The Tragedy of Reverse "Mercury Retrograde"

[Update 03-13-2013 We have ascertained that Mercury was Direct when I was born, but was retrograde when I was conceived.  More research to do.]

[Disclaimer: The author in no way espouses a belief in what is popularly known as "Astrology" in this country nor is it my intent to encourage you to believe in it either.  What we popularly call astrology is in fact a decadent pastiche of many ancient belief systems that were held in high regard throughout the ancient world, each in their various ways, cultures and time periods.  As a field of academic study in what people believed in various times of history, I think Astrology suffers from a non-benign neglect because of a fear of being accused of believing in it.    On the other hand, I do get a lot of amusement when Astrology does seem to predict events as I believe it tells us something about how we perceive coincidence, if it is indeed coincidence, to fit certain categories and beliefs.  It would be disingenuous of me not to admit that there have been some striking coincidences over the years that does give me pause, and which I will narrate in this blog from time to time, but I do not believe that Astrology predicted them.  Rather I think they are obviously related to Atlantean Crystal Wisdom.    For those who are interested, I am a Leo with moon and sun signs in Scorpio.]

In this post I am going to introduce the concept of "Mercury going retrograde", describe some case studies of events that have occurred when Mercury was retrograde, and tell you why I think I am completely fucked due to this eternal and immutable astrological principle.

My first exposure to the concept of "Mercury in Retrograde" occurred in NYC about 1996 or 1997 when the esteemed NY ISP Interport.com lost my email address. A bill had come through unexpectedly and my ill-prepared credit card could not handle it, so a payment bounced and my email stopped working. I paid my bill, called Interport and spent about three weeks with them trying to debug their system: they were totally unable to get my email to work again.  They put many people on the problem, they did a very responsible job as far as I can tell, and they were totally stymied.  About that time, I was in touch with my friend Trilby Schreiber who informed me that "Mercury was starting to come out of retrograde" and that the account would probably start working again in a few days. And it did.

Just for fun, I started tracking Mercury going Retrograde because I thought it was an amusing concept and about a year or two later, a client of mine's phone system started going flooey about the time Mercury went into retrograde. Their voice mail system was hopelessly screwed up and they could not fix it, and weeks went by. I knew everyone in the company well and just for fun I mentioned that Mercury was still retrograde and that it would start going out of retrograde in about a week. They laughed at me! Can you imagine that?  They laughed at me!!! And about a week later, finally, their phone system mysteriously fixed itself and started working.  Mysteriously.  Perhaps they will learn from this experience.

Mercury going retrograde is the phenomenon of Mercury appearing to go backwards due to the elliptical orbits of the planets around the Sun. Due to the different speeds and orbits of the planets, it can appear as though a planet changes direction and goes backwards relative to its location to earth, even though in reality it is moving forward as it always does. So Mercury does really appear to go backwards, from our point of view. This happens about 3 times every year and lasts for 3-5 weeks each time.  To know when Mercury is going retrograde in any year, just type "mercury retrograde 2013" (or whatever year it may be) into your favorite search engine.

The astrological impact of this logically follows from the God Mercury (aka Hermes) being the messenger kid for the other Gods in Greek and Roman religion.  "Mercury going retrograde" implies that communications go weird, unreliable and/or prone to distortion.   Communication, negotiation, deals, contracts, and the like are unreliable, and a deal signed during a retrograde Mercury period may in fact turn out to be something other than you expected.    Also, for some reasons, machines like computers start acting perversely.    The Greeks and Romans did not have computers per se, at least not digital ones (1), of course, but they did have a large number of mechanical engines which were in constant use, and there is nothing like a four-story crane at a construction site going weird while raising a couple of (Roman) tons of marble to ruin your day.

But there is an elaboration that I read about that takes this to a higher level.  In this variation, there are people for whom the normal retrograde effect is itself reversed.   When Mercury goes retrograde, communication does not get worse for these people, it gets better.   The downside is that for the rest of the year, when Mercury is going forward as normal, they also experience the reverse effect on communication, etc.  It is like one long horrible "Mercury is Retrograde" for most of the year, broken up by brief periods of constructive normality.   This would be very bad of course for the individual who was so affected.

Who might be susceptible to this variation?  One explanation is that one is born during a retrograde period.  I do not know what other situations or events might cause this.  But I am highly motivated to know, because I have noticed for many years now that for most of the year I am completely paralyzed and isolated, unable to get anything moving.  Then, for some reason, things start working normally, for a brief period of time, but then stop and revert to their previous paralysis.

