited eagerly for the finishing touch: the snow. With just two days before filming the white stuff finally arrived, and masses of it. This made for some very challenging and intense conditions for the cast.

“I don't think I've ever shot in any climate 

that’s more extreme. There was altitude 
sickness.” 
- Ellen Page

But before cameras even captured explosions and anti-freeze paint was applied to the set, potential actors had to read the script in Nolan's office or have it hand-delivered to their homes, where someone stood guard while they perused it. Despite Nolan's secrecy and his hush-hush nature with the press (and even to actors in the initial stages of his films), he's able to bring back the element of surprise and anticipation to the cinema.

Fortress level in a nutshell:
Level: 3
The dreamer: Eames (Tom Hardy)
The kick: The blowing up of the snow fortress (medical facility)
Location: Fortress Mountain, Kananaskis Country, Calgary, Canada

Entering the geek level...

The first letter of each of the main character’s first names - Dom, Robert, Eames, Arthur/Ariadne, Mal, Sato - spell the word DREAMS.

Prints of the movie were shipped to theaters under the name Hour Glass.

The slow, gloomy, blaring trombones in the main theme of the film score are actually based on an extremely slowed down version of the fast, high pitched trumpets in the beginning of the Édith Piaf song Non, je ne regrette rien.

Ariadne’s hair is in a tight bun in the hotel sequence so filmmakers didn’t have to figure out how her hair should move in zero-gravity.

The third Christopher Nolan movie in which Cillian Murphy’s character spends a significant portion of his on-screen time with a cloth bag over his head.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt went to his audition after a brief character summary, wearing a full suit just in case, unknowingly matching his character’s wardrobe perfectly.

Not counting flashbacks, Cobb’s wedding ring only appears in scenes where he is dreaming.


* Update * 

Oscar wins for Inception:

Best Achievement in Cinematography
Best Achievement in Sound
Best Achievement in Sound Editing
Best Achievement in Visual Effects

New Zealand

Huge thumbs up for this one. Impressive and stunning work from photographer Tom Blachford.