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this wiki
(written from a Production point of view)
Gregory "Greg" B. Jein is a science fiction model-maker and artist whose work includes studio models, props, and other artwork, such as landscape miniatures, that appeared throughout the Star Trek franchise. He spent much of his time as an independent contractor operating his own model shop, "Gregory Jein Inc." Jein traces his professional connections to Star Trek as far back as 1979, when Apogee, Inc. asked him to build the exterior sets of V'Ger for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. In 1987, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) had him work on the construction of the two and six-foot studio models of the USS Enterprise-D.
Forming Gregory Jein, Inc.
Later that year he left ILM and formed on 31 July 1987 his own company, Gregory Jein, Inc. [1], with his workshop located at the Glencoe Avenue in Marina Del Rey, California, and he started working as an independent contractor company for the Star Trek franchise. (Cinefantastique, Vol 23 #2/3, p. 95) Among his most notable achievements during this time were the four-foot USS Enterprise-D, which he built for later seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the recreated USS Enterprise and Deep Space Station K-7 models built for DS9: "Trials and Tribble-ations", Jein receiving his only Star Trek Emmy Award nomination for his visual effects work on that episode in 1997.
Gregory Jein, Inc. was the primary supplier of studio models for the The Next Generations series during its entire run and has produced the vast majority of the models for that series. Only during the second half of 1989 was the company not available to the television franchise, as the services of the company were exclusively reserved first by Associates and Ferren for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (with newcomer John Eaves, with whom Jein would struck up an enduring friendship), and subsequently by Paramount Pictures for the production of The Hunt for Red October (with Ron Gress and Alan McFarland). For both productions the company was subcontracted by the respective lead model making companies, Jein and his co-workers being lumped together under one credit only, "Gregory Jein, Inc.", for the first one (according to Eaves, Jein was less than cordially treated during the production [2]), and as Boss Film Corporation in the latter case. During that period the slack was taken up by Starlight Effects and Tony Meininger. The only two other model builders called in on other occasions during those years, Science Fiction Modelmaking Associates and Bill George, were contracted to ease the workload on Gregory Jein, Inc. when demands for specific episodes were particularly tasking for the company. It was hot on the heels of the company's tenure for Red October, that the four-foot Enterprise-D model was constructed, late December 1989, during the holiday season. [3]
Gregory Jein, Inc. was superseded as primary studio model vendor for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager by Meininger's Brazil-Fabrication & Design, though the company continued to provide services for the franchise on an occasional basis, most notably the "Trials and Tribble-ations" models.
The company appears to be no longer in existence, as it has no further officially recorded credits to its name, after DS9: "Emissary", Jein apparently plying his trade as an independent contractor on personal title, just as he started out as. In 1998, for example, he worked on personal title for the model shop of Blue Sky/VIFX on the production of Star Trek: Insurrection.
While operating Gregory Jein, Inc., his staff during the company's Star Trek years at one time or another included, among others:
- Staff
- Larry Albright (1996, subcontractor)
- Eduardo Batres
- John Eaves (1989)
- Gunnar Ferdinandsen
- Mike Harsh
- Jason Kaufman (1991-1994, 1998)
- Bruce MacRae (1989-1993)
- David Merriman, Jr. (1989-1990, subcontractor)
- Warren Riggs
- Scott Schneider (1987-1988, 1991)
- Richard Slifka
- Greg Stuhl
- Dana White
Star Trek model work
Models credited in full or part to Jein or his company include the following:
(This list is currently incomplete.)
- Star Trek films
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture
- V'Ger - interior and exterior sections
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
- refit-Constitution-class shuttlebay - both sizes
- Galileo-type shuttlecraft - both sizes
- Pioneer 10
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture
- TNG Season 1
- Batris freighter
- Constellation-class - fullfledged filming model
- D'deridex-class [1] - original model
- D'Kora-class [2] - both models
- Farpoint Station maquette
- Galaxy-class - both six, and two-foot models
- TNG Season 3
- Ambassador-class [3]
- D'deridex-class - second model
- Galaxy-class - four-foot model
- TNG Season 4
- Freedom-class [4]
- McKinley Station
- Nebula-class [5] - fullfledged filming model
- Niagara-class [6]
- Vor'cha-class [7]
- TNG Season 1
- DS9 Season 1
- DS9 Season 5
- Constitution-class - halfscale model
- D7-class - originally scaled model
- Deep Space Station K-7 - second model
- VOY Season 1
- Intrepid-class prototype model - pre-production evaluation model
- VOY Season 3
- Excelsior-class[8] - second halfscaled model
- VOY Season 1
- Reference models
Commercial availability
At one time some of Jein's work was commercially available to the public. On 22 May 1997, Viacom, the parent company of Paramount Pictures, opened the Viacom Entertainment Store in Chicago, an attempt to emulate the merchandise store formula like the Disney Store and Warner Bros. Studio Store. Part of its merchandise was a limited production run of twelve of Jein models for Star Trek, cast by Jein's company from the same molds as the original studio versions. The models chosen were the four-foot Galaxy-class, the D'deridex-class, the second (smaller) Excelsior-class, the Vor'cha-class and the "Trials and Tribble-ations" version of the Constitution-class. They were sold in the US$5,000-$10,000 price range apiece, and came with certificates of authenticity, signed by Jein (the Constitution-class certificate also signed by Matt Jefferies). These commercial models were however more crudely detailed and sported no internal lighting. The store was not a success and closed down in 1998. That was the only time Jein originals were commercially available. [X]wbm Pieces that by that time went unsold ended up in Planet Hollywood restaurants or the shop at Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas. [4]
Jein provided photographs of himself in a baseball jersey to be used in a prop piece of artwork: Benjamin Sisko's baseball card depicting Buck Bokai. Keone Young was later chosen to perform the role in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "If Wishes Were Horses". Many DS9 crew members were astonished by the physical similarity between the two men, although the producers maintained that this was a coincidence, and that they had simply cast the performer with the best acting ability. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, p. 54)
Beginnings as a fan
As a fan, he wrote an analysis of starship registries for the April 1973 T-Negative fanzine, "The Case of Jonathan Doe Starship", in which he matched known and assumed names of starships to the registry numbers seen in TOS: "Court Martial". [5] This list of starships with registry numbers became popular among fans, and eventually FASA role-playing game incorporated it into their sourcebooks. The list was adopted by Michael Okuda for the official Star Trek Encyclopedia in 1994. Many of the registries became canon with the remastering of Star Trek: The Original Series in 2006: for the upgrade, Okuda applied most of Jein's numbers to their respective ships. Another of the registry numbers appeared on-screen on the USS Defiant (NCC-1764) in ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly".
Continued fan-production work
In 2007, Jein served as technical adviser on the fan-made internet series Star Trek: New Voyages (since rechristened Phase II) episode "World Enough and Time", which featured James Cawley, Jeffery Quinn, George Takei, Grace Lee Whitney, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, and John Carrigan.
Jein is a long time fan of TOS, and he owns several props from the series, including the original studio model of the Template:ShipClass.
Other projects
Other projects he worked for included among others the motion picture productions, not few of them considered science-fiction classics, Dark Star (1974), Flesh Gordon (1974), Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977, uncredited), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, working as sub-contractor for Douglas Trumbull's Future General Corporation), 1941 (1979), Fukkatsu no hi (1980), War of the Worlds (1988), The Scorpion King (2002), Serenity (2005), Avatar (2009), The Adventures of Tintin (2011), and more recently John Carter (2012). Another project he worked on was The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (1984, 2002 with several Trek alumni including Denise Okuda, Christopher Lloyd, Mark Stetson, and Robert Ito, among others).
Television movies and series, he worked upon included among others, V (1983) and V (The Final Battle)
Jein was nominated for the Best Visual Effects Academy Award in 1977 and 1979 for his work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1941, respectively. Jein also received no less than three consecutive nominations for the ADG Excellence in Production Design Awards, for Avatar (2010), Alice in Wonderland (2011), The Adventures of Tintin (2012), winning the first one. He was also nominated for an Emmy for his effects work on the HBO mini-series, Angels in America.
Greg Jein is prominently featured in the 2011 documentary Sense of Scale, in which several model makers discuss their craft, with Jein discussing, among others, his contributions to The Motion Picture and "Trials and Tribble-ations", and which also features Ron Gress, his former co-workers Scott Schneider and Bruce MacRae, Pat McClung and Gene Rizzardi.
Emmy Award nomination
- 1997 Emmy Award nomination for the episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" in the category Outstanding Individual Achievement in Special Visual Effects, shared with Kevin P. Bouchez, Adam Howard, Laurie Resnick, Judy Elkins, Steve Fong, Don Lee, Davy T. Nethercutt, Adrian Hurley, Paul Maples, and Gary Hutzel
Star Trek interviews
A reticent, modest and private man, interviews with Greg Jein, be it on screen or in writing, are relatively rare.
- Movie Magic (TV series), Season 1, Episode 11: Models and Miniatures: A Model of Perfection (1994)
- TNG Season 3 DVD–special feature "Departmental Briefing Year Three" ("Greg Jein: Modelmaker"), interviewed on 5 October 2001
- TNG Season 4 DVD–special feature "Select Historical Data" ("A New Ship Debuts"), interviewed on 5 October 2001
- 2007 Interview with Gregory Jein at StarTrek.com, the official Star Trek website
- TNG Season 1 Blu-ray special feature, "Stardate Revisited, Part 3: The Continuing Mission" (2012)
Further reading
- "Greg Jein; Miniature Giant", Brad Munson, Cinefex, issue 2, August 1980, pp. 24-49
- "Building the U.S.S. Enterprise", David Ian Salter, Cinefantastique, Vol 23 #2/3, 1992, p. 95
- "Greg Jein Model Citizen", Larry Nemecek, Star Trek: Communicator issue 115, February/March 1998, pp. 56-57
- ↑ Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion 2nd ed., p. 60
- ↑ Star Trek Encyclopedia 2nd ed., p. 150
- ↑ Star Trek Encyclopedia 2nd ed., p. 10
- ↑ Ex Astris Scientia
- ↑ Star Trek Encyclopedia 2nd ed., p. 317
- ↑ Ex Astris Scientia
- ↑ Star Trek Encyclopedia 2nd ed., p. 243
- ↑ Drex Files
- ↑ Star Trek Encyclopedia 1st ed., p. 64


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I finally got my standalone CS6 to update to the new ACR 8.2. I had to download and run the CC Adobe Application Manager, which took quite a while, hit update, and it is all good.
I haven't been able to get my laptop's CS6 to update properly for ages. I think it must be a bottleneck with CC vs. my "old" standalone CS6.
Hope this helps anyone with the same headache.

subset: commoncrawl


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Skamania Silhouettes - Sarah Schulze
Already a well-known associate, this week's Skamania Silhouette is Sarah Schulze! Sarah has been serving Skamania guests for a little over 2 years, starting in In-Room Dining and then adding Dining Room server to the mix in 2009. Sarah has been in the industry for 2 years and received high levels of on-the-job training, which led her to the 2010 Associate of the Year Award! Sarah loves her co-workers and the ability to work different departments within the hotel, but most of all, she loves the breath-taking view she gets to enjoy each day she comes to work!


