By BY CAROLYN GIARDINA
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.-At press time, Silicon Graphics Inc., an industry leader in UNIX-based workstations for digital content creation, was unveiling its much-anticipated Windows NT-based visual workstations, marking the company’s first foray into the NT workstation market.
The Mountain View-headquartered manufacturer announced the Silicon Graphics 320 and 540 visual workstations, both of which use Intel processor technology and the Windows NT operating system.
The company is already taking orders for the 320, which is scheduled to start shipping during the first week of February at a base price of $3,395. The Silicon Graphics 540 is scheduled to ship Q2 and will start at $5,995.
According to SGI, the systems will be compatible on arrival with software such as Adobe’s Premiere and Discreet Logic’s Paint and Effect. The workstations should also run 3-D software tools such as Softimage 3D, Kinetix’s 3D Studio Max and SGI subsidiary Alias/ Wavefront’s Maya.
Sean Safreed, SGI’s media software product manager, said he expected that announcements regarding high-end video editing software packages would be made in conjunction with the NAB conference in April. He said SGI’s existing UNIX products would co-exist with the new lines.
"The main focus [for the NT workstations] is to reach into markets we haven’t gotten into before," Safreed explained, adding that the low starting price allows SGI to be competitive in new areas. For high-end commercial production, he said, SGI’s ability to offer a high performance at a lower price point allows customers to maintain more workstations in order to "get more work done in less time."
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More