chase the light

Well, another year is drawing to a close and it’s time for those annual office parties. So let’s go, eh! Unfortunately it’s too big and we don’t see many people we know. We walked around for the first hour without running into anyone we knew. I mean, come on?! Where is everybody? Worker bees really started showing up after 6. After work, of course. I wanted to get there when it started at 4pm because, hey, my work was done for the day, I’m starving, and I really need to get a leg up on the wine. Just give me the bottle please, it’s been a rough, but rather rewarding, week. You might need to drive me home, so it’s good you came along.

We have a very casual dress code at work since 99% don’t have to deal with any clients directly. It’s pretty much “just don’t show up naked”. So when we go over to the main lot for parties it’s like the country bumpkin relatives arriving in the jalopy. All the studio suits mingling with the tattooed, dreadlocked, holy jeans wearing, pierced, artist types from Imageworks. It’s like a mustard stain on an Oxford shirt.

There was, food, music, gamblin’, and the infamous raffle prizes. The trip prizes they give away are usually pretty amazing. This year was Miami, New York, Canada, Singapore, Australia and London. What? No Playstation 3 giveaways?! Even the studio can’t get them! With the band and DJ, it was so loud at times my hearing was whacked. I was a little alarmed as I was talking to Heather and she leaned over and said, “I’m kinda slutty”. Ha ha ha… OK then. (Insert momentary awkward pause here) “Oh wait, you’re kinda SWEATY!!” Aaahhhh, ha ha ha, yeah it is a bit warm in here. Then we proceded to have our asses handed to us at Foosball by Kenji and Blaine. You really didn’t help at all with the heckling and rooting for the other team stuff.

Walked around at first and shot some vid and pics and then just hung out the rest of the night. People would just start posing for pictures when I showed up not knowing I was shooting video. At least I have them trained well.

Walked back to the office and glanced at emails then got home at 9:00pm. I’m exhausted and already said I’m going to be in late tomorrow. I’m off to bed. You’re staying up to watch Groundhog Day again. Well, there ya go. This wasn’t an office party as much as a mob party where we spent the whole night hoping to find people we knew.

I wore my [Fluevog Angels] with the blue flames and kicked some shoe stylin’ ass. Awwww yeah, the show down below.

I was rummaging through some boxes and found some of the old video tapes. This is back when I was playing in the band with my friend Riz, now of the band “Anyone” [LINK]. Taylor Hawkins was good friends with the band and he used to come hang out and go to the shows. Taylor later joined a reformed version of the band and this just before he joined Sass Jordan, Alanis Morrisette and then of course on to the Foo Fighters. You know you’re a good drummer when Dave Grohl asks you to join his band. Sometimes he’d get behind the kit and play while we were hanging out, and seriously, he hit the drums harder than anyone you could imagine. He could make the snare snap so loud you had to leave the room.

Anyway, he’s the blonde kid guy in the shorts and boots if you have no idea who he is. This was shot probably about 15 years ago. Sometime in 1990-91 maybe? I haven’t seen him since then but ya know he’s probably busy or something. It’s funny when he looks at my video camera and says, “It’s radical”. Haven’t heard anyone say radical in years. The shortened “Rad” all the time, but not “Radical”. LOL.

Here’s a good compilation of Taylor playing the drums. He’s a madman. [LINK]

Taylor is a HUGE Queen fan so you know he was in utter heaven when this went down… [LINK] Could you imagine?!? Fronting Queen for song? That’s excellent!

ALL THE REST OF THE MOVIE RATINGS!!! ?Ǭª ?Ǭ†

Apparantly it’s be inspired by friends week around here! About 7 years ago I met my friend [Ben at PDI]. We were on the same team and went through a bit of hell near the end of the project but it was exciting to know we were working on something really good. Although we had no idea it would turn into that giant green ogre phenomenon.

Well flash forward and Ben and Mandi moved back to Sydney and two years ago while I was bumming around Australia I stayed with them for a week. Ben toured me through Animal Logic and showed me the first clip they had finished of this fuzzy, and cute as a damn button, baby penguin dancin’ his little ass off to Stevie Wonder. All I remember thinking was if they pull this off they’ll be printing money. The only concern… it’s being directed by George Miller?!? He directed Mad Max?!?… and he’s a making an animated musical with penguins? Then last year lightning struck the penguin world in the form of March of the Penguins and everybody was mad for penguins. It looks like the love affair is still going strong because Happy Feet is on fire at the box office!

