All photos by Michi Tsunoda
So, this week at the LA convention center, Siggraph 2008 was hosted. I was asked about 2 months ago by my friend/co-worker Jen Bahan if I would be a co-presenter with her, in the Rhythm & Hues booth, to give a brief talk about my department. Jen is a rigging supervisor, and technical animation is a sub department of rigging. Knowing my fear of public speaking, naturally I said yes...
I believe it's good for my character, to put myself in situations I imagine to be humiliating, uncomfortable and terrifying. Now, this could expand to things like doing 'The Chicken Dance' at a wedding or performing in a poetry slam - but both of those things are stupid and gross. Siggraph is something someone in my shoes SHOULD do.
I really should have prepped my materials sooner than I did, but I got everything together in time. However, a week before Siggraph started, I was asked to participate in another panel talk to discuss the cracking system developed for Mummy 3, which I mentioned in my previous blog. I thought 'What the fuck? Why not?' So I said yes.
Jen and I prepared pretty well I think. We were talking about things we do everyday, so the subject matter wasn't difficult to generate, just the presentation, timing and actually saying it in front of a crowd. We rehearsed for about 2 lunch hours before our presentation day, and then the day of, we met early in the morning and practiced all day til we did it.
When it was time to go, we were both super duper nervous. There was a crowd of about 40-50 people who showed up, but there were lights shining in my eyes, so I couldn't really see them. Right before we started, Jen looked over at me and said 'Dude...I'm so nervous right now I could puke.' Regardless, she did awesome. She sounded like she did this for a living. As time went on, I settled into the talking about what I do in front of people role, and it became easier. When it was over, our friends in the audience said it went well and we received questions that made me think what we were saying actually made sense to the people listening.
Here are a few pics of the scene:
This is the booth.
Look here! Jen and I, all smiles, but really we're fucking scared to death.
Here I am with Ari. I think this picture better reflects my mood. The mood best described as 'supposed to be having fun, but instead, feeling nauseous'.
Here's our audience.
And here we are on stage.
Look here! Jen and I, all smiles, but really we're fucking scared to death.
Here I am with Ari. I think this picture better reflects my mood. The mood best described as 'supposed to be having fun, but instead, feeling nauseous'.Here's our audience.And here we are on stage.After it was over I felt great! I ran my mouth like I'd just had an endorphin rush. Whew. It went well, and it was now over.
So, next was Friday's presentation. I was expecting Friday's presentation to be even easier. It was the last panel of the day. We were presenting in the 'Bend Me, Break Me' category, which focused on various simulations systems seen in recent films. There were two groups from Dreamworks, one group from Digital Domain and us. Me and Jason Bayever. Jason was the guy who spearheaded the 'crackHorse' project, and I was the end user who did most the R&D and developed the film ready aesthetic performance of the technology the programmers created.
I'd already spoken about this subject a little in my booth talk, so I wasn't as nervous. Also, Ari (Dr. Ari Shapiro - graphics scientist) had pretty much put the presentation together for us as a god damned sweet favor. During the week, Jason and I, being the types of pessimists who like to label themselves 'realists', discussed what we thought we'd see at the panel. We figured: a small room, 5-10 people, boring presentations etc.
A mild affair for all. No problem.
I, we, were wrong. When I showed up at the convention center, Jason met me out front and the first thing he said was "Dude...the room is HUGE. Like 500 people huge." me: "But it's empty right? There's no one here?" Jason: "No! They are all here, they are just in other conferences now." Secretly, I was holding out hope, thinking "Whatever. No one will show up. It's the last conference of the show. Who wants to go to that?" So, before our presentation, Jason, Ari and I scanned the material briefly and ran through some rehearsals. Jason, who is normally a great, lucid and smart speaker was running over his words, losing his train of thought, and getting very nervous. In watching him, I got nervous. I was feeling like a veteran already, due to my one little talk, but Jason's nervousness made me think I was in for something bigger, and oh yes I was. I pulled my part off just fine with a little coaching from Ari, and I felt ready to go.
