Franz Milec

About

At the brink of the Cold War, as part of the so-called strategy of mutually assured destruction, the US produced a list of over 2,000 nuclear targets in the Eastern Bloc, and the information was declassified only a couple of years ago. The list includes military bases and airports, but also targets that would have had an impact on millions of civilians.

Buffer Zone Blues is a short experimental film that visualizes the targets using hypnotic fragments of satellite imagery, formed by processing data from Google Maps API in Python, Nuke, and Unity3D Engine. The imagery creates an immersive, 3-dimensional effect of falling into a 2D plane, aided by the movement of light particles which appear and disappear in a rhythmic way.

The visuals are accompanied by a 5.1 musique concrète sound composition and is intended for a cinematic or black-box presentation.

Cast & Crew

Franz Milec / editing, effects, animation, sound design
Marting Blauber / sound mix
Ian Mikyska / voiceover

Selected Screenings

Brussels Independent Film Festival 2020 / Brussels, Belgium
Kurzfilmfestival Köln / Cologne, Germany
Girona Film Festival 2019 / Girona, Spain
Marienbad Film Festival 2019 / Marienbad, Czechia
Fest Anca 2019 / Zilina, Slovakia
Cefalù Film Festival 2019 / Cefalù, Italy
Images Festival 2019 / Toronto, Canada
Imagine Science Film Festival 2018 / New York City, USA
Ji.hlava International Documentary Festival 2018 / Jihlava, Czechia

Tech Rider

1x HD projector or large HD TV screen
1x 5.1 sound system with SPDIF input
1x media player with HDMI and SPDIF output