Anyway, I finally made it out to see Happy Feet tonight and can’t believe how amazing it is! Ben was the lighting surpervisor and got a “card”! A card is when your name appears all by itself in the credits before the longer list starts scrolling. You know, the ones you don’t sit through. Way to go man! Love it! Loved the orcas, the mexican penguins, the australian elephant seals, so much to list. It was inspiring to see and what a great job on Ben’s part! Cheers mate! It’s one thing to be inspired by the random artist or musician, but when you can be inspired by your friends it’s brilliant! I get to take his hard work and bring it into mine. Although we now work for different companies, whenever an animated film does good things it’s good for the whole industry. So go see it, and yes it’s a musical, but don’t let that scare you because it’s quirky as hell too.

Internal thought: (judging by anything i’ve typed this week, I’ve had waaaaaay toooo much caffeine. Focus Chris, focus.)

Oh my God! Even more amazing, Ben’s updated his website… Ha ha ha!! IT’S. ABOUT. TIME! He’s a fantastic photographer too so check out his pics.

So my prediction… Happy Feet will be taking home the Oscar for best animated picture this year. You heard it here first. Ben made it a beautifully lit film, and if it doesn’t win I’m going over to the Academy building and throw eggs at it. You heard that here first too.

I swear I’m going to have a penguin dream tonight. Don’t want to, I just have a feeling. One penguin, two penguin, three penguin, four penguin, five penguin, six…. zzzzzzzz

This is why I love photography. It’s art, science, math, and travel all rolled up into one. So my buddy Eric has been holed up in his top secret lair for awhile building some sort of technological monster. XREZ. That’s all I knew for the longest time. I got a glimpse of this gigapixel concept last spring when they unveiled a print of this monster photograph of the Owens Valley in California. They had it printed out for group show at a gallery and the resolution was insane. It was pretty spectacular. But, they had more things up their sleeve and last week they hooked up the jumper cables to the monster and hoped the lightning would strike and awaken it. Well it did, for a reeeeeeeally short time. Their servers couldn’t handle the amount of data and throughput of the people hitting the site.

Anyway, a week later they’re back on their feet and their photo monster is awake and alive and kicking. You should go have a look. There are all sorts of cameras, motion control heads, software, and scripts involved and it makes me happy just thinking about it all. They’ve taken the Google Maps API thingy-ma-bob and mapped their own images with it to create massive photographs that you can zoom into to minute detail. You can reload the front page to get new images. Also on the site are some timelapses with a twist. They’ve mapped those timelapses onto 3D geometry and put in camera moves to get an cool sense of movement. This is an incredible timelapse of Mt. Whitney here in California [LINK]. The tallest mountain in the lower 48.

So go check out my friends work and have fun looking around XREZ. [LINK]

I love when my friends are being cool. The magnificent bastard, I’m jealous.

Family night out at The Grove. This years Christmas is going to be a bit scattered since we’re going to all be in different places. My parents, family friends, uncle, and one of my cousins brought her two boys down to see the lights and have dinner. Went first to Marmalade for dinner and the boys were cracking me up by being the epitome of precocious. The comedy pretty much continued throughout the night so I just shot video of them being nutty little kids. They say cool things like, “Dum dum dum dum da dum dum da dum. Know what that is?” Um, No. “It’s Star Wars!” Ha ha ha, OK. Also since we exchanged a few gifts the waiter thought it was my Mom’s birthday! He brought a free dessert and we all looked puzzled so we got a good laugh at that.

At 7:00pm the fountain flares up, holiday songs begin playing and it starts snowing. If you can forget the fact that today the skies were bluebird in color, not a cloud in sight and 82 degrees, well then it actually felt a bit Christmasy.

I live across the street from this craziness. Snow in L.A., its madness I tell ya.

