A presentation flashes on the overhead projector, and a small group explains the benefits of solar power and how it could benefit the town.
Others listen politely and ask questions about the technology. Later, another group outlines the town’s criminal codes, sparking a lively, well-informed debate about how to balance individual freedom against public safety.
It’s a scene that could be taking place at any town meeting in the state – except here, the town doesn’t exist and the presenters are sophomore students at Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical High School in Easton.
The mock town meeting is part of a program called the Innovation Academy, which combines five majors at the school and has students work in teams. It’s the second year for the academy, but the first for the town meeting.
“It’s to show the kids how all the shops are connected,” said teacher Pam Foster.
Justin Harris of Brockton is a member of the mock Board of Selectmen.
“Our job is to make sure the meeting is running as it should,” he said.
He likes playing the part but said it’s unlikely politics is in his future.
“I don’t think I’ll run for anything,” he said.
Jonathan Berry is the town clerk. An Easton resident, he said he’s been to an actual town meeting once or twice, but found it boring. However, now that he’s a part of the process, he’s enjoying it.
“I understand what’s going on a lot better,” he said.
On Tuesday, students came together to hear proposals on how the town should handle water and power issues, as well as how to establish a code of criminal conduct.
The legal and protective services students working on the town’s set of laws produced the most interesting discussion on Tuesday. Students wrestled with real-world issues like sexting and gun control – even setting a driving age. One student wanted a strict set of animal cruelty laws to prevent illegal puppy mills.
Students like the independence the program gives them.
“It’s good because you can choose your own work pattern,” said Stephen Akikie of Stoughton. “The teacher turns into kind of a boss instead of just a teacher.”
“This is your town,” said Forster at the beginning of Tuesday’s meeting.
Foster said the full town meeting, which will take place in a couple weeks, is modeled on Easton’s open town meeting, complete with moderator, a Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee members.
2011年9月19日 星期一
Sim2 Presents 15 Products Celebrating 15 Years
Sim2 brought its executive team from Italy to the recent CEDIA Expo take the wraps off of a range of high-performance
projectors introduced this year for the custom-installation market, highlighted by a new one-chip DLP 3D solution.
In total, the company show cased 15 products introduced in 2011 to symbolize its 15th anniversary celebration this year,
which coincides with the 150th anniversary of modern Italy. Models are distributed between the Crystal, Nero, Lumis 3D,
Mico and Cinema series.
“Our target was to provide a range of products that can fit 95 percent of our customers’ requests from the performance
point of view and the price point of view,” said Maurizio Cini, said Sim2 Multimedia president.
Highlighting the assortment was Sim2’s new Nero single-chip DLP projector platform, including 3D capability that “sets
a new reference standard,” according to Alberto Fabiano, Sim2 USA executive VP.
The 3D version of the Nero platform uses much of the same high-quality optics and electronics as its ultra- high
performing three-chip Lumis 3D Solo cousin but in a lower-priced compact configuration.
The Nero offers installers a choice of three lenses (T1, T2 and T3) providing a total throw ratio of 1.37- 3.9:1 for
installation flexibility.
The lenses are part of Sim2’s Unified Throw Ratio concept, which makes specifying and upgrading within the Sim2 line
very easy, the company said.
To aid calibration, Sim2’s Live Colors Calibration 2.0 software allows adjustment of primary, secondary, and white-
point color coordinates in both 2D and 3D, enabling experts to accurately calibrate the final image on-screen via a
user-friendly PC-based interface.
Nero is described as the platform for a line of premium single-chip FullHD 1080p/120Hz DLP projectors that includes the
Nero 3D-1, Nero 3D-2, Nero 3DHighBrightness and Nero 235. The assortment will offer consumers four different feature
sets, depending on the model, including 3D, high brightness, high contrast and 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
Suggested retails for models in the series start at $19,990.
A highly styled projector cabinet ships with all the models in an appropriately named Nero Black color.
Fabiano said that unlike some competitors who have elected to drive prices and performance lower to attract a broader
market segment, Sim2 will stick to its guns by making products that appeal to affluent customers “who don’t really
care how much the product costs.”
For that reason, Sim2 is looking to carefully expand its dealer base by adding only those accounts that “are able to
support the brand in the appropriate way.”