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Queer As Folk
Home > Television > Q > Queer As Folk
Scott Lowell
Sharon Gless
Randy Harrison
Robert Gant
All Cast & Crew >>
Summary:Series about the lives of a group of gay men and lesbians living in Pittsburgh. Michael and Brian, both on the verge of turning 30, have been friends since they were 16. Michael, romantic and still an adolescent at heart, collects comic books and is an assistant manager at the Big Q Mart. Brian is a successful advertising executive who revels in promiscuity and drugs and is completely unapologetic about his lifestyle. He believes in sex, not love. Michael has always been in love with Brian, but will never admit it. Ted is a nice-looking, but average fellow. An accountant with a taste for porn, Ted's fatal flaw is his lust for twenty-somethings who don't return his interest. Emmett is probabl... Full Summary >>


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See All Contributors »
Forgive me CF, for I have a confession. I am MeltdownMike. I can't wait to use him during the football and basketball season. Have a good weekend!
I'm pretty sure I'm still drunk from last night. I'm pretty happy with myself that I made it to work, but staying awake for the next 8 hours is going to be tough.
tuff as rain outside!
I am wearing my Nike Iowa State polo to work today in a workplace full of hawkeye fans. I am ready to die!
"The greatest risk in life is not taking one"
Originally Posted by CysRage
I am wearing my Nike Iowa State polo to work today in a workplace full of hawkeye fans. I am ready to die!
you are a warrior.
I was invited to the Royce White draft party last night and couldn't go due to a work conflict. I suck.
I am going out this weekend and next Tuesday. I'm getting some action and hope she is at least decent.
This is very important:
2014-15 KenPom AdjO (rating)
116.3 (11)
2015-16 KenPom AdjO (rating
120.7 (3)
I can't remember the last time I had a solid bowel movement.
Also, mafia is the single greatest game on the planet and I am totally addicted.
i confess i really wanted to start another "lake of the ozarks" thread but i won't. i'm going down for 9 days and i am probably a little too excited that i will be down there without the wife and the 2 youngest kids (she has to work thru tuesday). my 6 year old and i will be going down with the father in law for the first 5 days. no women. just working on the house, sitting on the dock and drinking some beers.
Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than selfish and worry about my liver."
--by Jack Handy
i also confess that i had my proudest moment to date with my 6 year yesterday at his yearly checkup.
doc said he was the hairiest kid he'd seen in awhile (that be from me) and he kept commenting on how muscular he was.
i just laughed because he helps me all the time when working in the yard and landscaping and likes wrestling and football. but he's in the 25th percentile for height.
he will probably be just a hairy troll someday.
Originally Posted by cyclonesurveyor
he will probably be just a hairy troll someday.
I believe dwarf sounds more appropriate
I pre-judged some white trash with a bad tiger hawk tattoo yesterday sitting in a junk car, outside a liquor store.
All truisms are false. All of them.
I confess that I had pizza for 3 straight meals this week.
Casey's breakfast pizza>Lunch at Pizza Ranch Buffet>Dinner at OP's BBQ Chicken
Casey's breakfast pizza was head and shoulders above the rest.
I never saw Royce White play live. Damn.
You can spend a lot of time and money picking out the perfect floral bouquet for your date ... but you're probably better off checking if you have bad breath and taking the porn out of the glove compartment.
The moral: you gain more by not being stupid, than you do by being smart. Smart gets neutralized by other smart people. Stupid does not.
Originally Posted by isulive2train
you are a warrior.
They got a few good punches on me but I'm still fine!
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Monday, September 14, 2009
Dapper Dudes
Posted by Ari at 1:06 AM
8 comments:
- Stéphanie said...
They are beautiful !
- September 14, 2009 at 7:23 AM
- Marina said...
awe.. i think old men with a great sense of style are just adorable. :)
- September 14, 2009 at 11:18 AM
- That Girl Ang said...
Dapper they are!
Great post.
- September 14, 2009 at 4:28 PM
- Dragonfly said...
Don't they all look so wonderful!!
- September 15, 2009 at 3:41 AM
- Marzipan said...
I have to tell you I LOVE this blog. I go here every day for not only sartorial inspiration but for lessons on how to live life to the fullest. It sounds lame but it's true! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I only wish this had existed when Dare Wright and Jean Stafford were alive. I've always wanted to see what they wore in their golden years.
Great job!
- September 15, 2009 at 7:47 AM
- Beach Vintage said...
Wow, I have just discovered your blog from Dragonfly Interiors.I love it! You have a new follower.
- September 15, 2009 at 7:10 PM
- Ingrid (Garments and Gardens) said...
they sure have style
- September 15, 2009 at 9:51 PM
- xine said...
awesome. i love these photos. i love the shoes. everything. awesome.
- September 19, 2009 at 3:44 AM
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Travel & Local
by Whitepages
Download this app if: you need to look up the number of a business or listed citizen.
Developer Notes
Whitepages is the #1 and most trusted source for finding people & businesses at home or when traveling, with over 300 million U.S. households & businesses at your fingertips.
With Whitepages you can:
- Find People using the #1 phone directory
- Find Stores and Restaurants using our yellow pages...
Searching... — It's easy to search and locate businesses with the WhitePages app. Very valuable app to keep around.


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Review Summary
- Chic modern rooms with black-and-white decor and oak floors
- Flat-screen TVs, iPod docks, and free Wi-Fi
- Sleek bathrooms with walk-in rainfall showers or shower/tub combos
- Parker & Quinn, an American bistro with style influenced by English pubs and Parisian wine bars
- Winnie's Lobby Bar, named for the owner of a historic tea salon run during Prohibition
- A rooftop bar with both indoor and outdoor space
- Historic building that was a former hat factory
- Cool industrial-chic design throughout
- Convenient location near Bryant Park and the Empire State Building
- 24-hour room service
- Some noise complaints (common in NYC)
- Wait time for elevators can be a bit long
Bottom Line
This stylish urban boutique hotel in New York's Garment District is located in a historic building that was once a tea salon and hat factory. The property's past inspired its present industrial-chic design, and small details such as decorative milliner's tools pay homage to the building's former function. In the lobby, cool white stone and Gothic arches are contrasted against colorful contemporary art, while in the rooms, a minimalist black-and-white motif is warmed up by the oak hardwood floors. Features include a fitness center, a lobby bar (named for the historic tea salon's owner), Parker & Quinn bistro, and a cool rooftop bar. The location is within walking distance of popular sights such as the Empire State Building, Bryant Park, and Herald Square.


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The Power of Independent Thinking
Alex Tabarrok: Launching the Innovation Renaissance
Recorded: Friday, December 9, 2011
C-FIRE Deputy Director R.J. Lehmann interviews Independent Institute Research Director Alexander T. Tabarrok about his new book, Launching the Innovation Renaissance: A New Path to Bring Smart Ideas to Market Fast.
Experts: Alexander T. TabarrokType: RadioIssues: Economic History and Development (International), Economic History and Development (U.S.), Education, Free Market Economics, Litigation, Privatization, Property Rights
Alex Tabarrok on Fox News on the U.S. Housing Market
Recorded: Monday, March 24, 2008
Alex Tabarrok discusses changes in the U.S. housing market on Cavuto on Fox Business Network.
Experts: Alexander T. TabarrokType: TelevisionIssues: Banking and Finance, Housing
Alex Tabarrok on Organ Donors
Recorded: Wednesday, June 4, 2003
Alex Tabarrok on CSPANs Washington Journal discusses how to increase the amount of organs available for organ transplant surgery.
Experts: Alexander T. TabarrokType: TelevisionIssues: Free Market Economics, Health Care


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Battle of the Brands
Marketing That's Anything but a Gift
Ah, the holidays. 'Tis the season for back massagers, key locators—and less than stellar marketing from these two titans of the stocking stuffer.
Apple's Marketing Does the Job; Samsung's is Less Than Galactic
The biggest rivalries are born of great passions: Red Sox versus Yankees, Coca-Cola versus Pepsi. This year the prevailing matchup is between Apple's iPhone 5 and Samsung's Galaxy S4.
Does M&M's or REESE'S Win the Real Candy Crush?
In a battle of the taste buds, there's no clear winner between Hershey's-owned REESE'S and Mars-owned M&M's.
Shoppers Wait to See What JCPenney and Kohl's Have In Store
Despite their shared focus on the "cost-conscious mom" demographic, retailer giants JCPenney and Kohl's have very different marketing strategies.
Which Hotel Marketer Puts the Luxe in Deluxe?
Staying in a luxury hotel like the Ritz-Carlton or the Four Seasons is about one thing: the experience. The question is, who has the sleekest marketing?
Is Baskin-Robbins still the flavor of the month, or can Cold Stone Creamery scoop it?
We all scream for ice cream, but what two of the top ice cream chains are screaming for is a clue.
Can the Man of Steel Beat an Iron-Strong Franchise?
Superman may be faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but how does the last son of Krypton stand against the "cool exec with a heart of steel," Iron Man?
Breakfast at Tiffany's or the Red Carpet With Harry Winston?
Tiffany & Co. and Harry Winston are both "a girl's best friend, but from a marketing standpoint, only one brand can wear the crown jewels.
Which iconic luxury automobile brand has the drive to finish first?
In the luxury car market, Lincoln and Cadillac both have deeply rooted reputations—but which one has a more successful marketing strategy?
Microsoft's Xbox Runs 360s Around Sony's PlayStation 3
Game time: Who wins when it comes to marketing, Sony's PlayStation 3 or Microsoft's Xbox 360?


