Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Want to Live and Work in America?

Click here to read a great little article on "How to Be an Illegal Alien in the United States" by Mimi a New York Village Voice writer. Funny, and too real at the same time I think. Can you imagine working for "tips only" so as to remain unknown to the authorities? In comparison to her stories related here, Meg and I's woes are quite trivial, being well-educated Canadians who both qualify for temporary work visas in The United States under NAFTA. Aside from the rather cold, neurotic, machoistic and unwelcome reception that you seem to always receive from the border guards who process your visa, coming into The United States qualified to work is relatively painless for us. You just have to be patient and put up with the crap at the border. After that, it is pretty smooth. However, there are times that most definitely confirm in your own mind your status as "a foreigner" here.

Over the past few days Meg and I have struggled to secure accommodations in Los Angeles. This has largely been due to two things: a) higher cost than we anticipated and b) complications with the "status" of our American credit. Although I have worked in The United States legally before, and I have a United States Social Security Number, a bank account, and legal employer now, I don't yet have an American credit card. So the long and short of it is that because I don't have a track record of established debt shouldering ability people are very hesitant to rent you an apartment. They think that you either won't be able to pay regularly or are a risk in that you might take off home at any time. I got Rhythm and Hues to write a letter confirming my work status and wrote up a work history and that eventually got us approved for a place, but we had to pay what I would call a "prejudiced deposit." It not that we have bad credit, we just don't have any, and they flatly refused to look at our Canadian credit history. It was touch and go for a while there, but it looks like we're in the clear now.

Spending any amount of time living and working as a foreigner, not just passing through on holiday where you don't have to deal with the realities of life, really expands your tolerance for immigrants I think. If you're never forced to see things as the foreigner, you never will. Still, our experience in the prosperous north pales in comparison to the experience of our supposed "partners in NAFTA" the Mexicans who have to deal with whackos like this: click here!

Ben Reeves at Oakville Galleries

Click here for details of Ben Reeves' new show at Oakville Galleries. There is similar work here to the work I mentioned was on show at Equinox in Vancouver, but there is additional information about the work via a curatorial piece that is worth a read if you are interested in decifering the dense layers of meaning in Ben's work. You could also just marvel at his drawings and make up your own mind what he's on about!

Monday, March 28, 2005

The Parastone Mouseion Collection

It seems like ages ago that Neil sent me this great link to a collection of models and figurines derived from famous works of art. I have just gotten around to it today as I wait for my first shot on The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to arrive. Waiting for animation... What else is new!? I think that the Jheronimus Bosch and Pieter Breugel The Elder collections are of particular interest. I always thought it would be amazing to try to faithfully interpret the paintings of Mr. Bosch into 3D animations... A long time "personal project" idea that I have never found the time for... Ah yes, the illusive personal project time. Mysterious and nebulous as a cloud. I remember reading a couple of art books about Bosch and Breugel on the bus in Vancouver as I traveled back and forth to The Vancouver Film School, and that was back in 1996! When I was just learning 3D animation. Personal projects. My own personal fantasma.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

California Wild Flowers

Click here to see some amazing photos of California Wild Flowers. Also, here's a link to the California government's website for the area known as the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve. This year there has been so much rain in Southern California it is either the most, or second most, rainfall on record in the Los Angeles area. As a result, abnormally large numbers of poppy seeds were washed to the surface. Now that spring is arriving in Southern California they're bringing on a big show! Meg and I are going to try to head out there this weekend to snap some photos.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

My First California Earthquake!

This afternoon I was sitting at work trying to wrap my head around the rendering pipeline when I could have sworn a rhinosaurus walked by just outside the door. Little did I know I had just experienced my first California earthquake!

Monday, March 21, 2005

I've Been Hasselhoffed! For Real!

Yesterday, Megcita and I went for our first "beach ride" on the bikes. We road out north from Marina Del Rey through Santa Monica and hooked up with the paved beach riding path that goes all along the beach which was packed with folks out skate boarding, roller blading and riding bikes of all sorts. We battled a wicked (and apparently rare) head wind for 15 kms north and a little hill ride up one of the canyons leading to Sunset Blvd. It was nice, although a bit of a "couch ride" do to all the "moving targets" on the path.

As we made our way back to the Marina I noticed a couple of dudes on bikes standing and chatting to a rather tall swarthy bloke. Being tall myself, I tend to notice other tall people in a crowd. I am not sure why, maybe it is just that I am used to always "looking down on folks" that I notice when I am not. Anyway, as I road by... I look over my shoulder and right at the Bay Watch champion himself: David Hasselhoff! I was hilarious! I had to turn back and ride by again, just to be sure, and there he was just crackin' bull with a couple of dudes on the beach. I nodded and said, "hey Dave, wassup?" as I went by and he pointed at me and said, no kidding, "yo, buddy, how're yah doin?"