“While the market continually downgrades, often building to a price to survive in this difficult economy — we stay
true to our high-performance, reference-standard roots,” Fabiano said. “Our in-house R&D team continually boasts
industry firsts, and CEDIA 2011 will certainly not disappoint.”
Among other products on display were the Lumis 3D Solo, which is a single three-chip DLP projector configuration in
contrast to the more costly doublestacked Lumis 3D Duo introduced last year. The Solo is based on active-shutter 3D
glasses technology from Xpand with Triple Flash 3D technology implemented by Sim2 and Texas Instruments.
The company also showed its Mico LED-lamp-powered projector line (with prices starting at $23,000 suggested retail)
including the new 150 model. The system is said to provide longer lamp life, a large color range, lower power
consumption and instant power-on and -off operation.
projectors introduced this year for the custom-installation market, highlighted by a new one-chip DLP 3D solution.
In total, the company show cased 15 products introduced in 2011 to symbolize its 15th anniversary celebration this year,
which coincides with the 150th anniversary of modern Italy. Models are distributed between the Crystal, Nero, Lumis 3D,
Mico and Cinema series.
“Our target was to provide a range of products that can fit 95 percent of our customers’ requests from the performance
point of view and the price point of view,” said Maurizio Cini, said Sim2 Multimedia president.
Highlighting the assortment was Sim2’s new Nero single-chip DLP projector platform, including 3D capability that “sets
a new reference standard,” according to Alberto Fabiano, Sim2 USA executive VP.
The 3D version of the Nero platform uses much of the same high-quality optics and electronics as its ultra- high
performing three-chip Lumis 3D Solo cousin but in a lower-priced compact configuration.
The Nero offers installers a choice of three lenses (T1, T2 and T3) providing a total throw ratio of 1.37- 3.9:1 for
installation flexibility.
The lenses are part of Sim2’s Unified Throw Ratio concept, which makes specifying and upgrading within the Sim2 line
very easy, the company said.
To aid calibration, Sim2’s Live Colors Calibration 2.0 software allows adjustment of primary, secondary, and white-
point color coordinates in both 2D and 3D, enabling experts to accurately calibrate the final image on-screen via a
user-friendly PC-based interface.
Nero is described as the platform for a line of premium single-chip FullHD 1080p/120Hz DLP projectors that includes the
Nero 3D-1, Nero 3D-2, Nero 3DHighBrightness and Nero 235. The assortment will offer consumers four different feature
sets, depending on the model, including 3D, high brightness, high contrast and 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
Suggested retails for models in the series start at $19,990.
A highly styled projector cabinet ships with all the models in an appropriately named Nero Black color.
Fabiano said that unlike some competitors who have elected to drive prices and performance lower to attract a broader
market segment, Sim2 will stick to its guns by making products that appeal to affluent customers “who don’t really
care how much the product costs.”
For that reason, Sim2 is looking to carefully expand its dealer base by adding only those accounts that “are able to
support the brand in the appropriate way.”
“While the market continually downgrades, often building to a price to survive in this difficult economy — we stay
true to our high-performance, reference-standard roots,” Fabiano said. “Our in-house R&D team continually boasts
industry firsts, and CEDIA 2011 will certainly not disappoint.”
Among other products on display were the Lumis 3D Solo, which is a single three-chip DLP projector configuration in
contrast to the more costly doublestacked Lumis 3D Duo introduced last year. The Solo is based on active-shutter 3D
glasses technology from Xpand with Triple Flash 3D technology implemented by Sim2 and Texas Instruments.
The company also showed its Mico LED-lamp-powered projector line (with prices starting at $23,000 suggested retail)
including the new 150 model. The system is said to provide longer lamp life, a large color range, lower power
consumption and instant power-on and -off operation.
2011年6月12日 星期日
Collider Visits Pixar for the CARS 2 Press Day
A couple of months ago, Collider was invited to travel out to Emeryville, California to Pixar Animation Studios in order to take part in the Cars 2 press day. As one would expect, it was a pretty fantastic experience. We were privy to a number of presentations regarding all things Cars 2, given by the very people responsible for making the Pixar films we know and love.
In addition, we got the chance to sit down and interview quite a few of the people involved with the film including director John Lasseter, composer Michael Giacchino and actress Emily Mortimer, and we were given a tour of the Pixar building itself. Hit the jump to check out a full rundown of our visit. Cars 2 hits theaters June 24th.
