Recently, I got to leave behind the yellow and red leaves of Canada for the blooming purple Jacarandas of Australia. It’s been great to enjoy a bit of spring as winter approaches fast here.

During our user event in Sydney, Desmond Chan, Production Manager at Imagi in Hong Kong, presented Imagi’s work on Astro Boy. The movie looks great. It’s been made with Maya & MotionBuilder. What was interesting about it is the remote collaboration with a 24/7 production chain between HK and Hollywood – quite a feat!

I also got into fascinating conversations with several Flame and Smoke artists and Lustre colorists. It reminded me how difficult a job it is for them to work in a supervised environment. They have to perform their art and tricks with the director/supervisor/creative guy literally breathing down their neck. Needless to say, the software has to perform flawlessly and the UI needs to be extremely intuitive. These artists are truly the unsung heroes of our industry. Not only do they have to operate a very advanced piece of software under pressure, they also have to understand, translate, communicate and realize the intent and the creative vision behind the project. At the best of times, that creative vision is made tangible through various forms of previs, but a lot of the time they have to deal with folks who can only tell if it’s right when they see it. I am glad to see our customers starting to deploy Flare to accelerate the “battle-testing” of the next generation of Flame artists.

By the way, Flame artists are really really creative, check out “The Flame” from www.flamingJaime.com!

Talking about the new generation, last year, the VES and Autodesk responded together to a challenge by Steven Spielberg and sponsored the first ever VES Student Award. The winners were Australians Sandy Widyanata and Courtney Wise, who created their short film, 'PLASTIC,' as a graduation project while studying at the Australian Film Television and Radio School.

So if you produced some cool shots as a student sometime during 2009, check www.visualeffectssociety.org/awards/index.cfm and get your entry in! As Jeff Okun, Chairman of the VES puts it: "In order to get a job in this industry, you need to get your work seen. Even if it is shortlisted or nominated, there's a feather in your cap right there for trying."
(CGSociety article: http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=5296)

Don’t forget that students can download a 6-month trial of 3ds Max and Maya software and lots of other Autodesk software for free* from our student community. All you need is a valid email address issued by a school. And while you’re there, check our Industry Careers Framework, our self-directed learning content for Art, Design and Animation in the fields of entertainment and visualization.

It’s important for us to make our tools as widely accessible as possible for learning purposes. Expect to hear more about this soon. I’m looking forward to meeting the next generation of heroes!

Rock on,

-mp

*Free products are subject to the terms and conditions of the end-user license agreement that accompanies the download of the software.

Autodesk, 3ds Max, Flame, Flare, Lustre, Maya and MotionBuilder are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders.
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