Moving Makes You Question Moving

The amazing thing to me about moving is that every aspect of it makes you question why on earth you ever undertook the ridiculous venture in the first place... Why am I moving again? Why can't I just leave everything where it is? It is not bothering anyone! It makes you say to yourself "I am not so sure that humans are inherently nomadic afterall!" Even in the comfortable circumstances that I found myself in today, where I had a representative from a company whose sole job it is to take your 'stuff' from one location to another directing the entire process, I found myself wanting at every moment to just light everything on fire so that I could say "whoops! I guess there's nothing to move then! eh?" Stuff. Even though the moving guy told me that we have "less than average" for a married couple I can't think that we have anything but too much of it! It is indeed a hilarious contradiction that when you are staring at all your stuff, displaced from it "place in the world," and struggling to come to grips with the enormity of your materialism, that you somehow come to legitmize every last thing you have. "Hey man, I need that stuff!" "People should never be defined by their stuff" I say to myself. But then again, have we not always? Do cave paintings qualify as stuff? Do Haida totems classify as the Haida's "stuff?" Seems weird to say that my new television and DVD recorder are on the same fundamental level as a totem pole. But, hey, maybe they are? The problem is that stuff keeps people in place. People should have the freedom to move, the freedom to roam without limitations, and national borders, etc. And maybe they would... if it weren't for all their stuff.

The Ghetto-copter Flies At Night!

Last night I woke up abruptly to the "chop! chop! chop!" sound of a Los Angeles Police Department Helicopter flying low over Venice Beach. I suppose it was my fault for having the window on the south side of my apartment open, but nonetheless, the sound was really loud and it woke me up. I went to the window and since my apartment is sort of higher up on a knoll in Ocean Park I could look down on Venice Beach. Sure enough there was the much heard about but seldom seen"mysterious ghetto-copter." It arrived to the scene of an ongoing crime like a ficticious beast descending on its prey. Cherry top lights flashing in the night gloom with a big bright beam cutting downward to earth through the amber haze searching the ground below. It went around and around and around. Occasionally some kind of announement would spew forth like "Do not attempt to run! The dogs are trained to bite!" Circling and circling it carried on for sometime and it was a while before I dozed off to sleep once more. When I woke up in the morning, I was still wondering if the surrealism of the images from the middle of the night were at all real... A strange, but apparently "essentially L.A." experience. I believe I'll be just fine with leaving Los Angeles without seeing the fabled "ghetto-copter" again, thank you very much! Spooky man!

How to Disarm a Cheeseball

So I went to the flat of my fantastic Quebecois friends Nathalie and Mathieu on Friday night. They were having a bit of a "wine and cheese" type of get together on their monstrous deck overlooking the harbour in Marina Del Rey. Of all the entertaining incidents that occurred as the evening passed none was more entertaining that the slaying of an unknown, delinquent and disowned cheeseball by our hero Marc Rubone. The esteemed Marc Rubone, compositing wizard at Rhythm and Hues Studios, following the consumption of what I believe to be one too many "vodka and redbulls" (yes, I said it was a wine and cheese party) made the startling realization that said cheap Cheddar cheeseball (brought to the party by an as yet to be made known guest) still lingering on the cheese plate was "giving him attitude." It is indeed a little difficult to understand what, if any, attitude a cheeseball could project, however, I believe it may have "looked at him funny." In the ensuing face-off Marc attempted to ascertain the cheeseball's point of origin by direct interrogation ("Duuuude, like, where are you from?") however, when this failed to yield appropriate results, he was forced to "take him out" medieval-like and pulverized the cheeseball with a shot glass and the used rind of a lime. As best as I can describe it, the scene was like a "never before seen" footage out-take from the film "Animal House." A la "Blutowsky kills the cheeseball." Fortunately for all those present, the cheeseball did not put up a fight. Things ended rather unceremoniously as Mr. Rubone proceeded to pontificate about "cheddar cheese as a metaphor for production values on the Chronicles of Narnia." But I digress... Thanks to Nathalie and Mathieu for letting Blutowsky in the door!

