Jeff Kleiser & Coco Conn at Hotel Figueroa

At the Hotel Figueroa, at some SIGGRAPH, date unknown.

This photograph may already be on the blog, but if so, I am not sure where.

SIGGRAPH 2024 and Denver Report

This was perhaps one of my most enjoyable and useful SIGGRAPH's for years.  Here is a synopsis of some of the high points.  

A special thank you to Paul Debevec who invited me to a half dozen parties and encouraged me to go to them, and to the exhibit floor, and to papers that I knew nothing about.

Also special thanks to Julian Gomez who somehow found me a technical pass.  The Technical Program costs about $1,000 these days and without it you can not go to the heart of SIGGRAPH. It was wonderful to have.  Some of its value comes from not feeling less than the other participants.

If people is the heart of a SIGGRAPH then this was an excellent SIGGRAPH.  From NYU there was Ken Perlin, Denis Zorin and Aaron Hertzmann.  From UNC we had Henry Fuchs, Turner Whitted, Mary Whitton, Nick England and Mark LeVoy.  From WETA and the ASWF, Kimball Thurston.  From Autodesk we had Marcel de Jong and Frederic Servant (manages Arnold).  From SCAD we had Gray Marshall and Christos Sfetsios (who had a good theory of alien UFOs).  Briefly sat near Debbie Deas.

I made a point of reading every poster and taking pictures of some of them.  Every third poster had the author standing there and you could ask questions.

The good news and the bad news is that there were at least two papers whose ideas I have had and that furthermore I had done work on, but was told they could never be papers.

From the Pioneer's event we learn that Thad Beier passed away several months ago.  

Finally, I stayed at the Motel 6 downtown for about $80/night.  It was not too bad either.  The Uber cost between the hotel and the convention center was about $15 each way.  There is a great train between Denver International Airport and Union Station.  It takes a long time but that is because DIA is way the heck out there.  It turns out there was a decent little cafe in the back of the Hyatt and one can also get healthy food at Target of all places.  The downtown area was all ripped up because of construction.

Denver has a lot of interesting old construction left over from the mining days, I presume.  Too bad it has been discovered, it would be a good place to buy an old house and fix it up.   The Meow Wolf venue was entertaining.  Denver seems to be a "meat town".  It was hard to find decent healthy food for vegetarians.

I came home, of course, and had COVID.

A proud author

Doug Kay and George Joblove

A happy Poster

Robo Doggy

Meow Wolf

A modern data glove

Pictures for Siggraph

 How can you go to Siggraph without bringing pictures?  Well you can't.  Here are a few rendered pictures and maybe I will do a few Midjourney pictures as well.  Csn you get which one is which?

Siggraph 2023

draft

This is a brief report on SIGGRAPH 2023 national conference held in Los Angeles, CA.

 

As always, one must choose between seeing and interacting with people vs. attending the technical program.  As the technical program is very expensive and since most of the value of the program comes from the published papers, this makes the decision a no brainer.  You either pay for an exhibition badge or a "everything but the technical program" badge.  There are those who think the technical program is the heart of SIGGRAPH but I think such people are living in the past.

 

In the same way, the electronic theatre, aka film show, is also a relic of the past and has no particular value in today's world.

 

Even Emerging Tech, usually the height of SIGGRAPH, was boring.  The one exception was the fabulous Sensorama curated by Scott Fisher of USC.  This was a recreation of a pioneering location based 3D entertainment.

 

 

People included but not limited to (and in no particular order) Terrence Massan, Maa and wife from Paris, Craig Reynolds, Scott Fisher, Bart Gawboy, Paul Debevic, Scott Fisher, Sylvester Sylvan, Jim Blinn, Ed Catmull, Mike Zyda, Andy van Dam, Jim Foley, Joan Collins, Diane Piepol, Rebecca Allen, Nick England, Mary Whitton, Jackie Morie, Tom Sito, Joseph Goldstone, Laura Scholl, Gene Miller, Debbie Deas, Julian Gomez, Copper Giloth, Jane Veeder, and many others.

 

 

Preparing for Siggraph 2023

The archaic remnant of a (formerly) important conference about the technology, aesthetics and practice of what was once an experimental form of art and media, so-called computer graphics, starts today.  I have a feeling that this will be a pleasant year.  I am disenfranchised from any contribution to production, to education, and to research in this field that used to be my home.  One could reasonably ask why do I bother to even attend?  

 

There are several plausible answers to this question.  Sentimentality.  A desire to follow through.  The hope that I will meet a new or old collaborator and move forward. But I am probably wasting my time and my energy might be better spent in a totally new direction.

