There are numerous reasons why you might want to record what’s happening on your phone. Maybe you’re having a problem with an app and you want to share what’s going wrong with a tech-savvy friend; or maybe you’re the tech-savvy friend, and you want to show someone else how to fix a bug.

Perhaps you’re starting up a YouTube channel of smartphone tutorials. Or it could be that you want to capture evidence of a new high score in a mobile game—not just a screenshot of it, but the actual act of you achieving it.

For these reasons and more, screen recordings are useful, and they’re not difficult to capture no matter what the make and model of your handset. You’ll find instructions below for the two most well-known Android phone brands, and the iPhone.

Record Your Screen on a Google Pixel

Recording options on a Google phone.Courtesy of David Nield

If your phone of choice is the Google Pixel, unlock your handset then swipe down from the top of the screen with two fingers to bring up the full Quick Settings selection. You should see a widget for Screen recorder—if you can’t see it, try swiping left or right. If you still can’t see it, tap the pen icon (lower right) to add it to the Quick Settings menu.

Next you’ll see a panel of toggle switches: These options let you choose whether or not the screen touches are visible in the recording, and whether you want the selfie camera feed to be visible as an overlay (handy if you’re narrating or reacting to what’s on screen). You can also opt to include audio from your phone’s apps or from the microphone.

The drop-down menu at the top lets you decide between recording the entire screen or just a single app. When you’re happy, tap Start. You’ll see a short countdown, then the recording begins. To end the recording, tap the red recording timer in the status bar at the top, then Stop. The video will be saved to Google Photos.

Record Your Screen on a Samsung Galaxy

Recording options on a Samsung phone.Courtesy of David Nield

On Samsung Galaxy phones, the process is similar but not quite identical to screen recording on a Pixel. With your phone unlocked, swipe down from the top of the display, then swipe down again on the central pane (with icons for features including Wi-Fi and the flashlight) to reveal the Screen recorder icon.

Amazon Prime Day deals are back, baby. The second sale of the year is officially dubbed Prime Big Deal Days and will arrive on October 6 and 7. However, early deals have already started, and I’ve been using my 13 years of deal-hunting experience to find true discounts on the gadgets and gear the WIRED Reviews team has hand-tested and would recommend to our friends. Below, you’ll find the best early deals we’ve sleuthed so far. We’ll be covering deals throughout the event and beyond. all the way through Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Don’t miss our list of Prime Day tips put together by yours truly, plus our guide to Amazon Prime benefits you might be forgetting to use. Our guide to shopping safe on Amazon might be useful as well.

Updated September 26: We’ve added 10 new deals from Bose, JBL, Anker, SteelSeries, Smartish, Moft, Birch, Razer, Blueair, and FlexiSpot. We’ve also made sure existing deals are up to date.

Best Tech Deals

A Killer Deal on Our Favorite Android Phone

The Google Pixel 10a is our favorite Android phone overall, in part because it’s cheap. The low price comes with a ton of value, from the slick performance and powerful cameras to the years of software and security updates.

The Best Price on a Budget-Friendly Speaker

The JBL Go 5 is our top budget Bluetooth speaker. It’s available in 10 different colors, most of which are down to a match of the best price we’ve seen. It’s durable, lightweight, and sounds good for its size.

A Solid Discount on Workout Earbuds

We see this deal for our favorite workout earbuds pretty regularly, but they only ever get about $20 cheaper, so it’s still a solid option if you’re in the market. The Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 play well with iOS and Android, have punchy sound, and feature the option for both transparency mode and active noise canceling.

The Best Android Earbuds at a Low Price

The Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 remain our top earbuds for Android users (they also work with iOS). They’re aesthetically pleasing. They sound great. They’re comfortable, have a long-lasting battery, and active noise cancellation, plus some useful software features. If you want good earbuds that aren’t AirPods, these might be up your alley.

