What is a lenticular?
Remember the old cheesy postcards that you move back and forth
and the image changes -- well, the process has gotten better and
cheaper. Working with images created by Industrial Light and Magic
(kelp forest) and Illusion Arts (coral reef) we commissioned World
Holographics in Los Angeles to create a desktop cardboard "table
tent" featuring these two lenticular prints, giving the same
effect as you see below.
Two of the biggest names in Hollywood special
effects have joined in on this campaign by providing the computer
animation shots used in creating a Public Service Announcement for
television (in the works) and to create the lenticular prints here.
George Lucas' Industrial
Light and Magic donated the ten second kelp forest shot, modifying
digital fish models from "Star Wars: Episode I."
Illusion
Arts, owned by Hollywood effects legends Syd Dutton and Bill
Taylor, creates effects shots for everything from "The Time
Machine" to "The Fast and the Furious." They donated
the coral reef effects shot.
To
learn more, view the short film, "Ghost Forests"
The Slow-Motion Decline of Coral
Reefs
Artwork by Illusion Arts
1960 - the coral reefs of the Caribbean
used to look like this -- clear blue water, plenty of healthy branching
corals (brown structures), urchins (black pin cushions), large schools
of game fish such as Nassau grouper (left foreground), an abundance
of Caribbean reef sharks (center), and parrotfish (all the other
fish) grazing algae.
Today - coral reefs of the Caribbean have
been wracked by disease (branching corals and urchins), coastal
development (reduced visibility), coral bleaching (dead coral),
and overfishing.
Is it really this bad? In many places, yes. Ask
any veteran diver who can recall how rich and full of life Caribbean
coral reefs used to be. Ask any marine biologist who has watched
the reefs decline, or any underwater photographer who finds it increasingly
difficult to find reefs worth photographing in the Caribbean.
The Slow-Motion Decline of Kelp Forests
Artwork by Industrial Light and Magic
1960 - the kelp beds of the California
coast used to look like this -- packed with large fish, including
giant sea bass (right center), sheephead (center), white seabass
(top right), and horn sharks (lower center). The rocks were covered
with abalone (bottom).
Today - the kelp forests of California
are now "ghost forests," largely devoid of thebig fish.
From gill netters of the 1950's to the live-fish fisheries of the
'90's, the big fish are gone. Abalone have been so heavily overfished
that there is no longer a commercial fishery for any of the five
species. Two species are now believed to be on the brink of extinction.
Did the kelp beds ever really look as packed with
fish as the 1960 image? Without a doubt. The fishing effort has
been long and sustained. In 1932, over 200,000 pounds of giant sea
bass were harvested. In 1928, sheephead landings totaled 370,000
pounds. Landings of white seabass in 1922 amounted to over 3 million
pounds.
Today almost no fishery remains for any of these
species. There are simply few big fish remaining.
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