In our preview of the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival last month, we incidentally mentioned that the overall SIGGRAPH confab was being held in New Orleans.
The incidental becomes essential, though, in this column. For one, the event, which wrapped last week (8/7) brought some 20,000 industry professionals from six continents to New Orleans, furthering the region’s economic recovery as we approach the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting southeast Louisiana (8/29/05).
Indeed while New Orleans proved to be a great city for the SIGGRAPH confab, the region is still in need of support. Beyond the obvious benefits derived from having hosted SIGGRAPH, New Orleans finds itself gaining on several other fronts thanks to the SIGGRAPH 2009+1 Outreach Program, which focuses on helping to educate local youth about careers in technology and creative arts. The long-term goal is to strengthen the New Orleans community by investing in the next generation.
The program entails:
• Helping the Algiers Technical Academy, a charter high school that is part of the Algiers Charter Schools Association, which features several courses to train students in computer graphics. SIGGRAPH has performed a complete makeover of the school’s computer room and is creating a new student computer graphics lab with computers donated from Walt Disney Animation Studios and software donated from Autodesk. Volunteers assisted with painting, decorating, hardware setup, networking, software installation, and cleanup of the lab.
• The Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp, which trains 100 young people per year (ages 10-21) in music and dance. The camp also offers three week-long training programs in the music business, recording engineering, and music notation technology for advanced students.
To support the camp, SIGGRAPH 2009 partnered with Basin Street Records to offer a custom album of music by some of the city’s finest musicians. Proceeds from the $9.99 album download will support the camp and its kids. Plus, this allows people from around the world to help out an important New Orleans initiative. The album is readily available for download.
• NOCCA–New Orleans Center for Creative Arts: A school in New Orleans providing pre-professional arts training to middle and high school students in culinary arts, dance, media arts, music, theater arts, visual arts, and creative writing.
SIGGRAPH brought 50 students each from NOCCA and from Algiers Technical Academy for a mentor/mentee day that provided students with a glimpse into a variety of professions available in the world of computer graphics and interactive techniques.
• Tipitina’s Foundation: A non-profit organization that features “Instruments a Comin,” a program that provides new musical instruments to New Orleans area schools. SIGGRAPH put in place a mobile text message-based fundraising campaign that people participated in during the SIGGRAPH confab.
For detailed information on the SIGGRAPH Outreach Program visit http://www.siggraph.org/s2009/community/outreach/index.php.
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More