Pictures From Burning Man

Click here to see some amazing photography from the site of the Burning Man Festival, or gathering, or whatever these modern day hippies call it... Some crazy stuff happening out there in the desert it seems! I am fascinated by the creative outpouring of energy some people put into this event. You'd have to be so committed to build some of these objects and installations. And how much sense does it make to just go out there and burn them afterwards! Don't really know much about the festival aside from the fact that it began when I guy built an effigy of his ex-girlfriend on the beach in California somewhere and then burned it. Uh, yeah. I think it just grew from there into this strangely modern pagan burning ritual, a cleansing type of thing, as flakey as that may be. Who knows when it moved to the desert. Check out the "shark bus." Weird.

A Place To Put On The List...

This past weekend Meg and I made a whirlwind road trip from Vancouver east into the mountains of south-eastern British Columbia to the lovely town of Nelson and back. We went to the Kootneys for the wedding celebration of our friends Carmen Stephen and Nilesh Patel who decided to have their ceremony in the "Jewel of the Kootneys" in order to collect friends and family from far and wide... The wedding itself was a beautiful and unique combination of an East Indian ceremony and a Western Civil ceremony at a large mansion (built ages ago by some big mining executive so-and-so) overlooking Kootney Lake. It was a lot of fun to see my beautiful Megcita dressed up in a sari for the ceremony. It really suited her well! And I had a fun time running around with a video camera as a favour to the groom. Nelson has a bit of a history as a "hippie town" now as a result of being the small town of choice for American "draft dodgers" wishing to "disappear into the woodwork" in British Columbia during the Vietnam War era. They went to hide from "the man," work at the mill, and grow pot. They are still there, and still growing pot, though the mill has disappeared in favour of a booming tourist trade (which looks very good on the area incidentally, in both summer and winter high seasons). Nelson is more posh now than in days of old I imagine. You can get a proper cafe there now, organically grown and fair traded beans of course, and not just diner food for lunch. There is a decent Mexican food restaurant and a funky place called "The Preserved Seed" which uniquely offers food prepared exclusively with raw ingredients grown on their own farm. Ridiculous, of course, when there is such great organic produce in the area, but amazing nonetheless. And not a fast food chain in site! Yeah! The town is gentrifying as word of its "higher than average sophistication for a small town" gets out, but it is still a very laid back feeling place despite the new influx of cash. And it still suffers from that slightly depressed feeling of a place where legitimate and continual jobs are few and far between. As well, the "hippies" have changed a lot and now can be more accurately described as ski or mountain bike bumbs, no-ambition potheads, and people "finding themselves" while sampling the historical significance of the place rather than the challenging folks of the past. That being said, I would far rather spend my holiday time with the delightfully deluded than the redneck infantry so common in more off the beaten path areas of the province, and the average Nelson-er seemed to me to be a very genuine, slow moving, and happy type who made us feel very welcome. Fine by me! Meg and I nearly instantly began to speak about coming back up there next summer to spend a little more time in the area. Perhaps we too will become part of the growing trend soaking up what Nelson has to offer on a somewhat annual basis... for better or worse as I am sure the locals will say.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Powered Bicycle!

Click here to check out a really cool lookin' hydrogen fuel cell powered bike! Looks pretty slick... The idea certainly is interesting as an alternative to gasoline, however, as The Rasch Factor says:

"Now all we need is a cheap source of Hydrogen. Doesn't it strike you that fuel cells are just high power batteries, rather than an alternative energy source? There is a future for nuclear power yet, but maybe not for commuters. What will happen to the suburbs when the oil runs out?"

