Launched in London

We had a wonderful week in London, brining XSI 7 to the Soho post (and games!) community. So many of our amazing customers are all around the corner from each other, seperated by pubs, curry houses and sushi shops. Jellyfish, The Mill, Passion, Studio AKA, Fluid (and many more!) are all in this incredible area of London.

We had two events in London, one in the afternoon and one in the early evening. All in all, close to 150 people turned up to see Softimage|XSI 7 in action. Christoph Schinko did a great demo on advanced rigging and created an ICE effect live for the crowd - even taking suggestions on how to improve it from the audience. Right when we wrapped up London, the team in NYC went on stage. (Much hilarity ensured via SMS on the mixed up posters, so we had people from the MILL NY and Jordi from the Mill London each hold up the poster)

Thanks to everyone who turned up (and Lex for his very helpful registration support) - it was an honor for me to have helped to bring XSI 7 to you.

Two weeks home and the SIGGRAPH.

See you in Los Angeles!

Green Screen Fun in San Fran

What a week it's been since we announced XSI 7 to the world.

The on-line communities are buzzing with the news.. www.xsibase.com, www.3dbuzz.com and www.cgtalk.com are filled with comments and questions about our latest release.

Next week we'll be in London and New York city hosting two launch events on July 17th (7/17!) and at the same time we'll be in those markets we are also holding an On-Line Event so we can bring more details about XSI 7 and ICE to the rest of the world!

http://www.softimage.com/events/xsi...linelaunch.html

Right now, I am in San Francisco shooting the on-line launch at Pixel Corps, a Softimage Training Partner. We are shooting on green screen, which is always fun, and the talented team at Pixel Corps will cut and comp in a digital set.



I am here with Marc Stevens, Softimage GM and Mark Schoennagel, Softimage 3D Evangelist. Both Marc/k's are very dedicated to brining the message of XSI 7 to as many people as possible. The amazing thing with this shoot is how we were able to build the demos. Normally, when you create demos for beta software, it is key that they are created and rehearsed well in advance. Because of the stability and the flexibility of the ICE platform, we created the majority of our demos in the last few days.

Really. We spent a lot of time reading the posts and questions on over 1000 public forums, and worked with our new R&D material and test scenes and spent yesterday building over a dozen new demo scenes. I can't tell you how unheard of this is. Never ever have we deviated from our planned demo material to use brand new material.

You can even see Mark smiling before we got started. He told me later maybe he was sweating this, just a little bit. But the software came through with flying colors. yay ICE!


So we are about to close it up for the day, thanks to everyone involved for all their hard work.

It's a wrap - see you online next week!

XSI 7 on 7/7

Yesterday was a great day. After a ton of work from many different people around the world, we unveiled SOFTIAMGE|XSI 7 to the world.

This product launch was probably the most significant one we have ever done, as XSI 7 offers up ICE, a new platform for creating outstanding visual effects and 3D tools. One of the main features of ICE is that it offers up the chance for a collaborative workflow between artists and technical directors, and the same was true for the actual launch of the product. http://www.softimage.com/products/xsi/

Work on the launch of XSI 7 started several months ago. Shortly after GDC, we held an internal training session with our application engineers from around the world, including our training partners Digital Tutors, as well as trainers Adam Sale and Craig Slagel. It was an intense 4 days, and it started off the ICE training and launch prep.



In April, my work for launching XSI 7 kicked into high gear. Part of what I do is work with technology partners to showcase how their hardware can benefit from SOFTIAMGE|XSI, so I spent the week of NAB in Vegas having meeting after meeting, planning our launch events & SIGGRAPH activities. XSI 7 is such a fantastic showcase for the multicore systems that are available today, we named our demo character "Mulcor" after Multi-Core. (I like the fact that he has an 'Alienbrain,' the name of another one of our products, but no one else seems to find this as funny as I do)



Our partners really came through for us for our launch. HP & Intel, along with Microsoft and NVIDIA are supporting us for the worldwide kick off of XSI 7. We have events on july 17th in NYC and London, and on that same day we will be hosting a pre-recorded on-line event with one of our top media partners. I promise info is coming very soon! I am actually off in a few hours to head to San Francisco to shoot the event. Photos will come in a few days.

