Saturday at the Movies: "Plan of the City"

By Nancy Atkinson - June 4, 2011 at 3:36 PM UTC | Site News

What if you could launch your city, building by building, and resettle on Mars? "Plan of the City" is a musical fantasy about the architecture of New York City and Shanghai blasting off and being transplanted to Mars, complete with enough Tang to last the flight. This creative and entertaining short film is an animated collage combining live action footage, animated elements, illustrations and photographs, including photos of the Red Planet taken by the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. The music is awesome and the visuals are just plain fun. The film was conceived and directed by

Joshua Frankel

, in collaboration with composer Judd Greenstein and NOW Ensemble. It was presented with the music performed live, timed to the film, at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City in May, 2011.

Thanks to Joshua Frankel for sharing his video with Universe Today.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com