Applied for a Job at the California Academy of Sciences

Every year or so, a perfect job appears.  Now, I wont get it, but a tremendous amount of psychological energy is required for me to even apply.

So I did.

Cross your fingers!

Lets Be Realistic about Realism

[Please forgive the implied frustration of this post.  But you have no idea how tiring and irritating it is to have this discussion 30 years into this field.  By high end computer graphics we do not mean realistic or photo realistic in any way.  We are sorry you got that idea, but it is not what we meant, ever, so will you, whoever you are, please get over it.  It is irritating and demeaning.  Thank you]

My recent discussions about the failure of computer graphics to be useful to non-fiction fields, its utter failure to be used in Science, Finance, Architecture, and so forth, has brought up another worthy issue: the tyranny of the stupid belief (1) that high-end graphics and animation is about realism, and only about realism, and furthermore, that it is about what the badly educated think realism is.

I am holding back my real feelings here, so read between the lines.

I despise this tyranny of so-called realism or photorealism, I consider it the clear sign of mediocre minds and mediocre artists, of people who have been badly educated or completely uneducated in the arts. I hate having my creative potential limited by having to work with such people. Whenever I heard the desire for "photo realism" in my job as head of 3D at <company name deleted>, I wanted to throw down my pencil and walk out the door, as I knew I was working with people who did not have a (fucking) clue what they were about.

I was filled with self-hatred that frankly I had lowered myself again, to work with such swine. Again.

So is that clear, please, is it clear what I think about realism and the people who espouse it as the highest goal of anything?

Now you are welcome to believe what you want, you can believe that a movie about plastic toys is a work of art and is photorealistic if you want to, but do me a favor and do it far away from me. Because I am offended by your ignorance and your bad taste.

Sorry, just telling you what I believe.

But for those who are reading this blog, unless otherwise specified, "reality" per se is not a particularly desirable or required goal in imagery, unless we have some specific other goal in mind, which under certain circumstances we very well may have.  But then I will be specific in those circumstances what is desired here and why.  Oh yes, since many people reading this may not know what most of the words mean, good "visual effects" do not require "photorealism" in any sense of that word in any element. Good visual effects, to fool you into believing it is real, is completely different from requiring realism in computer graphics. I hope to explain why in this blog, although this should be completely obvious already.

So do not, repeat do not, ever believe that I am implying that computer graphics or any other form of imagery is naturally intended to be realistic.   Nothing could be further from the truth.  Do not limit my philosophy or discourse to your rather restricted views of reality, please.

No offense or anything, but that would be a very unrealistic thing of you to do.

____________________________

1. Of course by using the term "stupid belief" I am holding back my real feelings.  You should read between the lines to understand what it is that I really mean.

Employment for Computer Graphics in Non-Fiction Areas

[Some people who read this post think I mean the use of "photorealistic" computer animation in non-fiction fields.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I do not say it, I do not mean it, try to read what I say.  Thank you]

Now since most of the people who read this blog are friends of mine, and it never seems to be a good move to alienate friends (and if these are my friends, just imagine what my enemies must be like), nevertheless there has been a point of disagreement among my crowd. And it goes like this. I maintain that computer graphics / animation / whatever has failed in the non-fiction world and they maintain that I am wrong and that it is everywhere.

What would computer graphics in the world of non-fiction entail? It would entail the use of original, not canned, original 3D graphics techniques to visualize data for the purposes of non-fiction. Finance, medicine, science, transportation, urban design and other areas.

What would be the criteria for this success from my point of view?  It would be a healthy employment market for people who are skilled in these areas.

But no such market exists.

You don't think so, you think I am wrong, you think that this market does exist! Excellent! Fabulous! Show me.

I have looked and found nothing. In the area of Astronomy Visualization (one small subset of the potential area we are talking about) I know for a fact that nothing exists.   In the area of architecture, I have heard that most architectural visualization that is done is purely for sales (which I do not have a problem with per se), but that it is not used very much.  I can certainly agree that if it is used, it must be that they hire from within, which would make sense but does me no good.  

