Le Ovo

We took a fieldtrip with our students to see Cirque du Soliel’s Ovo in San Jose. The show was entertaining, creepy, and wondrous all wrapped up into a big egg. I took this photo while people were entering and finding their seats, and right before one of the ushers told me photography wasn’t allowed inside the big top. I would have loved to have been able to shoot during the show – the characters, lighting and shadow play were fascinating. As it was, I had to just relax and let them take me on the journey. Sometimes I forget that not taking pictures can be rewarding, too.

Jim Cameron on stage

Sunday night was the annual VES Awards. This year we honored Jim Cameron with the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Ed Catmull with the Georges Melies Award.

Bill Paxton did the introduction, which was part honor and part roast (“Jim calls his parents on his birthday to congratulate them.”).

Read more about the Visual Effects Society.

Milk, food coloring, soap, plus a crop and white vignette in Lightroom. The shading around the edges is courtesy of the cup.

Ron Diamond of Acme FilmWorks brought his Animation Show of Shows to Electronic Arts today. The 85 minute show included 11 different shorts, plus a Q&A session with two of the directors afterward. Koji Yamamura (left) directed “Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor”, and Alexi Alexeev (center) directed the (very) short “KJFG #5.” Ron Diamond is on the right.

My personal favorite was “Keith Reynolds Can’t Make It Tonight,” which was director Felix Massie’s graduation film for his animation degree. (You can see an excerpt here.) He uses simple stick figure animation in a Sim Tower type environment with a wonderful narration voiceover.

Harter Ryan from Microsoft’s Ensemble Studios gave the opening keynote speech at ICON2008. Kudos to Harter for not using a single bullet point in his presentation (a tenet I believe in wholeheartedly, but violated myself this time). Here he’s silhouetted in front of an image of a large crowd as he discussed the potential size of the video game market. By not having text on the screen you focus on what the speaker has to say.