I think there is definitely something to this last comment. It struck me while living in Madrid (a city of 4 million plus with an amazing Metro system built on the spine of the dense medieval core of the city) how this old European city could possibly be a model for cities of the future, belying its obvious past. My observation was based on the centralized nature of the city which is very common to cities in Europe. The actual foot print of the city is so minimal that in such a large urban city it is so easy to get around! People don't give a thought to going across town because the Metro works so well. Sure, there are taxis for trips out of the ordinary, etc. But if you added to this an extensive bicycle path network, you'd have an even cleaner city! As well, the amenities are spread so evenly (almost every street seems to offer what you need...) that the necessity to travel great distances is dramatically reduced. That being said, I do remember flying into Madrid in August and I was shocked by the grey-purple thick cloud of haze hanging over the city... The light was cutting through it at sunset, and it looked pretty, but still this was evidence of a very bad pollution problem. I am thinking this has more to do with the type of engines used in Europe in addition to numbers of cars. I guess what I am saying is that the 'building blocks' for a more sustainable system are all there in this more dense model. If distances are shorter, then the transit become that more easier! Whereas in the North American suburbs... An even greater problem is looming! As Niall says:

"As for the oil running out, it won't need to *actually* run out to cause huge problems - our oil requirements are steadily increasing, so as soon as supply fails to keep up with that demand (i.e., when global production peaks), we'll see huge changes. There are indications that peak production is likely to come in the next few years. Put it like this, unless you're a millionaire, I'd enjoy cheap air travel while it still exists..."

At the very least, Vancouver has a 'chance' to get ahead of the curve on this due to the fact that there exists reasonable public transit and a centralized core (though an argument can be made to counter both of these claims I am sure). A place like Los Angeles that is so locked into it's future as a suburban experience is doomed. No public transportation to speak of, and worse, no will to develop one. "Gimme mo dat bling bling baby!" is seemingly the only thing on people's minds down here! Perhaps they should be checking out the ENVY from some of that shine...

Finalmente, Megcita Esta En Vancouver!

After 26 months living abroad, firstly in San Francisco, secondly in Madrid, and finally in Los Angeles, my Megcita has returned to Vancouver. And carrying my "little package" home with her as well! I am pleased to say... She flew home with Lucy today who has been visiting us here in Los Angeles for a few days. So, with her trip today, Meg and I are one step closer to becoming full time Vancouverites once again! Some have asked "why the temporary separation... Yet again?" Well, sometimes life just conspires again you I guess. Meg is beginning to teach full time for the fall semester at Stratford Hall School, and this necessitated a mid-August return date for her (in addition, we have Carmen and Nilesh's wedding to attend this weekend!). The only real way for her to get set up with a part time gig for the next few years was to take this opportunity now. As for me, I signed onto this film which completes post production in October. So basically, in order for both of us to manage those commitments we will have to spend some time apart. I am hoping to get a trip in sometime late September that will ease the pain so to speak, but we'll have to see what happens with the ole film's schedule here. Things will undoubtedly be uber-busy for both of us over the coming weeks with my project finishing post production and Meg's school year beginning... Let's just hope that the time flies right by! Wish us luck!

SIGGRAPH 2005

Yesterday, I lost my "SIGGRAPH virginity," as the computer geeks say. It was my first trip to the conference of conferences in the computer graphics world. Well, hardly a trip I suppose, being that I am in Los Angeles these days. Although, the insanity on the Los Angeles freeways traveling between the tranquil confines of Marina Del Rey to the ugly core of the city has got to count for something! 10 lanes of freedom baby! I had the afternoon off from production on "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" to head to the Los Angeles Convention Center to check out all the latest whizzle shnizzle from both the software vendors and the companies represented at the conference. All in all, not a bad way to spend the afternoon. However, I have to say if I heard the phrase "and all these eye-popping fantastic bug-free features for only 795 US doh-lairs!" one more time I think my head would have exploded. I suppose that if you go to your first SIGGRAPH conference after 9 years of experience working in computer graphics, the latest of the latest of the button pushing doesn't quite grab you in a way it once did! Of course, there were a ton of impressive innovations. So, I suppose I should mention a couple.

