X-Radiation

This week is the Malt Advocate WhiskyFest in San Francisco. There are events all week long leading up to the WhiskyFest at the Marriot on Oct. 10th. I’ve got my VIP tickets and I can’t wait to taste drams from all the distillers. I’m posting a list of all the tastings after the jump. It should be a heck of a time! Let me know if you’ll be there.

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I just found Andi S. Boediman’s Blog site IDEONOMICS.  Andi runs the Digital Studio College in Jakarta and was one of my hosts while visiting there for SIGGRAPH 2008. While some of the blog is in the Bhasa languange I think it might be interesting for anyone who wants to track what’s going on in the burgeoning business of digital content creation in Indonesia. I’ll create a perma-link in the blog-roll.

There’s an AnimationMentor.com student named Chaitanya Limaye who attended my presentation in Pune, India. After the presentation, Chand and I viewed his work from the Mentor program. As it turns out, my friend Joe Mandia is his mentor. Small world!

Link to Chaitanya’s blog

Debate Transcript

Biden fell into this web spun by Palin’s coaches:

At the introduction:
<snip>
PALIN: Hey, can I call you Joe?

Towards the end:
<snip>
PALIN: Say it ain’t so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again.

“Can I call you Joe?” at the beginning, followed by “Say it ain’t so, Joe.” towards the end is brilliant planning by Palin’s team and I’m surprised the pundits haven’t picked up on it. I’m certain that was coached. The fact that it came off like a cheap attempt to channel Ronald Reagan Vs. Carter in 1980 seems a bit lost on The People.

A nod is as good as a wink to a blind man:

I dove back into the pixel mines again today. I had a great time on my
trip but now it’s time to get back to work. I’m happy to be back but I’m
sad my trip is over. I met a lot of great people and had some really
wonderful experiences. Hopefully the soul-sucking comedy of the
Vice-Presidential debate won’t kill my buzz too much.

This is an earlier short piece of animation from the team that’s working on Hey Krishna. It was done at AniRights before Reliance bought them and they became Big Animation. For a behind the scenes look at the production, check out the link over at CG Tantra

L to R: Chand, Kamlesh Pandey, Ashish S.K., Xray, Pratchi, Nupur

Chand took me to visit a really amazing animation studio in Pune called “Big Animation”. We were treated to lunch by CEO Ashish S.K. and I was honored to meet one of Bollywoods most well known writers Kamlesh Pandey. We had a spirited discussion about Indian literature, Joseph Campbell and Bollywood film making. They’ve really got it together. Big Animation is working on both 2-D and 3-D animation. They have several hundred employees and their studio is totally state of the art. They showed me some previews of their work on a project called Hey Krishna. There are two versions of it and both look very good. They aren’t cutting any corners. One is a 3D animation for broadcast televsion and the other is a traditional 2D version for theatrical release. The 2D animation looks every bit as good as Dreamworks Prince of Egypt. Big Animation uses Flash as well as several proprietary systems and according to Vikram, the director n of Hey Krishna, they are torturing Flash in ways it was never intended. The artwork is stunning.

Animation Express posted an overview of my presentation at Whistling Woods in Mumbai. A few things got lost in translation and it leaves the impression that Bee Movie was done with Massive while it was really done using Dreamworks/PDI’s “Mob” system but overall it captures the gist of things.

Animation Express article

My last day in India. Got a late start today after last nights celebration. Chand picked me up at the hotel and we headed over to Fabindia to do a little shopping. Nupur helped me pick out a bunch of clothing items for Rie and a few things for myself including a pair of kurtas and churidars. It was a little too bulky to fit into my luggage so I also bought a nice cloth and leather bag to hold the extra goodies. Fabindia is a great department store with some very nice things. You can actually get some of it on-line in the U.S. at fabindia.com but it’s about 3x the price of buying it in the shop.