Coming Soon !

We begin a series of essays on some of the facts of life about a variety of topics on the economics, history and morality of various aspects of computer graphics development, research and production. The build up to these essays has been coming for quite a while, since the beginning of this blog in fact, and we now get to some of the heart of the matter.

I have no doubt that in the process of making these observations and recommendations that I will annoy many of my friends and colleagues in this glamourous and rewarding field. That would only be normal as I have managed to do that, annoy people that is, off and on my entire career. The only difference now is that I know it is occuring, whereas early on I had no idea.

Whereas the smart thing to do would be to keep my mouth shut, there does not seem to be much percentage in doing that either. The field has gone to hell in a handbasket, in my humble opinion, there are winners and there are losers and if you are one of the latter, then you have paid a significant price for being in this field. To make the statement a bit stronger and more accurate, you have paid a significant price for helping to create the field.

So why not talk about it?

Among other topics, we will discuss (a) why the business of running an independent production company is not at all like what Walt Disney does, not even a little itsy bitsy bit, (b) what exactly is the business and economics of running a production company, (c) why no US production company could possibly survive in the face of foreign subsidies, (d) why SIGGRAPH can be accused of callously luring children to their doom, (e) why computer graphics is a total and complete failure outside of entertainment, and so forth.

But now I have to run to LA, what fun.