Mike Seymour:
SIGGRAPH 2012 started with some great sessions, and with what appears to be record numbers – certainly from just walking around and the sessions we have attended the conference is buzzing.
Employee Says He Was Fired For 'Exposing' Coke Abuse At Local Film Company
MacDonald alleges that he was terminated for calling attention to the alleged coke habit of a supervisor, who he says in court documents was nicknamed "Powder Donut Man," "Cokey the Clown, Our Fearless Leader" and "The Crinkle Club." The supervisor in question was Alex Frisch, who is best known for his visual effects work in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise.
Being fired because other peoples problems is shitty no doubt. The phrase "Bump" comes from Hollywood. People with drug problems are not limited to VFX its everywhere. This is not news.
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As Mac Pro stagnates, PC workstations muscle ahead
Aurich Lawson writing for Arstechnica.com:
Like many Mac-based creative professionals, I followed this year's WWDC keynote anxiously, awaiting the "one more thing" that never came: an E5 Xeon refresh of the Mac Pro line. Its absence was brutally disappointing; thankfully, Tim Cook broke his vow of secrecy to reassure us that a new Mac Pro will arrive in 2013. But for filmmakers compressing hours of 4K footage or school labs in need of new Maya machines, that’s a long time to wait—perhaps too long. Since I was also in the market for a machine to help out with my V-Ray renders, I decided that the time had come to evaluate my alternatives. The current Westmere-based Mac Pro line is definitely out of sync with what’s available elsewhere, and it is no longer competitive from a price-to-power standpoint.
For compers the idea of GPU based blurs is great. The next major release of Nuke should have this. A 2010 MacPro isn't up to the task. The Linux box sitting across the room is. It's looking mighty fine.
Rush
Digital Domain CEO John Textor Supports VFX Trade Org « VFX Soldier
Digital Domain CEO John Textor Supports VFX Trade Org
What Should Scott Ross Do? Follow up.
When was the last time you took a paid vacation? Had a sick day? Did you get July 4th off to avoid holiday pay and then work the Saturday after as a regular day or did you just work both? Did you get paid extra for either?
Some good conversation going. At some point thou we are going to have to move from conversation to action. Its the only way.
Well you’ll probably laugh but I actually think he should form his own separate labor organization. As ridiculous as that sounds, it actually is a more feasible path to attaining his goal.
Nothing is going to be perfect. Never will be.
Siggraph things ‘to watch out for”
Siggraph 2012
Welcome to the start of our Siggraph 2012 coverage. We will be blogging from the show starting with this run down of what has caught our eye looking to the week ahead.
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How Sony Pictures Imageworks Brought the Heroes and Villains of 'Spider-Man' to Life - The Hollywood Reporter
"We mo-capped a gymnast," says animation supervisor Spencer Cook, who worked on the first three Spider-Man movies, of experiments with performance capture for the first film in 2002. "But Spider-Man just looked like a gymnast; it didn't look like Spider-Man. We moved away from that since a lot of Spider-Man shots have larger-than-life action."
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What the VFX “industry” needs now is…..
It’s been over a year since the Visual Effects Society has issued their hopeful VES 2.0 letter to the industry. Many on the board of the VES have stated that there is action being taken by various subcommittees within the VES and that this is a difficult issue that needs a great deal of research and a strategic plan. I contend that the time to be effective is quickly slipping through our fingers. I believe that given the structure of the VES, its charter as well as its management and its board of directors, make addressing the issues that the Visual Effects industry face, an impossibility.