For SIGGRAPH, we have a lot going on, but what I am most excited about is our User Event on Aug 12th. Instead of the traditional format of product presentations in a theatre setting, we are hosting a visual, multi-media event that later will turn into what promises to be one of the best Softimage parties ever.. A key element for us is that the Softimage staff will have the entire night to mingle and chat with customers, friends and partners, instead of an hour before and after. This event will be a celebration of ICE and all the hard work our team put into creating the technology. We are very thankful for the support we got to host this from Dell & ATI, along with Microsoft and Intel. If you are going to SIGGRAPH, trust me when I say this.. do not miss this party.

Time to head out, it's 5am and I have a flight to catch very soon.

cheers,
jen

Playing Guitar Hero 3 in Texas.. aka I love my job

I am in Dallas thsi week with Peter de Lappe and Jodi Vetterl, attending the Game Education Summit. I'll post more details on the conference tomorrow after I have had a chance to attend a few sessions, today was more about the exhibition hall for me.

Oh, and playing Guitar Hero 3. Which i LOVE.

Softimage has a kiosk at this event, and so does Dell University. Dell brought Guitar Hero 3 master player "Tipper Queen" to do some demos and play GH3 with the attendees. I played "Hit me with your best shot" with her. So fun. but WOW. I was on easy and she (of course) was on expert.

I have played Gh3 and Rockband with some pretty good players, but Tipper is absolutely amazing. I think she was playing right handed instead of her usual left, and she is killer. She played onstage during Bill Gates' CES keynotes with Slash.

Tipper, aka Kelly, is also studying game design, and peter doesn't know it yet, but he is going to be teaching her some XSI tips tomorrow during a session break.

Tipper Queen (L), Guitar Hero 3 player & game design student, rocking out with another conference attendee (who did impressively well on the hard setting!)

http://www.delluniversity.com/

http://www.tipperqueen.com/

http://www.gameeducationsummit.com/

Reviving the travel blog.. getting ready for a BIZZY summer!

Hello!

It's been ages since I updated the Soft travel blog, and there are actually several reasons for that, which are not that interesting and mostly to do with me not making it a priority. BUT - we are looking towards a BUSY summer filled with SIGGRAPH action, so its time to get back in the habit again!

So where have we been since my last post February? GDC was in San Francisco in February this year, and we didn't have a booth this time. We chose to have private meeting suites on the show floor, and directed our energies to our Education Summit and Softimage Student User Event, which were both firsts for us. It was a good week - a different GDC experience, but a good one!

Student User Event at AI San Francisco..

.. where Mark really enjoyed the demo he gave!

After GDC, there were a couple of small customer trips, until I got to spend 10 days in Los Angeles and Las Vegas this April for NAB, and a few LA-based events. NAB was interesting for us, since Avid didn't have a booth on the show floor. I have to admit, I thought it would be an easier week. Typically, NAB is filled with partner meetings to go over roadmaps and co-marketing planning sessions squeezed between hours of booth duty. This year it was crazier than ever - how does THAT happen?? Everyday started at 8am and finished at 7pm. We met resellers, customers, partners, educators, Avid counterparts. It was a ridiculously busy schedule, and as a result, a relatively lowkey week in vegas. Although I did have time to go to the AJA party at the Bank at the Bellagio, which gave me some inspiration for our SIGGRAPH 2008 User Event. More on THAT later!

I actually do not have ONE picture from Vegas this year. I had misplaced my camera, and only found it when I left. Honest.

After leaving NAB, I headed back to LA for a User Event at Gnomon. We held the event to kick-off the class that started on May 5th, and got to see some familiar faces!

Pam Hogarth (Gnomon) with Michael Isner & Colin Brady

Long time XSI user and friend Anthony Rossano and his colleague William, who won a copy of XSI Essentials!

Mark with Rudy Sarzo, Softimage user and rock legend. Trust me. Google him.

Darren Krumweide of Gnomon (left) and Gnomon staff member.

Heather Hughes and Pam Hogarth (Gnomon) with Kath Hayes of RFX (R).

