Kooji does Boston - Day Four

This was the most crammed packed day out of the whole week featuring three major events: The AutoDesk User Group Meeting, The AutoDesk Party and The Chapters Party. Even though we were shattered from the night before at Lucky's Bar I was determined to attend all three events.

We started the day by taking another look at the Art Gallery and the 'Intersections' exhibition since there’d been so much to see and we hadn’t gotten round everything the day before. We then bumped into Jake again at the Education Booth who gave me a women's fit SIGGRAPH 2006 RoadTrip T-Shirt (this size is extremely hard to come by – you’re lucky to get an XL!) to accompany Johnny's and complete our His and Hers set. He offered to take us down to the Chapters Party in the AutoDesk coach later that day and we eagerly arranged to meet up later.

By the time we arrived at the AutoDesk User Group Meeting the whole place was heaving and we were very lucky to get in at all. In fact to begin with we had to sit in the aisle but after twenty minutes of this I insisted that we did a quick dash across the room to commandeer a nice bit of open floor space. (Simon Thomson and Duncan Folley later told us they’d seen us sprinting across). It’s a good job we’d done this because otherwise we wouldn’t have met J.Marshall Pittman who’s the president for an Animator’s Guild called ‘A Bunch of Short Guys’ -http://www.abunchofshortguys.com - from Dallas, Texas. This creative group supports students, educators, entertainment professionals and visual creators by providing an educational resource which focuses on career development. We exchanged business cards and he gave me a T-Shirt too which made the mad dash across the room all the more worthwhile!

The presentation lasted two and a half hours and during this time 3D Studio Max 9 was announced and we were introduced to several key speakers who demonstrated the features of both 3D Studio Max and Maya (since this year saw AutoDesk’s merger with Alias, the company which produced Maya). We were also shown outtakes, behind the scenes footage and special effects from Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest and Superman Returns.


3D Studio Max’s ability to cope with over 1500 3D characters was amazing!

The explanations for the process of creating and animating Davy Jones’ tentacle beard were astonishing.



We were then shown a demonstration using the physical attributes of cloth, fluids, and particles. A 3D model of a torso was inflated using an air pump and then exploded before us (guts and all!); it was quite remarkable and also pretty worrying. I hope Duncan isn’t expecting that level of advanced work for the third year!

The AutoDesk User Group Meeting ended with a performance of percussion music for those willing to wait behind. Most dashed to the snacks and drinks in the hall and courtyard outside.

Next was the AutoDesk Party which consisted of a large congregation out on the hotel lawn. We met a whole array of interesting individuals including Steve Stanchfield, a professor in the Animation and Digital Media department at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. Steve was a pleasure to talk to and gave us lots of advice on starting our business ‘Kooji Creative.’ http://www.koojicreative.com We were then whisked away to the Chapters Party at Roxies. At this point we were suffering from lack of sleep (plus we’d missed dinner but hadn’t noticed) but we battled on and had ourselves another great night out. We finally headed back to the hotel and concluded a very exhausting but most rewarding day.

Waiting patiently for the train in Boston’s Subway – The ‘T.’

We also chatted with Randy and Maya Rockafellow who were also travelling on the AutoDesk Coach with SEMAFX. Here they are dancing at Roxies.

>>> Kooji does Boston - Day Five

Kooji does Boston - Day Three

This was the first day of SIGGRAPH and after registering for our conference passes we went to meet Steve Wroble at the Education Booth. Steve showed us the SIGGRAPH 2006 Education Committee catalogue where my artwork features on page 18! I was really pleased to see my work in print and so I took several copies away for family and friends back home:

http://www.siggraph.org/education/conferences/S2006/SIG_ED_Catalog06.pdf

We also went to take a look at the Teapot Exhibit in the main lobby. It showcased all types including virtual teapots, teapot inspired images and interactive teapots. All pretty apt for the city of Boston I thought since it also has an association with tea along with computer graphics, multimedia and the world of art.


The main exhibition hall didn’t open until Tuesday but we had more than enough to see before then. We went along to the ‘Animation Theater’ which was part of this year’s Computer Animation Festival and we were amazed by the technological advances on show in the Art Gallery: ‘Intersections.’ There was also a retrospective exhibit featuring the work of Charles Csuri, C G pioneer. Many of the art installations allowed visitors to interact with them and we were overwhelmed by the sheer amount on offer. We played virtual table tennis with mobile phones, walked through a garden undergrowth that reacted to the pressure of our feet, rocked a baby to sleep (it was no ordinary baby mind you, it was a machine that mimicked its reactions), and we controlled miniature beings that moved in time to the rhythm of our heartbeats. It was a phenomenal sight.

