The Man Who Knew Infinity

Last night I attended "The Man Who Knew Infinity" a film based on the real life story of Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan FRS, who was admitted to Trinity College at Cambridge University in 1914. A Film Trailer is available.

Dev Patel gives a believable portrayal of a mathematical genius not recognized, Devika Bhise as his devoted but neglected wife and Arundhati Nag as an Indian mother. These relatively unknown actors succeed in being noticed alongside the star power of the movie. Jeremy Irons as Professor Hardy made me think of this as Brideshead Revisited (Revisited), while Stephen Fry as Sir Francis Spring seemed to be reprising his Black-adder role and Kevin McNally as Major MacMahon looked like he was in Dad's Army. But Jeremy Northam steals the show as "Berty" (Bertrand Russell).

The India and Cambridge of the 1914 are lovingly reproduced, with perhaps a little too much sentimentality. India looks too clean, with too many elephants and not enough people. The Cambridge dons are a little too nice.

Filmed on location a Trinity College Cambridge, I was able to relate to the strictures of not walking on the grass (I was invited to by one of the fellows) and the gossip at high table (the food is not that bad).

This film manages to make mathematics interesting (just), but perhaps outstays its welcome and could do with 20 minutes being cut out. The film is based on the book "The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan" by Robert Kanigel (1991).

The Man Who Knew Infinity is on now in cinemas across Australia. My ticket was courtesy of  Nixco.


ps: If visiting Cambridge and not having an academic connection, you can stay in a college through University Rooms.

Samsui Woman and Mobile Cinema

As you enter the National Museum of Singapore there is temporary free display area on the right (just next to the gift store). This currently has has an excellent exhibition with " Trading Stories: Conversations with Six Pioneering Tradesmen". This includes "Sanshui Women" originally from Guangdong Province of China, who worked as a female collective in Singapore. Also there is a Mobile Cinema, being a rickshaw with a box on the back containing a movie projector and small screen. For a small fee locals could watch short movie through windows in the box.

Tomorrow When the War Began

The Australian film "Tomorrow When the War Began" might be best described as "Red Dawn" meets "Home and Away". The acting is not great, the characters are too well groomed for a group of guerrilla fighters and the plot is silly and the action sequences just lest than credible.

The movie is based on the first book in John Marsden's series "Tomorrow, When the War Began". The plot has an invasion of a Australian country town by an unidentified Asian military force. A group of teenagers escape to the hills and begin a guerrilla campaign. If the plot sounds familiar, it is essentially the same as Red Dawn, except in that case the teenagers were in a southern USA town.

I found Marsden's book very slow going and did not more than a third of the way through (perhaps because I am not in the intended teenage readership). The film is much more fast paced, getting the war underway more quickly. However, the main character and self-appointed leader of the 
guerrilla group is just as annoying in the film as the book.

The teenagers are impossibly well groomed for guerrilla fighters, looking more like extras from the TV teenage soap opera "Home and Away". The woodenness of the acting is brought in to sharp contrast by the all too brief appearance of Colin Friels, who has more screen presence even when not speaking or moving, than the rest of the cast in their most active scene.

The action sequences are impressive but just a little too action packed to be credible. At one point the the fuel tank of a ride-on mower explodes with incredible force. In another scene the teenagers in a dump truck out maneuvers two Light Strike Vehicles.

The sets are very well done, depicting a typical country town. The military vehicles and equipment are also very credible. The soldiers uniforms and personal equipment look realistic without being recognizable as from any current army. The soldiers wear helmets with a flared rear lip, reminisent of a Japanese samurai.

Some of the plot of the film makes little sense. In one scene a helicopter with searchlight looks for the teenagers hiding in a deserted house. Rather than lying on the floor well away from the windows and remain motionless, the teenagers stand next to the windows and move from window to window. After one teenager shoots out the searchlight with one burst from an assault rifle, the helicopter fires flares to mark the target (which is credible), but then a ground attack aircraft appears withing seconds to bomb it (which is not credible). Also the teenagers escape to a large barn which is only a few tens of meters from the house but is not attacked.

There are several more books in Marsden's series, but rather than film sequels, this night be good material for a TV series. They would be more credible than the "Last Resort" TV series currently being shown on Australian free-to-air TV.

Celtx screenwriting software for e-learning

Recently a friend in the mass media asked for advice on preparing documents for presentation to executive management. They asked if they should use Powerpoint or Microsoft word. But perhaps something like the Celtx free screenwriting software is needed. This might also be useful for conference presentations and e-learning.

Celtx is designed for writing plays for stage, screenplays for movies and TV, AV scripts and radio plays. It allows setting out who says what and what is seen and heard. It also allows the creation of an animated storyboard, which is used to give an idea of that the final production will be like. This is conceptually similar to an animated Powerpoint presentation: the software steps through still visuals with text and audio explaining what is happening.

Celtx has versioning and collaboration features using a central server, conceptually similar to the Integrated Content Environment (ICE) courseware tool. A seminar or lecture partly involves giving a performance, and so it might be interesting to consider how the techniques used for live performances might be applied to academia and education.

E-learning can include audio, animation or video. But much of the audiovisual material produced for education has low production values and looks clumsy when compared to professional multimedia the students will have seen. This is partly due to the limited funds and time available for producing education content. But it may also be because educators are not provided with tools or training needed for audio-visual production (I did a course at TAFE to make education videos). Perhaps tools like Celtx could be used and integrated into other e-learning tools.