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Thursday Jun 23 2011
Sunset Whitney Country Club under new management
By: Andrew Hazard, Courtesy to the Herald
Formerly private golf course not open to public
It was recently learned that Sunset Whitney Country Club, Rocklin, was sold to Charley Gibson, who made the purchase in partnership with one other businessman, unnamed. The property was bank-owned when purchased by Gibson. The club opened under new management, June 15. The new general manager is Jerrel Grow. Grow said the course would no longer be private and would be open seven days a week for public play. "We're one hundred percent open to the public now," Grow said. "We're honoring the country club membership straight through June, until July first." Grow said members could then purchase a pass to play if they should choose to do so. The Monday through Thursday rates for the general public would be $36, $39 on Fridays, and $49 on weekends and holidays. Seniors would be eligible for a $4 discount Monday through Friday. Grow said during these tough economic times it was necessary to make the course available to the public. He said, with the public's help the formula they have for success would work; Grow said it was the only situation that would work for financial security. "There's a lot of fringe country clubs where most of them cannot sustain the bills, and here at Sunset Whitney that was just the case," said Grow. "The membership could not sustain what it would cost to run the place." he said. Gibson also owns Morgan Creek Golf Course in Roseville, and Wild Horse in Davis. Sunset Whitney Golf Club is located at 4201 Midas Ave., Rocklin. "We're hoping to make this place better," Grow said. "We are planning to improve the golf course. We're golfers, we love the game." Grow added it is nice to be associated with people who enjoy golf as much as he does. Grow said it is the love of the game that draws people to a career connected to the sport. "That's really why all of us get into this business, because of that passion for the game," Grow said. "Sometimes we lose it along the way but whether you get in it as a golfing professional, a teaching professional, assistant pro, general manager, you get into it because you really love the game." Gibson and Grow have known each other for about 10 years. Grow said that was one of the key reasons why he was excited to accept the position as the new general manager. He has been working with Gibson, an accomplished golfer in his own right, for the past two years He said Gibson loves the game and has a real passion for it. Sunset Whitney opened in the early 1960s. Not only is there a golf course, but there are tennis courts, as well. It is a nice place to hold banquets, parties, or weddings; Sunset Whitney also hosts a summer junior golf program. The country club's event calendar can be found at www.sunsetwhitney.com/golf/calendar/displaycalendar). Grow said at one time Sunset Whitney was one of the premier country clubs in the Sacramento area. "It's held a PGA Tour event and it has a very long and rich history," he said. "Our current superintendant previously owned it." Grow wants to make the country club as popular as it used to be. He said what makes Sunset Whitney unique compared to other country clubs is the fact that it is just a fun golf course. He said it is a great place for a round of golf. Grow is pleased with the direction the country club is headed. "It has a lot of history in the community here and we're aware," he said, "we appreciate it just like they do. We want to keep that history and reputation going." Although Grow recognizes they will be in direct competition with the Diamond Oaks and Whitney Oaks of the world, he feels anyone who plays those course, and Sunset Whitney, would say Sunset Whitney County Club has the better golf course. They are proud of the product they are creating at Sunset Whitney. "We know that we're going to be successful," said Grow. "We have a great maintenance crew and we're going to have a great time selling this place." Grow said that this gives Gibson and him a great advantage as they begin their journey at Sunset Whitney Country Club.


