VFX SOUP Website

A special "gracias amigo" goes out to THE SUPER G for hooking me up for a chat with local Vancouver visual effects celebrity Mark Breakspear, who is currently toiling as a Visual Effects Supervisor at Rainmaker. Mark put me onto his website called VFX SOUP where he hosts an informal forum all about our ridiculous obsession! There are some excellent resources there and I encourage you to drop in and take a look! Okay, okay, I am a total geek... come on! It's OSCAR night! Gimme a break!

Los Brasilenos Versus Les Quebecois

Last night I met some of my old friends from my days at Mainframe Entertainment. Animation directors Andrew "The Monkey" Duncan and George Samilski, production designer Casey Kwan, and Uber Technical Director Steve "Grapes" Sauers. The occasion was that Mr. Sauers was visiting Vancouver from San Francisco (where he does some dodgey work for some dude named Lucas) and George thought that it might be a good idea to meet at this Brasilian place called "Samba." I knew something was up with the place when I arrived ahead of the other guys and took a seat at the bar. I was greeted by three gorgeous women with over-the-top carnival outfits featuring all the feathers and what not. Let's just say that there was a whole lot of shaking going on!!! They were accompanied by this cheesey DJ with a thin felt marker mustache and eye-liner. He was saying things like "here's one for all you beach mommas ready to strut your stuff!!!" And then he played this crazy samba music so loud you could hear it on the moon! When the boys showed up we dug into the salad bar and all-you-can-eat Brasilian meat barbeque. Basically what happens is the waiters come around with huge skewers with all manner of grilled meats. Organic beef, ostrich, lamb, venison, etc. You name it, they had it! I kept wondering what my Brasilian friends Andre "El Camaro" De Souza and Roberto "The Hunk 'O Burnin' Love" Hradec would think of the place. I decided they'd love it! how could they not! So we proceeded to geek out talking all about "the good old days" at Mainframe, and pig out on Brasilian barbeque! When we left I couldn't help yelling "falou tchau!" at the tops of my lungs! Later on, I met up with Megcita and her friends Carmen and Silvana at a Quebecois Cafe called La Zidanie where they were soaking up a little live music and Maudite. In fact, by the time I got there they were looking like they'd had a healthy sampling of all manner of the fine Quebecois ales that they have available at the cafe. Not to mention a helping of "poutine!" Fortunately for me, I didn't arrive too late for the desert! Tarte du sucre and crepes avec le sirop d'erable and coffee. Amazing! I was thinking that this was what I should have mentioned as an answer to that frequent question while I was in Europe: but, what is Canadian food anyway? Adding to the amazing atmosphere were a couple of crazy Quebecois improvisational musicians who were playing some great tunes on an acoustic guitar and totally rocking the house! As we left I thought to myself that this kind of night was a great example of what is so amazing about Vancouver. Where else in the world can you pig out on Brasilian barbeque and follow up with tarte du sucre?

Los Angeles Bound

So looks like we are going to have to brush up on our Californian! Watz crackin yo? We ain't kickin like dat no mo! Pho sho!

We are off to Los Angeles and I am going to work at Rhythm and Hues. I picked up a lighting technical director gig on "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe." I am really excited since it is a nice project (one of the big three Christmas films for 2005 along with the fourth Harry Potter film and Peter Jackson's take on King Kong), and it will take me through to the end of October at least. The people at R+H told me that they would be busy right the way through to May 2006. So, it looks like a grand opportunity to take advantage of all that Los Angeles has to offer. With luck, we will score a pad somewhat near the beach and within bicycle commuting distance to and from work. Pretty cool, given the "drive-a-holic" culture down there.

I was really hoping that we'd land in San Francisco this year, but it looks as though we will have to delay that for a little while. I just think that Meg and I are more San Francisco type people (to say nothing of the fact that we are very Vancouver type people!). I am much more enamorate of the hippie-geek style of San Francisco than the Hollywood-smaltz of Los Angeles. That being said, I know that we will find the best of what Los Angeles has to offer. I am still pretty disappointed that I got not so much as a whisper in the wind from the San Francisco studios. I sincerely hope that this will change with the ILM move getting settled, even though it may mean less jobs, perhaps they will be more stable ones. Perhaps 2004/5 will go down in the visual effects industry in San Francisco as "the malaise before the move."

Meg is excited too. Especially about somehow getting herself some quality exposure to the Latino community in some way - teaching English, continuing to work doing translations, or even perhaps teaching Spanish in the school system. She has been talking about wanting to watch "Stand and Deliver." I am sure we will both enjoy the weather, and the lifestyle for a while, but I am sure we will miss the north in a year's time and move when opportunity strikes! Not too mention our friends and family in Vancouver and Victoria. At least we will only be a few hours away by plane! Anyone interested in a visit and some time on the beach?

