http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6PSbUl_68k

I dare you.

This is incredible.

http://acidcow.com/pics/4370-amazing-insect-images-by-igor-iwanowicz-60-pics.html

Flew into Adelaide this week to sit down and gather the clips together for some special ADAPT videos. They all come together incredibly well. We have lots of artwork to patch in as overlay and the grabs from the interviews run in well together. Director/Cameraman Paul Ryan snipped it together with ease in FCP.

Turning round to the office though, was rather interesting. Nearly every male in the building had the beginnings of a handlebar mustache. It was all in aid of 'Movember', which is a sponsorship drive for the recognition of Men's Health issues. The initiative asks guys to grow mustaches and beards for the month of November and raise money for research and support for the causes hitting middle aged males.

I'm glad they didn't have people shave their heads. Now that would have been a scarier sight. Finished the vids, and went to the new local pub in the area (very close) and had a few pints with the hairy crew.

Wow, what an amazing, busy and crazy time SIGGRAPH in San Diego turned out to be. It was actually easier once the trade show floor opened for one reason or another. Some of the people I needed to talk to, wrangle and finally meet are stapled to their chairs there in the halls for the time, and any time outside of that, they are bouncing off walls, doing presentations or just 'somewhere else.'

As with last year, a meetup was organized among some of the CGTalkers to catch up. Then the next night, there was the aircraft carrier party, which was huge. BOXX party, Studio Pendulum, SideFX and VISMasters. I caught up with truly, so many people, and the only way anyone could make sure they remembered who anyone was, was to swap business cards. Then the face and name geled. Even spotted some faces I knew only from the CGSociety SIGG videos we made last year.

Got to sit in on the keynote, saw several bits of sessions, but there was less cooperation by the volunteers for the media. I simply was not allowed into some sessions, like the Transformers one, Shrek and another about Pixar's Food session. I made a tiny fuss but didn't want to make a full scene. They were pretty full in there. I had plenty of other attractions on my list to see.
Thankfully, I also had two great journalists covering stuff for me too. I was full up trying to catch up with artists at the booth, getting stills for the diary and generally working the rooms.

I was working late every night and was up quite early each morning too, to get out and look at this part of the city before business hit. I went out to the beach but there were shipyards behind the Convention Center, so it wasn't a good look. Ate at many of the small cafes for breakfast along Fifth Avenue, so I could get going early. Some just didn't have a very good measure of time tho, and I ended up being late to one meeting cos the waiters left my breakfast on a bench getting cold.

I had a great moment on the last day too. I ran into Doug Trumbull, (actually spied his nametag and approached him) and at the same time, John Knoll was walking past. Quickly spoke to both about their SIGGRAPH experience. Doug was VFX Supe of the classic '2001: A Space Odyssey', and well, John invented Photoshop. I was on my way to the press room and I spent the entire trip up the escalators after I left them, with the biggest grin on my face. ;-)

The CGSociety crew all got together on Thursday night with others for drinks at the Hyatt. Some had had to leave earlier, but the balance of the crowd went on to have dinner at Chianti, a cool Italian restaurant on Fifth. Back at around 1am to the hotel to post the latest diary entry. I think I fell asleep around 3am, which was home base's home time in Adelaide.

'Character Modeling 2' is in the judging and layout stages right now. Also captioning is a priority, as any, ANY mistakes are just not going to happen; they just aren't.

Also, EXPOSÉ 5 Call for Entries is open for another month and the entries are streaming in. Looks like this one will be a pearler. Bit of a ways to go but I have been trying to keep the captions, contacts and indexing clean all the way back here before they are called for the book because the artists need that attention and extra time sometimes.

The great stories keep coming in for CGSociety features, with many that I cannot mention here. As they appear on the front page, they will be revealed. Lots of Artist profiles, studio profiles, production coverages and other stuff.

All good. OK, now the weather. Drought; sun, water supplies to the city down to 30% and not much about to change.