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May 5, 2016
The United Nations says Afghan authorities are still torturing prisoners, such as hanging them by their wrists and beating them with cables, a year after the U.N. first documented the abuse and the Afghan government promised detention reform.
In a report issued on Sunday, the U.N. says there has been little progress in curbing abuse in Afghan prisons despite a year of effort by the U.N. and international military forces in Afghanistan. The report also cites instances where Afghan authorities have tried to hide mistreatment from U.N. monitors.
Aimal Faizi, a spokesman for the Afghan president, says it was not Afghan policy to torture or abuse prisoners. He says the government has started investigating and will take action regarding cases of abuse mentioned in the U.N. report.
Copyright 2016 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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Soft-ripened, creamy Brie is a great complement to crackers, breads and fruit combinations.
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April 16, 2012
Chris Karpman
Arizona State hasn't landed many recruits from Washington in recent years but is doing well with one of the state's higher profile prospects, Danny Mattingly out of Mead High in Spokane, due in part to family connections in the region. ...More... To continue reading this article you must be a member. Sign Up Now!
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Aïr and Ténéré Natural Reserves, Niger
Aïr and Ténéré Natural Reserves (08º00'E -10º57'E and 17º14'N - 20º30'N) is a World Heritage Site that is the largest protected area in Africa, covering over 7.7 million hectares (ha). It includes the volcanic massif of the Aïr Mountains, a Sahelian island isolated in climate, flora and fauna in the surrounding Saharan desert of Ténéré. It contains an outstanding variety of landscapes, plant species and wild animals. One-sixth of the reserve is a sanctuary for addax. The site was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1991.
Threats to the Site
The region suffered from military and civil disturbance in the 1990s: six members of the Reserve staff were held hostage in 1992. In compliance with the request from Niger's Permanent Delegation to UNESCO, the World Heritage Committee inscribed the site on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 1992.
A peace agreement with rebels was signed in April 1995 and the impact of rebel activities on the integrity of the site has been found to be less severe than expected. An IUCN/WWF project has since helped to re-establish a management regime. Missions to the site in 1998 and 2001 found that the numbers of most wildlife species were recovering and the flora to be mostly intact except in some valleys over-used by the local people. Some species continue to be seriously threatened by poaching and the international trade in live animals and animal by-products and ostriches are now almost extinct on site. However, the State Party has submitted an emergency program for rehabilitation of the site and it may be considered for removal from the List of World Heritage in Danger.
Geographical Location
The reserve is in the south-central Sahara and north-central Niger, approximately 160 kilometers (km) north east of Agadez, between 08º00'E -10º57'E and 17º14'N - 20º30'N. Two fifths of the reserve lies in the northeastern half of the Aïr Mountains, the rest is in the western half of the desert of the Ténéré du Tafassasset. The Sanctuaire des Addax lies in the Ténéré at the foot of the mountains, north of the center of the reserve and covering a sixth of its area.
Date and History of Establishment
- 1981: The area came under the administration of foresters of the Service Faune
- 1988: Established by Decrees Nos.88-019/PCMS/MAG/E (Reserve) and 88-020/PCMS/MAG/E (Sanctuary)
- 1997: Designated a Biosphere Reserve in the UNESCO Man & Biosphere Programme
- 7,735,370 ha, perimeter 1,218 km (world's third largest reserve).
- Addax Sanctuary: 1,280,500 ha. The Biosphere Reserve.
Land Tenure
Republic of Niger (arrondissements of Arlit and Tchighazerene). Administered by the Direction de la Faune, Pêche et Pisciculture (DFPP) and the Ministère de l'Hydraulique et de l'Environnement (MH/E).
Physical Features
The reserve comprises two geomorphic units: the Aïr mountains, nine roughly circular rugged massifs rising above a rocky plateau, and the sand dunes and plain of the Ténéré to its east.
The bedrock is an ancient, heavily eroded Cambrian metamorphic plateau dramatically punctuated by a chain of isolated flat-topped mountains. Those in the reserve are, from north to south: Adrar Bous, Fadei, Greboun, Tamgak (1988 meters (m)), Chirriet, Taghmert, Agueraguer, Takaloukouzet, and Goundai. These are granite intrusions except for the largely conglomerate Takaloukouzet massif. Tertiary and Quaternary volcanic features include the extinct caldera of Arakao and one of the largest ring-dike systems in the world. Other features are the marble Blue Mountains at Izouzaoene in the Sanctuary, and white marble hills in the lower Zagado valley. The massifs and plateaux are deeply dissected by ancient canyons and seasonal wadis. Soils are sparse, mainly coarse sands, although in wadis and inundation zones there are often thick water-borne clay and silt deposits.
The eastern three-fifths of the reserve is in the Ténéré desert, one of the largest sand seas in the Sahara, which completely covers the underlying bedrock plate. Several sand dune fields (erg) occur: the Ergs du Bréard, Brusset and Capot-Rey. The ergs piled against the massifs by the prevailing north-easterly winds are some of the highest sand dunes in the Sahara, reaching ~300 m at Arakao and Temet. South of the ergs are extensive flat plains (reg) of coarse sand, gravel and stones. There are also fields of small mobile rif and barkhan dunes.
Except for a few rivulets and pools (guelta) in the massifs, there is no permanent water though the mountains are essential to recharging the groundwater supply of northern Niger. Wadis flow for a few hours after heavy rain. Seven drain east from the massifs into the sands of the Ténéré. Several end in temporary inundation pans which can be thickly vegetated and are important to the ecology of the desert margin. Three main wadis drain to the south and five to the west, ending in the plains of Talek and Tamesna. In the distant past these wadis reached the River Niger.
The reserve has a hot arid continental desert climate and lies just beyond the 100 millimeters (mm) average annual isohyet. It is strongly influenced by the annual movements of the inter-tropical convergence zone: the resulting dessicating prevailing winds are north-easterly. Three seasons are distinguishable: a relatively cold season, September to February, a hot season, March to June, and a humid season, June to September. The average annual temperature ranges between 15 degrees Celsius (ºC) and 35ºC, the mean being 28ºC. The mean range in January is 10º-29ºC and in June is 25º-44ºC. Extremes of -1ºC and 52ºC have been recorded at Iférouane. The rainfall, resulting from the Guinean monsoon, is always scattered and unpredictable, declining towards the north and east. It falls mainly in July and August and is higher in the Aïr Mountains due to orographic cooling. There it averages 75 mm a year, with 52 mm recorded at Iférouane. In the Ténéré it averages 20 mm a year, but there are frequent years when little or no rain falls; the drier east may receive only a few millimeters once every 20 years. Annual evaporation is 3-4,000 mm.
The Aïr Mountains are the first green land seen by birds flying south from the Mediterranean. They are a Sahelian floristic enclave within the Sahara which also contains relict Sudanese and Mediterranean species. Although rainfall is low, the bare rock surfaces of the massifs and plateaux concentrate run-off into wadis and temporary pans, which are relatively well wooded oases, even having gallery woodland with understorey. Sahelian species grow in the wetter parts of the mountains. The principal trees are Balanites aegyptiaca, Salvadora persica, Ziziphus mauritiana, Boscia senegalensis, Acacia laeta and A.albida. Grasses identified are Panicum laetum, Eragrostis pilosa, Cenchrus biflorus, Dactyloctenium aegyptium, Pennisetum violaceum, Cymbopogon schoenanthus and Chrysopogon aucheri. In the drier Sahel-Saharan transition zone, the tree species include Maerua crassifolia and Leptadenia pyrotechnica with the herbs Panicum turgidum, Lasiurus hirsutus and Aerva javanica. However, overbrowsing, overgrazing and tree-felling means that few young trees are coming up and there are local patches of erosion.
The relict Sudanese and Mediterranean species grow above 1,000 m in sheltered more humid localities in the massifs. Sudanese species include the trees Acacia nilotica, Grewia tenax, Grewia villosa, Cordia sinensis, Tamarix gallica and several species of Ficus. Damp areas have Phragmites australis,Typha latifolia and Scirpus holoschoenus. Mediterranean species include the nationally threatened wild olive Olea laperrini (V) found above 1,500m on rocky slopes in the Greboun and Tamgak massifs, Rhus tripartita, and Salvia aegyptiaca. The reserve harbors wild relatives of several important crop species: wild olive, millet Pennisetum glaucum and sorghum Sorghum aethiopicum, which have been the subject of genetic studies by the French Institute for Scientific Research and Cooperative Development and the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources.
Saharan species include the trees Acacia tortilis raddiana on sandy substrates, A.ehrenbergiana on stony and clay soils and a few stands of Hyphaene thebaica in rocky wadis. Elsewhere in the inter-montane areas, the vegetation is sparse, mainly Fagonia bruguieri, Zygophyllum simplex, Cornulaca monocantha, Citrullus colocynthis, Tephrosia and Indigofera spp. and the grasses Stipagrostis pungens and S. plumosa. The green fleshy annual herb Schouwia thebaica grows on silty-sandy soils after floods and is an important part of the diet of both wildlife and domestic stock at the end of the cold season. On the sands of the Ténéré, there is almost no vegetation except for a few ephemeral annuals growing in response to scattered showers, mainly Tribulus longipetalus, Cyperus conglomeratus and Stipagrostis acutiflora.
Over 350 species have been recorded by Newby, Dulieu & Lebrun (1982), Monson (1985) and by MH/E et al. (1996) which lists 289 species from 191 genera and 63 families. Most of this vegetation is drought-adapted but slow to recover from prolonged stress such as the long droughts of the 1970s and 1980s, and many of the trees are heavily over-utilized. However, tree-cutting has been curtailed and the relatively unspoilt flora of the reserve is more or less intact in most areas apart from a few valleys that have been over-used by local people.
Because of their diversity and inaccessibility the Aïr harbor viable populations of several species threatened internationally. 40 species of mammal, 165 birds some 18 reptiles and 1 amphibian have been recorded. A list with habitat preferences is given in MN/E et al. This is the only mountain system in the world outside Antarctica without fish. The invertebrate fauna is not yet inventoried. Both Saharan and relict Sahelian species occur, the Sahelian species having been isolated from populations further south for thousands of years. Several of the Saharan species can survive without drinking, but many of the other animals can be found between the Tamgak and Takaloukouzet massifs where there are watered valleys. IUCN field missions with support from NGOs in 2001 supported by the World Heritage Fund confirmed the relative abundance and diversity of wildlife; protected site and key species were recovering from recent disturbance by conflict and droughts. However, some are still at serious risk: addax are rare and the ostrich may be almost extinct locally due to poaching for the wild animal trade. Nine of the country's species are on the IUCN Red List for Niger.