From left: Peter de Lappe, Javier von der Pahlen and Jeff Wilson of Softimage, Ron Frankel of Proof and Ken Knobel, Softimage.

and even though the Gnomon event wrapped at 9:30pm, our day wasn't done yet! Mark and I headed downtown to do a walkthrough of the location of the 2008 Softimage SIGGRAPH User Event. We found an excellent location, and are feeling pretty pleased with the way it's shaping up.

Softimage SIGGRAPH User Event - Tuesday, August 12th from 8pm-1am. Put in on your calendar - it's going to be a good one. Invites will go out mid-to-end of June.

That's it for now - happy memorial day, America!

Note the huge smile on Mark's face. The event is going to be very COOL.

On the road again...

New year, new travels.. although being back in Seattle is a non-stop case of deja-vu. I have been here so many times for various Microsoft events and launch activities that we actually recoginized the Westin staff at the hotel this time around.

I have actually been home since November of last year, which was great, because i was fully focused on launching the new Education Programs. I was at a school in Seattle yesterday going over details of the program, and i don't know who gets more excited - teachers hearing about the free, learn at your own pace certification that comes with 40 hours of professional training, or students who hear about the free one year commercial license they receive if they graduate from a partner school. I can't wait to talk to the schools attending GDC next week about this - its going to be really great for the XSI community as a whole!

We also have more news coming soon on Professional Training.. i'll keep you posted.

So Seattle - it really is Microsoft town! Microsoft was holding an event for their WW field teams - 5 days of training and seminars for over 6000 staff. We were there for a Partner Summit, where Microsoft partners demo their wares to the attendees. Quite a few Microsoft employees were pretty happy to see us there, as they remembered when we were part of the family. I started telling people that the "soft" in Microsoft actually came from us. Just for fun. :)

Because I was with Mark, I got to pick something up at the Microsoft store. Mark can shop there because he is an alumni, so I know own "Scene It" and PGR4 for my Xbox 360.

We spent the next two days visiting clients and trying to plan last minute GDC technical details. Our brand new Dells - fully loaded with all the bells and whistles (I got to order them online - i have never ordered such powerful equipment - it was pretty cool to choose a 1TB hard drive) will be running the new ATI Fire GL 7600s which we have been testing all week.

So now I am off to Vancouver, I have client visits and education meetings lined for the next three days, and of course I get to see my friend Adam Sale, whose voice i know so well now, as I have listened to his instructor certification training material quite a bit in the last few months!

It's great to be back out on the road, but not that easy to snap back into it. I forgot how stressful it can be not having access to email and being able to get as many things accomplished from a hotel room. I just logged on at SEA-TAC and have over 100 new emails just from today that i need to look at and respond to. ack!

I am looking very forward to blogging at GDC - we don't have a booth this year, so hopefully I'll have more time to write about what's going on at the show.

jen

SOFTIMAGE @ VIEW Conference--Torino, Italy

Hello from Kevin G. -- on the road in Torino, Italy @ VIEW Conference (Nov. 6-9, 2007)

Torino (Turin) is the industrial capitol of Italy (home of FIAT- check out the new Fiat 500 - cute classic, Italian answer to the Mini Cooper). Located about 75 miles west Milan, the VIEW Conference (previously The Virtuality Conference)- is generating a huge buzz for SOFTIMAGE.

The 4-day show is a host to mostly students and 3D design professionals entering the industry. Italy is world renowned for its design, and this is the place where students come to learn about the craft of 3D, animation, design visualization and all forms of visual technology and story telling.



















The SOFTIMAGE booth was packed every day to capacity by students wishing to learn more about XSI, the art of 3D animation, and to watch in fascination the work of our customers in our SIGGRAPH Show Reel--and the show favorite, short animation, A Gentlemen's Duel (by Blur studios).



SOFTIMAGE is also offering Master Classes each day of the show, filled to capacity and led by Enea Le Fons, senior certified Softimage instructor. We've had outstanding special guest presentations from customers including:

Game developer PLASTOS (Luca Da Rios, President & CEO--Margarita & Kevin G.)



