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4iThe Daily Tar HeelFriday, April 26, 1991 .New G)ftware enhance film roroducfion WORLD BRIEFS i fa- cv- Gorbachev will remain in party cliief post . MOSCOW The Soviet Union's Communist leadership decided Thurs day to keep Mikhail Gorbachev as party chief, despite hours of criticism from members prompting him to quit. The demands for Gorbachev's re moval ended in "a crisis of nerves on all sides," said Alexander Pomorov, a re gional Communist Party leader from Siberia. "This is not a demonstration of strength, but a demonstration of (the party's) weakness," he said in an inter view Thursday night as the meeting of the party ' s pol icy-making Central Com mittee ended. Delegates emerged from the yellow Kremlin into a chilly spring evening after more than 10 hours of what party ideology chief Alexander Dzasokhov culled "a sharp and critical exchange of opinions." Hard-liners at the closed ses sion spent the morning blaming the Soviet president for the nation's pro tracted political and economic crisis, delegates said. Rebels seize town near Ethiopian capital ' NAIROBI, Kenya Tigre rebels seeking to topple the government claimed Thursday to have captured a town 65 miles west of Ethiopia's capi tal, Addis Ababa. '. There was no immediate government comment on the claim, but Western diplomats in Addis Ababa say the insur gents pose the greatest threat ever to the Marxist government of President Mengistu Haile Mariam, who overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974. ; The U.S. State Department said Thursday it was ordering all embassy dependents and non-essential person nel out of Ethiopia because of the rebel advances. All private Americans are being urged to leave the country as soon as possible, department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters in Washington. There are about 600 Americans in Ethiopia on private business or working with aid organizations trying to cope with a famine that threatens at least 5 million people. Bangladeshi premier promises to repeal law DHAKA, Bangladesh A 16-year-old law used by successive Bangladeshi governments to make arrests without charges will be repealed, Prime Minis ter Khaleda Zia said Thursday in Parlia ment. The law has been used to arrest thou sands of people, including former Presi dent Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who is currently facing charges of corrup tion and abuse of power. Mrs. Zia's promise to repeal the law, known as the Special Powers Act, came after an independent legislator, Nurul Islam Moni, sought the Parliament speaker's permission to introduce a bill revoking it. "The 1974 Special Powers Act will be repealed in an appropriate time," the Prime Minister told Parliament mem bers. She did not elaborate or say when the law would be repealed. Following Mrs. Zia's assurance, Is lam withdrew his bill, saying: "I've gained my objective. The government has made a categorical commitment to repeal the bad law. Let's wait and see." Besides allowing arrests without charges, initially for three months, the law also permits authorities to shut down newspapers that criticize the govern ment. Several anti-government papers have been ordered shut previously. The Associated Press By Anna Griffin Staff Writer Watch out, Hollywood. While the Southern part of heaven will never be confused with the movie making capital of the world, two N.C. computer companies are making their name in Tinsel Town with software packages that promise to change the way films are made. SAS Institute, Inc. and the Virtus Corporation, both based in Cary, now market programs designed to make film production faster, easier and more effi cient. Both software packages are de signed to make movies more realistic. The SASNVision program can be used to create three-dimensional ani mated special effects for films and tele vision. The program can be seen in action during the PBS series "The As tronomers" and in national television advertisements for Volkswagen. The PBS series uses the 3-D computer-generated images to depict objects in outer space and to show the movement of the heavenly bodies realistically. "It might show the black hole or the and the Last Crusade." Computer de planets or it might show various graph- signers were able to show the character ics," said Lynn Dodges of SAS Insti- rapidly age 400 years in a single, con- tute. I he computer illustrations are used to demonstrate what is being nar rated. "A lot of television movies are using 3-D graphics, and news programs like WRAL are using programs like ours for opening sequences," she added. While smaller companies like SAS struggle to gain national recognition, the established king of the special ef fects graphics market is Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the independent spe- tinuous shot. Prior to the development of 3-D graphics programs, scenes like Donovan's death would have required separate shots for each change in the actor's appearance. The Virtus Corp. is marketing Walkthrough, a program designed to create very exact, 3-D models of sets, which directors can "actually move through," said the program's developer David Smith. "With the program you can walk cial effects division of George Lucas' through the set and see what it's going Lucasfilm production company. Computer sequences by ILM were used to create the seawater pseudopod in the 20th Century Fox picture "The Abyss," and allowed Michael J. Fox to float above the ground on his futuristic skateboard in "Back to the Future, Part II," while removing the 2-inch pipe supporting the actor. ILM also used computers to shoot the horrible death of the villain Donovan in Steven Spielburg's "Indiana Jones to be like when you film it," Smith said. "It's very interactive. You lay out the world and then you walk from room to room in real time. Essentially it com bines a camera simulator and human model-builders," he said. Smith's program was used to design the underwater sets for "The Abyss" and is now being considered for use by Columbia Pictures, as well as by some smaller production companies. Archi tects mainly use the program now. nowln the future, film production will rely heavily upon computers, ac cording to Michael Baccus, a consult ant for several production companies and for Apple Computers. "I think you're going to see produc tion designers increasingly relying on computers to generate production scenes. I don't think that's 20 years from now, I think it's three years into the future," he