We’ve been running our interviews from the press day once a week for the past couple of months, but for our last article we wanted to do a recap of sorts rounding out our visit to the studio. First up, the studio itself.
Pixar Tour
When we first arrived at the front gates of Pixar, just outside San Francisco, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of wonderment. I began running through all the incredible films the studio has released over the years and was a bit dumbfounded to find myself at the very place where they’re all created. When walking up to the front doors of Pixar, it’s obvious that this isn’t your typical workplace. In the middle of an outdoor lecture pavilion a group of employees were taking part in a yoga session, adjacent to a giant Luxo Jr. lamp and bouncy ball.
When you enter the front doors of the main building, you step into an enormous atrium. This area houses the café where all the employees eat, the mail room, the Pixar Studio Store and entrances to all the other areas of the studio. The building was designed to foster spontaneous meetings, so employees are encouraged to walk around throughout the hallways during the day.
Also at the front entrance is a glass trophy case housing all the awards that the studio has won. The large walls of the atrium are home to giant mattes made up of concept art from Pixar films, usually from whichever flick the studio is currently promoting. While we were there, gorgeous images from Cars 2 were on display.
pixar-atrium-cars-2-imageWhile at the studio, we were also given the opportunity to take a tour of the brand new building (deemed “Phase II”) that’s currently in the final stages of construction. What’s seen as the most significant development for Pixar since the studio first moved to Emeryville, Phase II is every bit as awe-inspiring as the main building. The centerpiece of its atrium is a giant hearth in the middle of the ground floor, with a chimney extending all the way up to the ceiling. A fire was lit, and a number of super comfy-looking couches were parked in front. However, something even cooler was just around the corner.
Our tour guide took us to the backside of the hearth and proceeded to explain to us that what makes the main building so special is that the artists and employees working there began carving out secret spaces, creating hidden bars throughout the building (yes, real bars, with alcohol and such). In keeping with this tradition, a bar has been created inside the hearth. A large black steel door swings open when prompted with the correct keycard (how many lucky employees will have one of these?), unveiling an incredibly cozy bar waiting to be stocked. There are couches inside, with a flat-screen television mounted on the wall. Our guide explained to us that this television will be hooked up to a camera on the roof, so whoever’s in the bar will have a perfect view of the San Francisco skyline just over the bay.
pixar-awards-case-imageIn addition to the gorgeous hearth, the new building also features a “healthy option” café, and Pixar characters made out of metal embedded into the floor/walls/ceiling hidden throughout the structure. We also saw some workers preparing to hang a giant matte of concept are from next summer’s Brave that looked stunning. Additionally, the new building features two new screening rooms/movie theaters. Presently, the main Pixar building houses one screening room that can comfortably hold a good deal of people. In the Phase II building, they’ve built one slightly smaller screening room, and one significantly larger screening room. These theaters’ projector systems are wired to be able to project material sent from any computer on campus, so when teams are viewing and critiquing dailies or a short rendering, they don’t even have to bring their computer.
All-in-all, Pixar Animation Studios is pretty much the perfect workplace. The buildings’ designs foster creativity and fun, leading to employees actually choosing to stay late and work.
cars-2-movie-image-01Cars 2 Presentations
The reason we were all at Pixar in the first place was in anticipation of the studio’s 12th feature film.. We were given presentations by producer Denise Ream, production designer Harley Jessup, director of photography/lighting Sharon Calahan, composer Michael Giacchino, Cars franchise guardian Jay Ward and many more. Here are a few interesting tidbits we gleaned from these presentations:
-The idea was to do a sort of genre shift from the first Cars, intending to make the film a little more sophisticated, but still enjoyable for all audiences.
-30 car companies agreed to let Pixar use the likeness/brands in the film.
cars-2-movie-image-The idea of casting Bruce Campbell as one of the voices came from some of the animators.
-The character of Finn McMissile (voiced by Michael Caine) was originally supposed to appear in Cars. During the drive-in sequence in that film, the movie that was going to be showing was first imagined as a spy movie, with a car named Finn McMissile as the hero. The movie-within-a-movie was eventually changed, but they liked the McMissile character so much that they revisited the idea when developing Cars 2.
In addition, we got the chance to sit down and interview quite a few of the people involved with the film including director John Lasseter, composer Michael Giacchino and actress Emily Mortimer, and we were given a tour of the Pixar building itself. Hit the jump to check out a full rundown of our visit. Cars 2 hits theaters June 24th.
