He's 3.5 microns tall, and he's 100 million miles from home.
Three
billion years ago, a microbe blasts off from his home planet propelled by a
meteor impact and embarks on a journey across the solar system.
Eventually
he tries to get back home – but heads in the wrong direction by mistake.
Unable to ever return again, he has one last glimpse of home – and a
dreamy vision of what lies ahead for it.
Horses
on Mars
is a 7 1/2 minute computer animated 35mm CINEMASCOPE film produced at the University
of Southern California School of Cinema-Television.
Completed in late 2000, it was produced for class credit in CTAN 548
and 549, a two-semester graduate-level animation production course in which
students are required to animate a 2-3 minute production in any medium of animation
they so desire.
The
film juxtaposes the microscopic with the macroscopic, the personal with the
epic, and explores issues of existence, the origin and destiny of life on Earth,
and what its like to get a raw deal in a sometimes ‘too big’ universe.
Horses
on Mars was modeled and animated using Maya 2.5 (keyframe animation),
and composited with Maya Composer (on an SGI O2), courtesy of Alias|Wavefront.
It was the first student film at USC to use RenderMan, the groundbreaking
rendering software developed by PIXAR.
Digital editing was done with Adobe premiere, while sound editing and
mixing was done using ProTools. Cast
and crew were all fellow USC filmmakers, including narration and additional
voice work.
Is there life on Mars? Did Mars ever have water? Does life on Earth share anything in common with any life we may find on Mars or elsewhere in the solar system? Does humanity have a future on Mars? Good resources for these questions and inspirations for the film Horses on Mars:
Paul Davies' book, The Fifth Miracle
Layers on Mars: news story of discovery of Martian sediments dated 01/23/01
Solar Wind at Mars: news story on removal of water from Mars' atmosphere dated January 31, 2001
MarsNews.com: resources for the exploration of Mars
2001 Mars Odyssey: home page for spacecraft enroute to Mars.
Center for Mars Exploration: details of past, current, and future missions to Mars.
In the summer of 2001, Mars experienced one of the biggest dust storms ever observed, significantly raising its atmospheric temperature: NASA news
Once Upon a Water Planet: news story of possible recent water on Mars dated 03/22/02
