It was a really good week!
The worst part about the whole thing is that I had to be in LA (I don’t really like LA), and pay too much money for parking. But that’s with any city, I’m sure.
Also almost everyone there, volunteering with me, was way younger than me and already graduated. But that’s not really “bad.”
I made a couple of friends and I got some stuff for the club using my “model coordinator status.” Small things, but still.
I went as a Student Volunteer, so I missed some stuff cause I had to work, but I got to sit in/work during some great talks. I saw some stuff from The Book of Life and met Jorge Gutierrez, who is a really inspiring guy. And I saw some really cool stuff from Weta and Blue Sky. They even had a scientist come talk about the science behind Interstellar, which was apparently pretty accurate.
I’m super excited for Peanuts. They had a session about getting the look of the film, and it’s crazy how much technology they had to create for this movie. Also, BJ Crawford is amazing and I’m going stalk his website and study the crap out of his pencils tests.
I’m definitely pumped for an eventual future in this industry. I’m also even more aware of how much harder I need to work to get to where I need to be.
SIGGRAPH is really great because it gives everyone a chance to see the technological side of creating art. I’m not smart enough to understand a lot of talks and technical papers I got to see, but I really appreciate how much work goes into the technology that makes movie magic happen.
If you’re a student, I would definitely reccommend volunteering at SIGGRAPH. It’s really good in that it can expose you to a lot of different technology, and gives you direct access to industyr professionals. There were animators and programmers just walking around the conference, in their studio shirts. I’m pretty sure an animator asked me where registration was. Also, it’s good on your resume!
AND if you volunteer, you get free access to the conference, which is great because a pass to that thing is like $1200.
