SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 Comes to an End

Yesterday was the last day for SIGGRAPH Asia 2009. It was an interesting experience and I met some really great people. Everybody at the Digital Hollywood/Association of Machinima booth were really excited about Shelf Life but also machinima in general so it was fun hanging out with them and talking about the different aspects of creating machinima.

We screened Shelf Life as well as Mr. Nagahama's Second Life films and there was a little demonstration going on to the side of the booth on creating machinima in Second Life.

It was definitely an excited atmosphere to be a part of and seeing all the people genuinely interested in machinima was great.


From left to right: Chee Yue (director of Association of Machinima Singapore), James Spencer (lost in translation), Hidetaka (creator of Award winning Second Life films), Keiji (professor at Digital Hollywood University)

There were a lot of other interesting things at the conference. Motion capture seemed very popular.



The emerging technologies exhibits were interesting and could have been at the MoMA in San Francisco.



The tech talk about Pixar's Renderman had a packed audience but I think not many people could actual follow the details of the program with any confidence. It was cool seeing how they build their shots though.



So that wraps it up. Hopefully machinima will continue to grow and expand in ways that allow for bigger events like to take place and attract more attention.

I am now in Tokyo spending my last day doing some relaxing and sight seeing. I really want to thank all of the great people I met at SIGGRAPH for making it such a pleasant experience for me!

SIGGRAPH Asia Day Two

Yesterday I did the first presentation on our film Shelf Life. The first time slot was at 11:30 AM but technical difficulties made us reschedule for 3:30 PM. The second time went smoothly and a nice little crowd gathered around.

I handed it over to the director of the machinima association in Singapore Mr. Chee Yue at the end and he presented the awards. Mr. Nagahama was also present and received awards for his two award winning films in the SHOOOT festival.

It was great to meet everybody and Sayuri was really helpful the entire time. It turns out Sayuri used to live on the same block as us in San Francisco, so strange!

I watched a Pixar lecture about Pixar's core rendering technology, RenderMan and the movie UP. Last night I went to a great two hour screening of animated short films. I have another presentation today and then that is it for me at the convention. Hoping to head over to Tokyo tonight or tomorrow morning.

Yokohama Japan!

I made it to Yokohama Japan! It is pretty strange being here all alone and lost and not knowing any Japanese. Where I am staying it is a convention center and it looks like a carnival off to one side.


Tomorrow I am supposed to give a little presentation. It is very casual booth style presentation, we will see how it goes.

I met the girl who was helping me organize the trip and it turns out she used to live in a building next to mine in San Francisco. So strange.

When I found the booth Shelf Life was playing on a TV off to the side.

I will try to post more after tomorrow. I plan to watch a Pixar lecture and I have pass to the electronic theater so I will have to figure out what that is about. :)

SHOOOT Awards : Best Overall Machinima

The SHOOOT Awards concluded on December 6 and Shelf Life took Grand Prize as Best Overall Machinima and also received wins in the sub-categories of Best Long Machinima and Best Games Machinima!

We really felt honored by this win because the competition was very strong. There were five other finalists in the International Best Long Machinima category and two other finalists in the International Best Games Machinima. Below shows the listings as seen on the Shooot site.





Please watch all of the finalists:
Shelf Life - Source Engine
Dear My Father - Second Life
Death in Venice - Moviestorm
Clear Skies - Half Life 2 / EVE Online
The Ship - Unreal Tournament
The Stolen Child - Second Life
Resident Evil 2 in GTA - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Granado Espada Nobody Dance - Granado Espada

We would like to congratulate all the finalists for creating such great films. We would also like to thank the SHOOOT Awards for presenting us with such a great award!

The Grand Prize includes a trip to Japan and a pass to attend SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 in Yokohama! So we are off to Japan! We will also be doing a presentation on machinima and Shelf Life on two days at the conference. What an amazing award!

Of course I am a bit nervous about the presentations since they have slotted 30 minutes, but we can talk about movies, games, coffee and mahcinima for that long easily, I hope! :)