 

Siggraph Notes #2

draft

This was one of the better Siggraph's.  Many things were accomplished even if there was much more to do.

But at the end of the day, there are many questions about what, if anything, I should be doing to participate in this field.  It used to be that I could go to Siggraph and something would emerge.  No longer.  This is not Siggraph's fault but is a result of my circumstances combined with a very changed world.

I have done some of my best work in years, maybe ever, in the last year.  Does it matter?  Is it publishable?  Where?  What of the many possible projects should be next?  I so envy those with normal careers or those with a sense of mission or direction.  I only sort of have that today.  

What we need here is another leap of faith.
 

Siggraph 2019 Notes #1

draft

I am trying to keep my notes to a terse minimum.  These are more reminders that detailed commentary.

1. Awards.  Denis Zorin of NYU and Donna Cox of NCSA / U of I both won awards.  I love both of these people.  Denis was exactly the same, my favorite Russian mathematician.  Donna in her talk revealed background I had not known. A woman who grew up in the period when few if any women had careers in academia and/or science.  Driven.  Visionary.  It makes sense.  Three of the awards recipients thanked Pat Hanrahan (who did not come to this year's siggraph).

The awards talks were, again, one of my favorite parts of Siggraph.

2. Best of Emerging, etc, was the tennis ball augmented camera picture taker.  A human alone did not have the reflexes.  But the camera with electrode worked great.

3. Geek Bar wins again.  The best way to watch Siggraph was on television.  That way you can move around check other things out, etc.

4. Pioneers Dinner.  Ed Kramer hosts and does a great job.  Short film on Scanimate.  Jeff Kleiser does main talk. Frank Vitz is prominantly mentioned.

5. People: Copper Giloth, Jane Veeder, Frank Vitz, Jeff Kleiser, Michael Naimark, Richard Hollander, Bart Gawboy, Kimball Thurston, Ray Feeney, Jim Houston, Audri Phillips, Maija Beeton.

6. The two people I know from UCLA Design were a no show.  But I did meet an interesting person on the faculty from Europe (when I find his name ...).

7. For some reason, the trade show floor was very productive this year.  Two different crowd/flocking software groups.

More later.

Send Michael to Siggraph!

draft

I am trying a GoFundMe to help finance my trip to Siggraph.  Do not be intimidated by my friends who have helped out, even a small donation would help.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/send-michael-to-siggraph

Its fun, sortof fun, not really, who has contributed and who has not.  I have enough money to mostly pay for a cheap hotel, so no more is required.  But still, not even $10 or $20 from some of these people?  Talk about Sad! 

Siggraph 2019 Poster Submission

Yeah, I made my deadline.

Looking for Amie Slate

draft

If anyone reading this happens to know how to contact Amie Slate, could they please get in touch?

A documentary is being done on Mike Gribble (of Mike & Spike Animation fame) and they are hoping that Amie might have or know where there is archival footage of the Electronic Theatre of Siggraph in 1988.

Thank you.

What I Learned From My Trip Where I did Not Enter Canada or Attend Siggraph

draft

This post will be added to over the next few days as I assembled my notes.

1. Only those who are working or have a sponsor can attend Siggraph.

2. Canada has some very reasonable rules for those who would cross their borders.  Sadly I did not know those rules.

3. The US Border Patrol was also unhelpful and much more rude.  (Canada was very polite while they were f*cking me).

4. The rules for crossing into Canada used to be having a passport and a good attitude. Today those rules include but are not limited to having a whole bunch of money on you (I use ATMs), having a clear plan for when you are returning and having that plan on paper (I was not sure when I was returning), having a clear plan for where you were staying (I planned to find the least expensive hotel at the last minute, like everyoene else).  Etc.

5. So they fucked me, and the implications of that go on and on.  Shame on me for trying to attend my professional conference.

After Siggraph, Dream with Female Rescue Divers

draft

I had a long complicated dream that I was on a boat with female rescue divers. They practiced diving from the high board on the main deck of the ship and dived very, very deep. There was more of a practice board about half way down the hull for people like me to dive from. And of course there was very little danger because you were surrounded by rescue personnel. 

The images below are not really illustrative, but they are what I can find with Google without too much trouble.  In my dream, we were all on a ship, and I do not remember much in the way of scuba gear. Therefore you should see these images as placeholders until I can get more appropriate images, if ever.

This was the day after Siggraph.

I slept all day, it is hot here.

I tried to send a few thank you notes from my phone, while lying in bed.

I was of course very sad when the dream was over.

