IRrelevant Astronomy

IRrelevant Astronomy is a podcast feed produced by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Unlike many other podcasts, it is set up more like a television network, with multiple series and stand-alone videos put out. To date, the content included on the feed has all incorporated animation in some manner, and generally tends to be comedic.

History

The first episode launched on January 15th, 2008, with the second episode being released two days later. Since then, new episodes have been released on average about one per month. The shows are available in two separate feeds, one high-def and one standard-definition.

Since its launch, the show has regularly ranked as one of the top 100 vodcasts in both the "Science & Medicine" and "Natural Sciences" categories on iTunes.

Cast and Crew

Tim Pyle - "director/co-creator/writer/animator"

Tim worked for 10 years as an animator in the visual effects industry. He worked on the Academy Award nominated Jimmy Neutron, Emmy nominated series , and the Emmy winning Children of Dune. He has personally won two Aegis Awards, a Telly Award, a CINE Golden Eagle, and 2006 & 2008 NASA awards for producing CG animation. Recently, he was the writer and director of Decaying Orbit, a sci-fi DVD feature.

Jim Keller - "co-creator/writer"

Jim is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, AFTRA, and the Actors' Equity Association, having appeared in shows like Days of our Lives and Melrose Place. [http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/features/spitzerprofiles/keller_jim.shtml] His work on NASA's Ask an Astronomer video podcast series has won a Silver Telly Award, a Bronze Telly Award, an Aegis Award, and two Aegis Finalists. [http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/Main/web_awards.html] Additional awards include an Aegis Award and a CINE Golden Eagle.

Austin Wintory - "music composer"

Austin is a music composer for film, TV, and video games. He composed the score for "Captain Abu Raed," a multiple award-winning film including the World Cinema Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008 [http://www.sundance.org/festival/press_industry/releases/2008-01-26-Awards.asp] . The film has been submitted by the Kingdom of Jordan for a 2009 Foreign Language Oscar [http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117991630.html?categoryId=19&cs=1] . Austin also composed the score to Sony's Flow video game and expansion packs for the Sony Playstation 3 & PSP, which earned strong reviews for the quality of music [http://reviews.cnet.com/playstation-3-games/flow-playstation-3/4505-9992_7-32084904.html] [http://www.gamespot.com/psp/puzzle/flow/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;read-review] .

Buffy Guzenski - "actor"

Buffy is a voiceover actress with multiple awards, including: an Aegis Award, a CINE Golden Eagle [http://www.cine.org/winners/w-07-staff.php] , a 2005 Inland Theatre League Award, a 2006 Inland Theatre League Award, two 2007 Inland Theatre League Awards, and three 2007-2008 Season Footlighters Excellence Awards [http://www.redlandsfootlighters.org/awards/zeros.html] . Her short animated film "M51 & Gizmo" (for which she provided all of the principal voices) is currently nominated for a 2008 Kids First "Best of Festival" award [http://www.kidsfirst.org/filmfestival/KFB2008/Nominees.html] .

IRrelevant Astronomy Shows

Psych Out: Only one episode at the time of this writing. A short about an astronomer visiting a therapist and taking a Rorschach-type inkblot test using images from the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Robot Astronomy Talk Show: A series about robots who want to rule the Universe who produce a talk show featuring interviews with real astronomers.

Dub'ya: Only one episode at the time of this writing. An old movie is edited down and re-dubbed with dialogue about current Spitzer Space Telescope science.

Spaceship Spitzer: Spitzer astronomer Dr. Michelle Thaller travels with a robot pilot in a spaceship based on the design of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Integrating live action and CG animation, there is only one episode so far, but comments by the creators on YouTube imply that more will be made [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY22gBF_DgI] .

Skinfrared: A series of direct educational narratives about infrared as it relates to the human body. Originally screened as part of the 2007 "Skin Festival" in Pasadena, CA [http://www.artideasfestival.org/partners_programs.html] .

References

External links

* [http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/videos/irrelevant/index.html IRrelevant Astronomy]
* [http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38525 Review on Aint-It-Cool-News]
* [http://news.awn.com/index.php?ltype=cat&category1=Internet+and+Interactive&newsitem_no=25012 News item on Animation World Network]
* [http://www.youtube.com/user/SpitzerJim Co-creator's YouTube channel]
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0701514/ Tim Pyle's Internet Movie Database page]
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2395325/ Austin Wintory's Internet Movie Database page]