Poem: All Gucked Out

Up until I was in the seventh grade, the majority of my wardrobe consisted of hand-me-downs from my older brother, Frank. My little brother Peter, would in turn get my out grown or unwanted clothing.

Every once in a blue moon, Frank would let me borrow a shirt he still liked and for that day I would be styling! At the end of the day, no matter how careful I was, he would be upset that his shirt was now stretched or warped or smelly. We called this phenomenon "gucking it out". For example one might say "DAVID you GUCKED OUT my shirt, I'll never let you wear my clothes again!" Luckily for me, he would choose to forget in time. As we got older, I would borrow shirts from Peter as well. He would bark at me about this as well. Apparently I am the only brother who gucks things out.

I suppose there is something to be learned from all of this. Maybe its that was we live our lives make our mark in our own way. You could look at these as sweet oddities that are like a spice on life. Or I suppose you could just see a warped stinky shirt..

Poem: Space-Time

Whenever I listen to Graffiti 61, my mind goes on a trip and I'm always surprised with where creativity takes me. Dominic Massaro is the orchestrator and one of my good friends. You can check out his music here:

Just Plane Farts

Well we have sunk to the lowest depths of humor this morning. But you have to admit the title, "Just Plane Farts" is rather clever. When I was in elementary school, I had to find a poem in the library, memorize it, and recite it in front of the class. This would have been perfect..

Poem: Belly Button Chin

I think everyone should have a belly-button chin with a bug inside of it! Maybe I'll make some chin-stickers so we can pretend we have one.

Poem: A Prayer for Cauliflower

When I was a kid there were certain foods I dreaded. Black Licoorice (which I just learned to spell), canned tuna, and stew were a few of the culprits. But Cauliflower is different. It does not bad, or good. Its just like biting into a big bushy stick of nothing. I never understood why so many people serve it. Next time you go to a party, look at the vegetable platter. The cauliflower is always the vegatable of last resort..

My Poetry Website is Up and Kicking

My Poetry Website is Up and Kicking. There are ten free poems up and ready for the world:

http://www.davidchiapperino.com/poems

Here is a sample:

What are Technical Directors?

What are Technical Directors?

History
The earliest Technical Directors are in the world of stage theatre. As theatre productions got more complex, things like lights, mechanical props, and sound became a growing part of the stage experience. The directors of these shows could not focus all of their time on these new technical aspects or they wouldn’t have time to direct the performance of the actors. Thus, enters our esteemed Technical Director.
The technical Director position transitioned over from the world of stage to film and animation. When computer graphics (CG) began to enter the scene. CG directors often needed to hire technical directors to deal with the technology. Now Things have gotten so complex (especially on features) that there are sometimes dozens TD's that often work on a show. Some places have so many TD's that the title "technical director" is has been changed to technical artist, technical animator, technical lighter etc. The trend seems to be going that there is one Technical Director or Lead Technical Director and a technically trained hierarchy under them.
In general the goal of Technical Director is this: To develop creative ways artists can focus more time on developing their ideas without feeling bound by technology. TD's are problem solvers that are often the bridge between art, engineering, and programming.

Types of Technical Directors
I have heard of all sorts of TD’s. Titles range from company to company. Here are a few examples: Lighting TD, Effects TD, Character TD, Animation TD, Shading TD, etc. In my case I am an Animation Technical Director (this position is referred to as Character TD at other studios). Character and Animation Technical Directors often create and enforce pipelines. A pipeline is a flowchart of how all the computer generated models, textures, rigs, lights and animation etc. all come together. It specifies the order and methodology in which things must adhere. The better the pipeline, the faster you will get things done. If the bottleneck has to do with a person, then generally a department lead or producer will address this problem. If there is a bottleneck in production that has to do with technology, a Technical Director will often address it.

Why TD’s are Valuable
Lets pretend we're working for a production with no TD. Generally one of the animators are forced to rig (which generally they would rather not do). Say it takes 3-4 days for our savvy animator to rig a character. . If there are 30 characters...that’s 90-120 days. If we're talking work days that’s 18- 24 weeks! And what if we decide to change proportions of the characters later on? That’s a lot of waste you say. Your right! TD's tackle the problems differently. They treat the 30 characters as one character by developing scripts (or programs) that can automate most of their repetitive workload. On most realtime projects, I can rig a humanoid character from scratch including weights in about a half hour. If I already have the skin weights it takes about 1-2 minutes. Granted, it takes some research and development timeto do this, but the savings in the long run is inarguable.
TD’s allow both the creative and programming teams to stay more focused on their own disciplines. They are always finding new ways to save a production time and money. And when they have a good day, they make miracles happen. So go ahead, give your TD a hug…