Visual effects and commercial post production houses- The Shift (Gianfranco Sgura and Emiliamo Colantoni-red background) and Xchanges post facilities (Marco Negri & Gianluca Pedrazzi - metalic background) also provided great presentations and demonstrations of how they successfully use XSI to win business and turn in excellent commercial works.

For the design industry attendees, we were very fortunate to have Massimo Giacon deliver an inspired and fun presentation of how he uses XSI to visualize and create many of the quirky and fun pieces for Alessi --an Italian industrial design and creation house.


Another great element of the VIEW Conference, is that it's really attracting world-class luminaries in the industry, including:
1) Glenn Entis--senior vice president at Electronic Arts
2) Joseph Olin--President, Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (D.I.C.E Summit)
3) Pam Hogarth--Gnomon School of Visual Effects, Los Angeles
4) Peter Nofz--Digital Effects Supervisor, Sony Pictures Imageworks (Spiderman movies)
5) PIXAR - Jessica McMackin- Technical Director Ratatouille
6) PIXAR - Alex Harvill - Technical Director 2D/3D effects on Ratatouille
7) PIXAR - Sharon Calahan - Director of Photography and Lighting -Ratatouille
8) PIXAR - Paul Topolos - Digital Matte Painter, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille
9) PDI Dreamworks - Lucia Modesto--Character Technical Director - all three Shrek films
10) James Clyne - Concept Artist- working with Ryan Church on the new Star Trek movie
... and the list goes on with many more guests.

And finally... The art dealer table was complete with many art books, making-of books, and the latest releases from Ballistic Publishing - and the new "Expose 4" art book

Digital Tutors/PL Studios Grand Opening

I had the honor of attending the opening of PL Studios (aka Digital Tutors) last Friday in Oklahoma City, OK. Before the grand opening, PL Studios hosted UPGRADE 2007: Evolving Art & Filmmaking, Oklahoma’s first annual computer graphics, animation and gaming forum.
http://www.plstudios.com/

The event was focused on exploring what it takes to develop, cultivate and maintain an animation, gaming, and digital filmmaking industry in Oklahoma.

It was a wonderful experience - I felt very privileged to be there.

Here are some photos..
http://picasaweb.google.com/jgoldfin2007/DigitalTutorsGrandOpening

Photos from Make Your Mark

I can't get over how fast time goes by.. we planned the Make Your Mark tour for months.. and in 2 short weeks it was all over.

Each city and presenter and panelist were all so different.. and i enjoyed the time we spent listening and learning from our clients in Boston, New York, LA & San Francisco.
Thanks to Marc & Todd (Boston), Chris & Youngwoong (NYC), John & Raffael (LA) and Jonathan (San Fran). Hearing your advice and experience in developing your careers was invaluable and inspiring to the audience as well as the Softimage staff.

For a complete album of photos, check out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/avidtechnology
& http://picasaweb.google.com/jgoldfin2007

Tim Sweeney & Chris Johnson in NYC.

Kevin, Jodi & Jonathan Harb

Chris & his wife Melissa with Youngwoong

Make Your Mark Tour - Summary

I am having some technical issues here.. let's try this again...

See below for the MYM Tour Summary that my colleague Kevin G just prepared. I wanted to post this first, because it pretty much sums up where we have been for the last two weeks. Yesterday was the last event, held in San Francisco, and it was a little sad for us to see it end so soon!

This was the first time I have worked with all of the different divisions of Avid.. the Video team, who we know pretty well, but the Digidesign and M-Audio teams are new to us to collaborate closely with. It was a great experience..

Overall, the panel sessions were amazing. In all 4 cities, I felt like I learned something from each team on how to help my own career.. the advice and suggestions from Marc, Chris, John & Jonathan were invaluable, and I was very proud to have these 4 speakers representing the VFX industry.

Our four artists in the break-out sessions were equally fantastic... Todd, Young, Raffael and Jonathan all brought a different story to each city with their different career paths and projects.

I also got to work with our newest Softimage employee - Peter de Lappe - who is joining forces with Mark Schoennagel to spread the gospel of XSI as our new 3D Evangelist.

Here's Kevin's summary, we'll both be posting photos and more details later today.