But in other areas, I am drawing conclusions from samples in the employment market, and could be guilty of being unsystematic, or perhaps just plain old sampling error, not knowing what to look for.

So if I am wrong, and you are quite sure that a market like this exists, for people to be hired in, please do not hesitiate to tell me where this market is. As I have been quite unable to find it and I have been looking for years.

Why does this matter?   It matters because when I chose to specialize in this field it was with the belief and understanding that I would be able to make a living in this field, whatever this field of computer animation would be.  So, lets us say the field of entertainment graphics is oversubscribed, which it is, but you can still see people advertising jobs and hear of people getting them.  But you do not, I maintain, see such things in the non-fiction side.   And that is a surprise to me, and if I am right, a surprise to all my friends who believe I am dead wrong, again.

So if there is work in this area, where are the jobs?  Show me.  It doesnt mean I will get these jobs, just show me where they are.

This all leads to a larger point that I am trying to establish, that SIGGRAPH should not encourage people to go into this field.  To do so would be disingenuous or destructive and certainly immoral.

So one more time I understand that I am wrong, but indulge me here as you correct the obviously misinformed, indulge me:  show me where the jobs are.

200 Motels (1971) on Youtube and Administrative Notes

[I just got back on the internet after 36 hours for failing to pay my 30.89 $US to the rich conglomerate that owns my access to the world.  Thanks to my many friends who are lending me money to get me through this insanely excruciating period.   I am for similar reasons going to be off my meds for the next few weeks, see if you can tell the difference!  I certainly can.  ]

[This post is being written in place, online, today and will become more detailed as the day goes by].

My friend Steve Speer has pointed out to me an immense and under recognized cultural resource, Frank Zappa's 200 Motels (1971).

It is very low quality youtube, which is what I would expect, and it has subtitles, whatever that means in this case.   Low quality Youtube is an abomination but we are lucky to have this work of genius in any form so we have to put up with it.

See it at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL63MuKDyIg

Frank Zappa was the acknowledged genius of the generation before my own, the man we recognized as having the sense of humor and talent and accomplishment that we all wanted.   1971 was the year I went away to college and I remember listening to Zappa albums over and over again as a freshman in my dorm.

The IMDB page for 200 Motels is at:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066732/

Update 2/27/2013

For those of you who are reading this blog regularly, this is a non-post post to let you know that there will be a brief delay while I recalibrate after a hectic few days.  We are going through another one of those crazy periods and it is difficult to concentrate.

The shock of going from what seemed to be a reasonable career to no career at all is very traumatic.  I hear a lot of idealistic chit chat about the future on Facebook as many other people start to come to grips with the train wreck that is computer animation.

We will return to writing the blog shortly.

Apology, Academy, When?

So I presume that the Academy is going to apologize to Bill Westenhofer and the Computer Graphics community in general for cutting Bill off at the awards.  In their apology, they should include a statement from Bill which has what it is he was going to say, which was presumably to thank R&H and wish them the best outcome of their current crisis.

And Ang Lee will apologize for not thanking R&H and the artists who made his award possible.

I must say that they are to be congratulated for taking a bad situation and making it worse for themselves.  I have seen this once or twice before.  Its as if the people with the power want to make sure that the little people organize, because they really don't care if they do or they don't.  I think they are correct, nothing will change.  But it is fun to see the effects people wake up and see how screwed they are.  Its only taken them 20 years or so.

[draft, I have to run go apply for food stamps to eat, so I will return to this later]

Anecdotes about Unions from the Early Days of Computer Graphics

The recent disturbances in the force involving visual effects and computer animation people protesting their lot in life is a good thing I think. I may feel that some of it is misdirected, and some of the goals and beliefs are incorrect or unachievable, but I have no doubt that the workers must organize in order to look after their interests. Even if they do not achieve their goals, they are guaranteed to not achieve them if they do not organize.

