Don Hahn is just one of the top

animation pros I ran into.

written by Bill Desowitz

The second day of CTN Expo was overflowing with interest for the informative panels, some of which I couldn't even get into, so I perused the exhibition floor and walked the lobby, making new friends and running into old ones.

For instance, I met Ken Duncan and his colleagues at Duncan Studio, who most recently did the marvelous 2D work on the How to Train Your Dragon Blu-ray/DVD short, Legend of the BoneKnapper Dragon. They told me that they've done breakthrough work on integrating 2D into Maya and are working on making it available to the industry at large in the near future. More on that, to be sure.

I ran into Don Hahn, who mentioned that Tim Burton's Frankenweenie stop-motion feature was progressing well in London (early days so not much to say about the adaptation of the director's popular short other than that it will be in black-and-white and 3-D). Hahn was also pleased about the holiday DVD release of his acclaimed Waking Sleeping Beauty doc from Disney Home Ent. Hahn said that there were some nice bonus features, including deleted scenes.

Then I ran into Chris Wedge, who flew in from New York early that morning for a Q&A later that evening with Bill Kroyer. While Wedge played it close to the vest about his latest, The Legend of the Leaf Men, he positively beamed about Carlos Saldanha's Rio, which Fox releases next year on April 8. He said the animation is nearly complete for this Brazilian feast about two mismatched birds that fall in love (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway) and that the test screenings have been going well. Wedge also said that they've already outgrown their new studio in New York, but that it's great walking to work every day as opposed to the previous commute.

Chris Landreth's The Spine

Naturally Autodesk had some big announcements, including 2010 versions of Maya, MotionBuilder and Mudbox and along with new suites for digital entertainment creation and new education initiatives.

Maya 2010 has all the features of Maya Unlimited 2009 and Maya Complete 2009, including the Maya Nucleus Unified Simulation Framework, Maya nCloth, Maya nParticles, Maya Fluid Effects, Maya Hair, and Maya Fur.

My cat Dexter, doing his impression of the look the waiter at the Imperial Palace gave Max Howard after he'd inquired as to the whereabouts of the capuccino he'd ordered 15 minutes previously.

By Dan Sarto

As the week winds down and I find myself craving a simple green salad, I figured I'd share more images from my time at the festival.  Formal write-ups will have to wait until early next week I'm afraid, when I've recovered from the jet lag, the lack of sleep and the searing memory of a student film in competition depicting a man being sodomized by an umbrella.

By Zoe Chevat

On a rainy L.A. weekend in mid-November, the Burbank Marriott’s convention center was packed as young talent and seasoned professionals alike descended for the Creative Talent Network’s 3^rd annual expo. Hailing from as close as here in town, or as far away as San Francisco, Utah, and Egypt, the mob of students, young professionals, and animation fans were eager have their portfolios reviewed, browse artist’s sketchbooks, and soak up advice from some of animation’s most experienced names. While the packed convention floor played host to many kinds of exhibitors, including independent artists’ wares, studio reviewers, and cable-laded tech booths displaying the latest software, it was clearer than ever that, though the attendees might all consider themselves fans, this is no casual fan convention. An event like this aims to accommodate a broad swath of the animation community, but a large amount of its resources –and its advertising – are aimed at bringing in students. CTNX is for the young and hungry, boasting a crowd of current students and the recently graduated, who are looking at an angle into their beloved, but notoriously tough, contemporary animation industry.

Catch all the razzle dazzle from FMX!

AWNtv has posted sneak peeks of the interviews and attractions of day one through four of FMX 2010. Hear words of wisdom and impressions of the event from industry superstars like Marc Weigert, Volker Engel, Tim Sarnoff, Bruno Velazquez, David Schaub, Bruce W. Smith, Hendrickson, John Bruno, Stuart Sumida, Ben Grossman, David Sproxton, Mohen Leo, Victoria Alonso and Ed Hooks.

View them all at the FMX Channel on AWNtv!

Pervasive computing gets the upper hand.

