Too much work, too little sleep. So many friends, old and new. Amazing things flying on the big screen. This is VIEW Conference 2009. But everything has a price, like not being able to make it for the first session in the morning.

Since in one of my many past lives I also taught computer graphics to American architecture students in Rome, I have quite an interest in 3D applications for modeling and visualization. So, with another coffee, I attended the Workshop: “Using Google SketchUp for Design and Geo-Modeling: A Beginner's Course” with Mike Springer, Software Engineer at that small, un-known, provincial company named Google.

SpongeBob SquarePants’s been around for either a decade or ‘eleventy-seven’ years, depending on whether you go by the calendar or by the irrational number thrown around in the absorbent and yellow and porous one’s tenth anniversary special, Truth or Square.

 Scooby Doo aside, I can’t think of another TV cartoon character who’s broken into the mainstream with the same staying power as the classic Warner and Disney characters. The Flintstones and Scoob may be fondly remembered by many, but when was the last time you completely cracked up watching them? (For me frankly, never.)

Apart from laughing at the nonstop gags, I completely lost it at least four or five times during the special, which juggles two plotlines: the sponge and friends preparing for the Krusty Krab restaurant’s eleventy-seventh anniversary, and a live-action parallel story (rivaling some of SCTV’s more inspired episodes in sheer goofballiness) following Patchy the Pirate’s flop sweat-drenched attempt to put together an all-star salute to the Sponge.

The VIEW Conference 2009 [http://www.viewconference.it/] is the 10th International Computer Graphics Conference, which started on November 4^th and will last until the 7^th of November 2009. It's held in the beautiful city of Turin, in the north of Italy, where I had the pleasure of attending this event, now for the fourth time.

Previously I have had the opportunity to tell the wonderful series of events happening at the Torino Incontra Conference Center to a magazine, a blog, and a CG portal. This year I have the great honour to talk to Animation World Network's readers.

The sparkling energy behind VIEW is Maria Elena Gutierrez who is driving a group of partner institutions, private and public sector, in investing in innovation and knowledge-sharing in the field of Technology and Creativity.

We are entering PETE in festivals to take advantage of her shelf life. In the meantime, I am working on other projects - preproduction and scripts.

a bit of time in Central park

 

The Diamond Dust Rebellion looks into the past of a character whose popularity rivals that of Ichigo himself: Toshiro Hitsugaya. An artifact called the “King’s Seal” is stolen under his watch, and consequently he and Squad 10 are put under suspicion. As it becomes evident that the thief is a soul reaper from his past, Hitsugaya’s silence ultimately demands a warrant for his arrest!

 

IT WAS A GREAT NIGHT!

Here is some footage I took at the premiere of PETE’S ODYSSEY. It has the students, Michelle Armstrong singing and a snippet from PETE - shot off the screen.

 

Okay, in case someone out there doesn’t know the story of Renton Thurston, here it is. Flash forward 10,000 years. A sentient being has merged itself with the Earth, forcing humanity into space. On a terraformed planet teenage Renton dreams of lifting (surfing invisible waves in the air caused by a substance called trapar) and achieving a bigger, better life, like the kind his lifting hero Holland and the surfing, subcultural crew Gekkostate live everyday. All that changes when the Nirvash, an advanced bio-mecha unit, and its pilot Eureka crash into his life. 

 

OIAF is a huge event, with lots of activities in numerous venues. As the festival came to a close on Sunday night, it was a pleasure to be able to sink down into the seats of the ByTowne Theatre and watch the Best of the Fest – the award-winning animation shorts.

In my humble opinion, the quality of the animated entries surpassed 2008. Perhaps it is the passion and vision of young student filmmakers that freshened the fare.

The Adobe Prize for Best High School Animation was awarded to Did U See That? by Yuri Rhee, Ha Jung Kim, Paul Kim and Hyun Jung Lee, Korea Animation High School, South Korea. The black-and-white lines of this animation were simple and the story was too – about a young boy haunted by the appearance of a menacing sea turtle and flying hogs. The teen goes to the authorities to report what he’s seen, and is promptly locked up in the loony bin. However, his psychiatrist soon discovers that pigs do fly.

The Best Undergraduate Animation prize went The Terrible Thing of Alpha-9! directed by Jake Armstrong, School of Visual Arts, USA. This short had real comic-book space adventure sensibilities in its design and storytelling. It was also an engaging shaggy-dog story, with the shaggy dog being a goggle-eyed alien monster instead of a mutt.

The Best Graduate Animation award was given to Lebensader, directed by Angela Steffen, Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemburg, Germany. This beautifully rendered animation makes bold use of brilliant, flowing colors as a child regards a leaf and witnesses the interconnection of all living things. The animation design has strong kinship Canadian native art styles – simple at first glance but increasingly complex as the eye takes in all the nuances of the presentation.

WHAT A NIGHT THAT WAS!!! An event we will remember for years. For me it was gratifying to see the students again. When you do a project like this you tend to form bonds with your co-workers.

 

 

The much beloved Honey and Clover is the story of Takemoto, Mayama, Morita, Hagu, Ayumi and their transition from art school to post graduate, adult life. I say much beloved because this manga and anime series is immensely popular in Japan.  The manga, created by Chica Umino, won the Kodansha Manga Award, and then sparked not only an anime series, but also a live-action feature film and dramatic television show.