Many of us, myself included, have strong mixed feelings about unions. There are several reasons for this in my case, including coming from a white collar, intellectual family where unions were seen as good things, but for the blue collar worker. I am not sure that that association (union with blue collar) is either fair or correct, however, but it is something for me to overcome.

The second reason I never appreciated the need for a workers union or force is because I was treated so damned well early on in my career. The University of California at first and the RAND Corporation second, were very fair and good to me. Thus I had false expectations for the future.

I want to describe two events from the Robert Abel period, because I think they are relevant to this whole discussion.

Although I was only involved in computer graphics R&D, I deliberately chose working at Abel's in order to pick up what I could of other special effects filmmaking technique. So, I would hang around the camera department, and talk to Tom Barron over at Image G and so forth. From time to time, Abel's would have a big shoot on a stage and one day they were shooting a 7UP job with Bob Abel directing and Randy Roberts the art director. It was a big front projection shoot, Bob was on a crane and I was watching. I remember hearing an assistant whisper into Bob's ear "Meal penalties, Bob! Meal penalties!"

I later figured out that this meant something along the lines of "if you don't stop and let people have a lunch break by 4PM in the afternoon, then the production will have to pay everyone extra". In other words, Bob, the obsessive perfectionist, would not have stopped for lunch unless someone put a gun to his head, or his wallet.

The second thing that I saw, as we moved raster graphics into production at Robert Abel & Associates was how producers would move elements that could have been produced any number of ways into the 3D department. Why? Because if people worked 12 or 16 hour days in 3D, it did not cost them any more. 3D was on a fixed hourly rate, a certain number of hours a week. But if they did it in a department that was involved with a union (even if there were special deals with the union as there were), then people had to get paid more.

Oh, I thought as I watched. That's interesting. You mean you are willing to burn people out and damage their lives to save a few bucks? And the answer to that question, was "Yes, absolutely, we have no ethics whatsoever". Oh. Ok. Thanks.

Hollywood's Most Sacred Day of the Year

Tonight is Hollywood's most holy night of the year. It is the day when our people come from all over the world to virtually or literally celebrate themselves in a giant, ugly display of sheer power, whimsy, boredom, and oh so rarely, class. There are a number of things to know about this important day from my point of view.

This post is mostly general background, intended for people who have never attended or had the pleasure of working extensively in the glamourous and rewarding motion picture industry.  Another post will go over some of the nuances of this year in particular, as it affects computer animation and visual effects.

The first thing to know is that it is important to start practicing your acceptance speech now, wherever you are, however early in your career it may be. Because when you actually work in the industry and are up for an award you will be too busy to have the time. And God forbid you should make a fool of yourself in front of a billion people.

Second it is so important to remember to thank all the little people who have contributed to your award. You know and we know that they are not really important, that all the ideas came from you, of course, but they do like to be thanked, its human nature after all, and it makes you look like a better person who is willing to give credit to the unworthy.

Yes, they really are heavy.  I think they put depleted uranium in the bottom or something.

Third, when you get out of your car, your limo, or hybrid Prius, be sure to wave to your fans who have waited so patiently to see you and only you. It is such a courteous thing to do. I always wave to them when I get out of my car at the awards.

Fourth, depending on the year, they often have members enter the Academy behind whichever star is being interviewed at the moment. One year, the first time I attended with my friend Lisa Goldman, we happened to enter when they were interviewing Jodi Foster. The trick is to pass behind the star, then turn around and go back, and then of course reverse direction and go back in. That way you get three passes in front of the TV camera (admittedly in the background, of course). (1)

Fifth, do not be concerned about getting a date. If you are a single member of the Academy, or if you happen to wrangle a pair of tickets to the nosebleed section, which is possible but difficult, it does not matter who you are, what your gender preference is, or how much you are hated and despised the rest of the year, you will be able to get a date to the Academy Awards (tm). Trust me. (2)

Sixth, probably if you attend, you will be up in the nosebleed section. In fact, although it does make things a little less convenient, you will be watching television monitors mostly even though you can see the stage, you are much better off than if you are in the more prestigious orchestra section. Because you will be able to move around, you see, and those in the orchestra section can not move around if the camera is there to witness it. And when you do leave your seat down there, they have someone ready to occupy it when the camera is back on so that there are no empty seats.  But in the nosebleed section you can wander around, talk to people, get a soda water, and go to the bathroom.  This is much more convenient.