The Aïr harbors important populations of several threatened Saharan ungulates. Magin estimated that there were in the reserve approximately 12,000 dorcas gazelle Gazella dorcas (V), 170 dama gazelle Gazella dama (E), and 3,500 Barbary sheep, (aoudad) Ammotragus lervia, some 70% of the Barbary sheep population of Niger. Numbers of dorcas gazelle and aoudad may have increased since the creation of the reserve, but dama gazelle is declining due to continued military poaching and tourist disturbance. The numbers of Addax Addax nasomaculatus have declined steadily since 1979. At one time the population was only 15. However a 1997 IUCN field mission found a population of more than 100 in the southeastern part of the Ténéré. Slender-horned gazelle Gazella leptoceros (E) has been recorded once. No scimitar-horned oryx Oryx dammah (E) has been seen since 1983: the species may now be extinct in Niger.
Most larger Sahelian carnivores like lion Panthera leo and African wild dog Lycaon pictus (V), were exterminated earlier this century by hunting and poisoning, but about 15-20 cheetah Acinonyx jubatus (V) and a few striped hyaena Hyaena hyaena persist, preying on feral donkeys. Smaller carnivore populations are healthy. They include Asiatic or golden jackal Canis aureus, fennec fox Fennecus zerda (K), Rüppells sand fox Vulpes rüppelli (K), caracal Felis caracal and sand cat Felis margarita (K). Zorilla (striped polecat) Ictonyx striatus [lybica] is recorded. Other Sahelian mammal species include an isolated and presumably highly inbred population of around 70 olive baboons Papio anubis, in the Tamgak massif, and an estimated 500 Patas monkeys Erythrocebus patas in the central massifs and plateaux. Both are of subspecies endemic to the Aïr. In rocky areas there are colonies of rock hyrax Procavia capensis and there are stable unthreatened populations of smaller mammals: burrowing rodents, insectivores and bats. Porcupines Hystrix cristata and hedgehogs Atelenix alboventris are serious pests in the cropland.
The resident avifauna are Saharan, Saharo-Sahelian and Saharo-montane species: sand grouse Pteroclididae, doves Columbidae, barbets Capidonidae, larks Alaudidae, buntings Emberizidae, weavers Ploceidae, ravens and crows Corvidae are conspicuous. African red-billed hornbill Tockus erythrorhyncus is recorded. There are substantial numbers of Nubian bustard, Neotis nuba, and eagle owl Bubo bubo. The last large population of the west African race of the ostrich, Struthio camelus camelus, living west of the Takaloukouzet massif, and estimated in 1990 at 800-2,000 was almost extinct in 2001. The reserve hosts some 85 species of palaearctic passage and overwintering migrants, particularly herons Ardeidae, birds of prey Accipitridae and Falconidae, waders Charadriidae, thrushes Turdidae and warblers Sylviidae. During the wet season there is an influx of local Afro-tropical migrants from the south. The herpetofauna includes black-necked spitting cobra Naja nigricollis, African puff adder Bitis arietans, west African sand boa Eryx muelleri, sand viper Cerastes cerastes, desert monitor lizard Varanus griseus and various species of gecko.
Cultural Heritage
The Aïr has been settled for at least 30,000 years: prehistoric palaeolithic and neolithic sites abound. Later semi-nomadic agriculturists from the south were displaced by the first Berbers, ancestors of the present Twareg inhabitants. Most archaeological sites are sited along former rivers and lake margins in wooded savanna on the edge of the Ténéré, which probably last held water 4,000 years ago. The sites are rich in arrow-heads, axe-heads, mortars and grindstones. There are notable sites at Iwelene, Areschima, and Adrar Bous and rock-engravings at Arakao, Agamgam, Anakom, Tagueit, and Afis: petroglyphs of elephant and giraffe, addax, oryx, gazelles and ostrich, and phrases of Tifinagh, the written form of the Tamasheq language of the Twareg.
Pre-islamic tombs are common along the edge of the Ténéré (as at Tafidet). The oldest houses are probably C11th to C14th, built during the last wave of Twareg invasion, but most were abandoned during the last 200 years and there are ruined villages at Tin Telloust, Assodé and Ekpouloulef. The Aïr was colonized by the French from 1898, but not subjugated until the defeat of Kaoussan's rising in the1920s. Fortifications from that period survive. The colonization disturbed the balance of the traditional Twareg social structure and pattern land use. However, owing to this cultural richness the site may be designated a WH Mixed site.
Local Human Population
The Twareg (Imajaghen) of the Aïr once dominated one of the most important trans-Saharan trade routes and were undoubtedly hurt by the opening of coastal routes. The Aïr was also a part of a triangle of trade: livestock and garden produce were taken by camel caravan across the Ténéré to the oases of Bilma, traded for salt and dates, which were then taken to the south of Niger and exchanged for millet, the basis of the diet of the Twareg of the Aïr. This trade has declined due to drought and competition from vehicles, and the economy's survival now depends on being as widely based as possible.
The current population of Twareg within the reserve is about 5,000 of which some 1,000 are both cultivators and herders; the sedentary population at Iférouane and Tin Telloust, is about 1,500. The nomads are transhumant pastoralists, raising many thousands of goats and camels with a few sheep, donkeys and cattle who still live in balance with their harsh environment despite the stresses caused by social change. But their numbers fluctuate greatly according to the pasture available: in drought years many migrate to nearby mining towns and villages to obtain famine relief, returning when conditions improve where their livestock competes with the wild animals for fodder. The settled population which consists mainly of the descendants of former slaves (Iklan) of the nomadic aristocracy and artisans (Imaden), farm nearly 100 small irrigated gardens in the major wadis where the water table is high enough, raising wheat, fruit, vegetables and dates. Civil conflict, since resolved, which followed destructive droughts in the 1970s and 1980s disrupted the area during the early 1990's.
Visitors and Visitor Facilities
In 1988, some 2,000-3,000 mostly French tourists visited the reserve, and after a lull in the 1990s numbers are steadily increasing. Access is usually by vehicle, although there are airstrips suitable for light aircraft. One national standard unmetalled road passes through the reserve from Agadez through Iférouane to the Algerian border. All tracks within the reserve are unsurfaced and most follow the major wadis. Nearly all visitors travel in the security of convoys of 4WD vehicles organized by travel agencies based in Agadez and Arlit, camping in the bush. There are two small rest houses in the reserve, both locally run, at Iférouane. In 1990 a visitor center with museum was built at Iférouane as an IUCN/WWF project. A village cooperative has been formed for camel and donkey trekking, to increase the tourist revenue reaching the local population.
Scientific Research and Facilities
Owing to its topographic and biological diversity, the Aïr has been of interest to scientists since the first visit by Barth in 1850. His technical notes, published in 1857-8, were augmented, among others, by Foureau (1902), Buchanan (1921) and Rodd (1926). Current scientific studies date from a joint WWF/ZSL mission to the Aïr in 1979, leading to an IUCN/WWF project initiated in 1982. Most of its researches are internal project documents, available from IUCN, Niamey, Niger, but research on dorcas and dama gazelle has been published. Research in the first phase of the project (1988-1990) focused on wildlife and domestic stock censuses, vegetation dynamics, ostrich breeding biology, and the ecology of aoudad and baboon. A bibliography of project documents and pre-project research is given in Newby (1989 and 1991). The Ministry of Water Resources & Environment (MH/E) with WWF and IUCN published in French a record of recent research covering both human and environmental factors with an exhaustive bibliography (1996). The reserve headquarters at Iférouane house a small (poorly-equipped) laboratory, a small museum, a herbarium of the common plants in the reserve, and a library. All scientific projects must be arranged in cooperation with the authorities, who provide accommodation for visiting scientists.
Conservation Value
The reserve possesses a range of landscapes with dramatic granite intrusions and live dunes, and vegetation and wildlife unsurpassed in the region, the massifs being unique biological islands in the heart of the Sahara of Sahelian wildlife. Internationally important populations of five species of threatened fauna survive: dorcas and dama gazelle, addax, aoudad, and ostrich. Comparable areas include Tassili N'Ajjer National Park in Algeria, the Tibesti-Ennedi region and Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Reserve in Chad. Tassili N'Ajjer, further north, is more purely Saharan and has a lower level of biodiversity and in Chad suffering from civil conflict for over twenty years little wildlife is believed to remain. Owing to the remoteness of the Aïr and Ténéré Reserve, and low recent intensity of settlement, signs of the interaction of ecological processes with man over millennia is revealed in a spectacular environment with rock art and many archaeological sites of great value, not yet seriously damaged by vandalism or collectors. It is beginning to need more protection and in 2000, the World Heritage Committee approved US$15,000 to support its nomination as a cultural site as well.
Conservation Management
Since 1981 the area has been administered by foresters of the government's Service Faune. A reserve rather than a national park was mandated to allow people to continue living on their land. It was created and has been run since 1988 with the help of an IUCN/WWF project initiated in 1982. The 1988 legislation recapitulates existing national laws which prohibit hunting of wild animals and exploitation of certain tree species, all commercial collection of firewood, abusive cutting or pruning of any tree or bush for fodder, artifacts or fuel, and organized motor sports (the Paris-Dakar Rally used to pass through the area). The legislation defined 16% of the center of the reserve as a sanctuary to protect the small population of addax from tourist and other disturbance. Access to it is now banned without express permission from the Minister in charge of wildlife. This has not greatly affected the local Twareg, who rarely entered the area since there is very little pasture there and it does not lie across any of their traditional caravan routes.
Training has been an important objective of the IUCN/WWF project. By 1990, locals had been trained as masons, construction workers, tree nurserymen, first aid helpers, midwives, mechanics, guides, and drivers. A large number of unskilled short-term laborers had been employed to build dry-stone barrages and to plant trees. Several Nigerien foresters had been sent abroad on study scholarships funded by the project. The nomads are told about the authorities' intentions and changes in reserve legislation during periodic visits from forester patrols and from four camel-mounted extension workers who visit areas inaccessible by vehicle. To integrate the people into the reserve's management, a network of 47 headmen and clan chief representatives was appointed to report infractions of the law in their areas. A reunion of these men and the reserve authorities is held once a year when discussions are two-way and last three to four days.
