The George Lucas Keynote Presentation and Awards
One of the most interesting sessions this year was the George Lucas keynote presentation. Although most people had gone in the hope of seeing George and George only, the session was drawn out as an opportunity to host the SIGGRAPH awards which took the better part of an hour prior to the highly anticipated session. Conference Chair James Mohler presided over the keynote address.
Tomoyuki Nishita (University of Tokyo) won the Steven A. Coons Award for his lifetime dedication to computer graphics research in the realm of natural phenomena. It was mind-blowing to see Tomoyuki-San’s landmark work on radiosity and the rendering of sub-surface light scattering from decades ago on the big screen, and much of today’s commercial applications owes to his work on photo-realistic rendering. Jos Stams from Alias Systems won the Computer Graphics Achievement Award, also for his work on simulating natural phenomena. Ronald Fedkiw, a researcher from Stanford University and consultant for ILM, took the Significant New Researcher award for his work on fluid dynamics – jokingly referred to later by George Lucas as ‘the water guy’ at ILM.
Once the awards were over, it was time for the trumpets to sound and the space operatic theme song of Star Wars blast as George Lucas walked onto the stage to a standing ovation from a hysterically cheering crowd. The keynote was unique as it was presented as a “Q&A“ with the “Father of Digital Cinema“. Bruce Carse hosted the relaxed Q&A session which included all manner of discussions on Lucas’ ready acceptance of digital film, computer graphics and his new cutting-edge facility at the Presidio (San Francisco) dubbed the “[Letterman] Digital Arts Center“. “Many people make movies, but George Lucas has changed them forever“ seemed to be the tagline that rang through the presentation.
A few notable quotes from Lucas:
On art and technology:
"Anyone who works in art eventually faces running into a technological ceiling. Whether you're producing cave paintings on a wall or painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, you're constantly pushing that technological envelope. Art is technology. You need to know how to use the technology."
On the slow adoption of digital cinema:
“Star Wars Episode I – The Phantom Menace was the first film to be projected digitally, and Episode II - `Attack of the Clones' was the first film to be shot digitally in its entirety. This should have caused a paradigm shift but we're still sitting here waiting for the revolution to happen. Currently, there are only five of us who've worked with digital (now there's six) -- a very small group of people out of thousands who work in the film industry…I know that it's going to happen - but how long is it going to drag on for before we get to the digital world?"