Headed over to the Eric Joyner opening tonight. I like robots, I like donuts, I like art. It’s a trifecta of goodness. About 4 years ago I started noticing this guy’s work around town with these robot and donut paintings. I kinda liked them so I’ve had my eye on the various shows he’s had over the years. I’d been to the shows but hadn’t made it to an opening yet.

It was right near work and I saw Angela and Enrique from there and chatted a bit. I quickly got a little whoozy on two of the smallest glasses of wine. Totally wimpy for some reason. There was a candy girl in red lingerie with really high thick heeled shoes walking around. She was handing out donuts instead of candy and I swear she looked sooooo familiar. I pointed her out and they recognized her too. After a few minutes we finally asked her and she used to work with us! Oh no! Sorry we couldn’t place you, but the heels, the little dress, the fishnets, surely we didn’t know her from work! Ha, funny.

Mingled a bit more and finally spotted Eric by the bar so I reintroduced myself and introduced Angela and Enrique and busted up when Enrique asked how he knew the artist! Ah ha ha! He is the artist! Eric’s completely humble, or he is now, so he laughed. I stopped by Eric’s booth at Comic-Con last year and chatted art for a bit. Steve from [thesneeze.com] was also there. Steve’s a hilarious guy and [Steve, Don’t Eat It] ranks as one of the funniest things on the web. I still cringe at the infected corn post.

Well, I’m headed home after a less than successful venture out to Hong Kong. Can’t win them all.

Ok, I’m trying tot type this on the bompiest plane ride eer. We’ll see hoe this goes. Off to great start I see! I’s travel home day. Just got up and pa ked shower anf then caught a cab which took about an hour to getnb to the qitporyt. Ha ha this is nect to mpossble. OMG, help!! Ok, settled back down. Got checked in and roamed around the airport a bit and then went toi the gate. My pasport has been stamped 8 tmes on this trip. Lost of paper trails here. I’m not druk I swear. Ctahay Pacific has really good food by the wya. They get therir menus made by restaurants in Hing King. There’s only two movies I think Ill watch on the plane. The Break Up and Talladega Nights. The Break Up is on right now. Wird its on;y 4:00 and they’re alrwady making evryone close teirwondows. Ha ha ha.Ok, don’t try to type during turbulence. Well that’s about it really. Hong Kong. Hmmmm…

OK, so let’s try this Macau thing again. Brought my passport and all was good. I read all sorts of things about booking your ferry trip back because they fill up on the weekends. So I had a boat out at 12:30 and a return boat at 5:30pm I figured 5 hours was probably enough time to walk around and get a good look at things. Macau’s a former Portuguese settlement much like Hong Kong was under the 99 year British lease. So, I thought it might at least be a visual change of pace. Only problem was is that when we pulled into the port of Macau it’s pouring rain. It was totally dry in Hong Kong. I don’t get it? I give up.

So now I had 5 hours to wait for another ferry and won’t be able to see any sights. I grabbed a bit to eat at a little grouping of eateries along the water. After a couple of hours the sun peeked through and I made my way down past all the casinos. Macau is the Las Vegas of Asia. They even spend way more money on gambling than Las Vegas. I didn’t see anything remotely related to the portuguese settlement except for Casino Lisboa. I just ran out of time to get to the steps, or anything really. Ha ha… so I shot a picture of the casino just to prove to myself in years to come that I actually went. The only photo I took all day is that one above. I moped back to the ferry terminal and just waited around as it started to get dark. After I got back to the city I did a few timelapses before catching the ferry back to Mui Wo.

So Macau was another bust in a string of not so great things. Well, at least I have a 13 hour plane flight in the morning to look forward too. There’s always that.

In case you didn’t know, Sha Tin Wai is not the same as Wong Tai Sin. In fact it’s no where near it. The “Temple of 10,000 Buddha’s” actually has 12,800. They really need a new ad agency. You can taste the air today. Imagine licking a window sill that you haven’t dusted in a long while. That’s about the taste. Lunch seemed mentally expensive when it’s $35HK. But that’s only $4.50 US. Which in turn makes the ferry to Kowloon only .21 cents.

Got up this morning and used Skype to call home to check on the Thanksgiving festivities at my Aunt an Uncle’s. Most of the regular suspects were there and I got to chat with a few.

