Wanna see John Dkystra, Richard Edlund, Peter Anderson and Pierre Drolet, Derek Ledbetter, and Kyle Toucher talk about the FX work in Battlestar Galactica? The Original Series and the New Series? On the same stage? With lots of neat clips and photos and home movies? Well, check this event out –
The LA chapter of SIGGRAPH and the Visual Effects Society present a special, one night event – “Battlestar Galactica: Then and Now.”
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Barnsdall Art Park – 4800 Hollywood Blvd, , Los Angeles, CA 90027
Public reception begins at 7pm. Meeting and panel begin at 7:30pm
Tickets – free to members of SIGGRAPH and the VES. Public event only tickets available for $20 at the door (if seating is available).
Here’s the deal – the VES is an honorary society for people in the VFX field. SIGGRAPH is a similar organization for computer graphics people. Obviously, there is a fair amount of cross-over between the two groups. They had expressed an interest in do something with the New Series FX guys and we decided to team up and discuss both iterations of the show – the old and the new. If you talk to guys on either show, you get a lot of the same war stories – budget and schedule force us to get creative so we can get as much as possible onto the small screen. Doesn’t matter if you are using a computer or crashing a model into a table filled with microballoons, VFX is always a shotgun marriage of technology and art.
A lot of the New Series’ FX crew grew up on the Original Series. And many of the Original Series’ FX crew went on to some pretty cool stuff with CGI. So, it seemed like a good fit. And it’s a different spin on things – not just the original show and not just the new show.
So we rented out this cool little theater in East Hollywood (yeah, there is an East Hollywood) and got the gang together and we’re throwing a Galactica Geek-fest. It’s mainly a meeting for the two sponsoring groups, but we have arranged for the public to be admitted to the event. The problem is that the venue is kinda small – 300 seats, and I would expect it to fill up. So if you are planning on attending, I would advise you to get there early – like 6pm-ish. They may not let you in to the reception, but you can at least stand in line and get a seat.
We’ve got some cool photos to show and Dennis Muren is allowing us to screen some home movies that he shot back in 1978. But, really, I think the cool thing is the guests and what they’ll be able to talk about.
We’ve been working on this idea for quite some time now. We just solidified the schedule late last week, and I know this is late notice. But I wanted to get this out there only when everything was firmly a ‘go’.
Hope some of you guys can make it.
Gene Kozicki
PS – Now for the disclaimers –
– All these guys are working. Yeah, someone can drop out at the last minute. (Gary Hutzel had to. He’ll be up in Vancouver that night.) But when I last heard from them, we are a ‘go’.
– I’m not going to have a lot of junk on display. There’s too much to do in the little time we have left. At one point, there was going to be a big display, but the last minute nature of the event forced us to focus on what was really important – the guests and what they have to say.
– Don’t bring a camera. This stuff is copyrighted up the ying-yang and we’re just not going to go there.
– We can’t post the photos or the movies here, there, or anywhere. Reference the ying-yang comment above. It’s tricky enough getting everyone in the same city on the same night, so I’m not going to push my luck. Sorry.
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