SIGGRAPH 2016 Report

This is the first report on the SIGGRAPH 2016 conference. I might or might not add a later, more detailed, report. If you have any specific questions, please send me email or comment here and I will try to answer them.

Thanks

Special thanks to Michael Deering, Terrence Massan, Tom Duff and Ken Perlin for their material contributions to my ability to attend SIGGRAPH at all. Special thanks also to Jon Snoddy for enabling the Disney R&D participation, Wendy Wirthlin of Pixar for enabling my entry into the Pixar reception and to Jerry Weil for a tour of the exhibit floor.  Thanks go to MK Haley for her general hand holding even in absentia.  

Also thanks go to Michael Johnson of Pixar for indulging my neurotic job search issues.

Summary

SIGGRAPH this year was about the same as it has been for the last several years.

A. It is very pleasant on a social level.  B.  It is moderately interesting on a technical level, but nothing outstanding.  C. The tradeshow floor was very useful as a way of keeping up with what is happening in production technology.  D. SIGGRAPH has been essentially useless for me for a decade for economic or employment purposes.  E. The job fair was completely useless.  F. The people who run SIGGRAPH seem completely unaware of anything going on outside their very narrow interests, but it is not clear to me that this is the wrong thing.

Community

The idea that SIGGRAPH formed a community of people who were inventing a new field is long, long gone. And thats the way the people who run SIGGRAPH want it to be.  Too bad.  They fucked it up.

AR and VR

AR and VR is now in the "spend money to show how creative we are", or not creative, as you please. Everyone agrees that there is some AR and VR in our future, and most people seems to think that AR will totally dominate over VR, or so it seems from my casual conversations with a few dozen Siggraph participants. Beyond that, there is a lot of skepticism that the hardware available today is definitive, but general agreement that the hardware available soon will be. And that AR in particular will make it easier to deploy this technology vs VR because of the ability to see and not bump into things and the lack of nausea in most AR situations.

I personally had a strong negative reaction to the hype-based "vanity" projects at SIGGRAPH based on AR/VR.  But this might be a little hypocritical of me since, after all, I had benefited so directly from such projects in the early days of computer animation.

Fast Forward

As always, the Fast Forward was the best part of SIGGRAPH. It allowed one to quickly and efficiently get a feel for whether or not a paper was of interest. There were quite a few papers of minor interest to me, but none of compelling (that is, I had to see it) interest.  There should be guidelines about humor for the participants so they do not humiliate themselves.

Keynote Speech

One more time we have a keynote speaker who has nothing to do with the field (an executive from JPL) and who was very nice about thanking us for “our” work maybe 20 years ago. What she forgot to say is that there is absolutely no financing for visualization in space science, that maybe 5 people are employed in that area in the entire United States, and one more time the Keynote Speech was useless, even contemptuous, of all of the thousands of people who devoted their lives to computer animation but have no way to make a living at it. Thanks a lot, SIGGRAPH, I really appreciate it.

Pioneer Reception

The speech by Alvy Ray Smith was interesting but all too short. I was intrigued to see that he was wearing the moral equivalent of a Nehru jacket and that he acknowledged that in general evil geniuses tend to wear them.

Anaheim as a Venue

Remember that this is peak summer and that Anaheim is across the street from Disneyland. Anaheim has in two years become much more expensive, and thus has become less suitable for a SIGGRAPH location. There were no rooms in any hotel for about 50 miles, unless you wanted a $300 a night suite.

The Exhibit Floor

Walked the trade show floor with Jerry Weil and saw numerous interesting things. In particular an Israeli handheld scanner thing that was spectacular.

HDR / Technicolor

Josh Pines and colleague gave an informative discussion of high dynamic range imagery in the glamourous and rewarding motion picture industry.

Pixar Reception

Pixar, it would seem, has completely changed out their old software suite for a completely new one. Which of these are available to the public and which are internal only is not clear to me.

Disney R&D Mixer

I knew almost no one there, but had a very nice chat with Christophe Hery of Pixar and Scott Watson of Disney R&D.

I think that this event could benefit from more structure and I humbly propose one here. Since I presume that most of the attendees were there to push their agendas within the larger Disney financing pool, this could be assisted perhaps by a large Disney org chart positioned somewhere near the entrance, or perhaps also in the food or drink line, that color codes their executives in helpful ways.  It might report the amount of currently budgeted discretionary financing.  Then the Disney executives could wear special color coded hats or other easily visible apparel that could be checked against this chart.

Alternatively, one might consider a handout at the entrance with a picture of each executive or project leader and a brief description.  "Stanley Berriview will entertain concepts based on the real time use of surveillance technology to create a more meaningful guest experience."   And so forth.

