Sejong Park's Birthday Boy is gaining accolades as well as awards everywhere on screens. © Australian Film Television and Radio School.

Beginner's Mind
Of special note this year are two student-animated CG shorts. The first, Birthday Boy, by Sejong Park of the Australian Film Television and Radio School won the Festival's coveted "Best Animated Short." Park tells the story of a child during the Korean War who finds happiness in even the most tragic circumstances. One becomes so involved in the life of the main character that one believes this might very well have happen to the children of war.

Finally, Annie & Boo, by Johannes Welland and produced by Filmakademie Baden-Wurttemberg in Ludwigsburg, Germany, shows how two very different characters — the feisty human Annie and the klutzy embodiment of coincidence Boo — find common ground. Welland and his team create effective physical and emotional choreography between an imaginative girl and a character of legendary proportions.

These and other student works in the festival show that storytelling and technical ability continue to thrive outside of the Hollywood behemoth.

Technologies Emerging
If the Computer Animation Festival shows us the results of the tools and thinking of today, then SIGGRAPH's Emerging Technologies exhibition gives us glimpses of the tools we may use as both content creators and audiences in the future.

The SIGGRAPH 2004 Emerging Technologies exhibition included 30 installations from around the world, selected by a jury of industry experts from 114 submissions. According to Heather Eliot-Famularo, SIGGRAPH 2003 chair of Emerging Technologies: "In our daily routine we are surrounded by technology that enhances our life in many ways, both physically and psychologically. The exhibition showcases both scientific advances and fine art, with a major emphasis this year in display technology. Attendees experience virtual and augmented reality, imaging and video technology, interactive displays, robotics, mobile communication, realtime graphics, sensors, haptics, wearables and interactive fine art installations that may enhance our lives in the near and distant future." This is a longer way of saying what the exhibition is all about: "cool stuff you can interact with."

Penn State's Rebecca Strzelec's Written Brooch shows the advancing uses of CG in both art and elsewhere. © Rebecca Strzelec.

At SIGGRAPH's Emerging Technologies exhibition you meet the people doing research that might one day wind up in the tools you use to conceive, create and present your work. Reading a white paper is no substitute for talking directly to exhibitors and feeling their infectious enthusiasm for their work. The exhibition explores technical issues and methods that could span many articles. However, we will narrow our focus to a few installations whose underlying modes and methods may play significant future roles in the art and practice of visual effects.

Say Hello to SANDDE
One of the more intriguing installations in the ET pavilion was the 3D film June by Munro Ferguson and others (National Film Board of Canada). What was important about it went beyond the work itself (although the film was a highly engaging trip through trippy hand drawn objects in 3D space) and the technology used to display it (digital projectors and lightweight stereoscopic glasses). What was important was the technology used to create the film's images.