The Tao of Space

When I was a child one of my fondest ambitions was to become a cartoon illustrator for the likes of Marvel, DC or 2000AD. Alas, while my talents were enough to land me some early gigs as a graphic design, as an illustrator, my skills were sadly not up to snuff.

One things is for sure, if my teenage years had come ten or twenty years later, I would have gone absolutely apeshit over a little software package called Macromedia Flash ... which enables anyone (with enough talent) to knock up their own animated cartoons and broadcast them over the web.

So hats off to Barry Munden, who has created a cornucopia of animated fantasy and science fiction tales over at his fabulous web site, Spanish Castle.

It is simply stunning what one man and a copy of Macromedia Flash can do for animated science fiction online!

Here's a quick interview with Barry about his stunning web-based SFF tales.

How did you make these cartoons? Did you do all of the work yourself?

I created these cartoons entirely by myself, composing and animating the various elements in Macromedia's Flash. I created all of the art for both Ocean of Infinity and Tao of Space myself, using Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash and a good old-fashioned sketchpad.

A couple of the images used actual NASA photos as a jumping off point, although even those were so extensively repainted that virtually none of the original remains. The audio effects were downloaded from various freeware sources on the web, and often heavily modified using a variety of sound editing tools.

The music was composed and performed by Mark D'Errico, an outstanding talent. You can hear more of his work at his website, www.markderrico.com.

While Barry is indeed part Irish, rumors that he is a leprechaun are completely unfounded.

Why did you make these cartoons?

I have always wanted to tell stories with my artwork, and animation seemed like a natural step in that direction, now that software has made the process less labor-intensive. These particular cartoons grew out of my love for science fiction, and a desire to tell a science fiction story that was not only visually interesting, but remained a little more faithful to the science than is typical nowadays.

So is the science accurate? The science in both cartoons is as accurate as I could make it and still tell the stories. I went to great efforts to research much of what is seen in the cartoons. Ocean of Infinity takes a few liberties with the physics of black holes, or the story would've been depressingly short(and the astronaut rather long).

The Tao of Space was carefully researched, and all of the places you see in it exist in the real universe. The names and distances given are correct, and most of the stellar objects appear as I could best determine they should look. The logo's on the ships are authentic. The Chinese markings are as correct as I could make them, given my monolingual limitations. The star maps show the real stars in their appropriate locations.

The spacecraft do not exceed the speed of light, and there is no sound in space. Even the rotation rate of the Pulsar is accurate. So why do I hear all that noise? I wanted to create some ambience for the space scenes, so I decided to include some audio.

Rather than fill the void with spaceship engines and laser blasts, though, I took inspiration from the work of Dr. Fiorella Terenzi and filled it with the music of the stars instead. The what? Who? The space sounds in Tao of Space mimic the sounds you might hear from your radio while travelling the universe.

Layered over Mark D'Errico's excellent score are the sounds of radio chatter, satellite signals, and stellar phenomenon, much of it authentic. (I cannot vouch for the Chinese radio chatter, though, as it was devilishly hard for me to find any radio sounds in Chinese...I think they are actually station call signs)

The squeaky sounds near Io are actual NASA recordings of radio noise created by solar wind impacting the magnetosphere of Jupiter. The low hum near Mira is from real recordings of solar occillations. The pulsar was softened to bursts of static, rather than a more authentic harsh clicking, to be less intrusive.

The aurora over Mira's satellite generates the whistles and chirps associated with our own aurora. I would have included more real stellar sounds if I could have, but unfortunately I could only find a few that were appropriate.

Specific recordings of stellar sounds were not easy to find, and many I did find were simply rather uninteresting white noise. Dr. Fiorella Terenzi is a strikingly feminine astrophysicist who has been described as a cross between Madonna and Carl Sagan.

She has released several interesting audio recordings of music composed from the actual sounds of deep space(as well as having jammed with Thomas Dolby on the soundtrack to the entertaining animated feature "The Gate to the Mind's Eye").

Why do the spaceships have great rounded sails? Aren't they a little heavy for solar sailers?

The large sails of the principle spacecraft house cyclotrons that create and store the antimatter fuel used by the spacecraft as their principal energy source. Why are all the dates different? Sometimes there are even two dates mentioned for the same event!

All of the dates are given in the calendar native to the culture being represented. Later in the movie, as the spacecraft travel at relativistic speeds towards their respective destinations, the ships' crews would experience the time dilation predicted by relativity...hence the differences between the actual times and the ships' times, both of which are listed.

Sounds like you have it all covered. Did you miss anything?

Undoubtably. I am not an astronomer, or a physicist. I learned a lot about astronomy just making The Tao Of Space. But I went to great lengths to be as authentic as I could, not only to create an immersive story, but because I grew up on the science fiction of Asimov, Clarke and other very smart men whose stories never failed to leave me a little smarter, with a sense of wonder about the universe.

What is the Tao of Space about?

The Tao of Space is an allegory for the search for truth. Each of the astronaut represents a differing belief system. Their searches all begin by heading in different directions, and each reaches his destination by his own path, but they all end up together in the same place.

I attempted to make each journey mirror the generally accepted path to enlightenment appropriate for each astronaut's belief ... the Buddhist astronaut reaches enlightenment by "letting go", the European astronaut is babtised, the Arab prays and the Scientist discovers. It is implied that several of them die before seeing their truth.

What's with the alien?

The final astronaut is symbolic of science, whose "god" is empirical knowledge. I felt the best way to portray this was with some sort of advanced civilization ... a source of knowledge outside ourselves. If you look closely, the alien is really a robot ... I deliberately made him resemble the stereotypical E.T.I., as I have always been impressed by the way E.T.'s have rapidly become the modern equivelant of angels and devils for many people.

Thank you Barry. Your site is the proud recipient of the Wizard Site award for February 2003!

For a selection of Barry Munden's work (make sure you have the Flash plugin and your sound turned up), hop on over to www.spanishcastle.com

Stephen Hunt