Over five months since my last post. Seems like Summer just got here and now Fall is on our doorstep. Who knew three letters could take up so much of your time and attention. RCH. Those three letters had been a consuming focus of mine up until August 6th. A lot of late nights at work and later nights working from home. I'm lucky to work with a patient client. Even more so to have a wife and daughter with the patience to put up with it all.
Taking ownership of a project is never easy. Regardless of it's size. You have to be committed, you have to stay focused on the goal. When it was all over, exhaustion set in. Just then my employer sent me off to Los Angeles for a week to attend to Siggraph. It was like a conference for a job well done, at least the timing of it seemed that way. Having never been to Siggraph, I didn't really know what I was in for. Wow, "blown away" wouldn't even do it justice. I'll be taking in what I saw and learned at that show for some time. Surrounded by Lucasfilm, Pixar, Dreamworks, Disney Animation the list just keeps going.
The first full day I was there set the tone for the whole week. I attended a roundtable discussion titled "Great Failed Ideas In Production". It was a panel of people that have worked on just about every movie I've ever loved. People that can make you believe in worlds that don't exist. The discussion went to each person and they discussed in a very candid fashion ideas that didn't work out in feature films they were working on and what they learned from the process. When they got to John Knoll from ILM he discussed the ending sequence with the maelstrom of At World's End. The quote he threw out was not only funny but it was one of those things I know I'll never forget. They had to tackle how to create the water for this scene, breaking new ground for making it work. He said "Its like jumping off a cliff with the materials that you plan on making a parachute with on your way down".
For me it clicked. It fit. For years I was responsible for making designs work. Now, I'm the one making the designs. There's conflict that takes place inside of my head. The creative side that doesn't care about boundaries. The precise, pre-press, shop detail side that keeps telling me to play within what I know, what I think can be done versus what I have yet to test. I learned that a lot of us have this going on in our heads. The ones that pioneer new things, that move forward. They know how to tell the rule minded side of their head to sit down and shut up. Thanks Mr. Knoll.
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