Just recently, a number of things started working and started showing progress after months of nothing.   A beloved and unique camera, a Contax AX, had been drop-kicked 20 feet along a concrete street and had sensibly stopped working, suddenly just started working again.    A friend indicated that he was working on getting me a project.  I started talking to the chair of next years SIGGRAPH on a variety of important issues.  This may lead nowhere, but it is such a delight to be able to talk to a real human involved at a senior level on these issues.  An old friend asked me to participate in a charitable visualization project.   I came up with a possible, amusing idea for a consulting business, and became more convinced than ever that a kind of software I have considered writing would be quite valuable if written.  This is all very odd and mysterious, I thought.   Why should anything good be happening to me?

Then I had a horrible thought and checked, and yes, it had all started when Mercury became retrograde about two weeks ago.  I think you see the obvious implications. If I am right, then the only time that communications, machines, ideas, deals and so forth can make progress and work for me is when Mercury is retrograde, three short periods of the year.

Mainstream post-enlightenment culture sees no other rational explanation for these events beyond sheer perverse randomness.    It is not about my effort, or my attitude, which is consistently bad, or because of how much energy I put into things because I always put a lot of energy into my work except when I hold my head in despair.   If not reverse Mercury retrograde, what other possible explanation is there beyond mere randomness or the untested power of Atlantean Crystal Wisdom?

_______________________________________

More about Mercury Retrograde

http://www.addictedtoastrology.com/p/mercury-retrograde.html

http://solarisastrology.blogspot.com/2013/02/mercury-retrograde-trickster-of-night.html

http://www.universetoday.com/22135/mercury-retrograde/
http://www.thespiraljournal.com/2012/03/mercury-retrograde-2/

The following is a table of all the times that Mercury went Retrograde in the last century (e.g. 1901 - 2000).  The term "MR" means "Mercury Retrograde" and the term "MD" means "Mercury Direct".

http://www.astropro.com/features/tables/geo/me-sta/me-sta26.html
________________________________________

1. Actually the Romans did have computers, but they were analog and mechanical ones.  A sundial is a computer, so are many navigation devices etc.  These people were not dummies.

Toaster Oven or Computer? How Can We Tell The Difference?

[Note, I use the term "computer" here to refer to both the hardware and software.  Did anyone think that a computer did not include software?]

As citizens of our modern world (1), we are expected to promiscuously hop from computer platform to computer platform at the slightest hint of trendiness or novelty. To fail to do so is an unmistakable sign of imminent and unstoppable senility and creates the genuine possibility that you will be thrown under the wheels of the train of progress by your helpful and loving friends and colleagues.

So we embrace our new platforms and devices and pretend to be excited by whatever bad implementation of an old idea that is poked in our face as "the latest thing".

But some of us, for reasons that may not be our fault, are also called upon to do our "work" on these exciting new platforms (3) and that can cause a lot of problems, especially if the new device claiming to be a computing device actually turns out to be more like a toaster oven than a computer.

Does that modern looking toaster oven have an ethernet interface?   How about wireless routing?

Now this is not to in any way put down the noble art of the design of a good toaster oven, far from it. Toast can turn a formerly inedible piece of old bread into a tasty culinary element, no small feat.  Most of us would not consider having a toaster oven in our kitchen that did not have a satellite uplink and at least 1GB of main memory.  But a toaster oven is still conceptually different from a computer in at least one important way.

I maintain that the key distinguishing concept separating the computer from the toaster oven is the need to get work done beyond the controlled burning of bread. It is this idea that a computer is used to "get work done" that is considered so revolutionary and so threatening to the computer manufacturers of today who believe that a computer is first, last and always a device to extract money from the consumer.

A computer is not just to demonstrate a bankrupt user interface idea discredited 20 years ago at SIGCHI and implemented by morons: a computer is actually a tool intended to accomplish something that the biped mammal thinks is worthwhile... something as simple as writing a letter or as complicated as mapping the human genome.  (4) Or that was the naive and idealistic belief held by many of the original users of computers back in the day when we thought computers were going to help the world and not just torture it.

How can we easily spot the computer from the toaster oven in actual practice?  We have developed a procedure which is outlined here.  First find a comfortable location within easy view of a clock.  Cozy up to your computer candidate, note what time it is, and then try to perform the following simple tasks, taking note of how long it takes you to complete them.