A subsidiary IUCN project funds a magazine called Alam (Tamasheq for camel) which highlights conservation issues and environmental problems. This is distributed free to school children in the departments of Agadez and Tahoua and in the reserve. IUCN Niger is now also working on a conservation project based on co-operation between local stakeholders and institutions. This aims to increase the economic value of the reserves to the local people by developing decentralized and sustainable ecotourism, agriculture and animal husbandry. Some specific projects are: tree planting, methods of construction without wood, better market farming and plant nurseries, producers' cooperatives, check dams, maintaining wells and more efficient wood-burning ovens.
A peace accord with the Twareg was signed in 1995: there were no longer serious security problems in the area, but some wildlife populations had declined. Realising its benefits, the local people restarted the development project after the civil unrest had declined. Peace encouraged a plan for rehabilitating the reserves for submission to prospective donors such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF), Band Aid and the Swiss and Danish governments. The plan included restoring sites used as rebel bases, improved surveillance, rapid evaluation of the impacts of disturbances on wildlife, establishing a committee for development and management of the reserves and training for reserve staff, police and customs officers about threats to wildlife. By 2001 a WHF funded Rapid Wildlife Assessment Report concluded that the main large mammal populations had recovered but were not yet assured and ostriches were locally extinct. However, addax were rare and reliable survey techniques were needed, as was also a wildlife census including the participation of local people. Reintroduction of the ostrich from Chad and the breeding of ostriches and large mammals for reintroduction was to be encouraged and had local support. The Fonds Francais de l'Environment Mondiale with the Direction Nationale de la Faune had initiated a 5-year support program for equipment and reintroductions and for monitoring, in cooperation with IUCN, GEF and UNDP.
Management Constraints
In 1992, the site was placed on the list of World Heritage in Danger as a result of conflict between the government and the Twareg. The Twareg traditionally hunted gazelle, aoudad, addax and occasionally ostrich, using snare traps and dog packs, but as wildlife has declined so has hunting. The decline was caused by uncontrolled illegal hunting with firearms and motor vehicles by military and mining personnel both foreign and Nigerien. Tourists also frequently chased addax and gazelles until they died of heat exhaustion. Harassment has decreased, due to improved surveillance and greater environmental awareness amongst Europeans, but unpunished poaching of gazelle and ostrich by the Nigerien military continues. Successive droughts have also caused competition for grazing land with livestock.
Other main management problems have been livestock predation by golden jackals and cheetah which the locals countered by indiscriminate poisoning; and destruction of trees for fodder, fuel and wood-working which has been reduced by replacing local wooden artifacts by imported ones. Both problems were solved in consultation with the local representatives at the annual reunions. The local tourist agencies initially opposed a reserve as a restriction on their independence, but they have gradually realized that the reserve protects the landscape and wildlife that tourists come to see. But pillaging archaeological sites for souvenirs can only be overcome with the cooperation of the tourists and agencies themselves, since it is too difficult to police the sites. However, by 2001, management of the reserve was seen to have deteriorated and UNESCO supplies were not reaching it from the capital.
In 1988 the IUCN/WWF-funded project Conservation et Gestion des Ressources Naturelles dans l'Aïr et le Ténéré which helped to administer the reserve employed 34 staff as follows: 5 government foresters, 2 salaried expatriate advisers, 4 expatriate volunteer advisers, 5 drivers, 2 guides, 4 extension agents, 2 midwives, 2 apprentice mechanics, 4 tree nurserymen, 1 secretary-radio operator, 1 driver-aide and 1 night watchman. In 2001 there were 41 staff, 7 working in the DFPP, 47 local auxiliary guardians, 11 vehicles and radio facilities.
In 1987-88 WWF/IUCN contributed 2,728,000 SFr (550,000,000 Fr.CFA* or US$1,750,000) for Project 9607/1624. Much of this funding was provided by the Swiss government which from 2003 will use the monies for rural development and the alleviation of poverty. The Nigerien government contributed 40,000,000 Fr.cfa (US$130,000) but the breakdown of the budget for these years is not known. In 1999 the WH Fund granted US$75,000 in emergency assistance. In 2000 the WHF granted US$15,000 to support nomination for cultural heritage status and in 2001 granted US$25,000 towards ostrich reintroduction. The budget for the next three years except for salaries was 70,000,000 Fr.cfa (US$78,000 per year).
* Franc du Communauté Financiere Africaine
IUCN Management Category
- IV Managed Nature Reserve. Biosphere Reserve.
- Ia Strict Nature Reserve.
- Natural World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1991. Natural Criteria ii, iii, iv.
- Listed as World Heritage in Danger in 1992 because of the destruction of wildlife and order caused by civil conflict.
Further Reading
- Barth, H. (1857-8). Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa. Longmans, London. ASIN: B000NGV95G
- Buchanan, A. (1921). Out of the World North of Nigeria. Murray, London. ASIN: B00088NU4C
- Campbell, A. & Coulson, D. (2001). African Rock Art. Abrams, New York, 224pp. Campbell ISBN: 0810943638. Coulson ISBN: 0810943638.
- Castanuela, A. (1989). The Olive Baboon Population of the Tamgak Massif - A Preliminary Study. IUCN/WWF, Niamey, Niger.
- Foureau, F.(1902). D'Alger au Congo par le Tchad. Masson, Paris. ISBN: 2738405622.
- Global Environmental Fund (1999). Proposal for a PDF Block B Grant.
- Grettenberger, J.(1987). Ecology of the dorcas gazelle in northern Niger. Mammalia 51(4):
- Grettenberger, J.,Newby, J.& Monson, K. (1984). La Réserve Naturelle Nationale de l'Aïr et du Ténéré: Proposition pour un Plan Directeur d'Amenagement pour la Conservation et l'Utilisation des Ressources Naturelles. IUCN/WWF, Niamey, Niger (unpublished report).
- Grettenberger, J.& Newby, J. (1986). The status and ecology of the Dama Gazelle in the Aïr and Ténéré National Nature Reserve, Niger. Biological Conservation 38: 207-216.
- Grettenberger, J.& Newby, J. (1990a). Plan d'aménagement pour la Réserve Naturelle Nationale de l'Aïr et du Ténéré. Concepts et cadre general. Série des Rapports Techniques (Ser.Rapp.Tech.) No.1, IUCN/WWF, Niamey.
- Grettenberger, J.& Newby, J. (1990b). A landscape classification for the Aïr and Ténéré National Nature Reserve, Ser.Rapp.Tech. No.2, IUCN/WWF, Niamey, Niger.
- Hagener, L. (1990). Gestion des paturage dans la Réserve Naturelle Nationale de l'Aïr et du Ténéré. Ser.Rapp.Tech. No.10, IUCN/WWF, Niamey, Niger.
- Hammer, D. (1990). Traditional garden systems in the Aïr mountains of Niger. Ser.Rapp.Tech. No.13. IUCN/WWF, Niamey, Niger.
- Ingram, G. (1990). Multi-gene pool surveys in areas with rapid genetic erosion: An example from the Aïr mountains, northern Niger. Conservation Biology 4(1): 78-90.
- IUCN (2001). Report on the State of Conservation of Natural and Mixed Sites Inscribed on the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger. Gland, Switzerland.
- IUCN (2002). Report on the State of Conservation of Natural and Mixed Sites Inscribed on the World Heritage List.
- Gland, Switzerland
- Lhote, H. (1961). L'Epopee du Ténéré. Gallimard, Paris. ISBN: 2070239462.
- Magin, C. (1990a). The status of wildlife populations in the Aïr and Ténéré National Nature Reserve 1988-1990. Ser.Rapp.Tech. No.14. IUCN/WWF, Niamey, Niger
- Magin, C. (1990b). Seasonal changes in habitat preferences of domestic livestock and wildlife in the Aïr and Ténéré National Nature Reserve 1988-1990. Ser.Rapp.Tech No.15, IUCN/WWF, Niamey. Magin, C.D. (1990c). The breeding biology of the ostrich Struthio camelus camelus in the Aïr and Ténéré National Nature Reserve 1988-1990.Ser.Rapp.Tech No.16, IUCN/WWF,Niamey, Niger.
- Magin, C. (1990d). The ecology of the aoudad (Ammotragus lervia) in the Aïr and Ténéré National Nature Reserve 1988-1990. Ser.Rapp.Tech No. 17, IUCN/WWF, Niamey, Niger.
- Magin, C. (1990e). Long-term monitoring of woody vegetation in the valleys of Aza-n-Ghreidene and Teloua: A preliminary report. Ser.Rapp.Tech No.18, IUCN/WWF,Niamey,Niger.
- Messan, E. (2001). Les Réserves Naturelle de l'Aïr et du Ténéré. Delegation report to UNESCO.
- MH/E (Min.de l'Hydraulique et de l'Environnement), WWF & IUCN (1996) La Réserve Naturelle Nationale de l'Aïr et du Ténéré (Niger). Étude Initiale: Analysis Descriptive. IUCN, Gland, Suisse.
- Monson, K. (1984). Catalogue of Vascular Plants from the Aïr and Ténéré National Nature Reserve, Niger. IUCN/WWF, Niamey, Niger.
- Morel, A. (1985). Les Hauts Massifs de l'Air (Niger) et leurs Piedmonts. Universite de Grenoble.
- Newby, J.(1989). (ed.) Conservation des Ressources Naturelles dans l'Aïr et le Ténéré - Niger. Documentation Generale. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
- Newby, J. (1992) Parks for people: a case study from the Aïr mountains of Niger. Oryx 26(1).
- Newby, J. (1996) Parks for people: a case study from the Air mountains of Niger.The George Wright Forum 13(4):40.
- Newby, J.E.,Dulieu, D.& Lebrun, J-P. (1982). Avant-Projet de Classement d'une Aire Protégée dans l'Aïr et le Ténéré (République du Niger). IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.
- Newby,J.E.,& Grettenberger, J. (1986). The human dimension in natural resource conservation: a Sahelian example from Niger. Environmental Conservation 13(3): 249-256.
- Newby,J.,Grettenberger, J.& Watkins,J.(1987). The birds of the northern Aïr, Niger. Malimbus 9(1).
- Newby, J.& Magin, C. (1989). Addax in Niger: distribution, status and conservation options. In: Proceedings of CBSG Arid land Antelope Workshop, San Antonio, Texas, pp.159-170.
- Rodd, R. (1926). People of the Veil. Macmillan, London.
- Roset, J.-P. (1987). Néolithisation, néolithique et post-néolithique au Niger nord-oriental. Bulletin de l'Association Française pour l'Etude du Quartenaire 32(4): 203-214.
- Salifou, A.(1973). Kaoussan ou la Revolte Sénoussiste. Etudes Nigériennes No.33.CNRSH, Niamey.
- Shackleton, D., (ed.) (1997) Wild Sheep and their Relatives. IUCN/SSC Caprinae Specialist Group. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, U.K. ISBN: 2831703530.
- Smith, G. (1984). Climate. In: Cloudsley-Thompson, J.(ed.) Sahara Desert. Pergamon, Oxford, pp.17-30.
- UNESCO World Heritage Committee (1997) Report on the 20th Session of the World Heritage Committee, 1996.
- UNESCO World Heritage Committee (1998) Report on the 21st Session of the World Heritage Committee, 1997.
- UNESCO World Heritage Committee (1999) Report on the 22nd Session of the World Heritage Committee, 1998.
- UNESCO World Heritage Committee (2000) Report on the 23rd Session of the World Heritage Committee, 1999.
- UNESCO World Heritage Committee (2001) Report on the 24th Session of the World Heritage Committee, 2000.
- UNESCO World Heritage Committee (2002) Report on the 25th & 26th Sessions of the World Heritage Committee, 2001,2002.
Disclaimer: This article is taken wholly from, or contains information that was originally published by, the United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). Topic editors and authors for the Encyclopedia of Earth may have edited its content or added new information. The use of information from the United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) should not be construed as support for or endorsement by that organization for any new information added by EoE personnel, or for any editing of the original content.