Hospitals’ use of artificial intelligence tools as they submit insurance claims led to an additional $942 million in healthcare spending over a two-year period, according to an analysis by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

The BCBSA analysis found “a sharp increase in patients being documented as having complex conditions,” but argued there is a “clear disconnect between [medical] coding and treatment,” as there’s “no evidence of corresponding change in care delivered.”

The New York Times pointed the analysis as just the latest sign that AI is contributing to an increase in healthcare costs. While battles between hospitals and insurers over treatments and payments are nothing new, the NYT said the use of AI on both sides seems to be making it worse.

Dr. Shiv Rao, founder of AI startup Abridge, acknowledged that the use of AI could lead to “a horrible dystopic future nobody wants to live in,” with “bots fighting bots, agents fighting agents.” But Rao said it might also reduce tensions and cut costs.

And the BCBSA’s senior vice president Luke Chalker resisted characterizing the situation as a battle, claiming, “It’s not a war. It’s a completely one-sided blood bath,” with insurers on the losing side.

Long-term readers will know that I have something of a love affair with the original HiFiMAN HE-6. Not one of the later revisions carrying the same name, but the original version that arrived 16 years ago and, to my ears, remains one of the finest headphones HiFiMAN has ever produced.

That distinction has become increasingly important because the HE-6 name has been used across several versions over the years, and they do not all sound the same. Depending on which HE-6 you audition, it can be remarkably easy to wonder what all the fuss was about. Those who have only heard the later iterations have not necessarily heard the headphone that created the legend in the first place.

The original HE-6 was expensive, technologically ambitious, brutally difficult to drive, and produced in relatively limited numbers. It was also capable of a level of dynamics, transparency, speed, and sheer physicality that helped establish HiFiMAN as a serious force in planar magnetic headphones. Finding one today—particularly an early 6-screw HE-6 in excellent working condition is neither easy nor cheap. Clean examples can command $1,500 or more, making the original HE-6 one of the relatively few high-end headphones that has actually appreciated in value.

Sixteen years later, the HiFiMAN HE600 arrives carrying more than a little historical baggage.

Calling it another HE-6 would be too simplistic. The HE600 is better understood as a modern reimagining of the concept, built around HiFiMAN’s current driver technology and engineering rather than an attempt to recreate the original component by component. Almost everything has changed. The drivers are lighter and faster, amplification requirements are considerably less punishing, durability has been addressed, and the industrial design retains enough of the circular HE-6 aesthetic to make the family resemblance obvious.

That creates a much harder question than whether the HiFiMAN HE600 sounds good.

Can HiFiMAN take everything it has learned over the past 16 years and create a modern planar magnetic headphone that captures some of what made the original HE-6 so extraordinary without simply trying to resurrect it?

For those of us who never thought the original needed replacing, the answer carries considerably more weight.

Related Reading:

Build, Fit, and a Much-Needed Diet

The HE600 is no doubt a HiFiMAN product. The resemblance to the HE400 series and HE-560 is immediately evident. The large-diameter circular earcups, divided front to back between a brushed-metal outer section and black leather inner layer, remain true to the company’s earlier models before the teardrop shape became its signature.

The honeycomb grille also harkens back to some of those earlier designs, although the HE600 uses larger openings to improve airflow and reduce interference. The overall aesthetic is understated, much like the original HE-6, but the brushed metal is arguably a step up in terms of finish.

The yokes feature click adjustments, with visible dimples along the inside of the band, and mate with a black steel outer headband and polymer inner section. The headband is solid at both ends, while material has been removed from the center section to reduce weight.

A composite leather suspension strap attaches beneath the narrower portion of the headband before widening to nearly 2.5 inches at the center to distribute weight more evenly across the head. The assembly has enough flexibility to accommodate a wide range of head sizes, and there is sufficient rotation at the yoke/headband junction to work with most head shapes. There is no visible hinge along the vertical axis, but it is there, cleverly hidden within that junction.

At 389 grams, the HE600 is still not a light headphone, but for many listeners, the weight of the original HE-6 was not some abstract specification. It was the central problem.

