July 2009 Archives
Eventful weeks have passed since I got back to work about a week and a half ago. At the moment we're working regular hours, since it is the beginning of the show, and I've got a huge number of greenscreens to prep and possibly complete! Luckily, they're very well shot, so there is a minimum of fuss in 2D land.
I managed to watch a couple films in the past several days, one is HP6, and the other was Bruno. I thought Potter was pretty long, with just a couple fight scenes, and I was expecting more of everything. No death, little destruction (at least visually), and almost no magic. It was all a romantic triangle, of which I would prefer less of. I thought Harry Potter was supposed to be some great wizard, but he was just a wimp in this film. Bruno was funny as well, not as humourous as Borat, I thought, but good nonetheless. Maybe I was expecting too much of both films!
Just over the weekend I attended a business planning seminar put on by Score, a group of entrepreneurs and businessmen, both retired and active, who volunteer their services for free for upcoming entrepreneurs. The seminar was for feedback on Industry Wages' business plan, and I wanted to get constructive feedback from the group. I got a chance to ask the presenter several detailed questions about the plan, and he gave some very good ideas and recommendations, which I will use to further improve this living document, this business proposal. Check out score.org for more info, and ScoreLA for the local chapter.
While writing proposals for the company, I've had to do quite a bit of research into the markets that we're hoping to approach with Industry Wages Incorporated. To share with you some of what I've found, here's our current visitation rate.
We've received visits from 117 countries since the beta went public, and our bounce rate hovers around 37%. It shows that we're enabling some of the visitors to look around the site and this is definitely a metric that we can use for the future.
After a short six weeks, I'm back at work here at Digital Domain, working on the next big show! It doesn't start off slow, that's for sure. I've already got 16 shots on my plate! At the moment the show is under NDA, I'll reveal it later once it's been publicized at a location other than here!
Over the weekend I hit Phoenix to see my brother. Like many of you may already know, he's deep in production on his inaugural game, working with two other artists full time to hit their internal deadlines. His company, Coin App, is doing well, and the game, Max Blastronaut, looks fricking wicked. I got a chance to play a couple minutes, and it's pretty good. There's some polish that they're still working on, and I haven't played anything quite like it. It's got worlds like Spore and Super Mario Galaxy, with the fighting dynamics of something like Streets of Rage, crossed with something I'd like to call awesome. There're gravity nukes, orbit shots, fuel drops, four player mayhem, and more! I've embedded a Youtube video of some footage I shot with my MinoHD, check it out below. Warning, dogs bark midway through the video.
There are also a bunch of other Official videos put up by the Coin App team! Check them out here. They've already started development on the next several games, very dissimilar to this. I got a chance to see their next pitch video for another game, and..wow. You guys are on top of it. What you're seeing in the video above is what three guys working very hard over the past 8 to 12 months can build from scratch! Kudos guys, and all the best.
Some more publicity for VFXWages is out there! Make sure you pick up (or read at the library) 3DWorld Magazine Issue 119, which has an article about the website! I haven't had a chance to pick it up, but I have heard that it is on newsstands now. The cover price is $15.99 US, as it is a UK mag. On an informal note, has anyone use it to their advantage yet? I'd love to hear if it's helped you out in getting a ballpark figure for your previous or next job role. We DO have more improvements coming that haven't been uploaded to the public beta site! I know that everyone needs their immediate fix, but bear with us. The majority of the creative arts industry has yet to even hear of us! I've spent some of my time in the last couple weeks prepping business proposals, and sending them out to hopefully get a response! I have not sent any to VC companies just yet, I'm still making the web-startup contests and challenges. I'm pretty close to being comfortable in sending out my first package though. A couple more statistics and pages, and it should be ready! It takes a long time.
Weeks go by, and I've got nothing to show for it! In actuality, I've been on a long vacation. I have two months away from work for the summer, to recuperate. I did some vital work on VFXWages, we're applying for funding! Well, actually, we're applying to pitch for funding. I should know before the end of the month how that will go. In addition, a couple weeks ago I did an interview with 3D World Magazine, in the UK. They're publishing a story this month about VFXWages in their print magazine. I'm anticipating changing the name of the site over soon though, as we don't really cater exclusively to VFX artists. If you get a chance to read the article, let me know how it is! I'll be searching for a local copy around LA.
In the past couple weeks we've had a chance to head back up to Vancouver, Canada, and see some old friends and coworkers. I'm sorry for those that I missed! It was so very quick, and there were people I couldn't get time to see! The image to the left is of a sunset in Prince Rupert, taken at about 9:30pm or so. While back in Vancouver, last Thursday I did an alumni talk at VFS to a bunch of term 4,5 and 6 students, and watched three demo reels, all of which show promise. It was almost three hours long, and arranged on short notice! I did have some pictures taken, I'll be sure and put them up soon. While I was also in Vancouver we went and saw Transformers 2! Mind you, I did turn my brain off for most of it, and for that, I enjoyed it. Would I see it again? Maybe. Here's some juicy stuff from Gizmodo about some of the work Digital Domain did on the show.
