Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!nbires!hao!gatech!bbn!denbeste
From: denbeste@bbn.COM (Steven Den Beste)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Amiga in the movies
Message-ID: <5836@cc5.bbn.COM>
Date: 8 Jan 88 03:26:50 GMT
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 36

I just got back from seeing a movie called "The Computer Animation Show", which
was a compilation of computer animation. (Hence the name.) Amongst all the
animations produced by a thousand Apollo workstations, or Cyber 855's,
or Cray's, or Synthavision, there in the middle was almost four minutes of
animation called "Dance of the Stumblers", by Steve Segal.

The credits say: "Done on an Amiga 1000 in Steve Segal's bedroom, using Aegis
Animator".

By the standards of the other things in this collection this one piece was
pretty crude - it didn't even approach the sophistication of some of the better
things we all know and love. (I suspect this was intentional - by using very
stylized images certain very nice transformations were possible that more
realistic images would have prevented.)

However, it was amusing and moved fast and had a catchy ending. Loosely, it
consisted of some bluish stick figures and some reddish stick figures
ostensibly dancing and doing acrobatics, but ultimately they began to fight. At
the end after lots of carnage, one of the blue figures shakes the hand of a red
figure in peace...

...and a large red Guru box drops out of the top of the screen and crushes them
both. I almost died. I bet not one person in ten in that theater understood
the true symbolism.


Another vote of confidence by the professional animation community: The Amiga
was the only "affordable" computer represented in this show.


[And what were the best crowd pleasers? Uh, er, "Red's Dream" and "Luxo Jr." by
Pixar got the most applause. (ACK! Hide under the table before they start
throwing things at me!)]
-- 
Steven C. Den Beste,   Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA
denbeste@bbn.com(ARPA/CSNET/UUCP)    harvard!bbn.com!denbeste(UUCP)