My original HE-6 weighs 543 grams on my postal scale; more than half a kilogram. To comfortably wear one all day, you would need the neck of Brock Lesnar or perhaps an NFL linebacker. I am not a small person, and as much as I loved the sound, the weight was always an issue.

The HE600 reduces that burden enough that I had no trouble wearing it for three to four hours at a time. Yes, it can still become fatiguing, but it takes considerably longer before things become genuinely uncomfortable.

The HE600 uses HiFiMAN’s FocusPad design, combining memory foam with pleather and soft velour surfaces. The mixed-material approach makes sense. Pleather helps maintain a good seal around the ear and preserves low-frequency consistency, while the velour reduces the sticky, heat-trapping sensation that can make fully synthetic pads unpleasant during longer listening sessions.

The pads are also large enough to accommodate most ears, and their tapered profile helps improve fit and comfort. The HE600 is still a headphone best reserved for quiet, seated listening, but the improvement over the original cannot be denied.

Connectivity is handled by dual 3.5 mm connectors at the earcups, with the supplied cable terminating in a 3.5 mm plug for source devices. HiFiMAN also includes a 6.35 mm adapter.

The earcup connectors are angled by approximately 10 degrees, with the stated goal of reducing mechanical stress and improving long-term cable reliability. That is a welcome refinement. Straight connectors can place unnecessary leverage on the socket, particularly when the cable drops sharply toward the listener’s shoulders.

The use of standard 3.5 mm connectors also makes cable replacement straightforward. A simple cable swap allows the HE600 to be used with balanced sources or an XLR-equipped amplifier instead of the supplied single-ended 3.5 mm cable.

Internals: Sixteen Years of Planar Progress

While the outside of HiFiMAN headphones can sometimes look a little industrial and pedestrian, nobody can deny that what is inside the earcups is usually state of the art. HiFiMAN has specialized in planar magnetic drivers since its earliest models, and most of the current lineup incorporates some variation of that technology.

Planar magnetic drivers use a thin membrane with conductive traces that carry the electrical signal. That membrane moves toward or away from an array of magnets depending on the voltage and current being applied. The theoretical advantage is that the driving force is distributed across a much larger surface area than with the voice-coil arrangement used in a conventional dynamic driver. When the diaphragm and magnet geometry are properly executed, that can improve control, transient response, and distortion performance.

HiFiMAN describes the HE600 as using an Enhanced Magnet system based on rare-earth-free permanent magnetic materials with an optimized structure. The move away from rare-earth magnets is worth noting. These materials are costly and place additional pressure on supply chains, so I applaud HiFiMAN for pursuing an alternative approach rather than assuming that stronger and more exotic magnets are automatically the only path forward.

The magnets also need to be more than merely powerful. They must be small and carefully positioned because, while strong interaction between the diaphragm and magnetic structure is essential, unrestricted airflow is equally important. Large magnets sitting directly in the path of the sound would create their own problems.

HiFiMAN provides considerably more detail about the diaphragm itself, which it calls the NEO Supernano Diaphragm. This is an ultra-thin dielectric polyester/plastic substrate film with a microscopic conductive coating that forms the electrical trace across its surface.

The challenge is not simply making the diaphragm as light as possible. It also needs sufficient rigidity to behave properly across its entire surface. Reduce the mass too far without maintaining structural control and you have merely traded one problem for another.

The moving mass of the HE600 driver is claimed to be only 40% that of the original HE-6. Sixteen years separate the two headphones, and that figure offers some perspective on just how far diaphragm materials and manufacturing techniques have advanced during that period.

The new driver has a nominal impedance of 28 ohms and a sensitivity of 94 dB/mW, both substantial departures from the original HE-6. Frequency response is specified at 8 Hz to 65 kHz, which extends well beyond what any human being is going to hear and probably into territory better appreciated by the neighborhood bats.

More importantly, the HE600 is dramatically easier to drive.

