Name: Marc Srour
Contact: marcsrour@gmail.com
Employment: Producer and motion control specialist at ABL Films.
Biography:
I have collected rocks from the top of the Alps, fossils from the humid depths of India, and insects from the montane forests of northern Japan. I touched specimens unseen for decades, coughed from dust settled in books neglected for centuries, and brought organisms that were laying dormant for a thousand years back to life.
My core specialties are in invertebrate palaeontology, invertebrate zoology, and phylogenetic systematics. In terms of technical skills, I am well-versed in phylogenetic bioinformatics (particularly when it comes to morphological datasets), macro photography (I developed a system that takes 100+ photos per minute, allowing rapid, high-resolution digitisation of insect specimens of sub-mm to 4mm-sizes, with automated morphometric data extraction), and databasing for biodiversity projects.
My interests are varied, but the main ones are:
- The origin of animals, and especially the early evolution of arthropods
- Metazoan phylogenetics, with a focus on higher arthropod relationships;
- Comparative invertebrate zoology;
- Macroevolution, and the relationship between micro- and macroevolution;
- History of biology, especially the development of comparative zoology;
- Levels of selection;
- Philosophy of systematics.
Having so many interests has led me to my greatest pride and joy: my personal research database, consisting of over 300000 PDFs and growing daily. Fully curated and searchable, this will be my contribution to the world’s rebirth after an apocalyptic destruction of modern civilisation, should such an event happen. For now, it is a bored man’s personal Library of Alexandria.
Although research is what I like doing, teaching has always been a big part of my activities. This website is testament to that. I routinely given public and academic lectures, and also work with schools to provide extracurricular field trips and lessons.
Outside of all the scientific stuff, my primary job is in film. A long time movie buff, were it not for studying science, I would have been either a screenwriter or a director.
In my role at ABL Films, I’m the head producer and operator for our motion control rig specialised for tabletop and product videos, responsible for all of the studio’s tech operations. My list of tasks includes:
- Operating our main industrial cinematic robot, a custom machine built in collaboration with Mark Roberts Motion Control.
- Operating our high-speed Phantom camera, including all the DIT work with its raw footage
- Producing all our special effects hardware, such as robots for moving models, foods, and liquids, and triggering mechanisms for syncing actions with motion control. While the main camera robot is controlled with bespoke hardware and software, the adjacent rigs I develop on a project-by-project basis are Arduino and ESP32-based.
- Developing and implementing various related software technologies to enhance our video processing and post-production pipeline, such as:
- Livestreamed video monitoring with waveform, parade, and vector scopes, so that our cinematographers can monitor accurately from home (this was developed during COVID);
- AI-based frame interpolation and video upscaling algorithms and model training;
- Advanced photogrammetry workflows with our robot, using the precise positioning and extreme macro capabilities to achieve extremely accurate results.
- Virtual production with Unreal Engine, with the realtime data from the robot driving the camera and other effects in the 3D world (such as Niagara effects, geometry scripts, any other asset modifications).
Research Skills and Experience:
- Fossil collection: Invertebrate macrofossil collection and safe transport methods.
- Collection curation: Invertebrate, geological, and palaeontological specimen storage; databasing and collection management.
- Phylogenetic tree-building: Morphological datasets preferred.
- Librarian experience: Curating and managing 300000+ research articles in Zotero, Mendeley, and self-written software.
- Programming languages: C++, Python, R, Ruby.
- Natural languages: English (native), French (C2), German (C1), Cypriot Greek (B2), Arabic (spoken and listening native, A2 in all else).
- Technical knowledge: µ-CT hardware and software configuration; soldering; robotics; cine camera operations; Phantom operation; Arduino programming.
- Expert software competencies: Unreal Engine; Adobe Premiere; Baselight.