Everyone has stories about when they went to the awards and who they saw and so forth and so on. I want to mention one here, although it does not involve a famous movie star. About five years ago I went to the awards as the last-minute stand-in for the date of my friend David Coons (no reason to waste the ticket after all), and as we entered, I saw a receiving line of amazingly lovely young women from a local Catholic School in perfect Catholic School regalia, the dresses, the gloves, the knee socks. About 30 of them in a line, all about 17 years old. Why they were there, one can only speculate.

This picture makes me wonder if the Catholic School girls were part of a special security squad to protect Academy Members.  I did not notice any any weapons, but maybe they were concealed.

Exactly who is a member and why can be a little complicated. But it is fair to say that most of the members have a good reason for being members. Not everyone, not by any means. I know many, many people who are not members who are plausibly more deserving as members than some I know who are. But that is the case in many things in life, and it is not so surprising here. (3)

And yes, it is a little squirrelly who gets nominated and who wins. We all know some major gaffes in the Best Picture, Actor, Actress categories. But it is true in the technical areas as well, as you would expect. I will just mention one case because I think it is unfortunate. Without doubt, two of the most important visual effects films in the history of film are Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Bladerunner. Those two films were both nominated for visual effects but did not win either year. Admittedly those were tough years. But it happens that those two films were the two times that Trumbull and Yuricich were nominated, and they should have received an award for their work. In my humble opinion. If this world were fair, which it clearly is not.  (4)

Finally, one last thing, and since this is Hollywood, it is appropriate that it be about money. Because at the end of the day, whatever you may think or believe, and whatever else Hollywood may be about, Hollywood is about money.

This single night which may be the single most viewed event each year on television, with an international audience, also finances everything the Academy does for the year. They have major expenses and run some expensive infrastructure involving theatres, film archives, libraries, some restoration, and presumably some other worthy activities I know nothing about. And this single evening of the year finances all their work and activities, and that is probably a good thing, as they, from time to time, do good work.

Not always of course, but from time to time.

And the winner is ...

__________________________________________

1. That year ILM was up for an award, was videotaping the event, saw me and very kindly sent me a copy of myself behind Jodie Foster. That was very nice of them! I think it was Doug Kay who arranged that. I wish I knew where that tape was.

2. The only two events that come close as far as I know is the Presidential Inauguration parties (which I have been invited to, by the way, ahem), and/or if your country has a King or Queen, and they get coronated or married in your lifetime.

3. Each area (e.g. subsection) has its own story here. I am particularly amazed that Nancy St. John does not appear to be a member of the visual effects subsection, but it may have to do with the problem of admitting producers in certain areas, particularly visual effects, and some not-so-amusing history. None of this should, by rights, affect someone like Nancy, but apparently it does, or at least I presume so since Nancy does not seem to be a member of the subsection. Probably if Nancy really wanted to be a member she could be, is my guess.

4. The work was done at the Entertainment Effects Group, an important early visual effects company owned by Douglas Trumbull and Richard Yuricich, ASC.  Many interesting and talented people worked there, and many of them went on to do other things in the field.

The Inspirational Work of Sally Cruikshank and Quasi at the Quackadero

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was something called independent animation. To see it, a friend had to have the secret stash of 16 mm film or you had to go to a university screening, or a screening of an animation collection at a repertoire theatre. You couldn't just bring up a low quality version on Youtube but actually had to go somewhere to see it, on film at the correct frame rate and the actual colors.  At first you would have to see it on film, then later on as time passed, you could see it on video with weird interlace and wrong color, and then, finally, today, the lowest of the low, on the Internet.  In this way, the artform is degraded by the decadence of the society it is embedded in.