For those unfamiliar with the original HE-6, HiFiMAN actually sold an adapter that allowed owners to connect the headphones directly to the speaker taps of a two-channel power amplifier. Portable sources need not apply, and even many dedicated desktop headphone amplifiers lacked sufficient output to drive the original HE-6 with adequate headroom.

The HE600 removes much of that complication, opening the door to a far wider range of headphone amplifiers, DAC/amps, and portable sources without abandoning the planar magnetic architecture that made the HE-6 so compelling in the first place.

Specifications:

• Type: Open back, over ear headphones
• Driver Type: Planar magnetic
• Diaphragm: 2nd Gen NEO Supernano Diaphragm
• Magnet System: Rare earth free Enhanced Magnet design
• Frequency Response: 8 Hz to 65 kHz
• Impedance: 28 ohms
• Sensitivity: 94 dB
• Weight: 389 grams (13.72 oz)
• Ear Pads: FocusPad with memory foam, pleather, and velour surfaces
• Headphone Connectors: Dual 3.5 mm
• Included Cable: 1.5 meter detachable cable with 3.5 mm termination
• Included Adapter: 3.5 mm to 6.35 mm

Listening

In order to be considered a spiritual successor to the HE-6, the HE600 needs to deliver an inspired combination of speed, dynamics, resolution, and a relatively full-bodied tonal balance. Those were the expectations I carried into my listening sessions, but I deliberately avoided an immediate A/B comparison with the original HE-6 because I felt the HE600 deserved to be judged on its own first.

What follows are my listening impressions of the HE600 as I would evaluate any other headphone, followed by a direct comparison with the original HE-6.

Bass

Sub-bass extension is better than expected, especially considering that one of the perennial issues with large planar magnetic headphones has been a lack of genuine bass authority. No, the HE600 will not satisfy listeners looking for a significant boost in the bottom end, but it is a far cry from some earlier planar designs that rolled off steeply below 50 Hz.

Depth is good and clarity is even better, so what the HE600 gives up in absolute quantity it compensates for with control and definition. Mid-bass is slightly more prominent, adding some welcome warmth without becoming loose or bloated in the process.

Midrange

The transition from the mid-bass into the lower midrange is seamless, with no obvious bleed or obstruction. Lower-register vocals have good weight and sit slightly ahead of the instrumentation, although not dramatically so.

Electric guitars have good attack and plenty of growl, while acoustic guitars benefit from strong texture and tonal nuance. Strings also have good energy, aided by a lower-treble lift that pushes upper-register vocals somewhat forward in the mix. On some recordings, those higher voices can sit a full step ahead of lower-register vocals.

Treble

The lower treble is moderately elevated before beginning to fall away above roughly 10 kHz. The result is an open top end with enough air and sparkle to keep things interesting, although it stops short of the expansive presentation offered by some of HiFiMAN’s more expensive models.

Cymbals have good ring and decay, while percussion has sufficient snap without becoming sharp or fatiguing. There is still enough treble energy here that listeners who are particularly sensitive in that region should audition before buying, but the HE600 generally avoids crossing the line into abrasive territory.

Soundstage and Imaging

The soundstage is moderately sized, with good width and depth and enough height to allow movement around the stage to be tracked convincingly. Imaging and layering are both quite strong, helped by the driver’s fast decay and clean separation between instruments.

Seating an orchestra is straightforward, with no obvious overlaps or unnatural gaps between sections. The resulting presentation feels proportionate and believable rather than artificially stretched beyond the boundaries of the recording.

HE600 vs. the Original HE-6

Overall, the HE600 does a lot of things very well, but is it an HE-6 clone?

In a word, no.

The tonal balance is similar in some respects but noticeably different in others. To my ears, the original HE-6 still offers greater resolution, and anyone expecting the HE600 to completely reproduce that aspect of its performance will find that it stops short.

Bass extension, however, is better on the HE600, while the original HE-6 extends more convincingly at the top end. That alone shifts the tonal balance of the two headphones in different directions.