While we were packing up, Jason said "I'm a little worried that our technology won't play nice when were up there." He's worried that the laptop we'd planned on working with wouldn't play with Siggraph's technology. I was like "Dude...it's Siggragh. They have mini-dv converter dongles out the ass". And so we were on our way.
On the walk to the room, I noticed a crowd gathering around us all headed into the same area. It was the room. The same room we were about to speak in. It was huge. Like 500 people huge as Jason said. Also..it was PACKED. I haven't been this scared since I've fought in a martial arts tournament, or actual street fight - ie several years. I thought I would puke and or faint. We get in there and realize somethings wrong - at least with my perspective on this.
Here's a break down of the room:
Room
403 AB
Dimensions
104 x 82
Square Feet
8,528
Ceiling Height
20'
Maximum capacity
1,000
Anyhow, I shucked the emotional assault my brain was dealing me to the side, and got on stage to test the equipment. It looked like it was going to work. So, feeling somewhat safe, we sat down to wait. I practiced my stuff while the other two demos went first, and Jason listened to them. I could not concentrate on any thing except the thought 'We need to get this shit done as soon as fucking possible.'
After the two presentations go, it's our turn. I bring my Mac up and plug it in. We wait.....hmmm......nothing's happening..... The tech assistant starts to go ballistic in that 'tech dude who's failing at his job in the publics eye' kind of way. We try to help, but nothing we do collectively, gets what we've written and been rehearsing, out of the lap top, and on the big screen. There were lots of psychedelic images on the screen jumping around rapidly. I tried to joke the audience out of their discomfort 'Hey guys I just shit in my pants! Who wants to wrestle? No no no, I said 'I'll be DJ'g in just a few minutes.' while pointing at the screen. I think I got a 5-10% laugh share. ie, 25-50 people snorted or chortled. That's not very good.
So we couldn't fix it. We decided to let the guys after us go first so they could their part done and over with, and we can sort our tech issues out in the meantime.
During this time, we copied our entire files over to a friends laptop, converted the file from ppt. to Keynote, rebuilt all the video file paths, and then it was time to go again.
We now try our friend's laptop.
It doesn't work.
We try my laptop again.
It doesn't work.
At this point Jason is mad, and he's very effective when he's mad. He essentially said to the Siggraph staff 'You do this, you do this...you do this and I'll do this.
It worked! Jason brought up the raw, out of order, unedited version of the presentation as it had been burned to the Siggraph server that morning. We said fuck it, and went forward with it.
Jason started out pretty nervous for about 30 seconds, but he then clicked into Jason mode and just owned it. When it was my turn, I simply said what I'd been planning on saying, but I had to improvise a way to get the order of the slides to match conceptually. I brought a little bit of science into the talk, but nothing too techy, because that would have lead me to pulling Hans and Ari into the talk and I didn't want to extend it anymore.
When all was said and done - it went really well! A lot people pinned me down after, asking about concepts in the film. The last guy was the Siggraph Beijing Chair and said he'd like to get in touch with me about talking in China sometime next year. That would be pretty sweet. We'll see if he follows through.
To be cont'd..
There's more I need to write...it will be in part 2. It's about the nightmare combat strategies and techniques I've used over the years and how/why they work.
So, next was Friday's presentation. I was expecting Friday's presentation to be even easier. It was the last panel of the day. We were presenting in the 'Bend Me, Break Me' category, which focused on various simulations systems seen in recent films. There were two groups from Dreamworks, one group from Digital Domain and us. Me and Jason Bayever. Jason was the guy who spearheaded the 'crackHorse' project, and I was the end user who did most the R&D and developed the film ready aesthetic performance of the technology the programmers created.
I'd already spoken about this subject a little in my booth talk, so I wasn't as nervous. Also, Ari (Dr. Ari Shapiro - graphics scientist) had pretty much put the presentation together for us as a god damned sweet favor. During the week, Jason and I, being the types of pessimists who like to label themselves 'realists', discussed what we thought we'd see at the panel. We figured: a small room, 5-10 people, boring presentations etc.
A mild affair for all. No problem.
