Vodacom "Can't Touch This"

Since it has been flighted on television and is currently on cinema too, I figured I could now show some pics from the shoot and the finished piece.

Back in April of this year, we were asked if we could refine the existing Meerkat character and animate a new Vodacom spot with Mo the meerkat. Obviously always up for a challenge we accepted and by June 9th we had delivered. Everything was hand animated, no Motion capture like the originals, as this time he was doing far too extreme moves for an actor to capture.

Download the video here (4MB)or the Hi-res version here (10MB)

Boston Saturday/Sunday

Walk around Boston

On Saturday I decided to do a bit of a walk around Boston, following the Freedom Trail, a red line on the sidewalk leads you on this 2.5-mile, self-guided tour of Revolutionary sites, which starts at the Boston Common, America's oldest public park, and ends up at the famed Bunker Hill Monument, but I turned off it around Faneuil Hall Marketplace to have lunch in the Cheers bar, the one I wasn't allowed in the other night.























































Sunday -
On Sunday morning I decided to go down Newbury street all the way to Prudential Center and then go to the top of the center where they have a observation deck. Very impressive views of the city.


A view down Newbury, a very swanky street filled with all the chic shops - the Rodeo drive / Fifth Avenue of Boston -




The Prudential Center building from Newbury.



Views from the Prudential Building on Sunday


The John Hancock tower and behind it to the right in the distance, Logan International Airport (BOS). On the left the Boston Common and gardens.


South Boston, known to locals as Southy.


Church of Science me thinks... got to check up on this. I was listening to an Audio tour guide. Can't remember all the details. :)


Looking west from the center.

Fenway Park in the distance, and a major turnpike as it heads underground through Boston.


Looking over the Charles River to Cambridge.


Charles River and beyond it, MIT - nerd central...


View of the Charles River and the bridge that the duck tours go through.
On the right of the river, the esplanade and the new Bridge in the background that resembles the Nelson Mandela bridge in Newtown Jozi.


View of the John Hancock tower looking East. On the left of the tower in its shadow is Trinity Church.

Then it was off back to the hotel and grab my stuff, make my way to the airport and head home - my trip had come to an end.

Vodafone "Simply"

Here is a little spot that we have just completed at Blackginger JHB. Sasha did all the 2D and design. I did the compositing and 3D pencils. Stanley did the phone.
All in all I think it turned out great -

SIGGRAPH Tuesday/Wednesday

Tuesday -

So after the party the night before, I got up bright and early as this was day one of the exhibition which would run till Thursday.


Entrance into the Center from the main road.


Entrance into the exhibition hall from the Convention Center's floyer.


View of the Hall from the walkway between the two sides of the convention center.
Basically the center had rooms and lecture theatres surrounding three massive Halls that was divided into various sizes for Siggraph. Walkways took you over the halls from one side to the other.



The Exhibition Floor


First stop - The Disney booth. The back wall had an animation of the bowler hat guy from Meet the Robinsons doing various performances throughout the day. One involved him dressed as a trekkie and thinking this was comic-con.


Meet the Robinsons statues. From Left - Wilbur, Lewis, Bowler hat Guy and a robot??


The booth also had a computer that various Disney artists were showing off things like lighting, sets and rigs from the soon to be released Disney feature. The rig was very interesting, lots of controls to give the animator full control over the character.


Lucasfilm had a great booth with many presentations throughout the days of the exhibition.


The John Knoll presentation on how they brought Davey Jones to life in Pirates II was great fun, not only did he show off proprietary tools that calculated "stiction" - the amount of sticky friction the tentacles on Davey's face had - but also bloopers that the animation department had gone the extra mile to do such as the scene where the mill wheel rides over some of the pirates. They had replaced the mill wheel with a giant Krispy Kreme - that rolls over the pirate and into the sea.


Aahh!! The Pixar booth - this was actually more the renderman booth, promoting Renderman for Maya mostly. And accepting showreels on the other side.
All the studios were actively recruiting this year.


