Bournemouth/UK Trip

Bournemouth hotel by the sea

I had an amazing opportunity last month to visit Bournemouth in England, and travel around a great deal of the U.K. as well.  My University wanted to send me to visit with a potential study abroad/exchange school - and it's just a few months away from Heather and I's 10th anniversary, so we made a 10 day trip out of it!

First and foremost was to travel to Bournemouth, a wonderful town on the southern coast of England. I spent some time at Arts University Bournemouth and met some great colleagues and see how their programs are structured.  It was the last week of their "student show" so I got to see a lot of the amazing work their students produce there.  Having backgrounds in art, film, theatre, and animation myself it was really great seeing how much collaboration goes on there!

Of course, if you're on the south coast, you have to do some day trips to Stonehenge, Salisbury (where I found a centuries old pub), New Forest, and the Jurassic Coast.  In fact, I seem to have found lots of centuries old pubs.

Part I matinee and Part II evening show

London was the next stop.  We got to meet up with our old college friends Bryon and Tiffany, who just moved to London with their daughter.  We only had time for a quick run through the National Gallery because we managed to get last minute tickets to the two part (i.e. all day) production of Harry Potter And The Cursed Child on the West End.  It was amazing and I could have gone back the very next day to watch it all over again.

With Buckbeak

Keeping with the Harry Potter theme, we visited the Warner Bros Studio tour of the sets and props from the films.  It was great to spend the day looking at all the craftsmanship that went into every single aspect of these films.  

Glencoe, Scotland

And if you've come this far, why not take a scenic 5 hour train ride up to Scotland!  Our flights meant we spent most of the time in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but we did get a 12 hour tour up into the Highlands to see Glencoe and Loch Ness.

Loch Ness.  Not pictured: Nessie

It was an amazing 10 days.  England and Scotland were just wonderful.  We already have a to-do list for a future visit.  I was impressed with AUB and Bournemouth in general, so hopefully there will also be an opportunity to return there as well!

Racing Legends LA Times Article

Today the LA Times had an INTERVIEW with the Creative Director at Mousetrappe behind the Ferrari Experience attractions.  They also posted a few photos of the rides.  The stills aren't from the scenes I worked on, but it's fun to finally see some hi-res images of the actual footage.  Here's a description of the experience from the article:

Racing Legends, Mousetrappe’s other Ferrari Land attraction, combines Universal’s Simpsons simulator ride experience with the test drive conceit of Epcot’s Test Track in Florida. Built by Britain-based Simworx, the domed screen and motion simulator attraction features wind, water and aroma effects.

Riders climb into one of 10 Ferrari F1 race cars arrayed before a 75-foot diameter domed screen.  The backstory places riders in a Ferrari racing simulator used to train up-and-coming drivers on race tracks from any era. 

The journey starts in present-day Spain behind the wheel of a Ferrari F1 on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Traveling back in time, the car company’s founder, Enzo Ferrari, battles up a bumpy and muddy 1919 hill-climb race in Parma, Italy. The time-traveling race continues in 1960 on the banked corners of Italy’s Autodromo Nazionale Monza, hopping over perilous hills at Germany’s Nürburgring in 1975 and ducking and weaving on the Circuit de Mónaco course in present day. Graphics-heavy computer transitions call up each new course. 

Theme park fantasy takes over near the end of the trip with a Formula 1 car speeding through several scent-centric near misses on the streets of Rome and a futuristic concept car trek on a Speed Racer-like looping course. 

FLASHBACK: Ray Harryhausen

From left:  Phil Tippet, Ray Harryhausen, Craig Barron

Enjoying the start of summer, today I finally cracked open my DVD of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.  I love this movie and can still remember the first time I saw it - actually, it's among my earliest movie-watching memories...along with Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  It was a summer night and my family had just returned to the house at night.  Coming up from the garage, my dad and I stayed in the basement and when we turned on the TV "The Beast" had just begun.  I was instantly sucked in and stayed in the basement glued to that television set till the last minute of the movie.  It was such impactful film for me that I even referenced it and showed a clip during my initial interview/lecture at APSU.

So naturally, one of the more amazing moments I've had in my career was being able to meet Ray Harryhausen, the man responsible for animating the stop-motion Beast along with dozens and dozen of classic movie creatures.  Back in 2006 Heather's boss at the time was Craig Barron at Matte World Digital.  He was friends with Harry and hosted a night with him at the San Rafael Theater screening The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.  Joining the two of them on stage was Phil Tippet, the also-legendary stop-motion animator from ILM and owner of Tippet Studios.  It was a great night - Ray brought one of the famous and original skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts and afterwards we got to meet him and get his autograph.

That's one of the biggest advantages of living in a big city where (at least at that time) a thriving vfx/animation industry is happening.  There's many opportunities to meet people who helped shape your history to the movies.  Being able to see them in person and shake their hand really brings the movies home.  You feel part of the history.

Ray with a stop-motion puppet

Meeting Ray and having Art of book signed

"Racing Legends" Ride Footage

There was a few articles going around about the company that built the vehicles for Racing Legends.  I've also seen a few videos getting posted of the ride footage.  I worked on the first scene, the Rome one, and the final futuristic one.  It's fun to see the final footage in context.  Apparently in additional to the vehicles moving, they also have "4D" effects like wind and water mist during the ride.  Pretty fun to get an idea of the omni theater setup.

I also ran across some promotional posters that a design company produced for Mousetrappe for use in the attractions.  It was a series of travel posters for many of the areas visited over the course of the attractions.  It's just fun to see all the peripheral design that goes on with any attraction.

Heather's "Happily Ever After"

Heather has been able to once again work on a theme park show - this time its the brand new nighttime fireworks show at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.  Called Happily Ever After it premiers tonight!

Check out more of the behind the scenes clips below - it looks like it's going to be one hell of a show. They are bringing in just about every disney character ever and creating original 2D animations for the show.  Heather has been helping Mousetrappe create the background projections that will be displayed on the castle.  This is as close as you can come to traveling back in time and getting the chance to work on Aladdin, Lion King, or the other classics of the "Disney Renaissance"

I'm so damn proud of her!

End of the Semester and 2nd Year

Well, another semester (and year) at APSU has wrapped.  I'm still getting used to the idea of having months off of work in the summer!  It was quite the transition year - literally transitioning to our new building.  I think we all had a form of senior-itis trying to wrap up the semester in the old building knowing this awesome facility is empty and waiting just a few yards away. The last week of finals and the following week consisted of moving the equipment from the old Mac labs to the new ones.  My sons came with me one day and we played frisbee outside the new building - the quintessential college activity.

One last thing to share - something I ran across while cleaning out the old computer lab.  Drawn on the white board was this cartoon (yes, that character is me). As you can see, my students first semester diving into Maya was met with....a few technical hurdles and learning curve.