The HE600 sounds somewhat fuller and weightier, while the HE-6 remains the faster and more technically incisive headphone. The treble emphasis is also more pronounced on the HE600, so listeners who are particularly treble-sensitive are unlikely to love either model and may actually find the HE600 to be the bigger offender.

There is little question that the original HE-6 remains the more technically capable performer, but there are also substantially higher barriers to extracting that performance.

Finding an early HE-6 in excellent condition can easily cost enough to purchase two HE600s, and that is before dealing with amplification. The original is notoriously demanding and requires an amplifier capable of delivering serious current and headroom. Something like the xDuoo TA-30 is probably near the lower end of where I would start, while more powerful desktop amplification from Benchmark, Pass Labs, or something similarly capable makes considerably more sense.

The HE600 presents an entirely different proposition.

It worked extremely well with the Questyle M18i Max connected to my phone, while the original HE-6 sounds flat, dynamically restrained, and largely lifeless with probably 99% of the portable headphone gear currently available.

That does not mean the HE600 is particularly easy to drive. It remains more demanding than models such as the Ananda, and pairing it with an unpowered dongle may leave you underwhelmed—or watching your phone battery disappear at an impressive rate.

The HE600 is easier to drive than the headphone that inspired it, but this is still fundamentally a headphone designed for serious desktop listening rather than something I would build a portable system around.

The Bottom Line

The HiFiMAN HE600 leaves me with mixed emotions. Paired with a potent portable or desktop amplifier, it is warm, full-bodied, technically capable, and considerably easier to live with than the original HE-6. At 389 grams, it is still not light, but the improvement in long-term comfort is substantial.

The bigger issue is value. At $799, the HE600 faces serious competition from the HEDD D1, Dan Clark Audio AEON, and Audeze LCD-GX, while the lack of a case or balanced cable makes the package feel rather sparse.

Those hoping for a modern HE-6 will also come away disappointed. The HE600 does not match the original’s resolution, speed, or top-end extension.

But judged on its own terms, it makes considerably more sense. The HE600 offers stronger bass extension, a fuller tonal balance, excellent planar speed, and far more reasonable amplification requirements.

Perhaps calling it an HE-6 successor does it a disservice. The HE600 is not the second coming of the original, but it is a very good planar headphone that deserves an audition at $799.

Pros:

• Warm, full-bodied tonal balance with strong bass extension
• Fast, clean planar magnetic presentation with good imaging
• Far easier to drive than the original HE-6
• Significant reduction in weight improves long-term comfort
• Standard dual 3.5 mm connectors make cable swaps easy

Cons:

• Does not match the original HE-6 for resolution, speed, or top-end extension
• Still relatively heavy at 389 grams
• Treble emphasis may bother sensitive listeners
• Sparse accessory package with no case or balanced cable
• $799 price puts it against some formidable competition

Our Ratings:

★★★★★★★★★★ Sound Quality

★★★★★★★★★★ Build Quality

★★★★★★★★★★ Comfort

★★★★★★★★★★ Features

★★★★★★★★★★ Value

Where to Buy:

Related Reading:

Earth’s days are not exactly the same length. Scientists have been recording small variations in for decades. These changes are minuscule—sometimes just a few milliseconds—and mostly imperceptible, but scientists are keen to understand them as they point to a much more monumental change: Our planet’s rotation speed is shifting.

Scientists have already pinpointed a handful of compounding causes. Fluctuations in the atmosphere and oceans can slightly speed up or slow down the Earth’s rotation; major earthquakes can redistribute part of the planet’s mass; and by depositing enormous amounts of water into the oceans, melting continental ice is also a factor.

These influences account for some of the more sudden and recent changes, but on a several decades-long timescale, some of the variation appears to originate from a source much deeper within the Earth. Beneath our planet’s rocky mantle lies the outer core—a 1,400 mile thick layer of ultra-hot liquid metal that is in constant motion. As these flows change, they can slightly alter the speed at which the rest of the planet rotates.