The Rhythm & Hues Studios booth


The Sony Pictures Imageworks stand - regular life drawing classes were held and you were able to draw on a Sony T-Shirt


The Softimage Booth -

At lunch I went off to the 3D Pro Brown Bag social Birds of a feather. Finally got to put face to name from the mailing list, Hector, Steve and

That evening there was the Softimage Users group presentation function thingymajig - if you are interested then go and check out Bernard's full report at XSIBase.com
Siggraph 2006 by Bernard Lebel - I'm featured in the eigth pic down - listening to Kim Aldis

I didn't stay long at the users meeting, instead headed back to the Boston Park Plaza to meet and greet with "Thinking Animation" authors Angie Jones and Jamie Oliff, whom I had already RSVP'd earlier.
The turn out was a little slim but Angie was great fun and I also met Javier "Goosh" Solsona who incedently studied at UCT and has family in SA. Check out Angie's blog here.

Wednesday -

The morning started off with a course Performance Driven Facial Animation but by lunch I was way to bored with that one.

After lunch I headed over to the Effects Omelette Sketch which was great fun and very inspiring, I also got to meet Ferdi Scheepers from Pixar who is an ex-pat from Rustenburg- go figure! He left the CSIR to join Pixar at the age of 40 odd years with a teenage son. Some kids never grow up, and now he's having the time of his life doing effects at one of the best CG Animation studios. Go Ferdi!!

The Reception was held north of the convention center at the World Trade Center.

View from the bridge between the convention and the Seaport Hotel and WTC of Downtown Boston.

As we crossed the bridge towards the WTC and Seaport Hotel, we were met with an array of smells. There was a vast selection of various food stalls, catering from Burgers to Chinese and Popcorn to Pasta. There were also watermelon stands and ice cream vendors - all was free except the excellent Sam Adams beer.


Looking towards the Convention Center.


Looking towards the sea - yes, those clouds did bring rain but only a cooling drizzle. Nothing like our highveld thunderstorms.

SIGGRAPH Thursday/Friday

[ NOTE: This is the conclusion of Siggraph 2006. You see, by the Wednesday I was incredibly ill and did not feel like posting anything. I was also having problems blogging within the convention centre, this was confirmed by Angie Jones from Thinking Animation . We're not sure if it was just the shear amount of geeks blogging that week or if something was up with Blogger. This is finally being posted as I didn't get the time after getting back to South Africa to do anything. ]

Thursday was one of the less eventful days at the convention - for me anyway as this was the day the bug decided to really have a go. I woke up sick as a dog and unable to get out of bed. Trying to stand up made me feel violently ill. I guess nows a good time to show you the inside of my room.


My incredibly comfy bed - The room wasn't small but the door opened up into my nightstand on the left of the bed. Shift everything over by ten centimetres and problem solved...


View from my door next to the bed, I had a couch, which was used to drape clothes over rather than sit. A tv with plenty of channels to watch the first night when I was awake at 4am due to jet lag.


My bathroom for the 9 days. Not bad shower, I must admit. Double nozzle blasts away the hot Boston dirt.


View from the passage of my door. They had these weird smaller doors built in that I still have no idea what they were used for.


View from my room down the passage.

By 11am I was finally up and waiting for the bus.
The day at Siggraph was slow. I wasn't feeling well and everything was wrapping up. It was kind of sad, because I had not made the most of it, due to various reasons and that there was no more time left. I popped over to the job fair and spoke with a SAfrican now working at WETA in New Zealand and also Shane who wears the top hat in the "Making of" features from King Kong (The Post Production Diaries)

That evening Brian, Mike and myself made our way around Quincy Market and the home of the Replica Cheers Bar. I was still too sick to even enjoy a beer and made my way home early. We actually went to a bar next door because I didn't have my passport on me and they are extremely strict with drinking laws, and so the bar we ended up in were fine with me just having my Drivers license.


The Replica Cheers bar in Quincy Market, near Fanueil Hall.

Friday, the convention was over and now it was down to sightseeing.


In the morning I made my way around town, getting a lot of walking done. At lunch I met up with Brian and Mike and headed over to the science museum for Gunther von Hagens' Body Worlds exhibition. Truly amazing work - slightly sombre at times but overall AMAZING.

After that we headed for a duck tour- read more about it here. Basically you board an amphibious vehicle for a quick tour of Boston and a ride along the Charles river
The Duck Tour is a must do event in Boston.












Would you believe this is the prison??




John Hancock tower on the left, Prudential on the right. TALL!


Spotted! - A duck making a right turn into Newbury near my hotel.


Ducks seen near the Science Museum.