By Dan Sarto

18 hours in planes, 8 hours in airports, 2 hours in shuttles, all in the quest for a chance to meet some of Asia’s brightest computer graphic technologists and to once again eat roast pork overlooking the majestic Hong Kong harbor.  A worthy goal, I must say.  My trip from Los Angeles was excruciatingly long and uncomfortable.  My bag of honey roasted peanuts had to go through x-ray twice.  For 15 panicked seconds I thought I lost my wedding ring.  The kid sitting next to me on the flight from Japan knocked his tea all over my lap. The hour I spent in Hong Kong customs was made slightly more bearable by the entertaining antics of a big huge German man who screamed at the top of his lungs for 30 straight minutes, swearing non-stop at the phalanx of pint-sized policemen who tried in vain to calm him down.  They finally handcuffed him and tried to sit him down quietly on a bench, but he would have none of that, continuing to yell four-letter invectives at everyone in range.  I’m not sure if he was drunk or just off his meds but his rage enveloped the entire hall.  I fully expected him to start swatting around cops like some mythical beast from a Harryhausen film; he was so much bigger than the assembled authorities and so completely crazed. Guess he didn’t like the food on United either.

I finally made it to the hotel at 2 am, only to find that I had no room reservation and the hotel was full.  Sweet.  Channeling my inner Adam from Mythbusters, I told the young man behind the desk “I reject your reality and substitute my own. Indeed you do have a room in this hotel for me so why don’t you call whom you need to call, confer a bit, type something into your computer and then hand me my key.”   Needless to say, “a bit” became 30 minutes but he did eventually hand me a key and off I went to sleep.

 

written by Rick DeMott

CTN-X kicked off its first edition on Friday. Nov. 20^th, bringing a new animation conference to Los Angeles. In it's first year, the event had quickly outgrown its home at the Burbank Convention Center with attendees lined up to attend various standing-room only panels. As can be expected from a first time event, there were a few hiccups I heard of from some attendees, specifically regarding registration lists, but overall the event ran smoothly and was put together with an desire to give people the biggest bang for their buck. In the halls of the convention center, there were animation demonstrations from 2D artists. Panels were broadcast in the halls for people to casually watch. A pirate was on hand for artists to sketch. There was plenty to do in between panels and walking the convention floor.

Sessions ran in two rooms in either 45-minute or 20-minute intervals. In a wonderful move, participants went outside after the panel to meet one-on-one with attendees to answer their questions. This gave attendees a more intimate time with panel members and also allowed for a steady flow between panels.

 

 

Weta Digital’s Wayne Stables, Digital Domain’s Eric Nash, Pixar's Sharon Calahan, ILM's Scott Farrar, ILM's Roger Guyett, DNeg's Gavin Graham and PDI Founder Glenn Entis are some of the speakers slated to present next week at VIEW, Italy's largest computer graphics conference.

The 2010 SIGGRAPH Art Gallery has done away with the old phrase “look but don’t touch.”

The 14 juried pieces exhibited this year absolutely require human interaction with a focus on haptics (touch).  Richard Elaver from Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne has taken the cross disciplinary theme of Leonardo and applied it to the selection process for the exhibits on display.  Leonardo is a journal that has a philosophy of combining science, technology and art.  Leonardo can be explored at www.leonardo.info.

Richard comes from a traditional art background of metalsmithing and jewelry making.  He was always chasing new techniques and looking for different ways of doing things.  Technology is fine, but there is something satisfying about working with materials.  As a boy, when the others were making snowmen, Richard made a six foot toilet out of snow in his parent’s front yard.  Certainly that was different, more importantly, it was a combination of science and technology to produce art.

A wonderful surprise waited for me Saturday morning, when I went seeing the boys. Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman had been with me through my entire life. I listened to their songs, from Winnie the Pooh and Jungle Book, from Mary Poppins through to Aristocats. All I knew about the artists, that they were brothers, had written unbelievable amounts of music and lyrics, had a close relationship to Walt Disney and that they had also composed the music for “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” which is no Disney movie! Little did I know that there is so much more.

Opening on April 2nd and closing on April 5th, Cartoons on the Bay debuted in their new, more post-MIPTV friendly location. Now held in the three towns of Rapallo, Santa Margherita Ligure and Portofino, the festival is just one jaw-droppingly stunning ride away from Cannes. Hugging the coast, we went past such varied sights as Monte Carlo and its harbor of yachts, vineyards, old churches and towns clinging to cliffs and tucked in private valleys with sea views. Going, we were in a bus…and that took a few hours… but on my way back to the Nice airport I was in a car and that drive, my friends, was very fast courtesy of a driver. Even including the coffee stop, I think we made record time! The festival is mainly focused in Rapallo with only one location in S. Margherita, a grand old building on a hilltop surrounded by a garden.

 

By John Gaudiosi

 

E3 brings the world’s attention to videogames for one week out of the year. This year’s show featured a brand-new portable gaming device from Sony, codenamed NGP, as well as the next console from Nintendo, codenamed Project Cafe. But it was the games, more than anything else, that took center stage in Los Angeles. And with the current generation of consoles showing their age, PC games will shine brighter than ever this year.

“I expect to see a bit of a renaissance in the PC games space over the next few years,” says Todd Hollenshead, president of id Software, which had RAGE at Bethesda Softworks’ E3 booth. “We’ll see more PC-focused games as opposed to multiplatform games because of the faster speeds of the processors and the accelerated graphics. A lot of the coolest technology only works on a PC.”

There were hundreds of games on display at E3 this year, but we’ve selected five titles that stand out from the crowd. For attendees at the show, these are some of the big games that people will be talking about long after the glitz and glamour of the convention is over.

 

By Emily Wong

Hong Kong Animation Filmmaker Society

Animation is not an opinion - it is an event, the event is to amaze, to entertain, to enjoy and to understand. Recently, an event “60 Years of Hong Kong Animation” exhibition was held in Hong Kong. When we look back, there were wonderful animation artworks and effects works that had been done. But it is so far not quite enough! While we review and we celebrate what had been before, but like many other animation communities in the world, animation in Hong Kong is highly underutilized

Stop the printing machines! Hold everything! I have seen the film of the festival.

Sorry, but I am still under heavy shock and I think my feel-good hormones are still busy on the merry-go-round called my brain. And this happens only, when I see a truly overwhelming film.

It had been an already busy day full of big events, when we, me my friends and I went to the Grand Salle, sat down and saw “Mary and Max.” And this one hour and 32 minute long stop-motion movie turned out to be an outstanding, brilliant movie, which has to, which must, which will win the Cristal for best feature. The Clay Puppet-Movie tells the story about a strange and bewitching pen-pal friendship between two very different people: Mary Dinkle, an 8-year-old Australian, and 44 year-old obese Jewish American Max Horowitz. Based on a true story, the funny heartwarming film was written, directed and designed by academy award winning artist Adam Elliot from Down Under, who already enchanted us with his four short films, the trilogy “Uncle”, “Brother” and “Cousin” and of course the beloved “Harvie Krumpet”.

If you haven't heard about the amazing Totoro Forest Project fund-raising exhibition/auction, which will be held Sept. 6^th at Pixar, then you are missing out on some fabulous artwork being sold for a great cause. Spearheaded by Pixar art director Dice Tsutsumi, the event features artwork from some the top animators and illustrators working today. The proceeds will go to helping preserve the Sayama Forest, an 8750-acres urban forest in Tokyo. The woods inspired Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece My Neighbor Totoro and the Totoro no Furusato Fund has been the Oscar-winner's most cherished charity for years.