My indi sci-fi short is in a film fest! Please help me win!

[Fuzzy_Modem]

Why can I never remember how to embed youtube videos here?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afT26C4ALPA&feature=plcp
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afT26C4ALPA&feature=plcp[/youtube]
[yt]afT26C4ALPA&feature=plcp[/yt]

If you like it, please "like" it on youtube, as the winner of the film fest is determined by likes.

[Fuzzy_Modem]

[youtube]afT26C4ALPA&feature=plcp[/youtube]

[mr friendly guy]

Try the embedding now.

[Terralthra]

Not trying to be a prick here, but did he just flash-freeze the instant he opened his tube's hatch? Wouldn't re-entry heat warm the ship considerably?

[ryacko]

What I don't understand is how a ship could land with apparently hull breeches. I suppose the corridors could handle the heat?

[Grumman]

I like the part where his commanding officer is all "It's important that you calm down. Oh, and by the way, you're running out of air."

[Fuzzy_Modem]

I was intending that there would be enough variables for the pilot (and audience) not to know what the temperature outside the tube would be. Do they have shields, what deck are they on, how long were they exposed to vacuum, planet temp, etc. I may not have done the best job off communicating the ambiguity though. Any suggestions for the "Director's cut?"

[Tandrax218]

Is the final shot when the credits roll the background from the

"Freelancer" game by Microsoft????

[Fuzzy_Modem]

Is the final shot when the credits roll the background from the

"Freelancer" game by Microsoft????

Nope. It's my original artwork.

I liked Freelancer, but wish Chris Roberts had retained control of Digital Anvil. I have high hopes for "Star Citizen" though!

[madd0ct0r]

I was intending that there would be enough variables for the pilot (and audience) not to know what the temperature outside the tube would be. Do they have shields, what deck are they on, how long were they exposed to vacuum, planet temp, etc. I may not have done the best job off communicating the ambiguity though. Any suggestions for the "Director's cut?"

you had numbers showing the inside of the tube matching the outside temp at -112.
that's pretty unambiguous.

[Terralthra]

I'm not even sure -112 ℃ (or was it -117 ℃?) would have that effect to begin with. Liquid nitrogen has a temperature of -195.8 ℃, and you'd have to submerge an object in it (in liquid) for several seconds to get anything like that effect. Air would (by definition, almost) have a far (orders of magnitude) lower heat flux, and thus less thermal conductivity. Commercial blast-freezing, for example, uses liquid nitrogen as a heat sink/cold source, and blasts air at high speed across the liquid nitrogen and onto the food being frozen, and it still takes anywhere from 3-30 minutes to freeze.

Air that's cold enough to flash freeze a human in seconds wouldn't be gaseous, at least, not if it's composed of human-breathable elements. Hell, even most toxic atmospheres would be semi-liquid at that sort of temperature. At the shown temperature, it's more likely there would be condensation on exposed skin, sure, but it would appear as water first, and possible condensation/precipitation in the lungs. Not healthy, but not a flash freeze in seconds.

[ryacko]

On a more positive note, how did you do the special effects? I'm somewhat impressed by what indie filmmakers can do now.

[Fuzzy_Modem]

Effects made made mostly in Maya, with a bit in Premier, like the freezing effect.

I'll lower the temp in the Director's Cut. What should I lower it to?

[edit]

you had numbers showing the inside of the tube matching the outside temp at -112.
that's pretty unambiguous.

The external temp should come up the instant before he opens the tube, and no earlier. I may need to add a few frames for this to be apparent. Only after the tube is open are the temps the same.

What I'm trying to leave ambiguous is the reason it's cold (given the undefined variables) and I'm open to suggestions on how to improve this.

[Terralthra]

Effects made made mostly in Maya, with a bit in Premier, like the freezing effect.

I'll lower the temp in the Director's Cut. What should I lower it to?

The problem I see is that I don't know that it's actually conceivable to flash freeze a human like that using a gaseous substance. As I said earlier, commercial flash-freezing uses air cooled as cool as it can get and still be air, and it takes minutes to freeze something like that, not seconds. If you lower it too much, the requirement that the planet be habitable (ie, ~70% nitrogen, 27% oxygen, 3% "other"), means you can't get much below ~180 ℃ or so, or the atmosphere will simply liquify on the night side.

You could potentially lower it to ~175 ℃, but even at that temperature, I don't know how likely an air-driven flash-freeze like that really is. Air is an insulator, after all. Its thermal conductivity is (as I thought) very low: 0.024-0.025 W*m^-1 * K^-1, at 0 ℃. The colder it gets, the lower the thermal conductivity gets. To flash freeze a human face like that, you'd have to drop it by somewhere around 40-50 ℃ in a 2-3 seconds, with a surface area of maybe 0.15-0.2 square meters? You can do the math yourself. It leads to "a frikkin lot of air," to the point that that much air moving past a solid surface would lead to friction heating.

[Imperial528]

Would it be more probable that he simply iced over instead of flash freezing?

[Terralthra]

Please note, I am not a thermodynamicist, and do not have a great understanding or ability to make grand pronouncements on what could or could not happen with respect to freezing speed. My physics training is far more focused on kinematics, optics, and some GR/SR. I'm offering a basic back-of-the-envelope and order-of-magnitude estimate at best.

Simon_Jester might be able to help more.

[ryacko]

I suggest hearing the sound of ice crackling and the man grabbing his chest. It's quite possible that the veins in his lungs would freeze and burst.

Alternatively, do nothing. The great majority of people likely did not take high school physics.

[Simon_Jester]

Through and through freezing, no way. Ice forming quickly on exposed tissue...? I honestly don't know and I'm not a specialist in thermo anyway, but it's at least vaguely credible if you're talking about worse-than-Antarctic temperatures.

Vaguely.

[Fuzzy_Modem]

Well we iced the tube at -30 and the spray from our water bottles froze instantly at that temp. So the surface at least seems plausible. Especially, as my wife pointed out, if we had filmed them sopping wet, which we really should have.

[Fuzzy_Modem]

I'm still in 1st, but 2nd place is catching up with 75 likes to my 92.

If you think it's worthy, please share it!

[Terralthra]

Yeah, but that's water (thermal conductivity of .6) cooled from glass (.8-.93). Water cooled from air would be much much lower, unless temperatures are really balls-low.

It's also the contrast between shields that somehow keep the hull from reaching typical re-entry temperatures (despite a very VERY fast reentry, unless there's a substantial time skip), but letting air through to freeze the pilot so fast.

[Fuzzy_Modem]

Or was it still cold from exposure to vacuum before the sub-light shields powered on?

[Fuzzy_Modem]

Really I should have run the script by someone smarter than myself, but we only had five days to shoot it.

[Fuzzy_Modem]

Potentially poor science aside, it's now on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/indiecinema/com ... ifi_short/

Please "up vote" it!

[madd0ct0r]

hah! ok, upvoted.