So I’m looking at this and I find this. That’s right: it’s an entire website, frequently updated, dedicated to pictures of computers in movies in television. Did you know they used a Twentieth Anniversary Mac in Children of Men? No, you did not and neither did I.
The guy who runs the site is always looking for contributions and even has a Help! page where he asks for assistance in identifying things like the freaking computer lab in Spies Like Us. I literally watched that movie last night and nothing in my genetic make-up compelled me to ask the world what computer lab they featured in a short sequence before introducing Dan Aykroyd’s character (Doctor, doctor. doctor, doctor!) Clearly James from StarringtheComputer.com is made of different, nobler stuff.
I sent James at the site an email for some more commentary on his goals and vision for this amazing site but I wanted to share it with you ASAP. It’s Internet gold.
Who are you? Where are you based? What’s your background?
i’m james carter, a computer systems administrator from york in the uk.
my primary computing interests are free software and old computers (i
have a small collection of old machines, mostly unix stuff). other
interests include podcasting (http://www.podquiz.com) and walking
(http://www.jfc.org.uk/walk.php).When did you start the site?
i renewed the domain the other day, so it must be just over a year ago.
Why did you start the site?
i read a thread on the classic computers mailing list where somebody had
spotted an old computer (i forget which one) in a movie. the consensus
was that there should be a repository of such things, and i thought i’d
give it a go. i wasn’t the first, though. jimw had a “computers in the
media” section on his site (http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw/j-media.shtml),
but it didn’t seem to be updated much and didn’t give much details about
the appearances (not many pictures).Where do you get most of the stills?
i watch all of the films featured on the site. in most cases the stills
are taken from the DVD, if one is available in the UK. if not then i get
a digital copy of the film by “other means” and take snapshots from
that.
You bring out the inner geek in all of us
After a few weird jobs over the years, I can’t help but identify home theater stuff, plumbing and lighting fixtures, and classroom furniture.
I still have nightmares.
Sometimes my comments don’t post right away here…very odd. What I was saying is I need to do something like this for http://www.worstpizza.com so that I can show every time pizza was shown in a movie, that would be really geeky of me! Would I be a Peek, pizza geek?
yes
Just rip out your testicles now. You’re never going to need them hanging out on that site.
one step ahead of you
totally awesome, now if only this semantic information could be reused in some way.
i remember watching view to a kill way back when and thinking: i’m glad i bought an apple IIc over the apple IIe because that’s what’s in the bond movie. :)
http://starringthecomputer.com/feature.php?f=102
apple always understood branding. is it just me or does the new “24″ feature an iphone (along with a sprint phone too)?
Dont be laughing too hard yet.
This could be a great “roll-up” for IMDB…