Add to this the fact that Meg and I had a coffee sitting next to Jean-Claude Van Damme, walked past Don Cheedle and Chris Penn, and I guess you could say we have had a real Hollywood first week in Los Angeles. Although the debate about the ills of Hollywood rages on...

Friday, March 18, 2005

My first week at Rhythm and Hues

Well, it is only my first week at Rhythm & Hues, but I thought that I would jot down a first impression. The studio seems amazing... Much better than I was thinking it would be! I think I forgot what these California studios are like! The is an absolutely obvious "positive vibe" amongst the people working here. You can just feel it in the way people walk around the place. Lots of smiles and happy faces. Maybe I missed the goofball buffet and acid punch, but it all seems very sincere as well. There seems to be a lot of depth here. A huge knowledge base that allows things to "just go well." The pipeline really feels like it has evolved on an ongoing basis each and every week. I get the feeling that once you learn the tools, you can do some great work here.

What I didn't realize when I applied here is that R&H is a nearly completely proprietary studio. They have their own software written on the premises for nearly everything, with the notable exception that Massive crowd simulation software is being used in house, and that 90% of the modeling tasks are completed in Maya. But everything else in the pipeline, including the main 3D software, the renderer, the compositing software, and tons of the usual "widgets" that production requires are all written in house. This is a direct result of the company being founded by software developers from the early days of computer graphics when you "had to" build the software yourself. Thus, I have two weeks of classroom style training that will get me up to speed. It is actually a pretty cool process, because although the basic flow of work is very similar to what I have seen elsewhere, things appear fresh and interesting as a result of seeing "similar problems solved in a way that is unique to the studio." We are literally walking through the entire production process picking up a first look at the tools everyone uses along the way. I am totally impressed as this is the first studio I have ever worked at that has had such a thorough and well run orientation.

However, I have to say that the most interesting thing I have seen yet at R&H is that the head of the studio, a fellow named John Hughes, has his huge personal collection of art work hanging in the halls! It is an unbelievable assortment of production art, paintings, prints, original cels and animation sheets, etc. A really nice environment is created by just being surrounded by this work that is there just to inspire and breed creativity. Usually, you only have work from the show you are working on - concept designs, and story boards, and so forth. But this is something completely different. It is a way of overtly saying our work in feature film visual effects is part of the greater art community and the processes are not so different. I love it!

And last but not least, the food. Every day there is a catered lunch of healthy food. I am totally impressed. The salads are free and the chocolate bars are behind glass and cost you! Just like it should be! Not only that, but there is s "serve yourself" espresso machine! I am in heaven! Need I even mention how cool some of the shots are looking so far?

Thursday, March 17, 2005

I am wearing green underpants!

From one pseudo-Irishman to the world: Happy Saint Patrick's Day people! I learned a while ago that the Gaelic spelling of Walsh is actually (strange though it may seem) Breathnach or Brannagh. In Gaelic, this means "Irish Foreigner" or "Welsh Irishman." I guess this is why the majority of the Walshes in Ireland are from the south - places like Millstreet, near Macroom, where my family originated. The south was the place that the Welsh came ashore to trade and what not and the folks attempting an invasion of jolly ole England staged their plans. I believe there were Spanish sailors who became permanent Irishmen when they were washed ashore at some point. I read How The Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill and I highly recommend it, though it seems I can't remember much now! Yeesh! Walsh is something like the fourth most popular last name in Ireland. The Smith or Brown of Ireland. Click here for a nice big picture of the Walsh family crest! Cheers, and drink up lads!

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Getting Settled? Not really...

Hey guess what? It is like 20 degrees here today! It is so weird to get up in the morning and it feels like early summer in Vancouver and we are still in March. Meg and I are trying to get settled into life here in La Ciudad De Los Angeles (so far I have refused to pronounce the "G" without a Spanish "JEH" accent!) So much to do... finding a nice two bedroom apartment pretty close to the studio and in a nice neighbourhood is going to be difficult and more expensive than I thought! Meg and I have seen a couple that are great - in the "Miami Vice" style circa 1983! But as I said, expensive. It seems that whomever promised me that LA prices were cheaper than SF was not really in possession of all the information because as far as I can tell right now things are much the same here as there. Okay, maybe a few percentage points less, but overall, not too much different. Especially seeing as we will probably not venture out of the Santa Monica and Venice Beach areas. I don't doubt that we will find something nice, I just think it will cost us a few hundred bucks a month more than we thought! We are actually waiting to hear about a flat. It is a largely "perfect" place. If we get it, which depends on a secondary credit check because we are Canadians, it will be equidistant between Santa Monica and Venice Beach in a neighbourhood called Ocean Park. There is tons of shopping and amenities nearby in walking distance and I will be almost exactly 10kms away from the studio (less than 30mins by bike). I can ride almost the entire way on bikes only path. The apartment is in an older building that is heritage and has been redone - we will have new bathroom and kitchen! With a view of the ocean! Pretty ideal! Anyway, wish us luck -- we should know by today or tomorrow. Meg has made some in-roads into teaching opportunities and with some patience and luck I think there will be tons of opportunity for her, and she is happy about that! although not looking forward "having her hands tied" with respect to getting through the credentialing process. She has seen some posts for summer classes in Spanish at a posh school in Santa Monica even! Now, in the meantime, she is looking for sub/short term which apparently doesn't take much to get going... she will have to spend some serious study time as the exams she needs to pass are kinda tough. Personally, I can't imagine having to pass grade 12 algebra again!