For Make Your Mark, Montreal-based Softimage represented its professional 3D animation technology software, SOFTIMAGEXSI, by inviting 3D industry thought leaders to attend the lively and informative panel sessions in all four cities: Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Softimage additionally provided highly-visual demonstrations of its professional 3D animation software in each break-out session—providing a comprehensive demonstration of how one can break into the 3D industry using XSI software for a career in 3D game development, visual effects, broadcast or pre-viz and design visualization.

In Boston, Modus FX president Marc Bourbonnais represented the visual effects industry in the first panel event. In the Softimage break-out session, PSYOP’s Todd Akita shared his experience working on award-winning spots for some of world’s biggest brands (Mercedes, Infiniti, MTV, Nike, Coca-Cola and more)—and provided advice on building a successful career using XSI 3D software.

In New York, Chris Johnson from TOPIX in Toronto shared his experience at the panel discussion about learning 3D and how he has applied his expertise in a career creating 3D visuals for major television advertisements. Youngwoog-Jang, recent winner of the Academy Award Student Gold Medal for his 3D animated short, Mirage, gave an inspirational “Making-Of” presentation at the break out session.

In Los Angeles, John Norris, director of Artists and Directors Cooperative spoke about how artists can break into the industry. Raffael Dickreuter, host of the XSI community site www.XSIbase.com and 3D pre-viz artist for Pixel Liberation Front, showed how SOFTIMAGEXSI was the best 3D animation software for next-generation games, film and television projects—and provided insider advice on how to get a job in the animation industry.

In San Francisco, Jonathan Harb, CEO and Creative Director at Whiskytree, shared his knowledge of working in the industry as an XSI artist to create specialized environments and his past experience of working on visual environments on films including all three Star Wars prequels, Mission Impossible 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Make Your Mark Tour - Summary

Hi -

See below for the MYM Tour Summary that my colleague Kevin G just prepared. I wanted to post this first, because it pretty much sums up where we have been for the last two weeks. Yesterday was the last event, held in San Francisco, and it was a little sad for us to see it end so soon!

This was the first time I have worked with all of the different divisions of Avid.. the Video team, who we know pretty well, but the Digidesign and M-Audio teams are new to us to collaborate closely with. It was a great experience..

Overall, the panel sessions were amazing. In all 4 cities, I felt like I learned something from each team on how to help my own career.. the advice and suggestions from Marc, Chris, John & Jonathan were invaluable, and I was very proud to have these 4 speakers representing the VFX industry.

Our four artists in the break-out sessions were equally fantastic... Todd, Young, Raffael and Jonathan all brought a different story to each city with their different career paths and projects.

I also got to work with our newest Softimage employee - Peter de Lappe - who is joining forces with Mark Schoennagel to spread the gospel of XSI as our new 3D Evangelist.

Here's Kevin's summary, we'll both be posting photos and more details later today.

For Make Your Mark, Montreal-based Softimage represented its professional 3D animation technology software, SOFTIMAGEXSI, by inviting 3D industry thought leaders to attend the lively and informative panel sessions in all four cities: Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Softimage additionally provided highly-visual demonstrations of its professional 3D animation software in each break-out session—providing a comprehensive demonstration of how one can break into the 3D industry using XSI software for a career in 3D game development, visual effects, broadcast or pre-viz and design visualization.

In Boston, Modus FX president Marc Bourbonnais represented the visual effects industry in the first panel event. In the Softimage break-out session, PSYOP’s Todd Akita shared his experience working on award-winning spots for some of world’s biggest brands (Mercedes, Infiniti, MTV, Nike, Coca-Cola and more)—and provided advice on building a successful career using XSI 3D software.

In New York, Chris Johnson from TOPIX in Toronto shared his experience at the panel discussion about learning 3D and how he has applied his expertise in a career creating 3D visuals for major television advertisements. Youngwoog-Jang, recent winner of the Academy Award Student Gold Medal for his 3D animated short, Mirage, gave an inspirational “Making-Of” presentation at the break out session.