Another Point of View

One attendee, Lance Williams, who looks remarkably like an old school Russian revolutionary these days, points out that his employer, NVIDIA, had a foveal display of some sort. This is certainly an idea worth looking at more closely.

Sightings and Social Activities

Richard Chuang, founder of PDI, announced that he was on some committee to help SIGGRAPH figure out what its future is.  The future, or perhaps the doom, of SIGGRAPH will certainly be the topic of one or more posts on this blog.

John Hughes, founder of Rhythm and Hues, and now of Tao Studios in Beijing, was sighted at SIGGRAPH, perhaps the first time in decades.

Jim Hillin was informative about the failure of the crafts to sue to force the US Government to enforce the trade laws regarding subsidies.

Kawaguchi Sake Party had a video of an inflatable Kawaguchi style critter that I thought was very appealing.

Finally met Gene Miller and Garland Stern.

Had a nice chat with Richard Edlund, Ray Feeney, Andrew Glassner, Dave Leavitt, Debbie Deas and Richard Cray.

Finally got to to talk to Aung Min after all these years.

Complete Lack of Reaction to my Campaign Posts (so far)

draft

[update as of 2/2/2016.  We now have two very impressive comments by friends telling me that this endeavor is hopeless and to do something better with my time.  While I do not think that they completely understand my vision (ahem) I am probably going to take their advice. This is bitter tea for me as I have invested a lot into this already. A total waste of my time?]

So based on the reaction I have received so far to my posts on the SIGGRAPH EC, there is absolutely no interest among my friends to support my campaign or to think that this is a good idea shared by many people.

That is actually what I suspected, and what I have thought for a long time.  It fits several potential models of human behavior and while disappointing, none of this is a surprise.  Either people do not give a fuck about the misery of their fellows and what SIGGRAPH does or does not do about it, or people care as long as they do not have to do any work, including commenting on it in any way.

So far I have one friend who encourages me, and one former SIGGRAPH big wig who is very nice and encouraging and who grubs up information for me that is otherwise hidden by the mysterious SIGGRAPH cartel.

The problem is, without support I am not going to do this.  I am tired of being the abused tool of people who want change but dont want to inconvenience themselves to get it.  There are more important things to do in this world.

But this is an early response.  Maybe there are people who are reading my blog who need time to get the word out and generate a response.  If so, do it now, please.

I could not be more cynical about the computer animation community, however.

How could I have fallen in with such a selfish, anti-intellectual and amoral group?

What the fuck was I thinking?

PS You will note that the formatting of this post is different from all other posts, mostly, on this blog.  This is because of an ancient bug in Blogspot which has never been fixed and never will be fixed. I do not have the energy to try and get around it any more.  You will just have to read my blog for its content, if anyone reads my blog at all, and not for the formatting consistency.  I like Blogspot, its free and its useful, but it is far from perfect and issues like this are part and parcel of using it.

Notes on my Write-in Campaign for the EC of ACM SIGGRAPH as of January 31, 2016

draft

As many of you know, I have been trying to influence the Executive Committee (the EC) of ACM SIGGRAPH for many years, and as you may also know, I have been a complete failure in doing so. Apparently SIGGRAPH at the national level is a tightly-held cartel of “right thinking” individuals and no one else is welcome.

I have written many posts on my blog (www.globalwahrman.com) about what the issues are and what I would do, and if you would like that background the two most relevant posts can be found here where I discuss my campaign platform and here which is the first post from 2012 that started this effort.

As SIGGRAPH has ignored my request for information such that I could try a write-in campaign for the EC for this year, why we simply push it off to next year and see if they ignore me as well for next year. They can do this indefinitely, and I will still be here, trying to be a voice and being ignored and abused (or at least, that is my point of view, I bet that the EC might have another view of the same events).

But one thing has changed, I no longer feel that I have the resources to do this on my own. Choosing computer graphics & animation as a career has without doubt destroyed my life and impoverished me, and if I am going to do “the right thing” and basically do more charity work, then I need to be minimally funded.

I was originally planning to use the referendum of getting appropriate write-in signatures as indication of support, but I now think that I will see if I have support for this by seeing if people want to fund me. If insufficient people want to fund me, then that is a clear statement that I do not have such support and I will drop it. Believe me, if I had the money I would do this on my own, but I dont.

So I will review and assess what I think the minimum budget of this not-for-profit charity endeavor will be, see if it needs to be registered as a charitable organization or whether it can be done informally (and thus save quite a few legal fees) and then put it up as a www.kickstarter.com project or via another service if one appears more correct for the kind of project this is.