Oh well, quality doesn't matter, we all know that. Not when it comes to making money!

But making money was not the purpose of independent animation. Far from it. In fact, Gawd only knows what the point was, or is, or might be, but not money. A labor of love, perhaps? A struggle for acceptance amongst ones' biped peers? Perhaps just a hint of obsession or even obsessive compulsive behavior? There has to be some organic cause of the willingness to sit over a hot animation stand and draw frame after frame, each one just slightly different from the other, inflicting paper cuts and the smell of powdered graphite on your long-suffering body.

One day, perhaps at Filmex, perhaps at LACMA, I saw "Quasi at the Quackadero" by Sally Cruikshank.

I was stunned and amazed to see the Quackadero, some sort of deranged midway of amusements, with "Your Shining Moment", the "Hall of Time Mirrors", "Roll Back Time", "Think Blink Paints Pictures of Your Thoughts", "See Last Night's Dreams", "9 Lives 2 Live", and last but not least, "Time Holes"! Each of these would make a fabulous theme park / carnival attraction. And all of them drawn perfectly in Sally's very distinctive semi-psychedelic style.

Out on the town!

Our Master of Ceremonies

But as they say in another theme park attraction, "Its a small world after all, its a small, small world". A friend Rene Daalder, artist and filmmaker, introduced me to his friend, Jon Davison, a really nice man, graduate of the Roger Corman school of filmmaking, and the originator / producer of the Robocop movies. Jon, of all people, was married to none other than the lovely and talented Sally Cruikshank. For some reason they invited me to a benefit event at Jeff Bridges' house in the Palisades so I got to meet my hero, Sally. I don't remember what I said, I probably made a total fool of myself.

Recently I came across Sally's page on Youtube. Quasi was just as brilliant as I had remembered it, or more so. I wish the "youtube" quality was higher, but this is probably deliberate on her part.

I am out of touch with Jon and Sally but I hope they are doing very well.

Sally, your films are an inspiration.

Sally's page on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/laughingsal?feature=watch

Quasi at the Quackadero

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH7LcVNusQE

Make Me Psychic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PWPoHg2cRA

Gallery
http://www.awn.com/cruikshank/gallery.html

Procrastination Secrets Revealed: The Decipherment of Linear B

I realize that one should not brag, but I believe that I am the best procrastinator that I have ever met or heard about by at least one order of magnitude if not more.  I feel confident that I could compete against just about anyone in the world in this area and be victorious. But it isn't just raw talent, as with anything in order to be the best, you have to work at it, you have to practice, and you have to learn technique.

In this essay I am going to discuss one of several topics I have used to waste weeks if not longer of my time, and they can be used to waste your time as well, if you choose. The specific subject matter may not work for everyone but they will work for some of you. I hope you will try them and that they will be as productive in producing non-productivity for you as they have been for me.

The trick is to find a topic or story that is sufficiently complex that it will naturally lead to other interesting topics, which will lead to other interesting topics and so forth. It helps if there is some sense of romance involved, of mystery, or of controversy. By the time you are through, six months or a year or more can be spent becoming your local expert on the otherwise useless subject.

Michael Ventris, the architect who deciphered Linear B, and an example of part of a tablet

In this post we discuss our first example of such a topic: the decipherment of Linear B.

Once upon a time, a famous archaeologist proved that the Minoan and Greek civilizations were literate long before the classical period. But no one could read what they said. There was no Rosetta stone and it was not believed that the language would turn out to be a known one. But a young architect, with a talent for languages, had heard the famous archaeologist speak when he was a teenager and determined to decipher the tablets. And after many years, he did and he did it in such a way that the scholars in the field accepted the correctness of this outsider's work even though it revealed things that proved many of their theories wrong.

