fmx/08: A first glance
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Since I am currently at fmx/08 in Stuttgart, Germany, here are some impressions from the first day.
After having received my press card yesterday, I went to the recreation area I wrote about in an earlier post, and I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed to see several booths of software vendors, where last year there were just red cubes one could sit on, and small tables. This gave the area a certain “something” which I personally found very sympathetic. Another thing I didn’t appreciate much was the music being played here. Now the almost peaceful atmosphere this particular area emanated at last year’s fmx was unfortunately gone, and I’m really hoping that the people at fmx will find another solution next year. My personal explanation is, that there simply wasn’t enough space for all the vendors at the second floor, where the large companies such as Autodesk have their booths, so that some of the smaller firms had to be relocated to the first floor.
Due to the fact that I was very tired on this first day, I didn’t stay for the whole talk on “Realistic Acquisition of Facial Geometry, Reflectance, and Motion” given at the König-Karl-Halle by Paul Debevec from the University of Southern California. I had really been looking forward to this talk with much anticipation, especially since I have been following Paul Debevec’s research now for some ten years, and I really regret it that I wasn’t able to stay for the entire talk. (After having left the hall, I caught a brief glimpse of what looked like a woman’s head modeled in 3D, with a specular map attached to it. I found this head really fascinating, and although the woman depicted was apparently Asian, the dark greyscale rendering made her look almost African.) For anyone interested, I can refer to an online article on the subject, available on the web site of ICT Labs.
When looking at the remarkable research of Paul Debevec and his staff, I can’t help but thinking about the possibilities those techniques present for movies which are completely computer-generated. Especially since I caught a brief glimpse at the “Virtual Humans” forum at last year’s fmx (and again this year) and the remarkable progress that has been made in this field, the prospect of all-CGI movies somewhere in the near future becomes more and more likely to me. (And I’m not talking about movies such as “Toy Story” or “Shrek”, but movies which are virtually indistinguishable from reality.)
In the afternoon of this first day, I went to talk to the people of Rising Sun Pictures and Double Negative. I have to admit that I regretted the fact that Dayne Cowan, to whom I had talked briefly last year, wasn’t present. So, comparably unprepared, I guess I sort of cut a poor figure, and about the only thing I managed to asked the man responsible there was the state of post-production of “The Dark Knight”, this year’s follow-up to Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” (2005). Understandably, there wasn’t any footage from “The Dark Knight” on display on the two MacBooks at Double Negative’s booth; instead, I watched a few shots from “Atonement” (2007) by Joe Wright, which I also find really impressive. One of the reasons why Double Negative is one of my favorite fx houses is, that the effects they are responsible for are so unobtrusive, and it is not accidental that Dayne Cowan’s talk last year was entitled “Invisible FX in ‘Children of Men’”.
This brings me to another topic aspiring bloggers like me are confronted with: copyright. After Dayne Cowan’s impressive and sympathetic talk last year, I emailed an enquiry to Aisling O’Brien at Double Negative’s press department. As it turned out, though, it wasn’t possible to get permission from Universial, who owns the rights to “Children of Men” (2006), to post a few stills. (I was especially eager to post some of the before/after shots from Dayne’s talk.) I would have had to pay a certain fee for each still I wanted to publish on my blog—something I can’t afford yet. Since posting film stills (legally) is very important to me, I’m determined to find a solution for this, and maybe I am lucky to find another person as friendly as the one at Gaumont, the renowned French production company, who gave me permission to post stills from movies produced by Gaumont (on a non-commercial basis only, but nonetheless).
So, I guess, that’s my first glimpse at this year’s fmx. During the next days, I’m hoping to post some more interesting stuff.
