I eased into the Siggraph thing today; this is the luxury of living in L.A., where it's being held this year.

Drove downtown in the afternoon to get my badge and attend the "Electronic Theater," which is basically a few hours worth of promo reels from the best computer graphics houses in the world—some very artsy stuff mixed in with special effects done for Lord of the Rings, Van Helsing, and the Harry Potter movies.

Last year in San Diego I wandered around with my friend Scanmaster, looking for my other friends, who were elusive. This time I found most of them the first day. As I chatted with Scanmaster's wife, the Punk Poetess, Mr. Mathematics came up and joined us. A few minutes later Professor Fractal emerged from the crowd with some of his students in tow. ("Are these your diciples?" I asked him a little later.)

The Electronic Theater was stunning, though a little long. One highlight came at the beginning, when large inflated oversized silver-matte "beach balls" were released into the audience. We eventually figured out that we were part of an interactive game in which we had to aim the balls toward certain points at the periphery of the theater in order to "win." This required some thought, and cooperation among audience members. But we eventually mastered it, and won a round or two of the game before it was on to the conventional film clips. Despite getting hit on the head once by one of these things (and thereby flashing back to P.E. in grade school), I honestly really got into this game by the time it was over. It was fun: I applauded as loudly as anyone when we won.

I'll be back there tomorrow night for a party, and I'll hit the exhibits on Wednesday and/or Thursday. Art is good, and it's great to be alive.

By the way: God bless capitalism, and—more than that—God bless those visionaries who funded the computer graphics industry back when it wasn't making a dime. We must all realize that places like Pixar were doing cutting-edge films back in the 80s before they ever saw any income from this. Even Disney, much as I love to hate it, put a lot of money into R&D in this field in the 80s. Before Terminator II made it finally look profitable, there were a lot of guys spending a lot of time making shapes rotate on black-background screens, or creating programs that made explosions that resembled plants—and vice versa.

Thank you, Gentlemen, for creating a whole industry and bringing movie special effects to a new level. Thank you, long-term R&D.

Posted by: Attila at 01:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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