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

The Ultimate Grudge Match: Walshman Versus Renderman!

Well, the Pixar interview went pretty well I think, and the feedback seemed to be all positive. There were some tense moments afterwards waiting to hear if they were going to offer me a job straight away. When they called later in the day as they said they would, it turned out they were not prepared to make an immediate offer, which I completely understand. The whole interview arrangement was pretty rushed. I don't imagine that Pixar hurries into anything, let alone a contract with Donnie Walsho! So, I said thanks for the interview, and that I looked forward to the next step in the process. That is a face to face interview apparently. They said they would like to set that up for later in the year! So, understandably I am excited about that!

Sunday, the day before the interview, I headed to The Kino Cafe just to collect my thoughts. I just needed some time to myself to let a little stream of consciousness run out. At times I find this really helps and this case was no exception! I wrote something like ten pages of long hand notes on my thoughts about my work, film in general, also as it applies to lighting in particular, computer graphics, why I do what I do, why working at Pixar would appeal to me... all the things that randomly popped into my head when contemplating probably the biggest interview of my career. I felt a lot better after that, a lot more together and calm, and I hope that came across in the interview.

The interview was really interesting and engaging as one would expect. What I didn't expect was how much interest they showed in my pre-film work experience. So many questions relating to doing things on a smaller scale, without support of a major pipeline. How had I progressed to the stage of my career that I am at now, why had I succeeded in certain situations, etc. That really threw me off guard. I was expecting that they would be much more interested in my recent higher profile work.

What was amazing was listening to two lead lighters talk about what they expected from the lighting team at Pixar and how creative the job can be. They are trying more and more to remove the technical hurdles and really just get lighters to focus on the art. Something that live action lighters have been doing for years.

Overall, I left the interview feeling like I really had a great goal to shoot for and had passed the first crucial test on the way to "one of those jobs people talk about." What a blast. Here's hoping I hear from them later in the year!

Monday, March 07, 2005

Stop The Presses!

Last Friday was the craziest day I have had in recent memory. In the morning, I woke early to head out and coach the The University of British Columbia Novice Men's Rowing Crew. I rushed back home to meet the moving company people who were arriving to prepare all our stuff for the trip south of the border. That was hectic, but fine and went according to plan. So in the afternoon Meg and I went out to see the accountant (again) and the car insurance people and generally run some errands that we had to tie up before leaving for California. When I got back in the late afternoon, I was expecting an email from Rhythm and Hues about the hotel arrangements. What I found was a request for and interview from Pixar Animation Studios!

Meg says I let out some sort of primordial scream and then I just sat there staring at the screen. What did this mean? What kind of flukey timing is this? I was stunned! and I didn't really know what to do. I had thought that my application was "borderline at best," as I guess all those applying to Pixar for the first time do, and that I would for sure need to reapply again after more work "before I was good enough." I guess not. My joy at receiving a request for interview with arguably the greatest animation studio in history, which I think I rightly regard as an accomplishment in itself, was completely overcome by what I would describe as professional dread about the fact that I had sincerely verbally agreed to start at Rhythm and Hues in just a week's time and had in fact just received my TN Visa application that afternoon! That feeling of "oh man, these people will hate me, even though it was not my fault" was all consuming. I felt an immediate professional obligation to let them know I might not be showing up to work on monday, but I was handcuffed by the weekend and the fact that I didn't have an offer from Pixar yet!

Well, eventually I collected my thoughts and said well I had better call Pixar and see what's up! I was thinking it could be just a pre-interview, or an opportunity they had coming up in future. But no, when I got on the phone, sure enough the opportunity was immediate and they wanted to interview on monday. I was dumbfounded, but got my act together and told them I could interview immediately on monday morning. I hung up the phone and said to Meg, "god, I need to get drunk!" and went out to The Kino Cafe! It surely was a crazy day. Well, we'll see how it goes!

