Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cica!ctrsol!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!indri!xanth!mcnc!spl
From: spl@mcnc.org (Steve Lamont)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Best of 1989 SIGGRAPH
Message-ID: <5056@alvin.mcnc.org>
Date: 9 Aug 89 15:06:33 GMT
References: <89080823183434@masnet.uucp>
Reply-To: spl@mcnc.org.UUCP (Steve Lamont)
Organization: Microelectronics Center of NC; RTP, NC
Lines: 42

In article <89080823183434@masnet.uucp> alan.kennedy@canremote.uucp (ALAN KENNEDY) writes:
>Best of SIGGRAPH?
>
>First and foremost was the new PIXAR/John Lasseter film, Knick Knack.
>It was great!

As a technological tour-de-force, yes.  However, several people commented to
me that they felt it was extremely sexist.  I'm not certain that I completely
agree with that point of view, but I did find the piece at least a *little*
disturbing.

This leads me to another conversation that I had regarding the film show:

This year's show was just about the best one so far (I liked `83 and `84
better) -- not so many (if any at all) flying logos and the commercials were
gone as well.  However, other than "Don't Touch Me" (Kleizer-Walczak
Construction Company), there didn't seem to be much in the way of content,
beyond the pretty pictures -- and "Don't Touch Me" was fairly obvious in its
content, as well (By that I mean that there wasn't too much thought provoking
content; "Gias's dying, can't you see?  While you are wasting time on me."
Moderately sophomoric IMHO).  I felt the same way about the concluding piece,
"Imagination" by Dentsu, Inc. and Links Corp.  It was very nice and spacy, but
the only feeling I came away with, other than "gee whiz," was "I have seen the
future... and it is written in Japanese."  (Some nice xenophobia there, I
suppose.)

By the way, my own personal choice for best of the show (from a technical
point of view, not as far as content -- which was practically nil), was
Eurhythmy by Susan Amkraut and Michael Girard from Ohio State ACCAD.  The
synthetic camera work was absolutely fabulous.  These folks have obviously
done *real* cinematography or have studied the subject very intently.  Though
the dancing figures had the usual computer graphics marionette quality to
them, the choreography was still marvelous, as well.  Well done!!!!
 
An additional BTW... if this isn't the appropriate forum for this discussion,
I will allow wiser heads to redirect it to one more apropos.

-- 
							spl
Steve Lamont, sciViGuy			EMail:	spl@ncsc.org
North Carolina Supercomputing Center	Phone: (919) 248-1120
Box 12732/RTP, NC 27709