BD: Let's talk more about having SIGGRAPH in New Orleans during this economic downturn and post Katrina.

RB: Because of its size and scope, SIGGRAPH makes arrangements with cities several years ahead. We actually visited New Orleans in early 2006 just six months after Katrina. SIGGRAPH had great experiences in New Orleans in1996 and 2000. Given that connection and history, we all felt that we wanted to give back and contribute to the city's recovery. SIGGRAPH was one of the first large conferences to sign up with New Orleans after Katrina and we have full confidence that will be an amazing attendee experience.

It's true that the current economic downturn is making things challenging for everyone. But we hope that for many in our community, coming to SIGGRAPH in New Orleans will provide a "two for one" -- merging the professional and personal benefit of coming to SIGGRAPH with the rich cultural experience of coming to New Orleans. Also, many people don't realize that New Orleans' downtown area (the convention center, French Quarter and major hotels) is cleaner, safer and has more restaurants and cultural attractions than ever before. During this conference planning cycle, the organizing committee has had several planning meetings in New Orleans, and it's always been a great experience.

That said, many of the outer areas of New Orleans still haven't recovered from Katrina and are certainly suffering extra because of the economic downturn. Just by coming to New Orleans, SIGGRAPH is contributing to the economic health of the city. But we'd like to do more and are organizing various outreach efforts to benefit the local community.

Here are a few examples and we need your audience to get involved (details are already up on the www.siggraph.org/s2009):

• People can listen to some of New Orleans' finest music put together by a local record company especially for SIGGRAPH, and download the entire album for $9.99. Proceeds from album sales go to support the Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp.

   

• We're working with local high schools to bring students to the conference at no charge, and pair them with volunteer mentors who can introduce them to SIGGRAPH and computer graphics. We will soon have more details on the conference website where your audience can sign up.

   

• We're building a computer graphics lab in a local school with equipment donated by companies in our community and volunteer labor from our community.

   

• We're creating opportunities for attendees to contribute to Tipitina's Foundation, an organization that provides musical instruments to local schools.

CAF continues its expansion this year. Oktapodi won the Best in Show last year and went on to be nominated for an Oscar. © Gobelins.

BD: Why the greater emphasis on music and audio?

RB: There are several reasons that music and audio make sense as a focus for SIGGRAPH. A lot of the imagery that we create is in the service of communication or storytelling that includes both visual and audio components -- in particular, of course, movies and games. The audience processes visual and audio together as a unified experience, so it behooves us to consider them both as a unified field. Plus, multimodal interaction and communication can enhance or surpass visual-only; again, motivating study of the modes together. In a different vein, considering sound and images together opens us to artistic directions such as the Visual Music focus in this year's Computer Animation Festival. And not least, creating and editing music and audio define an open important area in interactive techniques.

On a personal level, even though my main professional area is computer graphics, I've long had a connection with music: As an amateur musician, having played rock drums for over a decade and classical piano since childhood; as a technologist, having built an analog synthesizer in high school, and more recently co-edited a book about digital audio; and simply as a fan. Furthermore, since childhood I've loved music combined with animation, in works such as the Merrie Melodies cartoons, Fantasia and Allegro Non Troppo. Of course, I'm not alone -- many others in the SIGGRAPH community similarly have their own personal connections to, and love for music.

I should point out that while this year we're highlighting games and audio as special focuses, we think that they will soon simply become part of SIGGRAPH without any extra emphasis needed.

BD: And having Randy Thom, a sound pioneer, as a keynote speaker certainly ties in with this.

RB: Yes indeed! In particular, Randy is a proponent and leading practitioner of integrating sound with visuals from the start as a part of storytelling, rather than simply slapping on "sound effects" at the tail end of the production process. And in recent years he has also been working on sound for games, so it all ties together.

BD: Let's discuss the continued expansion of the Computer Animation Festival. This year, you're introducing Real-Time Rendering and Visual Music, again a further emphasis on music. Tell us about these and what else we can look forward to.

RB: A very important area of computer animation is animation rendered interactively in realtime, such as in games or scientific visualization. There have been great advances in the quality of interactive realtime rendering from both a technological and artistic perspective. But the Computer Animation Festival's traditional theater isn't a great fit as a venue to recognize interactive realtime rendering. Recorded film reels naturally emphasize linear storytelling, and tend to reward imagery created painstakingly by teams of digital artists -- but realtime rendering is best experienced interactively, where the user controls the experience and the rendering accomplishments can really shine.

So we decided to create a festival program specifically for celebrating the best of interactive realtime rendering -- be it from games, visualization or research. The selected works will be demo'ed live in a special realtime session of Computer Animation Festival, with the jury's top selections demo'ed live as part of the Evening Theater. Furthermore, the works will be available in The Sandbox for attendees to interact with and experience on their own.

In keeping with SIGGRAPH 2009's focus on music and graphics, the Computer Animation Festival is including a section on Visual Music, the artistic genre of the combination of music with animated imagery, as well as other works such as music videos that combine music and imagery to create captivating multi-sensory experiences.

Other things to look forward to in the Computer Animation Festival? A variety of sessions, talks and panels and special guest speakers, ranging from behind-the-scenes looks at the latest animations and [visual] effects, to presentations on topics such as urban design and the use of GPU engines in filmmaking. Plus, there will be a day devoted to stereoscopic 3-D. Screenings all week in the large theater featuring the juried competition films. And, of course, the Evening Theater showing the "best of the best" in a new format that includes the Real-Time Rendering demos, a juried films reel and a curated films reel.