said. Baccus was impressed with the Walkthrough program when he watched it used on the set of "The Abyss." "It shows a director something more than just blueprints," Baccus said. "It shows exactly how the set is going to look in real time and allows the director and the designer to actually move things around and change details much faster than they could on a model. "Programs like this are the future of film-making. Buy stock now." While programs like SASNVision and Walkthrough are relatively expen sive, their developers believe the time they save during production will result in overall reduced production costs. .inmates get parole to ease prison crowdin By David Etchison Staff Writer North Carolina's overcrowded pris ons are being purged of inmates in an attempt to bring their population down to the target level by May 17 and to avoid the possibility of a takeover by the federal courts. So what else is new? The prison system is now suffering through the 12th prison cap emergency since the Emergency Prison Population Stabilization Act, also know as the Supercap, was put into effect on March 11, 1987. During such an emergency, the parole board is given special powers to try to lower the number of inmates. Thanks to record numbers of inmates coming into the prison system, the pa role board has made very little head way. "Unfortunately, we're seeing admis sions come in at a rate that's keeping us at a high prison population despite the best efforts of the parole commission," said Bill Poston, a spokesman for the Department of Correction. "They are making some gains but are not to the point where they look like they're going to be successful by May 17," he said. "We have never been in a situation before where we violated state law." That state law is the Supercap that sets a limit of 19,324 on the number of inmates the prison system can legally hold. It also mandates that the normal population should be kept under a "tar get level" of 18,744. Poston said an inmate could sue the Department of Correction because of the overcrowded conditions if the May 17 deadline is not met. "Somebody would have to take legal action," he said. "It would be up to the court's discretion to decide what to do." The population at 12:01 a.m. Thurs day was 19,269. If the prison popula tion stays above a "trigger level" of 98 percent of the Supercap for 5 consecu- Turning off your phone isn't nearly the turn-off it used to be. Because now you can do it over the phone 24 hours a day with Southern Bell's RightTouch service. Here's all you need to do: 1 . Decide on a date you want your phone service disconnected. 2. Call the toll-free RightTouch number, 780-2500, using a touch-tone phone. 3. Enter your Personal Access Code. (You'll find it in the Messages section on your Southern Bell bill.) 4. Enter a phone number where you can be reached once you leave school. Who says you can't put something off 'til the last minute? And if a RightTouch Center is more your style, just drop by the Frank Porter Graham Student Union or Granville Towers West, and call it quits in person. urn Southern Bell tive days, the parole commission has 90 days to bring it back down to the target level. The parole commission has been try ing to do this since Feb. 15 when the latest prison cap emergency began. The population must be down to acceptable levels by May 17. It is not having much luck. "Maybe a miracle will happen," said Lou Colombo, chairman of the parole commission. "We'll do the best we can, and hopefully we'll make it. The likeli hood is we won't." Since Feb. 15, the board has been paroling criminals at the record rate of 579 a week, releasing 3,475 persons as of March 28. Unfortunately for the board, people have been entering the system at a record rate of 570 a week, giving it a net decrease of 62 inmates for the first six weeks. "We're talking a little above 600 a week we have to find and get out of the system to be able to control the popula tion," Colombo said. His job is made even harder because the parole board has a responsibility to minimize the risk a released inmate could pose to the public, Colombo said. During a population emergency, the parole board is able to consider only those inmates eligible for parole, but the pool of inmates expands by moving up the parole eligibility for certain in mates. Murderers, drug kingpins and traffickers, sexual offenders, kidnap pers and those convicted of driving while impaired are excluded from early re lease. Six weeks of accelerated parole has made it harder for Colombo. "We've dried up most of the sources of what we would consider eligible people of risk factor levels that would not seriously endanger the lives of people," he said. "It's going to be very difficult for us." What happens if the prison popula tion is not below the target level by the deadline is a mystery. The Supercap Act demands no specific action if the deadline is missed. Last-ditch solutions are also hard to come by. "This situation has never happened before," Poston said. The secretary of Department of Cor rection, Aaron Johnson, has been given the authority to raise the Supercap if it is likely additional bed space will become available. The legislature has the same option. There is $75 million invested in on going prison construction that will add a little over 2,000 beds to the system. They will not be ready until June. "Unfortunately, the number of beds that are being built aren't being created quick enough to make any kind of im pact," Colombo said. The entire reason for the Supercap is a federal mandate requiring prisons to provide 50 square feet of space for each inmate by 1 994. The cap was put into effect as an agreement with the federal government to keep the overcrowding in N.C. prisons in check while new facilities were built. If the federal government were to step in, it would not be good for the state, Colombo said. fern . Sound "P starting at: Miami-Caracas 278 New York-Malaga 578 Chicago-Amsterdam 338 Raleigh-Tokyo 789 Los Angeles-Sydney 995 Greensboro-Paris 715 Greensboro-London 595 Taxes not included.Restrictions apply .Fares subiect to chanae. One ways and faculty fares available.WorkStudy Abroad programs International Student ID. tUHAIL PASSES ISSUED ON THE SPOT! Free Student Travel Catalog! il Irfftfi itw 703 Ninth Street, B-2, Durham 919-286-4664 C199I Southern Bell
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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April 26, 1991, edition 1
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