However, how these forces are transmitted from one region to another has remained a mystery. Friction between the core and the mantle is too weak, so geologists have been searching for other mechanisms operating in the Earth’s interior.

In a new study published this week in Nature, researchers believe they have identified one of these hidden gears. They propose that the gravity of the inner core pushes rotation in one direction, while other interactions between the core and the mantle oppose it. The result of this competition, accumulated over decades, would be small accelerations and decelerations in the planet’s spin.

The idea is based on the fact that the inner core does not rotate at the same rate as the rest of the planet, causing it to become slightly misaligned with certain mass irregularities in the mantle. But the core “wants to be aligned,” Mathieu Dumberry, a geophysicist at the University of Alberta involved in the study, said in a press release. What this means is that gravity tries to pull the layers of the inner Earth back into their more harmonic position, which influences—albeit minutely—the rotation of the planet’s surface.

The authors reconstructed how this interaction influenced Earth’s spin between 1964 and 2019 using seismic estimates of the inner core’s rotation and models of liquid metal flows in the outer core. Their gravitational model closely reproduced both the timing and the magnitude of real gradual changes that had been observed over the decades.

Other yet-unknown factors are likely involved, but this proposal unravels a major component of our variable days. The model also didn’t account for all the forces competing involved, but it didn’t need to to produce a compelling result. Because it might be a tug-of-war, Dumberry said, but “gravity still wins.”

This story originally appeared in WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

This Smart & Interactive Self-Rotating Cat Toy Ball is a USB-rechargeable toy featuring 360-degree rolling movements, obstacle avoidance, and changing LED lights to help keep cats entertained. It’s built out of scratch-resistant and bite-resistant materials, the ball is tough enough to withstand rough play from high-energy kittens and adult cats alike. It’s on sale for $20.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackSocial. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

The New York Film Festival kicked off the first day of its 64th edition with a screening of writer-director James Gray’s outstanding new crime drama, Paper Tiger. Set in 1986 Queens, the film stars Adam Driver and Miles Teller as brothers Gary and Irwin Pearl, who pursue a get-rich-quick scheme that involves cleaning up the Gowanus Canal. But after a terrible misunderstanding, Irwin, his wife Hester (Scarlett Johansson), and their children find themselves targeted and tormented by the Russian mafia, threatening to tear the two brothers apart.

Paper Tiger made its world premiere back in May at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, which nominated Gray for its highest honor, the Palme D’Or award, for the second time in his career. Since its debut, the film also received an 83% “Fresh” rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, ranking it highly alongside some of Gray’s other acclaimed films, including The Immigrant, Ad Astra, The Lost City of Z, Armageddon Time. Neon will distribute Paper Tiger in select theaters this November after its festival tour.

At its NYFF premiere on September 25, Digital Trends joined audiences and press in hearing Gray, Driver, and Teller discuss their experience making Paper Tiger in a post film Q&A, moderated by NYFF programmer Rachel Rosen. In this panel, Gray broke down his filmmaking style and his personal inspirations for the movie’s emotional story. He also revealed how he got such acclaimed performances out of both Driver and Teller and how he approached recreating 1980s New York in this throwback crime thriller.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Rosen: I’m wondering if you remember if there’s an originating idea [for Paper Tiger]? Is it a mood? Is it a particular personal story? Is it a theme? And then how the film develops from there?

Gray: I, frankly, as corny as this sounds, I started out saying I wanted to make a movie about love and how difficult it was to love somebody. And I don’t mean obviously in a romantic way only, although that’s part of it. But how things in life get in the way of our relationships with each other.

So it sort of started with that notion. And then to rip off stuff from my own past, somebody said to me once, [they] said, “Oh, instead of therapy, you make films,” which I like a lot. I think that’s a sign of victory, because that means that I put myself as disgusting as I am into the work.