You could do me a favor by reading the background on this effort and forwarding off a link to this to as many people as you think might be interested. And do the same thing again when/if the Kickstarter/whatever project is initiated.

Is this worth our time and money? I am not sure, but it might be. We will let people vote on how worthwhile they think it is with their comments, if any, and with their wallets on Kickstarter when/if that project is initiated.

Thank you.

My Platform Should I Run for the Executive Committee of SIGGRAPH

draft

For many years I have attended the national conference of SIGGRAPH and been amazed that as far as I can tell the conference is totally unaware that there is vast unemployment in this field and that those who have managed to continue working have had to move overseas to do so. Yet SIGGRAPH keeps on pushing the field as a sensible one to go into without knowing or caring whether or not these new people will be able support themselves or their families by doing so.

I happen to also believe that computer animation is unusually blessed or cursed with the intangible glamour of the various entertainment industries which acts as a lure to the unwary. (1)  I can tell you that when I made the choices to go into this field I had no idea, no one told me and I did not understand, that I was going into a niche industry and very likely would experience long periods of unemployment.  Had I realized that, I would not have gone into this field. Such a choice would have been completely irresponsible on my part.

And yet we keep on encouraging young people to go into this field without a hint of caution even though we do not even know the size of the disaster that has already occurred.  I believe that this is both irresponsible and morally wrong.

After years of complaining and trying to figure out how to change things I came to the conclusion that the only way to be heard was to become a member of the Executive Commitee of ACM SIGGRAPH (the EC).  Although the EC is nominally elected by the membership of SIGGRAPH, in reality to be allowed to run for the EC one must be approved by the Nominating Committee and the Committee lost no time making it clear to me that they had no interest in my contribution.

There is however in the By Laws of ACM SIGGRAPH a provision for write-in candidates to be nominated and were I to wish to persevere it would be through this mechanism. Unfortunately, the details of this mechanism are undocumented as far as I can tell, but a friend has done a lot of work and seems to be able to extract the needed information from the relevant people.

Were I to run a write-in campaign for nomination, I would need approximately 70 signatures of people who were both current members of ACM and of SIGGRAPH. Those signatures would have to be on a form that is of yet undefined and whose original is provided on paper, as I currently understand it.

The number of signatures would not have been a problem "back in the day", but now most of the people I know who work or have worked in computer animation are not, to the best of my knowledge, members of SIGGRAPH as SIGGRAPH has worked very hard to make itself completely irrelevant to the production community. It may be one of the ironies of this campaign that I am able to get a dozen or two "new" members for SIGGRAPH as most of the people I know who would support me in this foolish endeavor would have to become members to do so.

Why should you bother to go through this trouble merely to make me eligible to run for a “position at large” on the Executive Committee?  In other words, even if the write-in campaign is successful, I would still have to run for election.  The best answer I can give is to itemize what my platform would be should I run for office and let you decide for yourself.

Let me preface these platform notes by saying that many people I have talked to who are more knowledgeable than I am about how SIGGRAPH at the national level actually works believe that there is either (a) nothing SIGGRAPH can do in any of these areas and/or (b) SIGGRAPH should not even try.

Let me also note that apparently the EC of SIGGRAPH thinks that it is not important that several thousand people (the number is unknown) who were undoubtedly encouraged by SIGGRAPH to make the questionable choice to go into this field. I would be a minority of one on the EC and likely have very little or no influence.

I would however be a voice for the disenfranchised and be certain that their plight was at least discussed at least to some small extent.

So were I to run, I would run on the following platform (certain to be revised).

1. To the extent possible, see to it that the program and events of SIGGRAPH do not encourage people to go into this field without a good understanding of what the possibility of employment in this field is.

2. To the extent possible, attempt to understand what the real employment in the fields associated with SIGGRAPH actually are and what the current unemployment is.

3. To the extent possible, make it possible for those who have dedicated a substantial portion of their career to this field are enabled to attend the national conference. The current rules and procedures do not in any way go far enough to permit this.

4. To the extent possible, make allowances for those who are unemployed or economically challenged have access to the full body of SIGGRAPH publications without fee or at a reduced rate.

5. To the extent possible, address the issues of ageism in computer animation, at least by having reminders at relevant conference events of the illegality of ageism as it applies to employment.

6. To the extent possible, attempt to assess the amount of hardship caused by the off-shoring of computer animation production to other countries and what remedies there may exist for this.

