Industry Giants 2005

Industry Giants 2005

Well I spent last weekend up in Dallas being a huge animation nerd... I left my baby girl and my wife alone for two days while I listned to these cool people talk about and show off animation. It was great I got to take my best friend Jorma up with me and hang out a good deal with him, something I almost never get to do any more since we don't work together. Also I got to see a few people that I had not seen in a long time so that is always nice.

It was a great time and a huge thanks to the shortguys for puting this thing together every year.

now for a bit of a rant.. Austin is not that far from Dallas, 3.5 hours driving and events like this usualy only happen in LA so if anything like this happens anywhere in texas I want to be there. Network, learn and have a good time. My friend Mike tried to get a huge group of animators and artists from austin to go up to Dallas,FOR FREE! they just had to make time one day off or come up on SAT. FOR FREE, even had a hotel discount... and yet out of the 40 or so people that were like"dude I am in" none of them came all of them found somthing else to do. Now How Lame could "COOL AUSTIN" be!I mean if as a comunity of animators in austin we do nothing to contribute or grow or even just show up to support the cause what does that say about our city to cool animator types that might want to leave LA for a nice er place to live but still have a thriving comunity.. well I tell you what they will end up in freaking DALLAS and not Austin thats for sure. Austin used to be the SHIT! game studios all over the place, hi-tech was booming, film and gameing industries were looking to Austin as the next place to be-then boom bubble bursts, game studios go under and while there are still game studios left here you would not know it.
Maya and Max 3d usergroups are non-existant and when they do happen guess what, people don't show up. Our profesonial 3d comunity here in Austin SUCKS at doing anything postive for the comunity. Dallas has a 3d Feature Film going on, Austin non (Scaner Darkly is 2d computer animation so that is close), Dallas has more than 3 studios doing animation for tv, film and dvd, Austin-well we have at least 3 but you would never know it. The Animation Farm is the only studio that could grow to do it if the right project was there. There is lots of talk about austin and no one in their right mind wants to leave here but it takes creative people being active in the

I just want to see Austin be the "IT" city for creative people to want to come here agian and not be sucked off to Dallas but it takes peoples time and effort and if they can not even manage to make it to a free event that was all setup for them then I don't have much hope for the future of Austin Animation.