I was really impressed with a demo of the camera and 3D mapping tools in Digital Fusion compositing software by Eyeon Software Inc. The ease of creating a pseudo 3D environment from stills with which you could create realistic, believable camera moves was a pleasure to see from an artist's standpoint. Not at all a complex "wow, look at that!" type of feature, just a truly useful and direct way to make images. What a great tool for ease of creating matte paintings! When I was at The Moving Picture Company we had a nifty MEL script that exported simple geometry in a script file that could be read into Shake to allow mapping of images on "3D planes." But, it was a bit clumsy and took a lot of fiddling in a non-artistic way to get the results. The Digital Fusion system seemed really direct and easy to set up some complex multi-planing images. Still, I am not a Digital Fusion user, so I could have just been impressed by all the flashy-flashy of the demo.

The other software I thought looked useful and impressive was ZBrush by Pixologic. I guess this is new to me being that I am not a real modeler, but still it seems to be another tool that was pushing the "intuitive envelope." Direct artistic access being the theme. Although it looked like the results were somewhat "impractical" from a production standpoint, in that they were invariably massively dense, there relative ease of creating detail and quickly fleshing out a model seemed extraordinary. I got the impression that a lot of folks were using this tool as a way to make high resolution models for illustration or concept art. Pretty nifty!

And, of course, it was cool to see the latest that the Massive Software people were developing. I will have to get my hands on a copy of Massive to learn a bit more about it. It was also funny to be sitting at the Massive booth watching a 10 meter tall floating head of Jordi Bares talking about how great the software was... Jordi is omnipresent! Being able to realistically manufacture and orchestrate crowd animation is such a huge component of computer graphics work both large and small these days that the contribution Massive has made to the medium can not be underestimated.

I suppose that the best thing about going to the exhibits was running into people I have worked with in the past and not seen for a while. The craziest thing happened when I pulled out my phone to give my buddy Blake a quick call (he is setting up his own boutique studio in Los Angeles and I wanted to see how he was doing) and literally as I said hello he said "dude I am looking right at you!" So weird! And that was my first SIGGRAPH!

"Okay, now say something!"

Last night I got a call from Meg's Dad who at the time was standing in the backyard of the family house in Vancouver celebrating the fact that he was visiting with his cousins from Spain who he has not seen in 50 years. Civil wars have the tendency to do that kind of thing to people. Tragic, but there they were nonetheless, in a place they could not have imaged they would ever met, and at a time in their lives that at one time they may not have thought they would see. There was probably a dozen people out there, eating, drinking, and enjoying the summer evening in the little courtyard that Meg's parents have created over the years. Meg's Mom, her aunt Lynne and uncle Pedro, and family friends Sharon and Paco, and a few others, I am not sure exactly, but it sounded like there was a hundred people partying up at storm! And of course, without so much as a proper introduction, Meg's Dad shouts into the phone "okay, I am gonna pass the phone... now say something in Spanish!" And the next thing you know I am on the phone with Primo Marcelino from Madrid, who I have never spoken a word to in my life (for some reason unbeknownst to me, when never had a chance to meet when I was in Madrid) and he is asking me in the most perfect posh Madrileno accent "so, like, what do you think about Madrid man?" As I struggled through my best Vallecano Spanish to answer him, I could hear Meg's uncle Pedro in the background yelling over and over again "la comida aqui es de puta madre!" Which basically means "the food here is the phookin' best!" Anyway, complete and total "family chaos" and I miss it terribly! Good thing I am on the way home!!!

El Jordisimo!

Click here for a link to the newly updated online portfolio of mi amigo en Londres Big Jordi "El Jordisimo" Bares Dominguez. I was just "checking in" with Jordi myself and found myself happily exploring around his site. Some really cool work here in the commercials and music video sector that he has done as a key figure in the computer graphics team at The Mill in London. Disregard all the humbleness you read here, Jordi is a mover and shaker extraordinare in the post production community in London. In fact he is a "developer" of sorts and the kind of person whom you see as a "floating head" on a gigantic screen at SIGGRAPH yacking about the latest innovations in 3D software. Although not quite as tall as me, he's still a pretty cool guy because he is engaged to my little amiga from Barcelona - Elisenda Faustino Deu. Not only that, but he let me crash in his spare bedroom at a time when I really needed a place to stay! That's what friends are for!!! Check out his work...