Student Volunteer Blog #2
Posted By
Estefanía Martínez González on
August 05, 2009 12:00 am |
Permalink
pedritaatsiggraph.wordpress.com
Confessions from outer space
WOW!!! Amazing experience the first day at SIGGRAPH 2009 in New Orleans!!
Have you heard this before? Yes. I’m sure that I am not the first person in saying that, but I am also pretty sure that I am not going to be the last. Seriously. AMAZING!
There are so many things to see, so many interesting people to meet and so much cool stuff going on that an outsider like me doesn’t know where to begin.
So, just to put some order in here, let me confess something. If it is the first time you are coming to SIGGRAPH, here is my big advice for you. You will only have to take care of 2 things: Explore and have fun. If u do the first one, the second is guaranteed.
Explore in all the possible ways. Be curious, don´t be shy. Take your locutor guide and mark the day before the talks, courses and Birds of a Feather that you don’t want to miss and go for it! It´s as easy as that! So why was Monday so great? Well, it started with an amazing introduction of big talents of the industry. This morning at 10 in the Orleans Ballroom took place the presentation of this years’ ACM SIGGRAPH awardees followed by individual talks of every presenter in the afternoon. Robert L. Cook and Michael Kass, both from Pixar Studios, Wojciech Matusik from Adobe Systems, Lynn Hershman Leeson from University of California and Roman Verotsko from Minneapolis College of Art have injected huge doses of inspiration into the audience of artists, students, educators and by extension, to all the people interested in computer graphics who were there this morning.
Also Randy Thom, one of the keynote speakers of this year taught an incredible lesson of sound design in no more than one hour through a comparison of two great cinematic pieces Apocalypse Now and Wall-E. In one hour. How can this happen, seriously? This only take place here, in SIGGRAPH.
Absoltutely inspiring as well was one of the talks that I was able to attend after one of my shifts (oh! I haven’t told you already? I am a student volunteer!!, -more on that in next posts-). It was titled “Making it Move!” with talks by Pixar, Dreamworks and EA Games held in Hall E 1-2.
But this is only one out of a bunch of great choices. Trust me, go and explore! Talk to Quasi the Robot, join FJORG!, share your opinions and ideas with people with your same interests in Birds of a Feather, listen and be fascinated with the talks and work of great talented people in the industry of CG and learn from the list courses available for attenders. Don’t forget to visit Bio Art and Info Aesthetics, the new talks about games, the famous Computer Animation Festival, get some cool souvenirs in the Store and check out the expo!!
Yes, I know…So many things, so many people and everything is so great… but well, is hard to believe that I have a complaint. Yes, I do. The bad news are that I haven’t had time to explore the city yet…!! But you can’t have everything, right? Well, in SIGGRAPH you can! Because in a few minutes I will be heading the ACM SIGGRAPH Chapters Party… and I hope I will find you there!
See you at SIGGRAPH!