I feel like that’s my job. Now it’s your job to like it or hate it…but it’s my job to show you, warts and all, who I am, I think. So it started really there, that impulse.

Rosen: You were remarkably consistent in interviews through the years, downplaying your talent for working with actors. So let’s dig into that a little bit. Your films have these remarkable performances. Can you parse out?

Gray: If you get great actors, you let them do what they do. That is maybe not as easy as I thought it was. I don’t actually do much with these guys. They’re great.

I don’t say. “I have my vision.” You can say the line exactly as I wrote it, which I think is catastrophic. You have to be open to what the actor will bring. And you want the actor to do something you didn’t expect…So when I get to set, I don’t have a preconceived notion of the way the scene should be played.

I have been to sets where I see directors and I watch them watch the actor and I’ll see them point. And I’m always disturbed by that because they’re seeing the actor say the line either as they should or not…The actor must play the reality in the moment. And I think if I had any skill at all, it would be good enough to let them do that rather than sit on them.

Rosen: Let’s do that.

Driver: He articulated it pretty well, which I think is rare, especially if you’ve written and to not have ownership over it, and atmosphere of the set always comes from the top-down. Whoever’s in charge, who’s leading it, they kind of set the precedent for how the crew is working on it and how focused the actors are on it.

And he sets up all the things that he just said he really does embody on set. He creates an atmosphere where you can’t make a mistake. And if we do it, he’s made sure that we have enough time in the schedule. If we don’t, do it right or if there’s another option, will we have time to to do it?

Teller: And James wouldn’t be afraid to, if a scene wasn’t necessarily working, he would say, “It’s not your guys’ fault. It’s the writers.” Just James, of course.(laughs) And then he would sit and tinker with it a little bit. But I mean, we certainly weren’t. We didn’t have a ton of set ups every day, which is the least amount of setups I think I’ve ever had on a film.

Yeah. James is very available. And there’s elements of this story that are autobiographical in James’s words. And, yeah, he’s just a really lovely, articulate person who really doesn’t love movies as much as anyone that I’ve ever met him.

Driver: And you do just want someone who’s a great audience member, who’s watching, who’s watching the monitor and is seeing everything. And when you feel as an actor that someone isn’t, then you start to do that job also, and it kind of takes you out of the scene.

And if you trust a majority of these choices are about taste and already going into it before, we give it a shot of excitement because of his films or the choices that he’s made with such an attention to detail about costume, what the lenses are, how we’re shooting it, where we’re shooting, already going into it. We’re just paying attention, which again, seems obvious, but, it’s all about taste. And that’s the end of that sentence. Period.

Rosen: And that leads into my next question, which is about period, because I think recent [time] periods can be more complex than shooting something in 1850. And I’m wondering if all of you can talk about that, in terms of language, were there things you thought about beforehand about being authentic to 1986?

Gray: I see no difference between 1986 and 1820 anymore. Have you been to the Gowanus Canal recently? When we were scouting, somebody said, “Well, are you going to do the actual Gowanus Canal?” And I said, “Yeah.” And then I got there and it looks nothing like it did in 1986. People dress nothing like that.

And the hair with these perms…and it’s funny because I think people are almost out of the language of period and recent period, like my mother had that hairstyle and it does look ridiculous. But it’s accurate to what it was. And the only thing we did do was limit the shoulder pads, because in costume, what people actually wore in 1986…these shoulder pad things, we forget they looked like they were about to play Joe Namath.

The shoulder padding out here was risible. So the furthest we went was the hair. You have to try to get the details right, but you actually have to actually not do as much as there was because then it would look like parody. So, we try to be as accurate as we can, but it is all in the end, an abstraction because the movie is like a dream state.

It’s not a documentary. And people looking for that kind of accuracy. I find that to be, if I may be candid, I find it to be kind of a little bit of dunderheaded, because it’s really missing the point of what…a work of art is supposed to communicate anyway. So, you just try to get it as accurate as you can and leave detail uncovered, knowing that you’re going to miss something.