So the goal today was to get to Macau. I ferried it over to Hong Kong then walked over to the high speed ferries to Macau. I walked up to the counter and bought a ticket, or so I thought. You have to have your passport on you and the guy got all pissy at me a because he printed out the ticket. Ugh, alright I’ll try it tomorrow. Will anything go right???! The backup plan was to head over to Kowloon and out to The New Territories to see the Temple at Wong Tai Sin. First though a stop at The Temple of 10,000 Buddhas. I got off the train and there was a sign pointing down the road for the Monastery with 10,000 Buddhas. So I start walking and pass an IKEA and then suddenly nothing is in english and there are no more signs for the monastery. So I’m kinda lost and finally just stumble across the steps to the temple and start climbing. Finally there’s an escalater and I go up and guess what? Yeah, there’s 12,800 Buddhas. OK, so there was a bunch of little Buddha’s all over the wall. That was pretty much it. So I left. That was not so interesting.

Ok, on to Wong Tai Sin. Problem was that I was supposed to be in Macau today so I didn’t write anything down. So in my head when I saw Sha Tin Wai written on the train map I was actually thinking it was Wong Tai Sin. Nope, not even close. I got off the train and started looking around but there was nothing there. Just people hopping on their bikes to go home. Now what? I just sat down. Ha ha ha pathetic.

After getting my determination back I got back on the train and finally realized I’d mixed the names up in my head. So I had to change trains again and head east now. I arrived and the temple was right next to the station. Finally! It was actually a very interesting temple in that there are a bunch of fortune tellers along the outside. You can rent this can full of sticks and shake it while praying and a stick will eventually work its way loose. Each stick has a number on it and you take that to the fortune teller and she tells you you’re going to die or something. I’d had such bad luck with plans since I’ve been here I didn’t want to push it.

And that’s all folks. Went home and listened to some music on the computer for a few hours and looked around the web for awhile.

I set aside a little time today to spend at Disneyland Hong Kong. Since I grew up with Disneyland in my backyard and previously having worked for Disney Feature Animation it’s so ingrained in me I have to check it out! Even though I’m rather bored by it all at this point. So, I’ve been to Disneyland California, Disneyworld Florida, Disneyland Paris, and now Disneyland Hong Kong. All that’s left is Tokyo. Quite honestly I didn’t even remember there was Disneyland in Hong Kong until a day before I left.

Long story short it was awful. There were nooooo rides whatsoever. About 8 of them. It was really rather pathetic. So I wrapped it up in a few hours. The only ride I went on was Space Mountain. The Main Street is nearly identical to the one in California. Strange. Anyway, Disneyland was kinda sucky.

After I left I headed back into the city for dinner and took a harrowing bus ride up to the Peak. The bus was hugging these cliff turns that were straight down. “Amongst the dead was an American tourist…” was what I was thinking. The view from the Peak tonight was crazy beautiful. I actually missed having someone with me this time to go “Hey look, that’s so cool.” So I’m telling you now, “Hey look, that’s cool” and you really liked it and we hung out all night just watching the lights.

I took the Star Ferry back over to Kowloon tonight to have dinner. There was a little place I went to and liked it so I went back. Had some rice, shrimp, chicken, mushroom bowl. Oh, and they have a drink there that is called Honey Pear Tea. If there was one drink left on the planet I would hope it be that one. Amazing.

Went home. Not in such a good mood. Going to try to get to Macau tomorrow for a change in scenery.

Today was the best. I didn’t go in to Hong Kong today and stayed on Lantau which was just incredible. I have to concede I’m getting tired of cities. They’re all starting to look the same and worldwide they all have the same shops anyway. So I’m sure I’ll be back in a kayak skirting along some remote beach on the next trip. Maybe Ha Long Bay in Vietnam? Supposed to be some of the best kayaking in the world. Who’s with me?!?

Oh wait… my point was that Lantau was great! The island I’m staying on! Should have just explored this island for awhile. Got up and headed over to the bus depot and picked up the No.1 bus and up to Po Lin Monastery which was amazing and beautiful. On the hour ride over some stereotype American tourists were gabbing about how lousy their photos were going to come out because of all the fog. Just as I was thinking how great it was going to be for shooting! Couldn’t believe they actually said that when I was thinking about it. Hilarious. Anyway, the only downside was the big Buddha didn’t come out to play. Everything else about the monastery was spot on.

