more on arrival

‘Arrival’ raises profile of linguists, making them almost cool, in The Washington Post

In preparation for the shoot, a design team visited Coon’s office at McGill University in Montreal, where the film was shot, poring over her bookshelf and even inspecting the kind of bag she carries in the field. In one scene, set at the military encampment at the foot of the hovering alien spacecraft, you’ll see some of Coon’s handiwork in the background. “Imagine a military officer has helicoptered you here,” Coons recalls the set designers telling her. “You’re getting ready to start working with aliens. You have a team of 50 military cryptographers at your service. You’re in charge. What’s written on the whiteboard?”

Great article about the research undertaken by the creators of the film Arrival.

How I Wrote Arrival (and What I Learned Doing It) – The Talkhouse

My mother read to me when I was young, like mothers do. But instead of Dr. Seuss or Betsy Byars, it was Heinlein. Bradbury. Asimov. Stories of new worlds, new ideas, and possibilities for the future. It was a key ingredient in my childhood, but one I learned to keep quiet in my hometown in Oklahoma where, occasionally, adults used air quotes when saying the word science.

Go see Arrival. Then come back and read this. The film’s writer, Eric Heisserer, walks you through his journey in adapting Ted Chiang’s short story, “Story of Your Life” and, along the way, tells a story of his own–about science and art and letting smart people say smart things.