A. How hard is it to find a command line interface? How hard is it to find a text editor that does not insist on changing your data in order to "fix" it?   Can you create a file without the computer screaming bloody murder and asking stupid questions about whether you want linefeeds in Vietnam? (2)

B. How hard is it to create a new program for the computer, even the simplest program, and run it on the computer?  Not their program (or "app" if you insist), but your program.  Almost any computer language will do, whether or not it is the "native" language of the computer.    Do you need to get permission from Jesus or the Pope before you run this program of yours?   Boy that would be pretty fucking arrogant if computer companies were actually trying to control the software you could run on the computer you just bought from them in a sleazy bid to extract more money from you, don't you think?

C. How hard is it to find good (e.g. useful) technical documentation for the computer?  Documentation that a reasonably knowledgeable technical person would want to know when programming or operating that computer?  Does such documentation even exist?  Or is it carefully kept only for the elite in order to avoid giving actual users the information they would need to program their computer?  They might hurt themselves!

D. Does the computer support open standards and protocols or did the manufacturer work with tremendous diligence and cynicism to make sure that any application written for this platform could never in a billion years be ported?

E. Does the computer allow you to easily get data on the computer and off of it again? Why would anyone want to do that?   

There are cases where something may not fulfill all the five categories above and still be a computer, but generally it is a special purpose computer that has a large support team around it, say the kind of computer we might use to blow up Iraq.

Consider the following four case studies: Redhat Linux 9.0 circa 1988, the DEC PDP 8E circa 1970, MAC OS X and the Android Nexus 7.

Redhat Linux circa 1998.    The subject was able to find a shell within about 30 seconds, a text editor in about 5 seconds, write a program in about 1 minute, find a compiler in about 20 seconds and compile and run a program in about 30 seconds after that.  The subject had trouble finding documentation because he had inadvertently not installed it by default, and he had to learn about the stupidity of the Info system for which GNU should be shot.  Definitely a computer.

DEC PDP 8E.   The subject discovered that the DEC PDP 8E, which his high school acquired about 1970, came with a built in line editor, a built in compiler (for FOCAL), and was running his own program within about 5 minutes.  One got data on and off with paper tape.  Definitely a computer.

A Real Computer

MAC OS X.  The subject had a project that required him to port a program from Linux to the MAC.   He was able to find wonderful technical documentation instantly, a good text editor in seconds, a compiler in a few minutes, and run a program in about an hour. Definitely a computer.

Android Nexus 7.   Subject had to deal with the immensely patronizing bullshit surrounding programming the Android for something like 6 weeks before getting a simple "hello, world" like program to run.  Said program was a page of insane java calls and the program itself needed to be embedded in a crazy hierarchy of useless directories and was painful to get to the designated tablet and to figure out how to run it.  There is no serious technical documentation. Anything involving a text editor, or getting data on and off, relies entirely on unsupported third party software that you have to find and install yourself without help or documentation from the manufacturer.

More toaster oven than computer, I think.

_______________________________

1. And "modern" is such an old-fashioned word, too.

2. In order to discourage users from using public and open standards, Microsoft Office would put you through a battery of questions before allowing you to save a .txt file, including about line feed encoding in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or whatever that socialist paradise is called these days.

3. Sarcasm intended.

4. Or, conversely, as complicated as writing a letter and as simple as decoding the human genome.

What is the Greatest Joy? Lizardo's Inspirational Speech in Buckaroo Banzai (1984)

One day there will be a real post about the following scene.  It is of Dr. Emilio Lizardo giving a speech to his fellow aliens in the style of Mussolini (more of a parody of Mussolini, I suppose).

The movie, Buckaroo Banzai into the 8th Dimension (1984) is a classic in its genre and this is John Lithgow giving a great performance for what is a very low budget movie.  It is always the most fun to play the villain.

The famous Scott Squires who is getting around a lot as a spokesperson for visual effects, a voice of reason in an unreasonable world, was one of the founders of Dreamquest Imagery that worked on the effects for this film, with effects supervisor for the production none other than my friend Mike Fink.

I love this speech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd56CIFSMI4

He says something like this:

Whorfin: Lec's are on this planet, here in New Jersey, coming to destroy us. We must act, escape or die! We must work faster to finish the great vehicle itself, so we can enter the 8th dimension and free our trapped comrades, so we can return home and seize power once again! What is the greatest joy?
Workers: The Joy of Duty!
Whorfin: Louder!
Workers: The Joy of Duty!
Whorfin: History is made at night. Character is what you are in the dark. We must work while the clock she is ticking!
Worker: Lord Whorfin destroy them!
Whorfin: We Hide!  They Seek!
Worker: Death to the Black Lectroids!
Whorfin: Where are we going?
Workers: Planet 10!
Whorfin: When?
Workers: Real soon!

