August 2007 Archives

Earlier in the month I mentioned that VFXTalk was putting together an inpromptu gathering of vfx artists in the LA area to discuss and present some of the work they've done over the past year. Head on over to VFXTalk and RSVP! The meeting is open to the public, we're going to have a good number of presenters, and you'll get a chance to meet and talk with artists from around LA, mingle with your peers, see some professional reels, and ask lots of questions. 1pm-4pm, Sunday, September 9th, 2007, at the Santa Monica Library. Mark your calendar, and be there! We're hoping that this might become an annual or semi-annual event, but we'll gauge that on the turnout for this one.

Drop a line to the rsvp email, and I hope to see you there!

It's been pretty slow after the big Siggraph gatherings of last week. However, this week flew by pretty quickly, as the darkness is taking over my waking life. I'm getting closer to narrowing down this look for one of the more elaborate shots in the show, and there are several other artists working on similar looks. We've only got a couple more weeks until the end of the show, and it's all getting pretty dicey!

It can get pretty intimidating working with a new crew. For this show I'm finally working with Kelly for the first time, and both of us are trying to get to know the others' strengths. There are also brand new coordinators which I'm getting used to, and since this show is on a short schedule, it's an accelerated learning curve! There are still a lot of people I have yet to meet here at Digital Domain, it's that big. In addition, there is significant turnover when shows come and go!

I received my first voting panel in the mail from the Academy yesterday. This year I'll be voting on the Comedy and Drama series, in addition to Special Visual Effects. Currently the nominees are 30 Rock, Entourage, The Office, Two and a Half Men, and Ugly Betty. Usually I choose to vote on Miniseries and Specials, but those take up a huge amount of time, since each nomination can go for over four hours. At least Comedy and Drama nominations only take up about a half hour to an hour each. Much more doable with my current workload.

Yesterday I attended Siggraph, and while it was very quick, I was able to see everyone I wanted to see, as well as meet new people! It was a much smaller convention that previous ones, and that may be because the exhibit floor of San Diego Convention Center is smaller than the LA one. I remember going to my first Siggraph in 1998, and it was huge. Maybe it's just SD. We'll see how next years will fair when it comes to LA again. I ran into a bunch of folk from VFXTalk, it was great to meet you all! And I managed to catch up with some Tippett pals and hung out with them for the evening before they headed off to the Softimage party, and I headed home. I didn't get a chance to hit any of the animation theatres or the Electronic Theatre, which I heard was pretty good this year. Hopefully next year I'll have more time to prepare some time off, and we won't be knee deep in shows. On that note, I'm back at work, hard at work, finishing up The Dark Is Rising. We've got a couple more weeks of intense work, and it's only going to get busier! I'll try to update as I go. Make sure you check out VFXTalk, as we're close to announcing a visual effects gathering next month for local LA people!