After lunch I took another bus down to the fishing village of Tai Po. It was the only place I actually felt a little intimidated about shooting photos. They don’t have a very high standard of living so I kept the photos as discreet as possible. Even opting not to shoot with the digital camera because it has such a loud shutter. I switched to the XPAN and grabbed a lot of good pics of the stilt houses. As I was walking through the village a fellow came up along side and started chatting. We walked around for about an hour and showed me all sorts of little things in the village and where he lived. He took me over to the school where they teach martial arts and then to the village temple. He also self described himself as a “hillbilly” which I thought was funny. How did he even know such a word. Pretty funny though.

At 5’11” I was by far the tallest person in the village. Felt like a giant. So Tai Po was great and Po Lin too. Probably going to be the highlight of the trip. Hopped the bus home and had an amazing meal at the hotel restaurant. Who knew?

Hit an oceanarium thing today called Ocean Park. The weather outside was a total fright. It was dumping rain like a dam had burst. So I thought an outside park might be in order, ya know, to show how stupid I am. Dur.

Did my morning ritual of getting the funny little sandwich in the funny terminal on the not so funny ferry and hopped the bus to Aberdeen. Still pouring out and I don’t have an umbrella. A lot of the exhibits were enclosed so that was good. Spent the day looking at all the fish and being amused by a huge California sea lion and seal exhibit called “Pacific Pier”. A recreation of California coast with rocky out croppings and wooden piers. The sea lions didn’t seem to notice it was fake. So I hung out with my fellow flippered Californians for a little while and we talked about the good old times. Then it was feeding time and they bailed. Hey! I was talking to you!

Anyway, it rained all day and I was damp, cold and tired so I quit. Back on the ferry home and watched strange chinese TV shows all night until I fell asleep.

OK, first day, I just spent the day getting my bearings. I got up and looked into the ferry from Mui Wo to Hong Kong. Not bad, about 1/2 an hour and $3 dollars. Grabbed a funny little sandwich in the funny little terminal and hopped aboard the not all that funny ferry. Made our way across the bay and holy smokes as we came around the corner… look and that brown cloud just covering Hong Kong and Kowloon. That looks nasty! I now understand the whole wearing a surgical mask thing.

Got off the ferry admist massive skyscrapers and walked across the road to catch the 15C bus to the funicular. It’s the tram you take to go up to the peak to overlook all of Hong Kong. I thought it might give me a better look at the layout of the city and also just check out the view. Turns out it’s basically a mall with a lookout tower on top of it. It even has the Wax Museum and a Bubba Gump restaurant, so it’s pretty touristy.

I took the funicular back down and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked. Just walked around the city, up and down the hills. Oh my God my feet hurt. Then it got dark and I took the ferry back to Lantau. Good exploratory first day.

What have I noticed? Hong Kong’s only pretty at night. There are also a million 7-11’s, KFC’s, McDonald’s, Krispy Kreme, an IKEA, malls, fashions shops, banks, a few Burger Kings, and lots of hills. Lots and lots of hills.

I arrived tonight in Hong Kong at about 6pm after a grueling 15 1/2 hour flight. Longest flight I’ve ever been on. Besting Melbourne by a few hours. I checked on Cathay Pacific’s safety rating and it ranks right up there with Qantas. No fatalities since 1979. That still didn’t stop me from having a plane crash dream when I fell asleep somewhere over the Pacific. For some reason I was able to look out the front of the cockpit like it was a giant glass window and see us crashing through the trees. Not a great way to wake up.

After we landed, and I got through customs, all the illegal cab drivers were asking to take me wherever I needed to go. I walked around for seriously an hour trying to find the legit taxis. I did find the bus to Silvermine Beach on Lantau, and the bus was there ready to go, but all I had were large bills and they’ll ONLY take the exact fare or give no change. So I went back up and finally found a place to change to lower denominations. Of course the bus had left and the next bus was in an hour and a half. Ugh.