The Red Lectroids Cheer!

Buckaroo Banzai on IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086856/

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.

Totoro and the Absence of Traditional Story Structure

As anyone who has tried to finance a film knows, Hollywood has very clear ideas about what sort of film is marketable in this country. And very, very clear ideas of what sort of ANIMATED film makes money in this country. And since they are very specifically in that business to make money, they attach a lot of importance to these rules.

Among the rules are these: (a) an animated film will have frequent breaks with music for the small children in the audience, (b) an animated film will not be over a certain length, and (c) an animated film will rarely if ever have a female protagonist, and if it does, she shares center stage with a male protagonist. From there, Hollywood goes on and applies a number of other rules and requirements about story structure, most of these ae applicable to other types of films as well, and includes certain things about the types of conflict in the film, the pacing, the reversals, the climax, etc. Hollywood has a strong opinion on these matters. It is one reason so many Hollywood films seem the same, one giant robot or alien invasion after another. That is because they are the same at one level of abstraction.

My favorite animated film however follows none of those rules. It has no happy songs, it is much longer than average, and the protagonists are two little girls, one about three years old. It goes on from there in its eccentricity. It is not clear that there is a villain in the film, except perhaps whatever it is that is making their mother sick such that she must stay in a hospital. There is one homage to standard story structure: the climax of the film involves the youngest girl running away to see her mother, and the effort to find her.  This could be seen as a classic 3rd act rescue mission.

What's up in the scary attic?

The film did not do well at first in the Far East, where it was made. But eventually the toys got marketed and that fed back to the film until it became successful there. The film found no distribution in this country (1) until, unusually, a firm with no experience in this genre picked it up, added English subtitles and tried a theatrical release in N. America. I believe it did not do well, and the film disappeared, except to the few who knew of it and loved it, until Disney, at John Lasseter's urging, picked up all the films of this director and started marketing them in this country.

The director of course is Hayao Miyizaki and the film is My Neighbor Totoro (1988).

This is my corn and you are not going to take it from me

The company that attempted the distribution was Troma, a firm better known for making and distributing films such as "Surf Nazis Must Die" and "The Toxic Avenger". But in this case, they spent their own money bringing Totoro to the notice of Americans and, I think, lost their money. I happened to see it because my friend Chris Casady, owner of Roto Efx of America, had worked for Troma in the past and was invited to the screening at the DGA and invited me along.

I have excerpted my favorite scene from this film and put it at Youtube.  Well, I had put it on Youtube but it seems that someone is blocking it.  So you will have to review the pictures below, or of course, rent the video, which is what they want you to do which is fine with me.

Its an umbrella

On another occassion we will discuss the issues of trying to make a 3D character from one designed for 2D and review all the reasons that is hard, using two characters from this movie: the dust spirits and Totoro himself. Here are some images of these characters which I hope will set you thinking about why doing them in some sense in 3D (as in modelled in geometry) would be very difficult if you wanted to keep the essence and charm of the characters. And if you would not want to keep their charm, then why oh why would you even bother?

My Neighbor Totoro on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096283/

Miyazaki on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayao_Miyazaki

____________________________________________________

1. Most animated films, indeed most films, made in the Far East never see formal distribution in this country or North America. There have been a few exceptions and some of them are quite notable, e.g. many Kurosawa films would find some independent distribution here. This is especially true for animation made in the Far East, where many of their best and most successful films traditionally never made it over here, except in a very limited form marketed directly to fans of the various genres.

By way of counterexample, Bruno Bozzetto's Allegro Non Troppo did get distribution of some sort in this country.  I am not sure how that happened, but that does show that it is possible.

Computer Graphics and the Doctrines of Original and Derivative Sin

[Substantially revised 2/19/2013]

Anyone who looks at the field of Computer Graphics and Animation today sees vast misery, incredible and increasing unemployment, despair and uncertainty. (3)  The political actions of other nations have made it impossible to do computer animation in this country and compete thus increasing the offshoring and outsourcing of 3D animation.  Our people are driven to the four corners of the earth;  parents are forced to work in slave-like conditions and separated from their families in order to earn what is barely a living, starving to increase the profits of the rich.   And the rich are very rich indeed, privileged and ruthless at maintaining their privileges and laugh at the misery of the poor.   Unemployment everywhere, despair everywhere, injustice everywhere.

