Computer Animation Festival, Pixar, ILM and James Cameron - Report from SIGGRAPH

Friday -I got to see a re-showing of the entries for the Computer Animation Festival, today. It's great to see such jaw-dropping visuals on a huge screen, like the Nokia Theater. There were many shorts that I felt were noteworthy for their overall visual style and storytelling ability. Our Wonderful Nature: The Water Shrew was hilarious to watch. As was Chump and Clump. I definitely agree with the winners of the Student Prize category. The style and visual appeal of 893 was breathtaking. It was hard to look at that short and remember that it was made by students.

The Nokia Theater also hosted three Studio Nights this week. Tuesday, Pixar showed Frederic Back's The Man Who Planted Trees and had a short talk session with Back and John Lasseter at the end. Afterward, Leslie Iwerks's The Pixar Story was screened. It was really exciting to get to see the history of Pixar and John Lasseter in-person in the same night. Wednesday, Sony Pictures Imageworks hosted A Tribute to Stan Winston. Most notably, James Cameron was there to share stories of his collaboration with the iconic effects artist. He ended the night by screening the Blu-Ray enhanced Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Thursday, Lucasfilm hosted the pre-premiere screening of Star Wars: Clone Wars. Before the screening, we got a little insight to the background of the making of the film and series from John Knoll, a VFX supervisor at ILM, and Dave Filoni, director of the Clone Wars series.

This week, I got to see in-person a lot of the people and technology that are that backbone of this industry and make it great. The knowledge and memories gained in these few days will stick with me forever, and I can't wait to repeat it. See you all next year in New Orleans!