One of the immense photographs (shown here at 15% of its original size) which was not even cropped after slapping it onto a scanner. This picture accounted for 1.5 megabytes.

"Hi-- I wanted to take a minute to inform you of two very exciting Resident Evil events that are about to take place!" said Brittin Fisher in an unsolicited e-mail "press release" that took fifteen minutes to download, fourteen more than indicated.

Director Paul Anderson, building on the success of Mortal Kombat, has moved from arcade video games to home console video games with an adaptation of Resident Evil, released this spring. Anderson, and the film's leading actress, Milla "Fifth Element" Jovovich, took part in an online chat on MSN on February 22. "This is the perfect time to go online and ask questions and chat about the Resident Evil game as well as the upcoming movie," said Fisher, adding, "Please post this exciting information on your website to let everyone know about this exclusive online event!"

Fisher indicated that Anderson would chat from 4:00 to 4:30 PM, and Jovovich from 4:30 to 5:00 PM, each spending only twice as much time at a computer keyboard as it took to receive the message heralding the event over a 56Kb/s modem.

Three photographs, up to 3454 pixels wide by 2252 pixels tall and averaging a megabyte each, were included with the message. The pictures, in JPEG format, were saved with the minimum possible compression setting, but some detail was still lost due to use of the Despeckle filter. With the photos, the total size of the e-mail was 3.3 MB.

In Resident Evil, the main characters are forced to fight off mindless, soulless zombies given life by a technology gone horribly wrong.

A portion of Milla Jovovich, actual size.

Fisher, speaking for the spamhaus DNA Studio, invited "webmasters and editors" to register at www.ijunkets.com for a Resident Evil "ijunket" to take place on March 4. A junket, in the entertainment industry, is an all-expenses-paid excursion offered by film producers, who invite reviewers and other members of the press with hopes of creating buzz about their film. An "ijunket," in which the "i" might stand for either "internet" or "imaginary," is another means of learning about a film from its makers, but without any free trip, free food, or free gifts. It is apparently some kind of web chat, and live video might be involved, but as of press time there are no first-hand accounts to confirm this supposition.

Another of the great whopping pictures.

"If you have any problems or questions, feel free to contact me," said Fisher. "We hope you can be involved in both of these events!" Statements from Anderson and Jovovich are not available.

"Attached are some pictures of the making of the movie, Resident Evil," added Fisher, referring to the massive abuse of network resources.




© Copyright 2002 Craig J. Clark and Kevin Pease. All rights reserved.