In Los Angeles, John Norris, director of Artists and Directors Cooperative spoke about how artists can break into the industry. Raffael Dickreuter, host of the XSI community site www.XSIbase.com and 3D pre-viz artist for Pixel Liberation Front, showed how SOFTIMAGEXSI was the best 3D animation software for next-generation games, film and television projects—and provided insider advice on how to get a job in the animation industry.

In San Francisco, Jonathan Harb, CEO and Creative Director at Whiskytree, shared his knowledge of working in the industry as an XSI artist to create specialized environments and his past experience of working on visual environments on films including all three Star Wars prequels, Mission Impossible 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Make Your Mark Tour - Summary

Hi -

See below for the MYM Tour Summary that my colleague Kevin G just prepared. I wanted to post this first, because it pretty much sums up where we have been for the last two weeks. Yesterday was the last event, held in San Francisco, and it was a little sad for us to see it end so soon!

This was the first time I have worked with all of the different divisions of Avid.. the Video team, who we know pretty well, but the Digidesign and M-Audio teams are new to us to collaborate closely with. It was a great experience..

Overall, the panel sessions were amazing. In all 4 cities, I felt like I learned something from each team on how to help my own career.. the advice and suggestions from Marc, Chris, John & Jonathan were invaluable, and I was very proud to have these 4 speakers representing the VFX industry.

Our four artists in the break-out sessions were equally fantastic... Todd, Young, Raffael and Jonathan all brought a different story to each city with their different career paths and projects.

I also got to work with our newest Softimage employee - Peter de Lappe - who is joining forces with Mark Schoennagel to spread the gospel of XSI as our new 3D Evangelist.

Here's Kevin's summary, we'll both be posting photos and more details later today.

For Make Your Mark, Montreal-based Softimage represented its professional 3D animation technology software, SOFTIMAGEXSI, by inviting 3D industry thought leaders to attend the lively and informative panel sessions in all four cities: Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Softimage additionally provided highly-visual demonstrations of its professional 3D animation software in each break-out session—providing a comprehensive demonstration of how one can break into the 3D industry using XSI software for a career in 3D game development, visual effects, broadcast or pre-viz and design visualization.

In Boston, Modus FX president Marc Bourbonnais represented the visual effects industry in the first panel event. In the Softimage break-out session, PSYOP’s Todd Akita shared his experience working on award-winning spots for some of world’s biggest brands (Mercedes, Infiniti, MTV, Nike, Coca-Cola and more)—and provided advice on building a successful career using XSI 3D software.

In New York, Chris Johnson from TOPIX in Toronto shared his experience at the panel discussion about learning 3D and how he has applied his expertise in a career creating 3D visuals for major television advertisements. Youngwoog-Jang, recent winner of the Academy Award Student Gold Medal for his 3D animated short, Mirage, gave an inspirational “Making-Of” presentation at the break out session.

In Los Angeles, John Norris, director of Artists and Directors Cooperative spoke about how artists can break into the industry. Raffael Dickreuter, host of the XSI community site www.XSIbase.com and 3D pre-viz artist for Pixel Liberation Front, showed how SOFTIMAGEXSI was the best 3D animation software for next-generation games, film and television projects—and provided insider advice on how to get a job in the animation industry.

In San Francisco, Jonathan Harb, CEO and Creative Director at Whiskytree, shared his knowledge of working in the industry as an XSI artist to create specialized environments and his past experience of working on visual environments on films including all three Star Wars prequels, Mission Impossible 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean.

In a New Yok Minute...

One of the downsides about writing a blog is the associated guilt I feel when I don't update it fast enough! I have been trying to get a quick around to posting an update about the NYC Make Your Mark event, but time keeps getting away from me!

I am now in LA, gearing up for the next event, but I want to share some details about last weekend in NYC.

I arrived in the city last Thursday and headed off right away to meet with some schools and training facilities to discuss XSI training for professionals. We know there are so may jobs out there for talented artists that can use XSI, we just need to be able to offer a couple of transition courses.

One of the things I was discussing with the schools I was at was offering a free weekend class in Feb for non-xsi freelancers to get them up to speed. I would love to hear some feedback from NY shops if they think they could help us get some people there.. also we are looking at London as a possibility as well.

