SIGGRAPH 2010: The People Behind the Pixels
Posted in Labels: 2010, awesome, LA, Siggraph, Student Volunteer
SIGGRAPH was such an experience, now that it's over I'm kinda really sad! I'm going to miss it so much! Next year, Vancouver-- I am so there! I was there as a 30 hour Student Volunteer and I was working from Saturday the 24 til Thursday the 29th. It was my first time and I had no idea how to navigate around the LA Convention Center... but I now know it to a T, saw some awesome lectures and worked with amazing people! I met a lot of people and came out making a bunch of friends! I don't know, but the word "networking" is a dry word to me. It's nice to relate to these people in ways aside from business and actually be human and fun.
^ This this is so beat full of business cards.
^ SV Schedule
I didn't take so many photos because I was so busy most of the time, or that you weren't allowed to take photos-- so I respected that. Some lecturers I was lucky enough to catch were: Ed Catmull, Eric Goldberg, and Tom Gasek, who I was so very lucky and had the greatest pleasure to get to work with through SIGGRAPH! He's such an amazing, smart and warm person, he worked on Coraline, Creature Comforts, Wallace and Gromit and many more. I got to run around with him taking time-lapse photos and did stop-motion with a program called Dragon Stop Motion. Anyway Catmull and his Pixar crew had a few wise words;
"When something is aborted, there is a lot of emotional attachments to these projects or things-- especially the need to protect the unknown potential that it could have had. However, know that you have the strength to move on, to acknowledge what is working and to value that."
But on a lighter note Catmull said things like this;
"I knew that I liked making visuals. I was just allergic to turpentine so I could not work with oils. Now with pixels, you can't be allergic to that!"
Anyway I got to hang out with some awesome and funny people from Pixar, The Mill (who gave me their flashdrive full of their presentation and breakdowns!), Animal Logic, Nexus, Escape Studios and Rhythm and Hues! Then some days I would have 4 hours Off-Shift so this would happen:
^ One day my friends came to visit! Roger and Margolit!
^Then Craig and Matt! Psyop represent!
^ We found Post-its from Aaron Hartline an Animator at Pixar and teacher at Animation Mentor! Then he tweeted about us!
^ Awesome SV friends at Teardown!
^ One of the after-parties, I filled up on gas and came back to my car to find out everybody pitched in to help me but crammed all the money into my dashboard. I love you guys.
Yay! This week has been awesome!
Hope that you had a great time as well if you where at SIGGRAPH!
I should be updating a summary summer work post soon!
P.S. Of course I got a Pixar Renderman Teapot! Finally!
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