Many years ago  I heard a talk by computer artist William Latham (1) in which he proposed that computer graphics imagery was different from other forms of imagery because, by its nature of being computed, it was thus free of the Original Sin, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge and then expelled from Paradise.

But since we are clearly not in Paradise, but are being punished daily, then it is likely that whether we are guilty of Original Sin or, even more likely, an unoriginal sin, a "derivative sin", but definitely a sin of one type or another, or so one might reasonably judge from the reality of the punishment that we are receiving. (7)

3D animators being laid off from a CG studio

Although this may seem superstitious to us, for large parts of history, people of all types believed in the concept of divine punishment so, for a moment, lets ask ourselves how people of the 1st Century AD might have looked at these things. How would they have perceived these disasters and calamities?

Ancient people believed that plagues, famines, war and so forth was God punishing a wicked people or evil nation for their sins.  They would look at a fallen meteor and see a sign from God that he or she was displeased.  They would look at our misery and say that God (or the Gods) were punishing us and that what we had to do was to ask ourselves in what way we have sinned, that we may sacrifice to the appropriate God(s), and change our ways, and repent.

If one were sincere, a number of cattle might be sacrificed, or if really sincere, in some cultures, a good human sacrifice or two was required.   (4)

So let us review the many ways that the field of Computer Animation has sinned.

First and foremost, 3D animation has utterly destroyed the commercial basis of the traditional arts of 2D animation and visual effects.   Thus we are so very guilty of putting many innocent and talented people out of work, forcing them to put down their pencil or their optical printer and get a job as a day laborer for slave wages.   You may call it progress, but I say that we caused a lot misery, however unintentionally.

What other sins are we guilty of?

Pride, arrogance, a failure to help our fellow biped, greed, indifference to poverty, to unfair practices, guilty of setting up and worshiping false gods, competitiveness without mercy, driven by self-interest, ignorance of our effects on the other arts, ignorance of our own history.  Not to mention the sins of making bad movies and creating very bad animation.

Without doubt, we are guilty of all of these.

And the Gods have responded to our wickedness by providing subsidies to foreign nations to uplift our enemies and cause great misery through divinely-sanctioned unfair trade practices!   Heaven has sent the Angels of Unemployment to strike down Sinners even as they type at their Workstations!

As a prophet of doom, I suggest that things will only get worse unless the people repent of their sins and return to the path of righteousness.

God only knows that our misery could not possibly be the result of our own actions, our failure to act, our cowardice, or the inevitable result of our own corrupt practices and stupidity.   It must be a result of divine displeasure.  Because if it was a result of playing it safe, of failing to protest foreign subsidies as a way of keeping quiet and "minding our own business" (2), of rewriting our own history whenever it was convenient to do so (or simply being ignorant of our own history), then we would have no one to blame but ourselves. If we are guilty of transferring our technology to foreign venues as a way of making a fast buck, then who is at fault other than us?   If we thought the studios that finance films cared about the computer animation community in this country, from whence their current riches originate, then that would be particularly stupid and indicate a complete failure to face reality of how these things work. No, the answer must not lie here, among ourselves, the answer must lie in the realm of divine displeasure.

I recommend sacrificing at least one goat or maybe two at once. (6)

Doctrine of Original Sin on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin

___________________________________________________

1.I http://www.nemeton.com/static/nemeton/axis-mutatis/latham.html

2. Ironically, of course, it is our business.  But it would mean making waves and possibly offending the rich and powerful.

3. Of course this does not apply to some people.  I believe, for example, that my friends at Pixar are treated quite well.   But if they could not work at Pixar for some reason, and were thus like the rest of us, and had to find employment outside of that special reality, they would very much not be happy.

4. Human sacrifice is in most cultures past whether or not they admit it.   But there was quite a diversity in how many humans, who they were (e.g. captured prisoners or citizens) and when they eliminated the practice.   Other than hating Christians, the Romans were tolerant of nearly everything among their multitudes of incorporated cultures other than human sacrifice.  They had no trouble with the death penalty, but that was completely different in their eyes from killing people for religious reasons which they considered barbaric.

5. Most Prophets of Doom are not volunteers, but claim to have been chosen by God more or less against their will.   Also prophets of doom normally do not make a good living but have to live as hermits in caves and so forth.  Much better to be a prophet of hope and joy if you want to make a profit, so to speak.