So after a long day running around NYC I got to SVA to meet up with Mark Schoennagel and Mike Walsh of Softimage, where we were getting ready to be the guest speakers at the NYC User Group, run by Phill Avanzato. This was exciting, because we were showing a little tech preview from SIGGRAPH of some exciting technology that may or may not make it into the next release of XSI. Looks like what Mark showed resonated well with the crowd, so that was very encouraging! Mark also opened up XSI 6.5 and showed how the 3Dlight beta plug-in works for rendering in XSI.
http://www.3delight.com/en/modules/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=3delight_for_xsi_changelog

It was a great opportunity to catch up with a few XSI guys (and gals!) that I haven't seen in a while, like Todd Peleg, Leigh Rondano, Alex Arce, Mike Wharton and many more. (We missed you Kris Rivel!) I love going to the NYC User Groups- they jut go by SO fast!

On Friday, we went to a couple of client shops to hold some technology sessions and talk training. Both places we visited have grown SO much since the last time I had been there, with both project scopes and team sizes. There are some fantastic projects coming that are using XSI - I can't wait to be able to talk about them!!

Later in the day we met up with our guest panelist for the event, Chris Johnson of TOPIX and his wife Melissa. It was nice being able to have the time to chat and catch up, very different from when we are all running around at SIGGRAPH.

This was a longer post than I expected.. I'll do a second one for the Make Your Mark event later today - it was a great day.

see you later!

Making our Mark in Boston..

Avid Interim CEO Nancy Hawthorne

You know what's cool about working for Softimage? Being reminded every once in a while of all the other cool companies and products under the Avid umbrella.

Yesterday was the 'Make Your Mark' event in Boston, and it was such a blast seeing all the cool products from M-Audio, Digidesign and Avid.

I SO need to try TORQ now! http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/TorqXponent-main.html

Steve Hassan & Sharon Holm of Avid

PSYOP's Todd Akita presenting

The Rondo Brothers using M-Audio

Todd and Softimage's Chinny "Make Their Mark"

This event was a departure from other seminars we have done.. it was the first audio-3D-video seminar with all the divisions of Avid. The event opened with a panel of industry experts (including Modus FX's Marc Bourbonnais representing 3D) talking about what students and artists can do to get noticed by professionals. While the panel was heavily skewed to audio and the use of myspace pages to get noticed, all the panelists agreed that using the web is a premiere was to get yourself marketed.

Networking is key to get a job in the industry.. so work with your teachers and your contacts.. go to events, mingle, introduce yourself.. From the CG side - be online, post your work, get on the industry forums - it's key to.. "Making Your Mark!"

Next week we hit NYC.. Chris Johnson and Young Jang will be representing CG for the event.

For more info about next week's event, go to: http://makeyourmark.avid.com/

Make Your Mark - Boston

Next up.. the Avid Make Your Mark Tour!

The "Make Your Mark" tour is the first time that Avid Video, Softimage, Digidesign & M-Audio are participating in a seminar series all together. Each division was responsible for bringing in a panelist and a presenter to talk about their field of expertise.

We'll be hitting 4 cities in the next 4 weeks, starting today.. here is the schedule.

Boston - October 3, 2007 - Boston University
New York - October 13, 2007 - The Millennium Broadway Hotel
Los Angeles - October 20, 2007 - Los Angeles Film School
San Francisco - October 23, 2007 - San Francisco State University

http://makeyourmark.avid.com/

The Boston event will kick off with an interactive panel session, moderated by Scott Campbell, general manager of Broad Street Digital. The panel will cover tips and tricks for getting noticed and getting ahead in film, TV, music and 3D.

Panelists include:
- Matt Dentler, producer of the South by Southwest Film Festival and Conference;
- Debbie DeMontreux, SVP Original Productions and Development at the Independent Film Channel (IFC);
- Music Industry Talent Scout, Tim Sweeney, founder of Sweeney and Associates; and
- Mark Bourbannais, president and founder of Modus FX

INDUSTRY PRESENTERS AND BREAKOUT SESSIONS:
- Carmen Rizzo, producer-mixer-programmer and writer: "Professional Remixing and Production Techniques" and "Redefining the Studio"
- The Rondo Brothers, musicians and professional composers: "Music Creation in a Virtual Environment" and "ProTools and the Art of the Remix"
- Todd Akita, 3D technical director, PSYOP:
"How to Break Into the Post Industry"
- Dan Moses, filmmaker and producer, First Track Productions:
"Extreme Filmmaking"

I'll post more later.. time to meet up with Chinny and get the systems up and running.