7. In the likely event that no suitable remedies exist for the problem of 6, to the extent possible see what can be done to train members of SIGGRAPH for other fields where employment is possible.

8. To the extent possible, encourage and try to organize outreach programs to try and encourage industry to create jobs that need the skills that computer graphics and animation provides.

A few more points and then we will wrap this up. It is not clear to me that I can afford to be a member of the Executive Committee should I be elected since I am so chronically un- and under-employed. However, we can probably cross that bridge when and if we get there, and something can probably be worked out.

It is equally unclear to me whether my efforts would result in any tangible benefit to anyone and whether or not it would be a good use of my time.

______________________________________


1. One year SIGGRAPH has a panel celebrating 25 years of Rhythm and Hues.  The next year R&H is out of business, 1000 people are dumped on the street, and SIGGRAPH says nothing. Dreamworks lays off all of their Nothern California studio, but SIGGRAPH does not notice or mention it. Last year, SIGGRAPH had a presentation about 30 years of ILM. Not a word about all the people ILM has laid off as they downsized. A young person attending SIGGRAPH might draw the conclusion that this was a glamourous and rewarding field to be in and that unemployment was not an issue. Pixar is huge, right? It never lays off people, right?

The Search for Nazi Gold and Computer Animation

On the occasion of a very disappointing Siggraph for those of us struggling to make a living with computer animation and failing, as so many do, several colleagues have suggested the idea that searching for Nazi gold could be a viable career alternative.

Of course, they are responding to the recent events in Europe where two different stories about Nazi gold have been in the press. In one case, a young woman found a mysterious ingot of gold at the bottom of a shallow lake in the German alps with its identifying marks scratched off. And in the other, two people in Poland claim to know the location of a train that was allegedly hidden by the Nazis in a labyrinth of railroad tunnels at the end of World War 2.

At first glance, this activity might seem a promising way to make a living, at least in comparison with the disaster of computer animation, but I think when we review all the facts it will become clear that there are other potential career paths, like art fraud or laundering money, which have a better chance of being successful.

Its hard for Americans to relate to the European concept of treasure hoards littered around the countryside, left behind by invading hordes as it were, hoards from the hordes, whether  Roman hordes, Anglo Saxon hordes, Crusaders acting like hordes, Moors, Normans, Danish, Vikings and what-have-you raping and pillaging and stealing everything they can get their hands on, only to melt it all down and bury it for safe keeping, there to be found by a nerdy but sincere metal detection wielding citizen who has been searching relentlessly every weekend for the last 30 years.  The facts are that some people do this in Europe (search every weekend) and every once in a while they really do find something. (1) 

Aside from these more official discoveries, there are also signs that other, less formal, activities are taking place behind the scenes with good results. An annoying number of previously unknown fine art objects regularly show up on the antiquities market having been plundered from an ancient grave by some scumbag who has been tempted by an evil antiquities broker. Some of these dastardly folks only pretend to plunder graves, they dishonestly forge ancient art items and shamelessly sucker some corrupt collector or curator into buying them in a variation of the famous adage “you can not cheat an honest curator”.

But as romantic as these more ancient hoards are, the real action is in caches of art and gold left behind by everyone's favorite, the National Socialists in the period roughly 1944-1945. As thieves and murderers, the National Socialists of the last world war were in a class all to themselves. First they would roll the Wehrmacht in, then they would roll the gold out of national treasurys, the art out of the museums, and the Jews into the camps stealing everything they ever had along the way. When you melt down a million gold dentures, it just looks like gold bars to those helpful Swiss bankers who are always happy to launder money for the criminal du jour. Some things never change.

But do we really think that there is a lot more to find out there? The problem is that it is very hard to tell. Officially, we know of lots of things that are still missing. But who is to say that some of this missing gold was found but no formal press release issued? Who is to say which famous trainloads of decadent art were hidden in an abandoned mine instead of being destroyed by aerial bombardment on its way there? What 100 tons of gold were processed by the Swiss, what disappeared into the Tsar's vault in Moscow, what treasure from Troy now lies in the basement beneath the Hermitage waiting a year, a century, a millinnia before it sees the light of day?

Keep in mind also, that while the average computer animator knows hardship and rough working conditions, he or she has rarely dealt with abandoned mines, networks of crumbling railroad tunnels filled with unexploded munitions, or deposits at the bottom of very deep, very cold lakes. Yes a computer animator knows how to endure hardship only to be disappointed. But for every hoard found by a metal detection practitioner, how many others work for decades for a handful of copper?

