There's a new update on the Peach blog and it contains a couple of surprises.
The most important bit of information is that after the workshop, Lyubomir has decided not to go forward with the project. William Reynish will be taking his place as Lead Artist.
Next, Ton mentions that Andy and Bassam are preparing a training video DVD - on site at the Blender Institute! I'm really holding my breath for this one as I believe that professional training material is really the key to further increasing Blender's popularity. In the comments, Andy already hints that more information about this project will be available soon.
Finally, there's a video introducing the team. It's well hidden under the post's main thumbnail and I almost missed it. Here's a direct link.
There's more interesting stuff to read, so off you go!
23 Comments
Is Lyubomir SAGO?
No :) You can see all the current team members on the Peach Team page: http://peach.blender.org/index.php/the-team/
BUG in the post! William joined the team, but won't be the lead Artist.
@vildanovak, no that's not a bug - check out the Peach Team page (see above). The team structure is rather strange - they have three 'Lead Artists' (but no 'regular' artists), and two 'Technical Directors'. Personally, I think that's like calling everyone in your company a 'manager', even if all they do is clean the offices. Oh well..
k sry :) didn't know that.
actually every single member of the team plays an important role in the movie- and decision making process... so i guess the term Lead Artist is appropriate (as opposed to contributing artists from the internet) in elephants dream it was just the same.
/me goes back to packing blender e-shop orders...
.andy
I think 'Lead Artist' makes sense. Remember that for Elephant's Dream the entire community was running around translating scripts and photographing rotting fish heads for textures- the team at the Blender foundation are the lead artists and directs and the greater community (of artists and developers) are the rest of that team.
Lead Artist means an artists that makes his/her own dicisions instead of Artists who follow orders.
To some extent giving this title is also politics, specialy if the pay is that of the genetor and not of a Hollywood lead artist (about $300,= a day). In this case on a team of 5 people the work is devided in to: 1. people who work hard on the creative side and do some technical stuff, 2. people who work hard on the technical stuff and do some creative work. All with big big personal responsability making them all "lead" although all they lead is themselfs.
Joeri
@Joeri: thanks, that clears it up. I was comparing it to 'Lead Developer', of which you only have one per team.
Does the same reasoning apply for the title 'Technical Director'?
I believe SAGO would be Sacha Goedegebure, not Lyubomir.
At aardman while working on wallace and gromit there were the lead animators who did tha animating and animators assistants who set up the scenery and stuff
The Technical Director's I know (not many, some at pixar and some at ILM) work for animators. They for example rig a character, make sure the animator can focus on animation, (and not the technical stuff of the software ie MEL, Python MaxScript). They also can be responsable for translation of objects from one package to another.
Most blender users are TD and LA i think.
The DVD idea sounds terrific. I was hoping something had come out explaining all of the astounding content we got on the Elephant's Dream DVD.
I know its rather early in the process, but who will be voicing the characters? Also, any chance at packaging a two disc set with Elephant's Dream?
I am reading this about job titles and I am feeling now I am just not important enough to ask questions on the Peach forum :o(
Being 'Big Fan' is not going to sound impressive enough when everyone is a 'Lead Artist' or 'Technical Director' to bother with a reply
I think maybe I will adopt the title 'Your most Excellent Bigness' to make sure I am in with a chance - dont tell them though ;o)
Big Fan, what's the point, exactly? You always had an aswer from Sago (that actually is Sacha Goedegebure, yes), as far as I've seen, and not just only on the Peach blog. You got a replay now, too.
Anything else we can do for Your most Excellent Bigness? :)
Its a joke I make Env
I make fun of important titles for everyone by making mine very important too.
We dont seem to share the same humour though so I give up for the sake of world peace ;o)
also my cover is blown now...
Well, mine was a joke too. Definitely we don't share the same sense of humour. :)
But... Director, Art director, Lead Artist, Technical Director, even Producer, are not meant to be important titles by themselves, they are just team roles titles.
Peace on Earth!
No! you pull my leg...
If that is true you are happy to be called work unit 1, work unit 2, etc
I think you all make big important titles for yourselves and now you are embarassed!
I agree a Producer is of no importance but you can try telling Ton that yourself.
First, we didn't make those 'big important titles' for ourselves, that was Ton's doing.
Second, of course EnV doesn't see the titles as something important, cause he has to share his title with 2 other people... ha!
And third, you may think otherwise, but bananas and peanutbutter make quite a good combination on a sandwich.
bananas and peanutbutter?
I don't belive my italian comerade Env will never eat such non-mediterranean way of mixing food! (and he has to lose some weight, too..)
May be Ton could improve his comments?, I don't understand many things..
Wow I finally got to watch the avi file...not by using Media Player 11, because it does that Windows Genuine Advantage crap....not by using Media Player 10, because it could not, for some reason, recognize the format...but by installing MPlayer - a fully open source media player- it recognized and played the avi file perfectly. Yay open source!