Fun fact: while performing a donut run for a Pixar employee today I walked into a fancy restaurant expecting to find Tim Horton’s. I did Tim Horton’s eventually.
After my 8am shift monitoring a technical talk on Destiny the game I headed over to the Production Session covering Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. It was so informative; we got to hear really detailed descriptions of how certain scenes were created, as well as some cheats that were employed to save time or to cover flaws. I can’t believe how much reference material from different movies were used fo lighting purposes. We also got insight on how mocap was used and what kind of processes were involved in using mocap data.
There was also a video tribute to the stunt work done by the stuntmen who were doing advanced acrobats and parkour and being catapulted in the air.
We saw amazing footage of actors responding to colored tape that marked the position of an ape that would be added in post processing. It’s incredible how the actors can produce expressions and tones of voice and gestures in response to nothing but their imagination.
After the session, I headed towards the computer animation festival daytime selections, which included a fair amount of French films and some Ringling films like the one about the man and his beloved refrigerator and the classic, Brain Divided. There were also scifi styled animations, and animations accompanying poetry. A did show indeed.
After searching and finding bubble tea, I had a shift in the Studio. Since that afternoon we had enough people everywhere, I was able to go to the Arduino station, where I read a bit about Arduinos but mostly fooled around on the Cintiq using Paint, Photoshop, and Mays. The Cintiq tablet/monitor is beyond compare – it was a joy to use every single moment. I used a mouse to model a quick elephant, which I want get 3d printed later on.
I ended up rushing from the conference center back to the hostel to get ready in time for the Cornell dinner. I ended up meeting more volunteers, meeting a future TA, talking to a few professors, and chatting with current Pixar employees. The food was excellent and was served in a hors d’oeuvres style.
I wanted to glimpse a Siggraph party, but it was getting late and the streets seemed less safe, so my group decided to call it a night.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll get my hands on a Pixar teapot…
Adventures 