Disney uses lab tests to gauge response to ads.

According to Variety magazine, the Disney company is working with a scientific laboratory known as the “Disney Media and Advertising Lab” or “Ad Lab” to analyze audience response to the ads appearing on its networks.


The lab building, which does not include the Disney logo, is located in Austin, Texas. Scientists dissect biometric data about eye tracking (left image above), heart rate, and galvanic skin response to better understand emotional reactions to ad content. According to Senior VP Artie Bulgrin, these data are far more accurate than the self-reporting of questionnaires.

Another technique called “facial coding” or “facial mapping” (right image, above) tracks tiny movements of individual facial muscles. For the future, the scientists at Ad Lab are considering including data from brain wave analysis to better understand how people respond to ads.

The lab’s primary mandate is to study advertising strategies on behalf of ESPN, ABC, and ABC Family, helping those multi-platform media networks to coordinate better with their advertising partners.

Ad lab studies classic metrics such as unaided recall to novel ad strategies like live ads, split screen ads, banners, and transparencies, where ads are superimposed over content.

No word yet on whether the mouse house is using ad lab to pre-test its motion pictures.

 Adweek article on Ad Lab
"Austin to House Disney's Ad Lab"

"Disney Pulls Back Curtain on Ad Lab"

Variety article: “Disney’s Lab Studies People” by David Cohen

Light Pillar and Sub Sun

A light pillar is an optical phenomenon that occurs when the light of the sun reflects off tiny ice crystals floating in the air, forming a vertical column above the sun.

It usually happens when the sun is low in the sky, and sometimes even after it has set.


Light pillars can also occur near the light of the moon or streetlights, as long as ice crystals are floating in the air near you.

Ice crystals are often shaped like tiny flat hexagonal plates. Like falling leaves, they tend to float downward with the flat surface parallel to the ground.


Sometimes you can see a reflection of the sun off the top surface of these floating crystals. Looking down from an airplane window, a “sub sun” reflection will occasionally appear in a region below the horizon underneath the sun.

In the case of the magnificent photo above, the secondary light effect is a sub-parhelion, more rarely observed. It's caused by light that reflects off of the hexagonal internal surfaces of the ice crystals.  
Wikipedia on light pillar
Sub sun image from EPOD.
Nice explanation with diagrams of the ice crystals on Weather Doctor

Pretty Darn Long Time Stamps

The U.S. Postal Service announced recently that all stamps from now on will be Forever® Stamps. The idea of a forever stamp is that “it will be good for mailing one-ounce First-Class letters anytime in the future. It’s good forever.”

But forever is a long time. The Earth won’t last forever. In about five billion years, the Sun will expand into its red giant phase. Its fiery perimeter will expand to about the orbit of Mercury, making life (and postal service) impossible.

What about the Forever Stamps then? Will they still be good? I don’t think so.

To be more accurate, why don’t we call them Pretty Darn Long Time® Stamps?
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USPS press release

Stoops in Illustration

The new issue of Illustration magazine has a feature on Herbert Morton Stoops (1888-1948). Stoops had a long career in adventure and military illustration.


He painted covers for Blue Book magazine for 13 years. The article was written by Colonel Charles Waterhouse, USMC, himself a notable painter of military history.



Illustration #32 also has articles on “Ed Balcourt, Artist and Artist Representative,” and “The Artists of Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators” which looks at the covers for a series of mystery books.

As always with Illustration magazine, the articles are lavishly illustrated with fine color reproductions, and you can preview the entire issue online.

Illustration Magazine
Flip-through of current issue

Exploring Infinity with Geometric Doodles

Improve your doodling to the Nth degree by watching this video by Vi Hart.



Via Best of YouTube
Link to YouTube video
Vi Hart's Website, with other videos
Previously: Mathematical Doodling (knot theory)

Atmospheric Perspective in IA #77

The brand new issue of International Artist includes a feature that I wrote about the laws behind atmospheric perspective.
 
This is a basic principle used by every landscape painter, but there's more to it that meets the eye, so to speak. For example, the old rule "warm colors advance, cool colors recede" is only half true.

The article contains three images not included in my book Color and Light. Published for the first time is a plein air study from the north rim of the Grand Canyon and a Hudson Valley vista painted on location at Oak Hill.
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International Artist magazine

Robots at the Rockwell

The Norman Rockwell Museum is looking for a few good robots. They’re hosting a juried exhibition on the grounds of the museum this summer. At this stage they want concept submissions for weatherproof outdoor sculptures.

The robot sculptures will be chosen by a three-person jury. The winners will be on display at the museum July 16 through October 31, 2011. The Rockwell Museum will also host a Steampunk Evening on August 4th.

There are awards: SuperBot Best in Show: $300, ArtBot: $200, ModBot: $200, ClassicBot: $200, SteampunkBot: $200, WowBot, Viewers’ Choice: $100, KidBot Children’s Choice: $100.

The drawing at left, “Stanley the Robot” is one that I drew in charcoal on vellum (inspired by Rockwell and George Bridgman) around 1979. Stanley is a pot-bellied fry oil steamer bot who came together out of spare junk thrown behind an intergalactic restaurant.

I’m too busy to build him, but if there’s a sculptor among you who wants to construct this design, send me an email (jgurneyart (at) yahoo.com) with a link to your portfolio. Maybe we can collaborate.

Application form, sketches, concept statements and fee are due by April 15.  Email questions about contest details to Thomas Mequita (tmesquita ( at ) nrm.org) Call 413-931 2278.

Link for more information

Dürer's Triumphal Procession

A modern presidential motorcade is a public demonstration of glory and power. Aside from the flags, the look is black, austere, and vaguely ominous, like a fast-paced funeral procession.



In the Renaissance they had a different notion of how to do a motorcade. Their style was extravagant, ornate, and full of symbolism, more like a float in the Rose Parade.

In 1518, Albrecht Durer worked with other wood engravers to portray a procession of the imperial family. Victory descends to the emperor with a laurel wreath, accompanied by cardinal virtues: Justice, Temperance, Fortitude, and Prudence. Feathers on angels’ wings list the victorious battles.

Ernest Meissonier’s Costumes

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From Masters in Art: Meissonier, by Gustave Larroumet, 1893.

Escher’s three worlds

M.C. Escher’s lithograph "Three Worlds" is a good illustration of the behavior of light on a smooth water surface.


At the far end of the pond, the water approaches the reflectivity of a perfect mirror because we’re looking straight across it at a very shallow angle. At shallow angles, most of the light bounces off the water (reflection) rather than angling down into it (refraction.)

At steep angles of view, the opposite happens: we see less reflection and more refraction. Therefore the water is dark and we see the fish more than the sky or the trees.

Wikipedia about "Three Worlds"
Color and Light, page 200.
Previously on GurneyJourney: Transparency of Water