The odds are as likely that you will write a screenplay that gets made into a successful movie. Or that you will be recognized for your talent and invited to direct a film. One seems about as likely as the other, being successful in the motion picture industry or finding a cache of Nazi gold. If you have to go through the trouble of changing your career, I recommend finding something with more likelihood of success.

________________________________________

1. The most famous recent example of this is the fabulous story of Maj (ret) Tony Clunn of the British Army, MBE, who discovered the location of the famous battle of Teutoberger Wald in Germany.  See

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Clunn

Impromptu deGraf/Wahrman Reunion 2015

I apologize for being so late in posting this. I am recovering from the shock of SIGGRAPH, my own angst about my career, lack thereof, and the oppressive heat.

Out of the blue, there was an impromptu dWi (deGraf/Wahrman) reunion party at Greg Ercolano's house on the Saturday before Siggraph.

If I get your name wrong, or leave your name out entirely, please send me email so I can correct this.

Attendees included (in no particular order) Greg Ercolano, Anne Marie, Eve Lunt (and her husband, Andrew), Jane Stephan, Sally Syberg, Maija Beeton (and her husband Andre Bustanaby), Jim Hillin, Ken Brain, Jay Sloat, Allen Battino, Joseph Goldston, Larry Malone (and friend), and Kevin Bjorke (and friend).

I arrived rather late in the evening having taken the train from San Diego.

People who could not attend due to being out of town or prior engagements or other responsibilities include Brad, Kerry Colonna, Liz Ralston, Josh Pines, Jim Goodman and Emily, Adrian Iler, Marc Scaparo, Sari Gennis, Lynda Weinman, J Walt, Tom Betts, Don Rhodes (CPA), Wendy Elwell, Anne Adams, Ken Cope, Steve Segal, and Tuck Tucker. Dale Herigstad was in Europe I think. Richard Taylor helped out.  Ladd McPartland had recently passed away. Not all of these people may have received invitations in the last minute rush.

It was clear that I was not the only one suffering from career angst or dislocation. This is unfortunate because everyone there but perhaps myself is a respectable, knowledgeable, hard working citizen. who deserves to be doing fabulously well in our new digital age, but that does not seem to always be the case. I find this fascinating and unexpected. Even if we are not all where we might want to be at this point, I would have expected all of us to be valued in the marketplace.

I was astounded to get extra dWi film cartridges from Jane. Everyone was stunned to see a video that Ercolano had of a walk through of dWi sometime during the HB Attraction Period. Greg Ercolano seems to have acquired a fabulous classic contemporary mid-century house. Alhambra seems to be an interesting, Lauren-Canyon like neighborhood.

Probably it is best that I said nothing much at this event.  But if I had thought about it, I would probably have said something like, "There have been several periods of my life when I have been lucky to work with a group of people who turn out to be extraordinarily talented.   And as time passes it becomes clear how fortunate I was to be able to work with all of you.   I also feel that for a variety of reasons that were not exactly under the control of Brad and myself, we were not always able to provide the working conditions that everyone deserved to have.  It is one of the reasons that I did not want to start another production company, or even another company, as I did not want to repeat the same mistakes and without proper funding, that was the likely result.  Again, I want to say, it has been a privilege to work with all of you."

But I was too tired to even think about this until everyone had left.

I slept in the guest house and could not sleep a wink. Apparently the racoons drop things on the roof every 15 minutes or so with a bang.

Obviously we need to do this again so that more can attend.

I would like to encourage everyone there (and those who were not) to arrange to get together with me in the next year so we can catch up in more detail. It has been too long.

I need to get a copy of the Ercolano video.

Photographs to follow.

A Little Personal Democracy and a Write In Campaign for SIGGRAPH in 2015

draft

I am now asking Siggraph for the details and deadlines associated with the process of getting write-in votes to be allowed to run for the Executive Committee of Siggraph.

I am certain that I have missed the deadline for the next election, so any signatures that I gather at Siggraph next week will presumably be for the election after this one.

I plan to run on a very specific platform and if I get elected, I will consider that a mandate to research the state of non-academic employment in computer graphics and animation in order to determine, or attempt to determine, how many are employed and where, what the categories of employment are, what the stability and projected future of these positions are, to what extent are these positions overseas, and to what extent unemployment has affected the field. And other issues along the same lines as well. The general idea here is, what should we tell young people if they express a desire to go into this field?  What should we tell them about the likelihood of employment and what terms and conditions come with that employment.  Let me give you two examples: first everyone who comes into this field should understand that it is considered a niche field and no experience in it will qualify you for anything else and second, on the entertainment side of things, people are never hired for more than a project no matter what they are told.