The Night of the Egg Shaped Latrines

There was one night in particular during my last few weeks in Soho that was absolutely surrealistic. Well, it didn't begin that way, but it certainly ended that way! It was a the "Leaving Do" for Christoph Mattheisen my friend and fellow computer graphics world traveller from Germany who was leaving The Moving Picture Company for some down time in Germany and parts unknown after that. Anyway, it began as most leaving do's do with the consumption of alcoholic beverages and much chatter at a pub called "The Market Place" near Oxford Circus. Things were fairly normal there -- the French were snobbishly frowning on the food, the English were slobberingly smashed, the Italians were sitting in a corner by themselves gawking at a hot waitress until she figured out they, like her, were Italian and came over and said something in Italian that made them all go white, and the Spanish were wondering why their Italian cousins were such mama's boys... Normal pub stuff, you know the deal, until... Andre "El Camaro" De Souza and his devilish little Swedish/Chinese buddy Jafe showed up with two Japanese clients from Glassworks Studio. Then things got a little whacko... By this time, the place was shutting down, mi hermanita Eli was getting a little tipsy and becoming beligerant by spontaneously yelling things like "those phackin' Italian ffffaggots!" and Andre was having some strange Indian dude threaten him for absolutely no reason whatsoever, and the Italians were beconing distraught about the next day's football match in the park and so I thought "right, time for the bus..." when at this exact moment Andre (having extricated himself from the weird little Indian guy who was now threatening the gigantic bouncers on the door with physical violence) says to me "Walshman, we're goin' ta posh it up mate. Come on." What ensued was a delightfully disorganized drunken stumble to a posh Regent Street after hours club. What none of us realised at the time was that we were following the crazy Japonese guys! Don't ask me how, but somehow they managed to not only get us into this posh after hours club but straight to the back of the club and directly into a UFO-shaped VIP room. The kind of clientel in this room ranged from a Lenny Kravitz look-alike to a woman who insisted on showing the whole room her ass while asking in a thick accent "it's good isn't it?" Meanwhile, I remember seeing Andre attempting to buy a drink from a midget waiter in this sunken bar while a weird "skater boy" rubbed shoulders with him. I decided to take a back seat to the festivities and found myself having a decidedly "Lost in Translation" Bill Murray-esque moment with one of the Japonese dudes. An then, Eli walks over and starts speaking fluent Japonese to the guy! I couldn't believe it! The next moment Andre was being accused of "not being Brasilian" by some egregiously tall black woman from Brixton - he is from Sao Paulo and just stood there staring up at her with a blank expression on his face. Sooner or later the place started to shut down while some booze-hound yelled at the midget waiter "I must have more booze!" As we headed out of the club I decided to take a leek and followed the directions to the loo only to find myself in a room full of human-sized glowing eggs. It took me a minute to figure out that these were the washrooms! Thankfully the night ended with a nice walk through Soho to Bar Italia on Frith Street and there we found ourselves in an abundance of fine cafes and panini after Andre produced a 20 quid note and proclaimed "this here is some faggot quids I got for my smile." Apparently, the skater boy had taken a shine to him and slipped him a bill. We all agreed the goodies at Bar Italia were worth it.

Lo Siento Gente Estaba Incomunicado!

Sorry for not posting anything too relevant or interesting recently. Not to say that ever happens here, but... My life has been blowing by like a gail force wind these days. I have bearly been aware of the relevance of time. Which in and of itself is both a good and a bad thing. I am back in Vancouver after 6 final frantic few weeks in London finishing up my work for The Moving Picture Company on Sir Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven." It feels great to be back in Vancouver largely because the weather has been so stunning. Perfect February weather! Cold at night, down to minus 5 degrees at times, and warm and sunny in the day, up to 12 degrees. I have been out for a road ride nearly every day since coming home. This is what can be so great about Vancouver. I realise now that the past 6 weeks was a tough time emotionally for me since I was away from Megcita for much longer than we had planned, and it was not at all an ideal end to our time in Europe - with her here in Vancouver and me stuck at a desk in Soho. But, I was enthusiastic about going back to Soho to finsh the project and in the long run I think I will be glad that I did. I had a great time seeing some of my work finalised (well, sort of, a couple of my shots were still in compositing when I left!), and I had some fun times outside of work. I suppose I was lucky in that the time went by very quickly due to being so busy, and it did give me a chance to say a proper farewell to friends and colleagues that I did not have before Christmas (including a Gilliam-esque short film lampoon of my working life at MPC which was a hoot to do!). A highlight had to be the last two weeks spent living in Brixton with Jordi and Eli, my Spanish friends from Barcelona who were so gracious and kind for putting up "pobrecito yo!" It was quite hilarious to learn that my aquaintence from Madrid Luisma Lavin (who is coinsidentally also a friend of Jordi and Eli) was also visiting for a few days while he applied for work in London. This lead to some very fun times with Eli, Luisma, and also Pablo El Tufarisimo who was back from Argentina to work at The Peerless Camera Company, and of course his chica bonita Noe. There was a couple of very fun nights "charlando sobre Noe's bebidas fuertes!" at Bradley's Spanish Bar. All in all I am very gald to be back home of the west coast of Canada, and getting in touch with friends and family here. Not to mention my lovely wife who seems a bit of a stranger given recent events. Time to put an end to that! I am sure I will miss Soho in some funny ways, and of course I instantly miss all of the people who made living and working there worth it!

F/X GODS?

Here's a link to a pretty interesting survey on www.wired.com on the leaders in the visual effects for feature film industry. I like the fact that it includes the old guard, like Dennis Muren, but also highlights some of the up and coming folks about town, including smaller vendors like The Orphanage. The obvious fact that there are more and more visual effects in feature film, most of them being so called "invisable effects" that no one even notices, and that the budgets for such work have steadily risen gives me some hope that the industry will continue to trundle along at a good clip for some time yet. Yahoo!