We ended our day by accepting an invite to accompany Scott Dunham, Jake Pollak (who we had met the previous day) and their group from The ACM SIGGRAPH Pro Chapter in SE Michigan, also known as the SEMAFX Network (http://www.semafx.net/) to the CG Society Meet at Lucky’s Bar in downtown Boston. This was a fantastic opportunity to meet like-minded people all involved in some way with the graphic design, multimedia and creative industries. We exchanged portfolios, chatted into the wee small hours and Johnny and I even danced along to the Jazz musicians and Sinatra impersonator. Everyone we met were so friendly and they made us feel so welcome and at home. Scott even gave me an interview just as we were leaving and it’s been posted to the SEMAFX website. It was an unforgettable night.

Johhny and I with our new friend Hal Newnan (that’s our friend Scott in the background).

Lucky’s Bar: Downtown Boston. A very exclusive and hard to find bar. That’s us outside.

A very lively party.

The AutoDesk Coach.

>>> Kooji does Boston - Day Four

Kooji does Boston - Day Two

I woke up at about 5am with a feeling of impatient anticipation I can only compare to the feeling you get on Christmas Eve as a small child. Two hours later Johnny woke up and after a hurried shower we sprinted down to our continental breakfast in the hotel bar and restaurant: ‘Spuds’ and proceeded to sample the entire menu. We then spent the day familiarising ourselves with the public transportation by first heading straight to the ’Boston Convention and Exhibition Center,’ which is this years host to SIGGRAPH (after a swift pit-stop at Burger King and several drink ‘re-fills’).

On the Silver Line underground tunnel bus we overheard a group of people say they were going to the convention centre. ‘So are we!’ I squeaked. The man to our left smiled. Johnny noticed as we walked out of the station that two of them were wearing SIGGRAPH t-shirts. I looked over and commented on how similar one of them looked to Stephen Wroble (Coordinator, Interactive Media Category, SIGGRAPH Education Committee Space/Time Competition) who had first emailed me with the news that our pipeline project had been awarded second place. I had found a photo of Steve shaking hands with my tutor Duncan Folley after searching on the net for previous visits by Leeds Met to SIGGRAPH. I dismissed it as too much of a coincidence since so many people would be attending.

We were walking towards the main entrance when the man who’d smiled at me on the bus asked us where we were from (England) and why we were here (because of the award), ‘Oh, you’ll want to speak to Stephen Wroble!’ he said as he shouted after Steve. After introducing ourselves and enthusiastically shaking hands we met several members of the Education Committee including Scott Dunham (founding chair for SEMAFX and CGI Producer for Evox Productions), Jacob Pollak (also with SEMAFX and the Detroit Creative Group), Colleen Case (ACM SIGGRAPH Director for Education and who is also from Schoolcraft College along with Steve Wroble and Michael Mehall). We exchanged business cards, enthused over the week ahead, arranged to meet the following day then they rushed off to prepare the Education Booth.

We stayed to explore the convention centre for a while.

The exhibitors were still setting up when we were looking around.

‘Design, Create and Inspire,’ that’s us!

I’m no stranger to milking cows. I used to work on a farm years ago. Strange breed though, this one.

Watch your step!

Unusual surface texture this…planet Boston.

Heading towards the Seaport Hotel, World Trade Center, Boston.

After a stroll along Boston harbour we headed back to the subway (also known as the ‘T’)

...then on to the hotel, for our evening meal at Spuds. (Cheap shrimp on Saturdays!)

>>> Kooji does Boston - Day Three

Kooji does Boston - Day One

After staying up until 2am packing our suitcases, burning copies of ‘Lohner’ and portfolios to DVD, printing CD labels and desperately redesigning, printing and cutting out our business cards Johnny and I settled down for a well earned two hour nap before his brother Andrew drove us down to Manchester Airport. Johnathan is my boyfriend, business partner and a member of Leeds Metropolitan University’s Alumni. He graduated from the same degree as me (BSc Multimedia Technology) and ended his course the year I began mine. We attended SIGGRAPH together as we saw it as a chance, to not only represent our university, but to promote and celebrate all our accomplishments at the biggest multimedia event of the year.

We arrived at the airport only to be told that our flight had been delayed. This wasn’t going to dishearten us though and we eagerly took up position in the three hour queue for checking-in. To save money we had arranged to travel to Boston by a connecting flight to Newark and then on to our destination. The first flight (and the second time I had travelled on a plane) was a breath taking seven hour trip and we even saw The Statue of Liberty as we glided onto the runway!

If you squint really hard you can just make it out.

I lost my voice on the aeroplane. I’m convinced it was hiding behind the in-flight magazine next to our complementary earphones.

Once we were through customs at Logan Airport in Boston we decided to save time and frayed nerves by taking a leisurely coach ride to the Logan Express bus and train station in Woburn, just outside Boston. From here we jumped into a taxi and arrived at our hotel: The Best Western New Englander by 9pm (which was actually 2am – how misleading!). By this time my croaky voice had become nought but a whisper so we checked in at reception, collapsed on the huge King size bed in our room and drifted into a deep sleep.

>>> Kooji does Boston - Day Two