Well, I’m torn. Shall I go to the presentation on “Hair shells and bi-quad transition rig on Shrek the Halls and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” or to the “Humanizing virtual agents: the role of speech technology in effective human-machine interaction?” All of this requires a certain mind-set. Maybe if they made a rule that titles had to be short, like “Beards and boundaries” and “Talk to me, Mac,” I would feel less anxiety about making these choices.

Don Greenberg. Courtesy of SIGGRAPH ASIA 2008.

The inaugural SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 was formally opened on Tuesday, Dec 11, in true Singaporean style: with festive opening speeches by the Conference Chair YT Lee and by distinguished government representatives.

Highlight of the opening ceremony was featured speaker of the day Don Greenberg, Computer Graphics Pioneer and Director of Cornell University. Coming from an architecture background and using some of the earliest computer science to generate his first visualizations, Don was basically marking out the new territory of computer graphics. Yes, they did use punch cards back then to feed XYZ coordinates into the computer! Courage to try out new approaches and techniques, and find new fields to apply this technology, were the driving factors for him and his peers back then in the early days of computer graphics. Don noted that large parts of the new computer science research in the SIGGRAPH community are focused in animation, games and entertainment. While the quality increases, research topics have narrowed down to a few fields. Don calls us to have courage not to be risk adverse and venture into new areas of research and interdisciplinary practice, citing examples of applications in medical technology, earthquake and tectonic research, to ornithology where he researched the potential existence of an extinct bird species.

Bringing Hollywood to Germany

Cloudy, sometimes rainy. Stuttgart, the capital of the German federal state of Baden Wüerrttemberg is once again for the next four days the global center of animation. The 14. International Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Digital Media opened its gates to the huge crowds of professionals, students, journalists and all enthusiasts, who are interested in the latest technologies, brilliant developments and in meeting and talking to the leading women and men behind the magic of animation.

Dedicated to bringing together experts from around the world to inspire, engage, teach, and astound, VIEW, Italy’s leading computer graphics symposium, proudly announces highlights from its upcoming 13th annual confab.

“This is shaping up to be one of the most exciting VIEW conferences ever,” says conference director Maria Elena Gutierrez. “We are privileged to bring two feature film directors to Torino this year, Genndy Tartakovsky and Eric Darnell. Also, the European premiere of the Pixar Animation Studios latest short, Partysaurus Rex presented by its director Mark Walsh and also the amazing Gary Rydstrom from Skywalker Sound, and director Dan Attias who shares his award-winning expertise in broadcast television. Plus, we have highly-honored speakers from the top visual effects and game development studios. And, we are offering our first Creative Bootcamp. I couldn’t be more thrilled with the program this year.”

By Mika Kennedy

Conventions (or "cons", in the fannish parlance) like Creation Entertainment's SupernaturalCon in Burbank, CA aren't looking to secure their next legion of television-watching prospectives.  They're not like San Diego's Comic-Con, with a warehouse full of vendors, promotional panels, or enticements designed to help you remember their name.  If you've been to Comic-Con in the last six years, you're there for what's to come--television's new spread of genre shows this season, exciting upcoming developments in extant genre shows, the newest set of genre tropes graving the silver screen this summer.

Supernatural's Burbank Con isn't like that, nor does it try to be.  "News" doesn't factor in, and rarely does "new" in any sense.  If anyone was there to glean some juicy spoilers, talk candidly and specifically about what the next few episodes will have to offer, they walked away empty-handed.  And if you stop to think about it, it makes sense:  within the realm of single-series fan conventions it's a sure bet that your target audience, by virtue of the rapid-fire dissemination of info via Twitter, Tumblr, and LiveJournal (the dinosaur of this triumvirate)--they already know the hottest info you could possibly offer.  There's almost no point in bringing any news to the table, because your audience already heard it from Ask Ausiello; they Tweeted a producer and received an answer; someone hiding in the bushes in Vancouver Instagrammed paparazzi photos of that day's scenes and now the entire Internet's already seen it.  Should you disregard this ineffable truth and choose to divulge something at the con, the fans on the outside will absolutely hear about it before half the audience does, thanks to the more nimble-fingered Twitterers in attendance.  And I can speak from experience on that one--the first thing one of my Internet pals said to me when she learned I'd been to the Burbank Con was, "SO YOU SAW JENSEN IN A HOODIE???"