Siggraph 2006: Monday July 31

Siggraph Day Two, Part One....Joe Rohde's Ethno-Insane Earring

Since J.D. and I were out late the night before (who ends the night early when you're sitting next to Pixar folk?!), a bright and early morning wasn't in her personal forecast. Rather than spending my morning at Siggraph at the Guerilla Studio, I spent it sitting in the lobby of the Colonnade waiting for J.D., who was currently running an hour late. Argh!

On arrival, I was still Guerilla Studio-minded, but J.D. insisted on going to the keynote address which started in less than an hour. (Yes, we that late). Okay, fine, whatever. She was determined, so I gave in, but I warned her I would wander out if it wasn't interesting. On the way to get our seats, I joked that it would funny if, after all my fussing, I loved the keynote, given by Joe Rohde of Disney Imagineering, and she got bored and wandered out.

Hah hah...cue the dramatic music because that's exactly what happened! Joe was a fascinating speaker and a complete wild man (I have never seen an earring that dramatic on ANYONE, man or woman) and totally intelligent to boot. He talked about storytelling and image-branding, which I think a lot of 3D people tend to forget about, but is a topic near and dear to my marketing heart. Hopefully everyone was listening. It doesn't matter how many scary tentacles your nifty little character has; if the tentacles don't fit the story and the image, they shouldn't be there. End of story!

And Joe Rohde's earring could have been a story by itself. It was GIGANTIC, with tons of dangling things, colors, feathers, and possibly a live animal on it. It stretched his earlobe so large I could have stuck my hand through the hole. How anyone could have walked out with such an interesting spectacle to watch is beyond me.

After the keynote, we took the shuttle back to the hotel. That's right. All we did at Siggraph on Monday was the keynote. It's totally sad, and I'm getting irritated thinking about it now. But here's why....J.D.'s utter lack of non-virtual temporal and spacial understanding means little things, like having dinner, a task that I could accomplish in 45 minutes, takes 3-4 hours to accomplish with her. We wanted to go the ACM Siggraph party at the Roxy and I knew that if I didn't get her on the shuttle to the hotel by 4:30 pm, we would not make a party that starts at 9pm. And, I'm sorry, but that's just sad.

But by the time we dithered over where to eat (The Cheesecake Factory across from the Colonnade) and actually ate, over 3 hours had passed. Can you picture me screaming silently inside?

Tag: Siggraph 2006