Xi’an Day 2
May 18th
I ran into Daniel and Tim at the breakfast buffet. Discussed the day’s strategy. Special Agent Shaw picked us up. Thanks to his excellent driving skills aggressively navigating the Xi’an traffic we arrived at the Shaanxi Animation Industry Platform building. After a brief introduction to the Platform Directors Mr. Lu and Ms. Soon I was lead into a press conference where several journalists asked me to compare and contrast the American and Chinese animation industry as well as advise them on how the Central Chinese Government could support the animation industry in China. Following the press conference I addressed a crowd of 350 journalists, government officials, industry professionals and students giving them an introduction to SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia as well as a personal history of my work in visual effects and animation.
We took a break for lunch in a private room within the building. There was a contingent of Japanese executives working on animation in China as well as the heads of various animation companies working in the Animation Industry Platform building. The Xi’An Director of Propaganda and the Director of the Xi’an Department of culture joined us as well.
After lunch I gave a one-on-one interview with China Central Television (CCTV) where I talked about my favorite projects and informed the journalist that stereoscopic 3D was the new hotness in animated feature film production in America.
For the afternoon session I presented information about the history of computer graphics in film. I think I lost the audience a bit during this part of the presentation. This was followed by 45 minutes of questions and answers.
We had a family style dinner on a lazy susan in a private room in a Chinese restaurant that had the largest lobsters I’d ever seen sitting in the tanks in the lobby awaiting their sizzling fate. Mr. Lu’s wife, the Shaanxi Provincial Director of Propaganda, joined us and we engaged in the Chinese tradition of toasting each other with shots of Baijiu. Mr. Yan from Yelloon Animation and Mr. Oong who runs another animation studio as well as the museum of Shaanxi Folk Art joined us as well. The restaurant staff wheeled a television into the room and turned on the Central China Evening News. About half way into the broadcast they ran the interview from earlier in the day. Things got a little hazy after that but Special Agent Shaw’s professional driving ensured our safety on the way back to the hotel. Ms. Fu arrived at the hotel, suit in hand, for a first fitting and I let her do her thing over a glass of Macallans before crashing out for the evening.
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