Sydney ACM SIGGRAPH

Our last two sessions have been wonderful opportunities for members to learn about 3D environments with Kit Devine and motion graphics with Anthony Battaglia of Box Communications.

Kit’s session provided a comprehensive analysis of the importance of meaning and the idea of presence in creating virtual spaces. Using examples from physical places and how they have been represented to the game Assassin’s Creed and how details have been tweaked to fit game play, she then went on to discuss her project – a 3D representation of The Rocks in Sydney which she is developing as part of her PhD. It was a fascinating and thought provoking night for all and a great insight into the factors that have to be considered when building a virtual space.

Our last session for the year, Titles and Motion Graphics with Anthony Battaglia covered a range of topics from fonts to feature film titles. Anthony covered some of the big issues for designers revealing insider tricks for creating clever title graphics. He also showed work from Box Communication’s body of work covering twenty years of TV graphics and feature film titles ranging from hand-drawn work to the latest in CG. It was a terrific finale for the year’s programme of events.

Next year we will reconvene on Wednesday, February 6 when we will look at how to choose the business model for your user-generated content. Until then, have a great summer and holiday fun! Thanks to all our fabulous, generous speakers and loyal members.

The Year Ahead

The following events are proposed for the upcoming year. Topics are fairly certain but speakers will be announced as we get closer to the dates. Keeping checking the website.

06 February 2008
Mapping the ‘Verse: Business Models for User-Generated Content.
If you know you want to make stuff and you hope you might also get money for what you make, then this session will cover what you need to think about to find the model that fits what you want to do.
Speaker: Shilo McClean

05 March 2008
Showreel Showdown: another look at a perennial topic. Members are invited to bring their own showreels or uncut materials to get feedback on how to make the most of their content.
Speaker: TBA

02 April 2008
Digital Grading
Speaker: TBA

07 May 2008
Directing Actors
Speaker: TBA

04 June 2008
Dealing with Clients.
Speaker: TBA

02 July 2008
DV Cameras and encoding workshop
Speaker: TBA

20 August 2008
Electronic Theatre Screening

03 September 2008
The Ten Worst Things You Can Do In A Job Interview
Speaker: TBA

01 October 2008
Graphic Novels
Speaker: TBA

05 November 2008
Drawing Class
Speaker: TBA

In July we held a pre-conference mixer and screened highlights from the 2006 Animation Theatre DVD to remind everyone of what they could look forward to at the Annual General Meeting and Electronic Theatre screening in August. Both events drew good crowds and thanks to CoFA for making the big screening theatre available to us for these dates.

We had another excellent screening in September, showing Australia’s first feature length machinima, Stolen Life. Creators Peter Rasmussen and Jackie Turnure joined us for a Q&A session of their film which had its world premiere at the Sydney Film Festival in June this year and which won Best Direction, Best Visual Design and Best Picture at the European Machinima Festival in the UK a few weeks ago. Congratulations and thanks to Peter and Jackie for their inspirational work.

So, in keeping with the spirit of encouraging our filmmaker membership we held a session on film festivals in October with Ruth Saunders from the AFTRS and Jenny Neighbour from the Sydney Film Festival. These two women have probably done more to advance the careers of local filmmakers than anyone will ever truly appreciate. Ruth has been entering AFTRS student films in festivals around the world to great success and her knowledge of the festival industry is unparalleled. Jenny Neighbour has been selecting and managing festival entries for the Sydney Film Festival for 17 years. Together they presented an amazingly frank insight into the festival circuit and the following advice:

• get your materials right: fill out all the forms correctly, make sure your screener copy on DVD works (not just on your computer), make sure that you have the correct spelling of cast and crew names, a complete set of publicity materials including lots of fabulous stills shots, that you have labelled of all materials (correctly!), that you have obtained and documented all music clearances, that you can provide properly mastered screening copies (be sure to doublecheck and meet the screening format, standard and aspect ratio as per the festival’s technical requirements). Don’t send ‘extras’ (eg. lollies, toys, etc) that you think will win over the selectors. It doesn’t work.
• bear in mind that festivals can get something in the order of 1500 unsolicited films submitted for acceptance but that they can usually only show something in the order of 300 films. Do the math – someone has to miss out.
• the festival’s closing date means it has to be on their desk by then, not in your local post box.
• if your film does get in, help the festival by publicizing it through your own networks and contacts.
• if your film doesn’t get in, don’t take it personally. There are a lot of factors that influence what gets chosen (refer note above re: the math) so keep doing good work and keep sending out good stuff. That’s the only way you will ever get in.

Our next event is the wonderful Kit Divine talking about Synthetic Realities/Virtual places. Kit’s bio and the session details are posted in the events section of the site.