Randy Rockafellow

It was great to meet CGI artist/animator Misha Anton at this months Meetup,http://www.mishaanton.com

CG render by Misha Anton

Some returning faces to the Meetup
Marc Stanyk, Lighting & CG Artist, http://www.marcstanyk.com
Mark Matta,Visual Effects Artist, http://www.freeyoureyes.com

Brian Gottlieb, 3D artist, http://bg3d.com

Bert Silva, of IC Technology has extended a generous offer to current SE Michigan ACM SIGGRAPH members. A 10% discount for Autodesk products until the end of 2009. Now’s a great time to become a member or renew your membership [link].

10% discount on autodesk products for SE Michigan ACM SIGGRAPH Members until the end of 2009

Here is his letter he wrote extending the offer.

I look forward to working closely with Randy Rockafellow and the SE Michigan ACM SIGGRAPH group. For those of you who do not know us, we are a new addition to the Detroit Media & Entertainment scene, but we have been in the business for over 20 years helping many a company in Toronto with their technology needs.

As the newest Authorized Autodesk Reseller in Michigan, I’d like to start things off right by offering all current SE Michigan ACM SIGGRAPH members a 10% discount on all Autodesk products, such as Maya, 3ds Max, and Softimage until the end of this year. Our way of supporting the membership and hopefully encouraging you to give us a shout.

Feel free to contact me via the info below, and I have enclosed a little html blurb at the bottom of this e-mail going over some of our main offerings.

Cheers,
Bert

Bert Silva
Detroit Office (313) 483-1123 x1001
Toronto Office (416) 869-0001 x 250
C. 416-903-6056 F. (888) 259-3126
E. bert@ictech.ca W. www.ICTech.ca
DETROIT | 440 Burroughs Street, Suite 100 | MI 48202
TORONTO | 3049 Universal Drive | ON L4X 2E2

The last meetup of the year ended on a good note.

Was glad that Roberta Eden was able to make it to her first meetup.

Here are some pics from the event.

Had another twenty or so creatives out in Royal Oak, Michigan for our bi-monthly meetup.
A good mix of new faces and returning ones. Some of the topics that I overheard or was involved in were the status of Wonderstruck animation studio, Augmented Reality, upcoming e-reader by plastic logic, Detroit Windsor international Film Festival (DWIFF), Unity Studios among other things.

Here are some of the new faces that were at the event:
Marc Stanyk, Lighting & CG Artist, http://www.marcstanyk.com
Mark Matta,Visual Effects Artist, http://www.freeyoureyes.com
Joe Krause, Music/sound/writer/photography/producer http://www.unibrows.com

Here are some returning people that I got cards from:

Peter Badalment,Animator/Storyboard Artist/editor/creative consultant, Blue Rhapsody Animation
Brian Gottlieb, 3D artist, http://bg3d.com
Doug Shoha, DDS , http://www.comfortcarehomedental.com

Doug was showing me some of his animation tests using Real Flow. Also he was big on Imagineer Systems visual effects software tools. He intentionally shot some jerking video and then used their software to track and pin video to a surface. From what I could see the software did a great job

I was glad to see Mark DeRidder from Armstrong-White make it out to his first meetup event. Mark’s been a part of the group since helping the group become a chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH in 2004. He recently graduated from Animationmentor.com and on a more impressive note he also became a father of a beautiful little girl. http://www.markderidder.com

Next Detroit Animation & Digital Media meetup October 23rd 7-9pm in Royal Oak Michigan.
Register for this event.

For the second meetup in a row there was a job opportunity that surfaced and those in attendance got to hear about it first.

Dave O’Connell of Skidmore studios, http://skidmorestudio.com presented a possible job opportunity for freelance motion graphics artists. The job would involve for working to create a a commercial spot animatic.

Here is a color line test by Michael Winn.

Greg Good was in attendance again and is quickly becoming a regular. He showed off some great photography work on his new fathers day I-Pod touch present. You can check out some of his work at http://www.pixeloasis.com.

Terry Howald,(Twitter @terryhowald, http://fourthorderlight.com) made it out again as well. I actually got to see him twice today as he also attended the DWIFF Tech Fair. http://www.dwiff.org.

Here are some of the other interesting creatives that were in attendance.
Suzanne Dalton, online media, project manager/creative director/solutions architecture
http://suzannedalton.com, Twitter:@suzdalton
Ended up talking wither her about cool spots to visit in New Orleans. Found out she spoke fluent Italian.

Rob Kubaiko, motion Graphics/3D, http://www.digitalimagemaker.net.
Michael Winn, Storyboard Artist/Character Design/ Character Animation, http://mikewinnart.blogspot.com
Adrienne Gelardi, recent graduate of Columbia College, in Chicago Illinois showed of a short film that was a mix of 2d cel/ 3D animation.
Dewayne McAllyster II, CG artist/Animator.

The next Animation & digital media meetup for the Detroit / Southeast Michigan area is Friday August 28th 7-9pm in Royal Oak Michigan. Visit www.semafx.com for more details.Michael Winn\'s Color line test

Another great turnout for our 2nd Animation Meetup in Royal oak Michigan.
Students just graduating from Ferris State Grand Rapids Digital Media & Animation program were out in force.
It was great to see so many laptops, phones, portable DVD players out with lots of great networking going on.

The story of the night came when I introduced Bob Wilson as a motion graphics artist to Shelli (Twitter @shelligutholm ) & Mariam (Twitter @mariammcc) of Aquent. They said “Interesting, we need someone with your skills for an opportunity in Ann Arbor”. Bob replied ” What a coincidence I live in Ann Arbor.” Another connection made.