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Slow but steady, crews are making progress turning the lights back on in the Northeastern states hardest hit by the weekend winter storm.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) _ Power was restored in Massachusetts to about 60,000 customers bringing the total outages to 344,000. Connecticut outages were down to 31,000. And lights were on for nearly everyone in Maine and New Hampshire after more than 15,000 went dark during the storm.
At its peak, the storm knocked out power to about 650,000 customers. By the evening, the numbers were down to about 560,000.
(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)


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30 U.S. Code § 5 - Reports of investigations
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The Director of the United States Bureau of Mines shall prepare and publish, subject to the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, under the appropriations made from time to time by Congress, reports of inquiries and investigations, with appropriate recommendations of the bureau, concerning the nature, causes, and prevention of accidents, and the improvement of conditions, methods, and equipment, with special reference to health, safety, and prevention of waste in the mining, quarrying, metallurgical, and other mineral industries; the use of explosives and electricity, safety methods and appliances, and rescue and first-aid work in said industries; the causes and prevention of mine fires; and other subjects included under the provisions of sections 1, 3, and 5 to 7 of this title.
Source(May 16, 1910, ch. 240, § 3,36 Stat. 370; Feb. 25, 1913, ch. 72, § 3,37 Stat. 681; Ex. Ord. No. 4239, June 4, 1925; Ex. Ord. No. 6611, Feb. 22, 1934; Pub. L. 102–285, § 10(b),May 18, 1992, 106 Stat. 172.)
Change of Name
"United States Bureau of Mines" substituted in text for "Bureau of Mines" pursuant to section 10(b) ofPub. L. 102–285, set out as a note under section 1 of this title. For provisions relating to closure and transfer of functions of the United States Bureau of Mines, see Transfer of Functions note set out under section 1 of this title.
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In the latest excerpt, Ken A. Priebe delves deeper into effects, including an in-depth look at the eye compositing for the Oscar-nominated short Madame Tutli-Putli.
Computer software and tools allow for all kinds of live-action or CG effects to be composited into stop-motion to embellish shots or add any elements needed to tell the story. Effects such as smoke, water, fire, explosions, or gun-muzzle flashes can be downloaded or purchased as QuickTime files through various websites or service companies. These effects will typically be shot against a black background that is pre-keyed with an alpha channel. This way, if you simply drag them into a timeline in Premiere or After Effects, they can easily be laid on top of any other movie file with the background being automatically transparent. In many cases, they will then need to be re-positioned and modified to line up and match with your scene.
This effect was used for my two-character dialogue scene that is featured in Chapter 7: Character Animation and watchable on the accompanying CD. Searching through various movie files of fireballs, I found one that was suitable to use for the effect of the monster shooting fire out of her mouth. The movie file itself had the fireball shooting upward in the middle of the frame, so it would obviously need to be rotated and re-positioned to shoot diagonally off the right of the screen. This was all done in After Effects and lined up to match the monster's mouth at the proper frame in the animation. Initially, the edge of the fireball was a flat line based on the bottom frame of the movie (Figure 9.51), so the shape was modified using a mask (Figure 9.52). The mask could change shape and essentially be animated in every frame to get the proper shape for the overall effect (Figure 9.53). Two copies of the same fireball movie were ultimately mapped over each other, rotated, and blended to give all edges of the fireball some variety and texture. (Compositing and screen grabs for the fireball effect in Figures 9.51 to 9.53 courtesy of Gautam Modkar.)
Online resources where you can find effects to composite into your own stop-motion films include:
www.stopmotionmagazine.com (under Free Stuff)
In addition to compositing in live-action or CG elements that are pre-photographed, it is possible to simply draw stylized effects right over your animation frames, such as lightning bolts, laser blasts, or anything that fits your scene. This can be done easily in newer versions of stop-motion software programs or externally in Photoshop. It can also be done using TVPaint, which is a software program used primarily for drawing 2D digital animation within the program itself. It can also be used for shooting stop-motion very effectively, and all of the drawing tools that come with it can be executed right on top of the stop-motion images. You can easily add hand-drawn effects, smear your stop-motion images, paint over them, blend the edges of seams on your puppet, and do a variety of other creative tricks.
Rig and Shadow Removal Making a puppet fly is a trick that has employed several different methods over the years. Often, the puppets would be flown on invisible strings, stuck to a plate of glass, or suspended by a rod holding them up from behind where the camera would not see it. These methods can still be used today, but in most cases, a rig is simply placed visibly into the frame to hold up the puppet and is digitally erased out of each frame of the animation afterward. This makes the animation process go much more quickly because you don't have to worry about concealing any tools that are suspending the puppet. In post-production, it can become tedious and time-consuming, but this also depends on the length of the shot and how many frames need the rig removed.
One of the most straightforward ways to remove a rig from your stop-motion frames is simply to have a clean background plate prepared in addition to your animation frames. If you are shooting on any kind of set, shoot some frames of an empty set without the puppets in it and set those frames aside to use as a clean background plate in post. In the animation I did for the Thunderbean Stop-Motion Marvels! DVD, there were several frames of an empty stage at the beginning, and the entire scene was shot with a white limbo background. This made it pretty easy to select a background plate, and I would open this in Photoshop along with each of my animation frames (Figure 9.54). The next step is to paste the animation frame as a separate layer over the clean background plate (Figure 9.55). Then, with the animation layer selected, the eraser tool is used to simply erase the rig out of the frame, and the clean background plate will show through (Figure 9.56). It is best to make the brush size smaller and to use a hard edge for delicately erasing the rig at the edge of the puppet itself. Then, you can make the brush a bit larger for quicker removal of the rest of the rig. Once it is all erased, each frame is complete, with the puppet suspended in air (Figure 9.57), and they can be flattened to go back into the animation sequence.
Some of the trickier frames to work with on the Thunderbean project were those where the shadow of the rig needed to be removed but the shadow of the bean remained in the frame. Because the shadow was a little fuzzy, it was difficult to tell exactly where the edge of the bean's shadow was. In the last few slow-in frames, it was also difficult to keep the shadow from jittering. To help soften the effect of the shadow's edge, I used a feathered eraser tool instead of a hard-edged one and played around with the edge in the various frames until I got it to look right (Figure 9.58).
Removing a rig from a stop-motion scene is now a built-in tool in some newer versions of certain frame-grabbing software programs, which helps avoid doing it in another program like Photoshop. Alternatively, a rig can also be removed using masks and alpha channels in After Effects. Another alternative to using one still frame as a background plate for rig removal is to shoot a series of frames of the clean background plate and place them into another layer under the animation with the rig in it. The rig can be masked out, and underneath will be an actual movie sequence of the clean background plate. The advantage to this approach is that if there are any lighting changes or pixel fluctuations in the scene, there won't be any noticeable difference between the animation frames and the frozen background image under them. The background plate has a danger of standing out as a still image because of the lack of noise that would be present in the sequential animation frames.
Being able to erase or mask out parts of an image in stop-motion also comes in handy for fixing mistakes that occur on set while shooting. One mistake that can occur in the middle of a stop-motion shoot is the animator's shadow flashing into the frame. Ideally, you should be standing in exactly the same spot each time you capture a frame, with your shadow completely free of the camera frame. In the heat of the moment while animating, though, it is common to forget this and have certain frames where your shadow creeps into the shot. Unfortunately, this happened to me a few times while shooting my two-character dialogue scene. However, using After Effects, these problem frames were identified and noted as to how much of the frame had a shadow flash into it. A mask was created from some held frames that didn't have a shadow flashing into them (Figure 9.59), and this mask could be composited over the problem frames (Figure 9.60). The edges of the mask were feathered slightly to help blend them into the scene, and then all of the shadow flashes were gone. (Compositing and screen grabs for the masks in Figures 9.59 and 9.60 courtesy of Gautam Modkar.)
Motion Blur Motion blur is a favored technique of stop-motion animators for replicating the smooth movement of live action in their work. Part of the reason that older stop-motion films always had a jerky quality to the movement was that every frame was always in focus. An even bigger part of the jerkiness, however, was the distance between frames and poor registration of the positions in relation to the speed of the movement. If the distance between two positions on a fast movement (a sword swooping through the air, for example) was too far apart, a strobing effect would occur because the eye was not able to fill in the gap between those two very clear images. If that same fast motion occurred over just a few frames captured in live action, it is likely that some of the frames would be blurred if studied frame by frame. In Chapter 4: Digital Cinematography, I went over a few techniques for achieving motion blur on the actual stop-motion set. In this chapter, I will present a few examples of ways to get motion blur into your animation in post-production.
One really interesting method for creating an illusion of motion blur was relayed to me by Ron Cole. I noticed his work on In the Fall of Gravity had a very smooth, ethereal quality to it, so I asked him if he used any particular motion blur technique. He told me about a relatively simple method he used that was actually borrowed from an old film technique. The effect is one of blending the frames to suggest a kind of look that isn't really there as a blur but makes the animation feel much smoother. Ron created at least three copies of each animation scene; he then removed the first frame from the first copy, the first two frames from the second copy, and left the third as-is. These copies were layered together in QuickTime Pro, and the opacity was altered in each of the layers. That way, each frame showed three images overlapped, with the one in the center the most visible and the before-and-after frames very transparent (Figure 9.61). This gives the illusion that one frame at a time is fading in and out, and the various degrees of opacity could be adjusted depending on the speed and quality of the animation. The multiple exposures of images typically shows up more on a fast movement, but for slow movements, it can create a much more subtle motion blur effect. This same effect can be done easily in After Effects, TVPaint, or any other package that allows you to layer copies of the same sequence over each other and adjust the opacity.
For a more realistic motion blur applied to certain frames or every frame of an animation sequence, there are tools and plug-ins like ReelSmart Motion Blur for After Effects, which will do the job nicely if you have the budget for it. Other simple techniques can involve using Photoshop to add an overall blur to an entire still image, using a blur effect like Gaussian blur and adjusting how extreme you want it. Another Photoshop tool that I have used for creating blurred frames is the smudge tool, which can just be dragged by hand over any part of the puppet where you want to the motion to blur, like in a fast snappy action, for example (Figure 9.62) Whatever technique you use, the important thing to realize is that an effective blur should follow the object's path of action. If you are blurring an arm moving upward in a sharp movement, try to smear that arm so that the blur is trailing downward in the opposite direction, with a smaller amount of smearing in the direction the arm is going.
Many of these effects for green screen, rig removal, masking, and motion blur, as well as other innovative techniques for stop-motion, are demonstrated beautifully together by Patrick Boivin in some of his YouTube videos that break down the process of his entertaining short films. Visit his YouTube page (http://www.youtube.com/user/PatrickBoivin) and within the Stop-Motion Animation playlist, check out the "Making of" videos for Bboy Joker, Jazz with a General Problem, and Black Ox Skateboard. The process is described in a very entertaining way, and the shorts themselves are fantastic to watch.
Eye Compositing Effects for Madame Tutli-Putli Madame Tutli-Putli (Figure 9.63) is an Academy Award–nominated short film from 2007, which was directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski for the National Film Board of Canada. The film told the story of a young woman who takes a suspenseful journey aboard a train at night, using atmospheric lighting and intensely detailed puppet animation. The film amazed audiences worldwide, not only because of its cinematic resonance and story, but also because of a particular effect in the eyes of the puppets. The eyes were actually made up of video footage of real human eyes, which were painstakingly composited onto the faces of the puppets. The effect and technique for compositing the real eyes into the stop-motion frames was conceived and executed by artist Jason Walker over a period of 4 years from concept to the final result. The innovation behind this technique has certainly advanced the art of stop-motion animation to a whole new level in terms of performance and technical mastery.
I asked Jason Walker himself to share the process of his technique for Madame Tutli-Putli and how the project got started:
Around the year 2000, I had started playing around with computer animation and been able to get to know the film's directors, Chris and Maciek, who were primarily doing illustration and animation at that time. I became their post-production artist on various projects, including a commercial we did for the Drive-Inn Channel in Toronto, where they had animated a stop-motion mouse. I ended up tracking and positioning a singing mouth onto the puppet, which did have eyes, but only a tracking dot where his mouth was. I tried a technique of having the puppet move only in two major positions, and tracking a 2D shape onto a 3D shape, but looking like it was turning along with it. It was all set to the beat of music, and it worked really well.
Later, we found ourselves having a meeting to discuss a project for the National Film Board and what we could do. This was around the time that Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings had come out, and everyone was amazed by the effects for Gollum, so we joked that we needed to create a "poor man's Gollum" for our film. I had an idea that had been in my head for a long time, since I was about 14 years old. When I was a school kid, we had a project where we had to make a papier-mâché head around a balloon, and then pop the balloon to create a mask. I had the idea that instead of painting flesh tones and eyes on it, I would paste a collage of magazine clippings on it for skin and the facial features. When it came to the eyes, I found a Vogue magazine cover and glued the eyes onto the mask. Then, I had a thought that if I were to create an animation of this mask with these photographs stuck onto it, every time I moved the head, I would need to find a different set of eyes that were set at a different angle. This idea from my childhood came back to me at that meeting with Chris and Maciek—to shoot live-action eyes and composite them onto a puppet.
I asked Chris and Maciek to shoot some simple moves of a test puppet with blank eyes and did a test with filmed footage of actress Laurie Walker. Three basic steps were required to try to make it work: film the actress, track the puppet, and stabilize the footage of the eyes to stick onto the puppet face. Luckily, after about a month of working on it in my spare time, the test worked (Figure 9.64).
The directors were blown away by it, but I told them if they take this farther, they needed to make sure the puppet didn't move around very much. I went away, and they got approval from the National Film Board to make the film. Coming back a month later, I saw their footage of all this puppet movement, with flashing lights and shadows from the moving train scenes. I started thinking, "I hope my method will work for this!"
Based on the timing and movement of the puppet animation, on the live-action set, we worked together to simulate the light flashes and direct Laurie to mimic the head movements. She had make-up and tracking markers applied to her face for matching to the puppet, and she was told exactly how to move her head and directed on the acting and emotion of her eyes (Figure 9.65). I tried to keep her on track with the correct movements and orchestrated the lighting, and there was no room for error as scenes became more complicated.
When I had the final eye take, I would bring it into the computer and try anything to make it work. I had created a timeline chart in After Effects and nicknamed it the "Wunderbar" (Figure 9.66). Once I had been given the puppet footage, I would analyze what was a head move and what was a camera move, and indicate each on this timeline as a different color. This way, I could see a separation between what was a move and what wasn't. Also, for moments when she would encounter a light or a shadow, the Wunderbar would record what kind of light it was and how long it lasted.
On the stop-motion set, there were tracking dots for the eyes built onto the face of the puppet. You would think that would be helpful for all the stabilization, but the dots were only used to track the puppet so that I could adhere a mask layer to the face. I had the eye layer separate from a layer of masks that cut the eye out (Figure 9.67).
However, when it came time to place the eye footage onto the puppet, there was no way to do it except by hand. That was the most intricate part; the computer helps you organize your layers, cut masks, and feather the edges, but the computer has no idea what an eye is, and it has no idea of the subtlety of a human eye in the area of a human face. When it comes to visual effects, it's on one level to make it flawless, but the other level is to make your brain convinced in a way that you don't have to think about. A bad composite is when a scene seems to look right, but the brain tells you it doesn't. When it comes to human eyes, there is absolutely no room for error. When placing the eye onto the puppet in After Effects, if the eye was off by even a fraction of a pixel, it wouldn't work.
So, I developed a system where for every frame, I would need to zoom all the way in, use the arrow keys to move the eye up and down, and then zoom out and see if there was any independent movement. This also had to be done for scale and rotation of every frame. Often, I would zoom in, move it over one pixel, and then zoom out, and it would be too far over. Then I wondered, "How can that be, if it's only a pixel? How can I move it less than a pixel?" It started to become insanity at this point, but my solution was this: Let's say my eye was in the right place on frame 10, and I move it over one pixel for frame 11, but it was too far. What I would do is put a point there, but then drag that point over to frame 12 so that frame 11 was right in the middle. To explain this further, let's say you were on one side of a fence and you could only jump to the other side of the fence, but you wanted to be on the fence. You would build a wall so that when you jump over the fence, you would hit the wall before you could land on the other side, but at least you would land on the fence. That was the only way to make the eyes convincing, and the toughest part was this method of sub-pixel positioning so that it always looked like it was on the puppet.
Another point to make is that this technique has sometimes been described as simply adding live-action eyes to puppets, so people think it's not animation. This is partly correct, in that they are real eyes, but it's not merely live action. When I paint portraits of children, they don't sit still very long, so I shoot video of them, and afterward I can search until I get that one instance of the child's face that is right for the painting. The same technique applied here, where I would film the eyes and the actress going slower than the puppet, matching accuracy of the movements, but not timing of the movement. Often, I would film the actress moving at least six times, take these separate takes, and join the eyes together. I would bring in these sequences, which would add up to many hundreds of frames, but inside the scene of the puppet there might be only 100 frames.
Then, it was a matter of selectively going through each frame of the eyes, using the time-remapping feature of After Effects, and sliding through the frames one at a time until you find the one frame that works for that frame of puppet. Essentially, it's a re-animation of video stills—people may think it's not animation, but it is! I have to animate the character that's coming out of the eyes, and part of that is measuring how much she reacts to things by how many extra frames you have her looking there. You have the body language of the puppet and great performance of the actress, but there is also a third level where you can change the acting. Going back to Lord of the Rings again, it was noted that if the actor playing Gandalf didn't look concerned enough, for example, they would use a subtle computer mesh to change his expression that much more.
I have ideas for some similar animation techniques I want to try with the entire face, but I will only do that with the right team of people. I often get approached to help other people with these kinds of techniques, and many people ask me if there is any new technology developed in last 3 years that will help, like 3D scanning. None of that really helps because you still have to manually position a human eye one frame at a time onto the head, and only your brain will know if it looks right. Your computer is not going to understand human emotion—only your brain can do that. Seeing human eyes on a stop-motion puppet in Madame Tutli-Putli is something we've never seen before, and the effect of the film comes down to the fact that it looks like the eyes are there. Anything beyond that is a failure because it's the eyes, and everyone in the world is an expert on this. If there is something wrong with the eyes, you know it right away. There is a quote where someone said, "If you don't believe eyes hold the human soul, then take a picture of someone you love and stab it in the eyes with a pair of scissors. I bet you can't do it." That's the power of eyes.
For more information on the film Madame Tutli-Putli itself, visit http://films.nfb.ca/madame-tutli-putli/.
Ken A. Priebe has a BFA from University of Michigan and a classical animation certificate from Vancouver Institute of Media Arts (VanArts). He teaches stop-motion animation courses at VanArts and the Academy of Art University Cybercampus and has worked as a 2D animator on several games and short films for Thunderbean Animation, Bigfott Studios, and his own independent projects. Ken has participated as a speaker and volunteer for the Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter and is founder of the Breath of Life Animation Festival, an annual outreach event of animation workshops for children and their families. He is also a filmmaker, writer, puppeteer, animation historian, and author of the book The Art of Stop-Motion Animation. Ken lives near Vancouver, BC, with his graphic-artist wife Janet and their two children, Ariel and Xander.


