Plugging into Work from Home

On March 16th, the studio where I work announced that we would all be working from home until the COVID-19 pandemic was under control.  The IT department had worked through the weekend on the logistics of this large, sudden shift in production.  Now this computer-tech luddite was tasked with applying their plans to my computer at home.

Cutting Edge Technology In 1976: The Lyon Lamb Video Animation System

Lyon Lamb Video Animation System - a Revolution

Recently Disney producer Don Hahn posted a nostalgic piece at the Disney FaceBook Group about some cutting edge technology from 1976: the then brand-new Lyon Lamb Video Animation System. It was an astonishing development - you could shoot your animation and see a pencil test immediately instead of sending it off to the rostrum camera dept to be filmed, and then having to wait for the developed film to come back the next day. Nowadays all animators take real-time playback for granted. Until the Lyon Lamb, the only real-time playback was in the imagination of the animator. So, how did the animators do it? How could they possibly know in advance how their work would come out?

Mr. Future, At Last We Meet

I told you about my new short, Chief Your Butt's on Fire last week, and how it took thirteen years to complete.  My last shorts, The Indescribable Nth and Fractured Fairy Tales: The Phox, the Box and the Lox, were both completed in 1999 - that's right, the 20th century.

Here we are in the second decade of the 21st century, the year to which Marty McFly time travels in Back to the Future, and don't you know - it really IS the future.   When my wife looked into film festival submissions, film was not an option for many of them.  They wanted something called a DCP - Digital Cinema Package.  Why?  BECAUSE IT"S THE FUTURE!

My new "film". 

The SpaceTop 3D desktop - the world's first transparent computer

At this year's TED conference in Los Angeles, TED fellow Jinha Lee has unveiled the SpaceTop 3D desktop, developed in collaboration with Microsoft. The  transparent computer allows users for the first time to reach inside the machine and "touch" its digital content.