Rosen: Can you talk a little bit about how you developed the visual style of the film, but also the auditory style of the film, both of which I think were quite remarkable.

Gray: Thank you…I don’t think it’s right to just impose a style on a movie generally, or to start there anyway. I mean, you’re always imposing a style, but you’re not starting with a style. To me, it has to be connected to the material. And I’ve always idolized filmmakers who are…just trying to do what’s right for the piece.

And so I don’t try to impose some massively ornate visual style on a movie. And I’ve found that that’s extremely hard to do. Like just creating a scene, which looks like it’s traditional or classical, is really hard, at least for me.

So what I wanted to do was to do something that looked on a set period, but looked like it was a bit of a throwback in that way. One of the decisions we made, which caused a little bit of a headache, but it was great, was to use only tungsten lights and so the film is shot on 35 millimeter film…It has a magic that is totally beyond what a DCP can give you, and it’s almost like we forget it, you know? So I’m glad that they were able to do it.

So sound, for me, is very, very important. I always go over budget, on only one thing on every movie. I’m always on time…but the I’m always over on the movies because the mix is so important. It’s stuff that works unconsciously that nobody is ever aware of.

There’s such weird stuff on the track of this movie. There’s this thing in the car scene…with one of the Russian guys [rooting] over to the glove compartment. And he opens the glove compartment, and on it we put a slaughtered pig sound. So it’s that kind of thing that you you always want to try to come up with, to use a pretentious term, an objective correlative for the emotion of the moment.

Paper Tiger arrives in theaters on November 13.

The collaboration aims to advance agricultural resilience and crop-based carbon removal using AI technologies.

Oxford spin-out Wild Bioscience (Wild Bio) and technology company Oracle have announced a collaboration that will see both groups advance agricultural resilience and crop-based carbon removal using AI. As part of the partnership, Wild Bio intends to utilise Oracle cloud and IoT tech in support of its field research. 

Established in 2021 by Dr Ross Hendron and Irish man Prof Steve Kelly, Wild Bio specialises in crop genetics by researching genetic solutions that developed through evolution to improve crops in the past, and then using these discoveries to design simple fixes for modern crops.

The start-up uses AI to tackle two major challenges in agriculture: maintaining crop productivity as environmental stress increases and developing crop varieties that can remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. 

Wild Bio will use Oracle’s technology to capture field data, bring it together in an integrated cloud environment and use AI to analyse the resulting datasets and inform future research.

Oracle’s technology will be used to analyse real-time data from field trials by studying soil moisture, plant performance and environmental conditions, building an auditable, field-level measurement system for how much carbon the studied crops are actually taking in. This will then inform and power Wild Bio’s own research.

The organisations are of the opinion that AI has the ability to learn from millions of years of plant evolution and identify traits that can improve how crops perform.

Commenting on the partnership, Clay Magouyrk, the CEO of Oracle said: “AI is creating new opportunities to solve problems that once seemed out of reach. Wild Bio is a powerful example of how combining AI with deep scientific expertise can turn new ideas into practical solutions with the potential to improve lives around the world.”

“The world cannot solve climate change and food security as separate problems,” said Kelly, the chief scientific officer for Wild Bio. 

Kelly added: “We need crops that can perform better under increasing pressure while also helping address atmospheric CO2. This collaboration enables us to build the capabilities we need to measure how our crops perform in the field.”

The collaboration will also support Oracle’s broader sustainability strategy, including its commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, according to the tech giant.

In late July, Wild Bioscience acquired wheat breeding business F1 Seed for an undisclosed amount. In acquiring the organisation, Wild Bio said it was aiming to become a fully integrated, end-to-end UK seed company, forming a single business capable of designing, breeding and delivering new wheat varieties for growers.

Last year, the company raised $60m in a Series A funding round led by the Ellison Institute of Technology, a research institute founded by Larry Ellison – better known to most as the co-founder and chair of Oracle.

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