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Nintendo's Wii U Makes a Crummy First Impression
Buying a new Nintendo Wii U gaming system hasn't been that hard. Getting it to work properly once you own it ... that's been another story. In a rush to get the Wii U out in time for the holiday shopping season, Nintendo shipped it with an issue that's causing big headaches.


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The High Court yesterday nullified the 2010 results of Sumbawanga Urban constituency parliamentary election, effectively ending the tenure of CCM's Khalfan Aeshy Hilaly as Member of Parliament.
High Court (Mbeya Zone) Bethwell Mmilla took about three hours delivering the 68-page ruling, agreeing with two of the arguments raised in the petition by Norbert Yamsebo, who was the candidate of the opposition Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) in the poll, and throwing out the other 19.
The arguments that stood the court's test are those related to violence and corruption during the election campaigns, which effectively means Hilaly will be ineligible to stand again as a candidate in a parliamentary election for the next five years,.
In remarks shortly after the ruling, Hilaly said: "I have heard the verdict... I will consult my lawyer for expert advice on what to do next. I will let you (journalists) know sooner or later."
A jubilant Yamsebo meanwhile said he accepted the ruling "gratefully and wholeheartedly", and thanked the court "for ensuring that justice is done and seen to be done".
He added that he would contact his party's leaders for guidance on the next course of action, what with the by-election to follow.
Hilaly's counsel, Juma Nassoro, expressed dissatisfaction with the verdict, arguing that the points raised by the petitioner were without foundation.
He said he would have an audience with his client "to explore the possibility of appealing the ruling, thus making it possible for him (Hilaly) to continue serving as MP pending the determination of the case.
Last week, the High Court (Dodoma Zone) threw out a petition seeking to nullify the results of the 2010 Singida East constituency election, which Tundu Lissu (Chadema) won.
Judge Moses Mzuna rejected petitioners' arguments and upheld Lissu's victory, as announced by the National Electoral Commission.
On April 21 the High Court (Tabora Zone) rejected an application by former CCM candidate for Muhabwe constituency, Jamali Abdala Tamili, to have the results of the 2010 parliamentary election of NCCR-Mageuzi legislator Felix Mkosamali.


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Barbecue Party Ideas, BBQ & Grilling Tips
Nothing beats celebrating the fun outdoors with a barbecue. Find recipes, sauces and other BBQ grilling tips for both the meat lovers and vegetarians at your bash.
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December 9, 2012
Justin Hokanson
Rivals100 Pinson Valley (Ala.) receiver and Auburn commit Earnest Robinson talks about visiting with new Auburn coach Gus Malzahn and why he's excited for the future... ...More... To continue reading this article you must be a member. Sign Up Now!
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Keep them happy and they'll keep you happy. Here are seven tips.
Flying » Travelers' Aid
October 15, 2015
June 15, 2015
Found a great vintage while traveling and wondering how to get it home safely? Wrapping a piece of clothing around a bottle and placing it in your suitcase is the most common way of transporting wine, but it might not be the best.
March 12, 2015
Packing a laptop, tablet or smartphone? Here's how to safeguard them—and their contents.
March 4, 2014
In the decade since 9/11, many new guidelines and rules have been applied to business aviation flights. More could be on the way.
August 13, 2013
I have always coveted the hard-sided candy-colored luggage carried by my European colleagues—it looks so indestructible and impossibly chic. However, I was raised by practical parents who favor soft nylon suitcases and I always assumed hard-sided luggage would be difficult to carry.
August 1, 2013
Whatever you want—wherever and whenever you want it—concierge services can deliver.
August 1, 2013
Private companies can cut red tape to quickly deliver passports, visas and other travel documents.
April 1, 2013
Expect the possibility of delays at airports you use, starting April 7.
August 8, 2012
CEOs who are also pilots may be more successful leaders. That's the conclusion of a study by Matthew Cain, assistant professor of finance at Notre Dame, and Stephen McKeon, assistant professor of finance at the University of Oregon.
August 8, 2012
Parents–take heart. Gama Group has introduced an infant safety seat specifically for flying. The lightweight FAA-certified seat is designed to complement all business jet configurations and will also work in any class of airline seat.
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Seder Plate, Steps style, with jewel colored iridescent colors
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text: Make a statement they'll remember with this iconic MICHAEL Michael Kors tote. With double top handles, chain and leather shoulder strap, magnetic snap closure, logo-engraved lock detail, hanging luggage tag with logo key, goldtone hardware, metal feet, plus lined interior with open, zip and cell pockets. Dimensions: 14"L x 5"W x 14"H. 5" handle drop and 12" shoulder strap drop.