We’ve been running our interviews from the press day once a week for the past couple of months, but for our last article we wanted to do a recap of sorts rounding out our visit to the studio. First up, the studio itself.
Pixar Tour
When we first arrived at the front gates of Pixar, just outside San Francisco, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of wonderment. I began running through all the incredible films the studio has released over the years and was a bit dumbfounded to find myself at the very place where they’re all created. When walking up to the front doors of Pixar, it’s obvious that this isn’t your typical workplace. In the middle of an outdoor lecture pavilion a group of employees were taking part in a yoga session, adjacent to a giant Luxo Jr. lamp and bouncy ball.
When you enter the front doors of the main building, you step into an enormous atrium. This area houses the café where all the employees eat, the mail room, the Pixar Studio Store and entrances to all the other areas of the studio. The building was designed to foster spontaneous meetings, so employees are encouraged to walk around throughout the hallways during the day.
Also at the front entrance is a glass trophy case housing all the awards that the studio has won. The large walls of the atrium are home to giant mattes made up of concept art from Pixar films, usually from whichever flick the studio is currently promoting. While we were there, gorgeous images from Cars 2 were on display.
pixar-atrium-cars-2-imageWhile at the studio, we were also given the opportunity to take a tour of the brand new building (deemed “Phase II”) that’s currently in the final stages of construction. What’s seen as the most significant development for Pixar since the studio first moved to Emeryville, Phase II is every bit as awe-inspiring as the main building. The centerpiece of its atrium is a giant hearth in the middle of the ground floor, with a chimney extending all the way up to the ceiling. A fire was lit, and a number of super comfy-looking couches were parked in front. However, something even cooler was just around the corner.
Our tour guide took us to the backside of the hearth and proceeded to explain to us that what makes the main building so special is that the artists and employees working there began carving out secret spaces, creating hidden bars throughout the building (yes, real bars, with alcohol and such). In keeping with this tradition, a bar has been created inside the hearth. A large black steel door swings open when prompted with the correct keycard (how many lucky employees will have one of these?), unveiling an incredibly cozy bar waiting to be stocked. There are couches inside, with a flat-screen television mounted on the wall. Our guide explained to us that this television will be hooked up to a camera on the roof, so whoever’s in the bar will have a perfect view of the San Francisco skyline just over the bay.
pixar-awards-case-imageIn addition to the gorgeous hearth, the new building also features a “healthy option” café, and Pixar characters made out of metal embedded into the floor/walls/ceiling hidden throughout the structure. We also saw some workers preparing to hang a giant matte of concept are from next summer’s Brave that looked stunning. Additionally, the new building features two new screening rooms/movie theaters. Presently, the main Pixar building houses one screening room that can comfortably hold a good deal of people. In the Phase II building, they’ve built one slightly smaller screening room, and one significantly larger screening room. These theaters’ projector systems are wired to be able to project material sent from any computer on campus, so when teams are viewing and critiquing dailies or a short rendering, they don’t even have to bring their computer.
All-in-all, Pixar Animation Studios is pretty much the perfect workplace. The buildings’ designs foster creativity and fun, leading to employees actually choosing to stay late and work.
cars-2-movie-image-01Cars 2 Presentations
The reason we were all at Pixar in the first place was in anticipation of the studio’s 12th feature film.. We were given presentations by producer Denise Ream, production designer Harley Jessup, director of photography/lighting Sharon Calahan, composer Michael Giacchino, Cars franchise guardian Jay Ward and many more. Here are a few interesting tidbits we gleaned from these presentations:
-The idea was to do a sort of genre shift from the first Cars, intending to make the film a little more sophisticated, but still enjoyable for all audiences.
-30 car companies agreed to let Pixar use the likeness/brands in the film.
cars-2-movie-image-The idea of casting Bruce Campbell as one of the voices came from some of the animators.
-The character of Finn McMissile (voiced by Michael Caine) was originally supposed to appear in Cars. During the drive-in sequence in that film, the movie that was going to be showing was first imagined as a spy movie, with a car named Finn McMissile as the hero. The movie-within-a-movie was eventually changed, but they liked the McMissile character so much that they revisited the idea when developing Cars 2.
訂閱：
文章 (Atom)