ADAPT is a wrap...

I am a bit late with my last ADAPT post.. the conference came to a fantastic close last Friday.
Thursday was the Halo 3 party, which by all accounts, was amazing. (I only know this 3rd hand, because I fell asleep at 8:30pm while I was 'resting up' for it!)

Anyhow.. before we got to that point, I was lucky enough to watch two Softimage client presentations at ADAPT.

The first was Ron Martin fro Stage 3 Media who presented the web-based sci-fi show "Sanctuary." If you haven't seen the show - take look - http://www.sanctuaryforall.com/ . Created in Vancouver, Canada by many of the team behind Stargate SG1, Sanctuary is an online series shot entirely in HD.

VFX Producer Ron Martin presented some of the challenge that the team at Stage 3 media faced with creating the show, including the business challenges in running an on-line distribution model. If you read up on the vision behind Sanctuary, you'll see that the creators did not enforce a strict digital rights management policy on their product - they want their fans to be able to share. At the same time, a studio has to make enough money off a web series to be able to continue to afford to fund the project. There is no doubt, that Sanctuary is a popular product. Legal and illegal downloads have reached over 1 million viewers for the first 8 episodes.

Sanctuary has broken several barriers on the web broadcasting front, and the team at Stage 3 media will continue to do so on the web-based business model.

Our other guest presenter in town for ADAPT was Greg Punchtaz of Janimation. Greg took a different presentation tactic than Ron, instead focusing on his career in make-up and vfx. What was extremely interesting for me (and the audience too!) was seeing some of the early work from Greg, and how he started his career on iconic projects like Robocop & Nightmare on Elm Street 2.

Greg talked about his experiences working with industry greats like Phil Tippett (ADAPT's keynote speaker) and Rick Baker. Little-known fact - Greg and Aaron Sims were high school friends in Texas who used to practice make-up effects on their friends. One year for Halloween, classmate John Norris (now Aaron's production partner) was sent home because he was deemed "too gruesome."

Overall, ADAPT was great fun - and hat's off to the team behind it. It was a great conference, and so cool that it was in Montreal. Thanks to Greg and Ron for flying in to present here, and thanks to Pierre Yamond & Daniel Leduc (Hybride), Rob Moodie (Buzz Image) and Marc Bourbnnais (Modus FX) for the Montreal-based customer presntations.

Keep your eyes open for announcement of the dates of ADAPT 2008.

ADAPT Conference with photos

We had a great time at the cocktail mixer last night. I was chatting with Bill Kroyer from Rythm & Hues about shared experiences in Mumbai. I also caught up with Justin Jackson, a recent graduate of Loyalist College and former Soft Siggraph intern.

Kevin G. Clark, Phil Tippett & Marc Stevens

As I mentioned last night - it' so great to be able to attend an event like ADAPT and enjoy the opportunity to mingle and meet people. It's also cool to read about our fair city in from the eyes of our friends from CG Society: http://features.cgsociety.org/adapt07/

Kevin G. Clark with CGSociety's Paul Hellard (L) and Andrew Plumer (R)

Anne-Marie & Jonny - The indefatigable ADAPT conference organizers

Ron Martin (Stage 3 Media) &Maggie Kathwaroon (Meteor Studios)

I am looking forward to Greg Punchatz and his wife Liz's arrival in Montreal tonight, we are meeting them for dinner with a few other guests from out of town.

I was also catching up on Marc B's blog this morning. It's great to see Modus hiring so much talent in October. Montreal is growing so fast - there are so many jobs here for XSI artists! http://www.marcbourbonnais.com/blog/

And if you need any help installing XSI - I now have one install under my belt!

The rest of the album is here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jgoldfin2007/ADAPT2007