I can not express to you in this brief post how unusual and how important this was.  First, it is very difficult for an outsider to participate in current academic research in a field as obscure as ancient history because to really do it well you need to spend years learning things that have no utility outside of the field. In this case, this includes such things as not only knowing Greek, but having an idea of what the field of philology thinks ancient greek might have been like.  Or know a lot about what we think we know about the economies of Greece and Crete at the time in order to help judge whether a translation might be reasonable in context.   But more than that, this is an area where some very good people in the field had tried for 50 years to find a solution and none had been found, although some progress had been made.  And it was important to know about this work, this progress, because it ultimately opened the door for Ventris's solution.   And last but not least, there is something about ancient languages that attracts the nutty people, John Chadwich at one point had three file boxes of lunatic slush from people who thought they had translated Linear A or the Phaistos Disk.

So not only did Ventris have to solve the problem where others had tried and failed, but he had to do so in a way that this very elitist and closed community of scholars could accept and pay him serious attention.   Ventris knew all this of course, and he had some good fortune.  Part of the story is how he happened to be able to present his ideas on the BBC as part of a discussion of the problem and how a scholar at Cambridge, an expert in ancient Greek languages, heard him speak.  The scholar, John Chadwick, checked into Ventris and tried his proposed solution and, to his amazement, was able to decipher about 20 or so plausible Greek words in a few days of effort that made sense in the context of the tablets.   Then as a team, Ventris and Chadwick published the paper that presented the ideas, and that worked very well for academia: a lead author who is an outsider, but a reputable and known scholar as second author.  Perhaps Ventris alone, although he found the solution mostly on his own, would not have been as strong as the two of them together.

Here is the way John Chadwick begins the story of the decipherment:

So at this point in our story, an outsider has come to the field and presented a solution to a very difficult problem.   But now you have to get people to accept the idea.   And the story just keeps getting better.   Chadwick and Ventris knew that new tablets had been found but had not seen them.   But the archaeologist whose dig had found the new tablets had a copy of an early draft of the decipherment paper and tried the system on several tablets.   But one tablet, a very famous tablet if a tablet can be said to be famous, was particularly useful.  It was an inventory of various things that looked like tripods and cups/vases with a number of handles.   And the translation  listed "tripods" for things with three legs, and vases with four handles said "four ears" (an ear was a term for handle of a vase used in Homer) and one with three handles, said "three ears", and so forth.  As the archaeologist who sent it to them said, "This is all too good to be true, is coincidence excluded"?

But here is where the procrastination comes in, the part where things start expanding into other areas that are related and also fascinating.  It turns out that these are not just any old tablets of an ancient and lost civilization.  No.  Whatever may be historical about Homer, most scholars who study Homer believe that it is an authentic transmission or memory of an early period of Greece, however much it may have been distorted or romanticised.   And these tablets are almost certainly the accounting records of the civilization that Homer wrote/talked about.   And this civilization happens to also be the one which at that period, participated in the catastrophe of about 1200 BC which archaeologists refer to in various ways, but generally as "the end of the late bronze age in the eastern mediterranean".  At this time, most of the civilizations of this area, were either destroyed or attacked, by people who have not been identified but whom the Egyptians called the "Sea Peoples".

And it turns out that we have these tablets at all because they were in cities that were burned to the ground.  These clay tablets are almost certainly the temporary records, recorded in unfired clay, which got fired by accident when the cities were destroyed, and left where they fell in the ruins, where no one was left to clean things up, and rebuild.   

How interesting could the accounting records of a lost civilization be? One of the first tablets they decoded said, and I quote:

At Pylos. Slaves of the Priestess on account of the sacred gold. 14 women.

L. Ryder Haggard would have been proud to write such a sentence.

www.ancientscripts.com has a good summary introduction to Linear B
http://www.ancientscripts.com/linearb.html

Begin researching this topic by reading the following book by John Chadwick:

http://www.amazon.com/Decipherment-Linear-B-Canto/dp/0521398304

Amazon.com will let you read about 1/4 of the book online.

A conference on the decipherment of Linear B after 60 years
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/cracking-the-code-the-decipherment-of-linear-b-60-years-on

Its Greek to me.

In later posts we will discuss other topics which have the potential of wasting a huge amount of your time.