I, we, were wrong. When I showed up at the convention center, Jason met me out front and the first thing he said was "Dude...the room is HUGE. Like 500 people huge." me: "But it's empty right? There's no one here?" Jason: "No! They are all here, they are just in other conferences now." Secretly, I was holding out hope, thinking "Whatever. No one will show up. It's the last conference of the show. Who wants to go to that?" So, before our presentation, Jason, Ari and I scanned the material briefly and ran through some rehearsals. Jason, who is normally a great, lucid and smart speaker was running over his words, losing his train of thought, and getting very nervous. In watching him, I got nervous. I was feeling like a veteran already, due to my one little talk, but Jason's nervousness made me think I was in for something bigger, and oh yes I was. I pulled my part off just fine with a little coaching from Ari, and I felt ready to go.
While we were packing up, Jason said "I'm a little worried that our technology won't play nice when were up there." He's worried that the laptop we'd planned on working with wouldn't play with Siggraph's technology. I was like "Dude...it's Siggragh. They have mini-dv converter dongles out the ass". And so we were on our way.
On the walk to the room, I noticed a crowd gathering around us all headed into the same area. It was the room. The same room we were about to speak in. It was huge. Like 500 people huge as Jason said. Also..it was PACKED. I haven't been this scared since I've fought in a martial arts tournament, or actual street fight - ie several years. I thought I would puke and or faint. We get in there and realize somethings wrong - at least with my perspective on this.
Here's a break down of the room:
Room
403 AB
Dimensions
104 x 82
Square Feet
8,528
Ceiling Height
20'
Maximum capacity
1,000
Anyhow, I shucked the emotional assault my brain was dealing me to the side, and got on stage to test the equipment. It looked like it was going to work. So, feeling somewhat safe, we sat down to wait. I practiced my stuff while the other two demos went first, and Jason listened to them. I could not concentrate on any thing except the thought 'We need to get this shit done as soon as fucking possible.'
After the two presentations go, it's our turn. I bring my Mac up and plug it in. We wait.....hmmm......nothing's happening..... The tech assistant starts to go ballistic in that 'tech dude who's failing at his job in the publics eye' kind of way. We try to help, but nothing we do collectively, gets what we've written and been rehearsing, out of the lap top, and on the big screen. There were lots of psychedelic images on the screen jumping around rapidly. I tried to joke the audience out of their discomfort 'Hey guys I just shit in my pants! Who wants to wrestle? No no no, I said 'I'll be DJ'g in just a few minutes.' while pointing at the screen. I think I got a 5-10% laugh share. ie, 25-50 people snorted or chortled. That's not very good.
So we couldn't fix it. We decided to let the guys after us go first so they could their part done and over with, and we can sort our tech issues out in the meantime.
During this time, we copied our entire files over to a friends laptop, converted the file from ppt. to Keynote, rebuilt all the video file paths, and then it was time to go again.
We now try our friend's laptop.
It doesn't work.
We try my laptop again.
It doesn't work.
At this point Jason is mad, and he's very effective when he's mad. He essentially said to the Siggraph staff 'You do this, you do this...you do this and I'll do this.
It worked! Jason brought up the raw, out of order, unedited version of the presentation as it had been burned to the Siggraph server that morning. We said fuck it, and went forward with it.
Jason started out pretty nervous for about 30 seconds, but he then clicked into Jason mode and just owned it. When it was my turn, I simply said what I'd been planning on saying, but I had to improvise a way to get the order of the slides to match conceptually. I brought a little bit of science into the talk, but nothing too techy, because that would have lead me to pulling Hans and Ari into the talk and I didn't want to extend it anymore.
When all was said and done - it went really well! A lot people pinned me down after, asking about concepts in the film. The last guy was the Siggraph Beijing Chair and said he'd like to get in touch with me about talking in China sometime next year. That would be pretty sweet. We'll see if he follows through.
To be cont'd..
There's more I need to write...it will be in part 2. It's about the nightmare combat strategies and techniques I've used over the years and how/why they work.
1 comments:
I've actually heard of Dr. Ari Shapiro. Don't know how though. I used to get really nervous when i was walking into architect firms unannounced to try and sell my VR stuff. But, i was really calm when i used to go to trade shows/events to sell cable services to group of people. I think you're just more nervous if you actually care about what you're doing.
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