Rendered Image by Jay Hoelscher

Also got to sit and talk with Boti, CEO/founder of BoTech a non profit that puts together Science Technology and arts programs for youths and Adults.
Check it out at http:/www.botechcorporation.org
We are pleased to welcome him as a new Southeast Michigan ACM SIGGRAPH member!!

It was also great to have another first timer Greg Good, a photographer/web/design/ and especially application and sql database development, http://www.pixeloasis.com make it out to the event

I’ve Got to Thank Terry Howald (Twitter @terryhowald, http://fourthorderlight.com) for the retweets and helping encourage Eric Litwin (Twitter @elitwin) an artist from Pluto Post out to the event.

Here is a quick mention of other attendees that if you didn’t get to meet or see their work in person you can connect with them online.

Rich Jackson, Animator/Producer, http://www.animationworksllc.com
david Vantuyle, Animator
Sandra Vera Rojas, Digital Artist, http://www.sandravrojas.com
Jay Hoelscher, 3D artist, http://www.jayhoelscher.com
Brandy Gort, digital artist, http://www.brandygort.com
Jeff Tiensivu, 3D artist, http://www.juiceanimation.com
Dan Kessler, 3D modeling/Animation, http://www.kessler3d.com
Jon Synnestvedt, 3D Animator/Generalist, http://home.comcast.net/`synnestvedt
Shane Wilson, 3D artist
Pat Jackson, Storyboards/Character Design/Motion art, http://ibelowground.blogspot.com/
Jeremy Salo, Producer-Cinematography/Editing/Visual Effects, Creative Long lasting Visions(CLV) Productions - http://www.clvpro.com
Jon Shaffer, http://www.shaffer3d.com

The next Animation & digital media meetup for the Detroit / Southeast Michigan area is Friday June 26th 7-9pm in Royal Oak Michigan. Visit www.semafx.com for more details.

This is the first event I’ve been to where we had live gunfire go off. No worries it was under strict supervision of a professional.  With over 150 people showing up things got started around 7pm  with Event Producer David Schied welcoming everyone and giving everyone an idea of what we were in for. Next we got an overview of  safety procedures for the use of live gunfire during a film shoot by Live simulation / pyrotechnics expert Fritz Gronow. This was followed by a live demonstration of a film shoot using various types of guns loaded with blanks.

The audience members were all prepared for the noise by securing clamping our hands over their ears. The actors and film crew all hand appropriate ear protection. So that woke the crowd up.

Next David Dewitt took the stage. As a motion graphics and visual effects artist he provided a visual effects breakdown of several shots he completed for an independent sci-fi film that grew out of the episodic InZero productions. Everyone got a kick out of his firecracker variation of one of the films final scenes.

I gave a short presentation after David and mostly talked about SEMAFX the local ACM SIGGRAPH chapter in Southeast Michigan and provide a few links to visual effects sites. They were:

A site with amazing tutorials and training for creating visual effects using after effects
http://www.videocopilot.net

A Michigan company that does visual effects
http://www.withatwiststudios.com

Michael Orlando,A Visual effects artist located in Michigan
http://www.matchmoves.net

Davo Photographic, a company that provides camera visual effects such as the Matrix for reasonable prices.
http://www.midwestmatrix.com

A place to get High detail 3D vehicle models of a 2008 Dodge Viper, Chrysler Sebring, and  Jeep Wrangler. That could be used for visual effects shots.
http://thecgizone.com

Producer/DP/Visual EFX artist/editor Jeremy Salo came on stage next and presented visual effects that he added to the footage that we saw recorded live an hour earlier. (The prerecorded a version a week earlier that Jeremy added effects to)

Here is the video that was produced.

Mike Mehall representing Schoolcrafts Computer Graphics technology department, http://sc-learning.net/cgt/ , gave some final thoughts and wished everyone a safe journey home.

Note: I’ll try and add some photos and additional links and mention some of the people I ran into while at the event to this post a little later.

Despite the big chill in the weather. Everyone seemed to make it to the basement of the Bastone Restaurant(or Commune as they call it) in Royal oak. Several people brought laptops and portable DVD players to show off their animations, Zbrush modeling, and image renderings.
Dan Kessler, www.kessler3D.com, showed off a 7 minute Character animation piece for his corporate client. It really was a full blown mini CG cartoon.
Blair Adams and Clarence Rice were their with the laptops out. No doubt Clarence was showing off his wicked modeling and texture work he has done for Armstrong-White.

Here are some others that I met while I was there.
Richard Miga, Synergistic solutions ,
Kirk Talon of  Flying Mustang Design,
Jon Synnestvedt 3d animator ,
Henry Dryovage http://dryovage.com/ (thanks for bringing the cookies),
Lauri Smith Westman of Buffalo Brothers Studios East,
Chris Grocock www.cgmotiondesign.com,
William Aksel www.williamakselart.com/
Anthony Williams (Who is working on producing an CG feature, Seeking qualified studios who can do the work, and additional investors) ,
Denis Lack (Glad to have you back in Michigan ),
and some students from IADT www.iadtdetroit.com

At around 8pm some of the group headed over to Mr’B’s to check out the Twitter Meeting happening at the same time. Check out my prior post about that. Thanks to Rocky www.breezestudio.com for the headsup on the twitter meetup.

I had never used Twitter before but I was invited to a TweetUp (Twitter meetup) in Royal oak Michigan.  I was already scheduled to be in Royal for another networking event for animators and digital media creatives setup by the  Southeast Michigan ACM SIGGRAPH chapter (SEMAFX). An event I was coordinating and decided to shorten the event and bring the group to check out the Tweetup.

Low and behold we walk into Mr B’s and the Tweetup had 94 some people there. It even got the attention of Channel 7 news.