Sunday, March 06, 2005

Ben Reeves at The Equinox

Click here to see some of Ben Reeves' recent work shown at the Equinox gallery in Vancouver. Meg and I stopped in recently to check out some of Ben's painterly affairs, and as usual, we were blown away by his tremendous creativity and determination to produce inspiring works of art. He has pulled off yet another stunner. When you walk into the gallery you see what appear to be faint abstract grey fields on white backgrounds. But as you approach the works you realize that you are looking at relief drawings of... Paintings. Thus the title of the show : Drawing Painting. Ben has literally drafted in accurate relief each and every brush stroke as though the painting that he was drawing was in fact a still life. He has with graphite and charcoal described in the drawings the complex patterning of brush strokes that effectively build the paintings up from the blank canvas. The works are at once abstract and respresentational and it is this curious dialogue that I think Ben is interested in. If all paintings are in fact "built by brush strokes" which taken on their own, one by one, are completely abstract, then at what point is any work more abstract than representational? Or vice versa? It takes some time of viewing to make any sense of this dialogue, but your patience is certainly rewarded. I really liked the show, but that's not saying much, as Ben is definitely preaching to the converted with me! I whole heartedly encourage you to go see the show! If anything, you will simply marvel at Ben's mental fortitude to have stuck with a project that must have required some painstaking hours of near meditative concentration.

Coach Walsh

This week I have been helping The University of British Columbia Men's Rowing Coach, Mike "Fierce" Pearce drill the current crop of top University athletes in the program. Actually, I was trying to give the Novice Men's Crew a helping hand just prior to the spring racing season. I really enjoyed the three mornings I was on the water this week and experienced a healthy dose of nostalgia for the old days when I was super-keen and super-fit! Such fun to see a new crop of dudes out there training like mad and trying to get going fast. It was however, a classic novice rowing shmazzle! The first practice the guys showed up with only 7 rowers, not the requisite 8. What this means is that the boat is always lop sided and difficult to row. So, as a result we sent the remainder of the practice doing "drills." Really annoying if you are new to rowing and just want to get going and pull hard man! The next practice we had a full crew, but before we could get going we managed to knock the fin off (the rudder on a crew shell) and bust a rigger (the thing that holds the oar in place) during some sloppy rowing. So what did that mean? More drills. The guys were learning an essential lesson: show up with all the dudes and don't break the boat, otherwise rowing can really suck! Finally friday rolled around and we had a great "pre-race" practice. The dudes went out there and did their level best to make like Mercury motors and haul ass. All the effort had little to no effect on hull speed, but hey, that never stopped The Walshman! Thanks to Mike for letting me get involved and "give a little back" to the program. With the prospect of the new U.B.C. crew shell house being built this year, it has certainly given me pause to think about all I gained in body and mind from my formative years on the crew. It is a relationship based on pure love of the sport that brought me so much and I hope to continue it for some time to come!

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Going Wild At The Kino Cafe!

Last night we had a great outing at the Kino Cafe on Cambie Street in Vancouver. Meg and I had invited a random group of friends to come to meet us at the cafe for some "bebidas, musica y charla." The Kino Cafe is a special spot in the context of Vancouver I think because in my experience it is a rare room with all the atmosphere of a great cafe in Madrid, Barcelona, or any little Spanish town for that matter! Just transported half way around the world! Its simple low stage offers live music, it has a casual tapas menu, and drinks or coffee, dinner or desert attitude. I love the place, and especially on "Flamenco Nights" when it is packed with poeple and local purveyors of the craft take to the little stage. Last night was exceptional. A solo male vocalist, a single guitar and a single stunning and talented female dancer. They lit up the room with three impassioned sets of songs and some seriously heart warming stomping. Some of the folks who had not been there before went nuts for it and it was great to see. It was just amazing to see a sampling of people for all corners of our lives meeting together and having an amazing, fun and casual time. Although at one point, as my buddy Jeremy Mesana craftily pointed out "it looks like freakin' high school in here man! All the hot chick teachers are sitting together chatting while us chump computer nerds are stuck in the corner talking about work!" After that, he slide over to the "girl's side" and said in a sly voice "I try to pretend I am interested in what these nerds are talking about, but I am actually bored out of my mind..." What a jerk! Buckley showed up sick and left drunk and before he realised one of the hot chick teachers had the hots for him! You snooze, you lose Bucko! Miko stayed out far past his "father of two" bedtime and looked none the worse for it! Bucket (et entourage) showed up, thus completely dashing all hopes that THE G would grace us with his presense. Those two are like oil and vinegar. Bucket and Mesana insisted that we should close the place down, but after a couple of shots Bucket was slurring his words and mumbling "I gotta go home man, look at me, I am old! I should be in bed!" We had no choice but to agree! Thanks to everybody who showed up and made the night enjoyable! Here's hoping we do it again sometime soon!

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Walshman V.5.1 Released

Just a note to say that The Walshman has released a new version. This one is a slight upgrade from the last version and includes parameters for advanced realization of lions, witches and wardrobes as well as the possibility of large scale mythic warfare! So version up people!