I finally got to the hotel about 11pm but while on the hour+ bus ride there I started worrying about them not having my reservation. That’s what happened in London last time when Jill and I booked through Yahoo. Great, I’m going to be stuck on some island with one hotel, completely exhausted, and they don’t have my reservation and no rooms left. It was fine though and I went up stairs and fell right asleep. Ha! No worries.

Doing the math on this trip I realized from the time I start getting ready, taking the cab, flying 15 1/2 hours each way, to the hotel, back to airport, and home… total travel time will be in excess 40 hours. Um, that’s a whole week of work! That’s if you work 8 hour days of course. Kill me now.

And hey a photo of Hong Kong out of the window of a really clean plane!

Hong Kong? Yeah, why not? I need a short break. After the Europe trip in June spiraled out of control due to the purchase of a painting, I decided I had to keep this trip as low cost as possible. I like the painting a lot but man was that stupid. The flight and hotel for the week were $1500 U.S.. I thought that was a bargain, so I bit. Granted I’m not staying within the city of Hong Kong at some top flight hotel with turn down service. I’ll be on the rather quaint outer island called Lantau and the ferry to the city picks up 5 minutes from the hotel. So no biggie, just a little ride each morning.

Alright, on to more important stuff. The gear! I mean, what’s a trip without dragging tons of equipment with you and not using half of it? Right? So I’m leaving behind the telephoto. Too big. Taking the 10-22, 50mm and the 24-70. Also the timer, a small tripod and for fun the XPAN. That’s still a lot to carry… hmmmm…

I’ve also noticed that since I’ve traveled so much this year I’ve started to get relaxed on the preparations at home. Which is not a good thing. I was up until 3am and had to get up at 7am. I hadn’t even packed yet. But, I’m at the airport and still ahead of schedule. Dropped the car off at work and took a cab from there. I’m not a big fan of having a cab driver come to my home address and then telling them to take me to LAX and Cathay Pacific Airlines. I’m sure 99% of drivers are quite trustworthy I just don’t want that 1 percenter.

So I’m outta here… Happy Advance Thanksgiving.

1874 frame loop around Hollywood. Shot on my 20D. 1/4 sec. exposures every second. My camera got loose on a turn at one point. Life is full of flaws. A little Sadies tune for the ride. Really, I’m just biding time before I leave…

Designers as Rock Stars! Finally! I mean come on artists deserve real live applause! The former Art Director in me was all twitchy with excitement about this competition. The way it works is two artists go head to head and have 15 minutes to complete their piece. They’re first given a theme, like “Time Travel”, then they have to conceptualize an idea, gather any support work that they need, such as a photo, then execute the final product. Needless to say some fell flat on their face, others rose to the challenge. All this while a few hundred people are watching every move. Each Wacom Cintiq was hooked up to a projector so everybody could watch. The dynamic range of those projectors was terrible so I tried to get shots of the Wacoms when I could. The funny thing is the the final round was the weakest. The designer Dennis I thought was the best and was even a bit of a showman. Of course he lost. The video’s about 15 minutes. The same time they had to create their pieces.

What did I learn? I learned I really want a Wacom Cintiq. My oh my those are beautiful. If you cross the beams of a Cintiq and Illustrator you could quite possibly create world peace. I’m serious, ok I’m not. But still.

Adobe also world premiered their new online color matching software called “Kuler”. Looked pretty cool and I shot a pic of the screen. You can make up color themes and pull out different shades and complementary colors and then rotate the wheel around to see it in a new part of the spectrum. It seems to be behind closed doors right now. [Kuler] Please unlock it Adobe, I want to play. Released… [Kuler]

Ran into Heather, Keiko, and Meredith from work and I didn’t know they were going to be there. Also saw a girl from high school. One of the six Chris’s that made up a Biology class of 24 students. After the digital design smack down, Keiko, Heather, Meredith and I met up at Damiano’s and chatted until some wee hour. Tired, oh so very tired.

It only took about 3 weeks but I’m finally getting regular visits to the hummingbird feeder. They’re fearless and I can be sitting 4 or 5 feet away from them as they buzz about. I can even move around and bring the camera up and they just keep an eye on me. 1/640 of a second still can’t stop their wings.

ALL THE REST OF THE MOVIE RATINGS!!! ?Ǭª

There ya go Keiko… you got your movie ratings back.