These are very large issues and one person without resources is not likely to get definitive answers to these and related questions. However, I can use the position on the committee to get what information people are willing to share with me and write up whatever I learn.

I also plan to report back to the membership the ideas, concerns, and perceived limitations on the part of members of the committee, many of whom have told me that there is nothing that Siggraph is empowered to do on these issues. Although I may not agree with them, I can certainly admit that they have much more experience than I do at that level of the organization and I can, I think, be of help by reporting to the membership what the concerns are and what people believe. I would hope to do this in a professional and collaborative manner that causes no concerns or offense to anyone to the best I can manage.

I doubt that my efforts would result in any sort of official statement or report from Siggraph on these topics, but maybe we can achieve some lesser goals. At the least I would hope I could convince the EC, or most of the EC, that we can not just encourage people to bet their careers on this field without significant warnings and statements of concern. It should not be all rah rah rah the future is bright, which has been the story from Siggraph to date.

There seem to be a lot of miserable and unemployed people out there. This is guesswork on my part because no official or unofficial statistics exist to the best of my knowledge. Yes there are many people who are gainfully employed and doing good work, but I am also aware of many who are constantly moving from project to project in a way that is disruptive to their lives, and others who are not employed and have not been for a while and wonder what they are going to do. No doubt I have sampling error, how could I not? Yes maybe this is normal, or the “new normal” and that could be the case. But if so, we should make sure people know that.

Whether we like it or not, Siggraph was part of the movement that created this industry segment, the use of computer animation and synthetic imagery in the creation of film and related media, both full length computer animated films and live action films with visual effects. This movement started in large part by idealists who used Siggraph as a venue through the 1980s, when no one believed us, and the 1990s, when they started to believe, into the next century when things exploded. I was a part of this movement and I contributed and I was there, so I know Siggraph helped. But now that the industry is very large, and yet with so much turmoil, and so much unemployment, that it is our responsibility to do what we can to make things better and at the very least make it clear to those who would bet their lives and their careers on the field what the situation is as we understand it.

If you are attending Siggraph next week and you are a member of Siggraph, I hope you will find me and sign my petition so that I can be considered for election to the EC.

You should also feel free to send comments or concerns, hopefully in a postive and cordial manner, by either leaving a comment here or sending me email at the address below. If you do send email, please put something in the subject field about what it is about so I know to read it.

Thank you.

M. Wahrman

michael.wahrman at gmail.com

http://globalwahrman.blogspot.com

On the Occasion of Siggraph 2015

draft

It is a fundamental tenet of western civilization that one must present oneself with confidence and style. No signs of weakness are permitted as it causes the other biped mammals to see you as a potential meal, or the other bipeds, whose support you need, to ignore you or dismiss you.

There are those I suppose who benefit from being so pathetic that it attracts a certain kind of person who likes doing rescues, but I don't think one wants to count on that as a strategy.

I have become more aware this year that my goals for the future are impractical based on my current status, how I am perceived, the resources that I have, and the competition.

Part of the problem here is that in the past I worked with energy and what is, I hope, talent and skill but was also nearly completely unaware of the odds against me. And these efforts all led to great success and total failure, accomplishment yet contempt from my peers, personal attacks that are quite astounding, and generally everything that one would expect from being poor in America, where talent and accomplishment means nothing, only money matters and certain credentials as one gets by being approved and anointed by those with power.

Why then, would I expect things to be any different in the future, when in fact the odds are only worse then they have ever been? They are worse because in the past I was part of a community, now I am alone. They are worse because in the past I had access to resources, now I have no resources. They are worse because now this is an established field and this implies both more competition, as well as competition with access to both resources and those affiliations that I wish I had but do not.

Not only may fools go where wise people fear to tread, but in fact the earlier success of the fool may not only be a result of their energy, talent and ignorance but also because times were different.

There are deeper problems as well.  A fundamental and well-reasoned concern that major elements on which we base our lives and our society are based on lies, or false premises.  Not all, but many of them. And that our public servants know this and do nothing to correct it either because they feel they can't or because they do not care. I have become convinced that our government does not have our best interests at heart and that they are quite capable of cynically exalting the rich at the expense of the rest of the country. I have looked at some of the evidence, evidence that The Economist says does not exist, but it does exist.  Too many lies, too much hypocrisy, too much swept under the rug, too much misery.

On the other hand, what is the alternative.   Perhaps talent, hard work and experience and maybe a sense of humor about the situation, all of our situations, can make a difference.   I guess I have to try again.

These are the thoughts that occur to me on the occasion of a birthday and the annual trial of Siggraph.