6. A little off topic, but the best political cartoon found on the topic of human sacrifice is:

7.  This is of course circular logic, and proudly so.

I Was a Limo Driver for Bruno Bozzetto

Once upon a time, back when I was a fan of animation, animation meant 2D animation for the most part.  Certainly not 3D animation. And in those days, perhaps 1977,  I used to attend various international animation film festivals, or at least, would see collections of animation from those festivals.  And although I was not working in animation (1), I was a member of ASIFA. I remember having posters about animation festivals from Zagreb and Sofia on my wall at RAND. People must have thought I used to go there to visit Soviet Intelligence and pass secrets or something.

As a member of ASIFA, I heard that Bruno Bozetto of Milan, Italy was coming to this country to speak at UC Santa Barbara and needed a ride from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara and back again.  As an alumnus of UCSB, and a fan of Mr. Bozzetto, I volunteered to be his escort both ways in my old, red, un-air-conditioned, Chevy Impala.

Mr. Bozzetto having his picture taken with his limo driver.  Just kidding!

This was a very long time ago. It must have been sometime between 1977 and 1978.  I am pretty sure his film Allegro non Troppo (1976) was out by then.  

I remember driving him both ways, I have an image of him in my head. I remember a few things from his talk. That he had a small animation studio in Milan, Italy, and that they mostly made a living doing commercials. I remember him describing a system whereby the Italian government would sponsor short animated films, but that one of the requirements was that they had to be about 11 minutes long no matter how well the idea fit into that length. These films showed as short subjects at movie theatres in front of the main feature, I think. Just like we used to do in this country in the early days of film.  I think he went on to say that this is how his film Allegro non Troppo got made.

A portion of Allegro non Troppo on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSEJC-cVPuA

An alien spacecraft litters an alien planet with a soda pop bottle and starts off a whole cascade of evolutionary doom.

Marching to their inevitable destruction!

I dropped him off at the end of a very long day somewhere in Los Angeles, said goodbye, and went home. I always wondered how he was but had no way to get in touch with him, and besides, I doubted that he remembered me.

Then one day, somehow, I saw his name on a post that Tom Sito, now a professor at USC, had done. So I gathered up my courage, and sent him a friend request

Bruno Bozzetto 3:59am Feb 14 Hi Michael! I remember your driving and my friend Roberto, the music composer, trying to tell you a joke in english:) Nice to hear you again!

Yea!

Mr. Bozzetto's Studio on the Internet
http://www.bozzetto.com/index.html

Allegro non Troppo at IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074121/

Article about Mr. Bozzetto in an Italian magazine (in English)

http://www.ecodibergamo.it/dossiers/Personaggi/18/43/

Bruno Bozzetto at IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0102547/

Allegro_Non_Troppo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegro_Non_Troppo

________________________________________

1. Of course essentially no one was working in 3D animation back then.

R&H Closing Causes Panic on Facebook

R&H closing has caused panic amongst the 3D bunnies. They have had jobs for 26 years while the rest of the field suffered, and now that it is their turn, the world is ending. In a sense it is. But we don't really know what is going on so I will find out and report back.

Updates:

2-13-2013 Late in the day, I had a long discussion with a friend who knows R&H well, the visual effects business well, John and Pauline well, etc.  I am still processing his information.   As I understand it, there is a good chance for R&H to emerge from this, but it is an unfortunate and complicated situation, and whatever happens, it does not look good for LA employment.  Thus in rebuilding, they are more likely to rebuild in, for example, Vancouver, than in LA.  Oddly, Vancouver is more expensive than LA, except for that 60% refund that the Canadian govt provides, of course.   The studios are doing their best to put R&H out of business through their stupidity, but that is nothing new.

2-13-2013 An unauthorized source at the local SIGGRAPH meeting reports talked to two former employees, and quite possibly misheard stuff, but that R&H has laid off 100 - 200 people, mostly older and more expensive people.   The source also speculates that it was the real estate acquisition in El Segundo that caused the problem of cash flow in part.   There is further speculation that R&H may not need more than 100 people in Los Angeles to manage their overseas work force.   This information was from the previous day, I just got it today.

2-12-2013 Late in the day, I read some Facebook posts by people complaining about being laid off after 26 years.   Oh, boo hoo. Welcome to the club, goddamnit.  It is clear that people do not really know what is going on and are spreading rumors.  They need to understand that this is understandable but dangerous.  By spreading rumors, you may be contributing to making a bad situation worse.

2-12-2013 Wall Street Journal article on R&H
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/02/12/oscar-nominated-life-of-pi-visual-effects-studio-to-file-for-bankruptcy/?KEYWORDS=rhythm++Hues