Or: Count Chocula Moved to Canada for Love

This episode we talked to an artist, a programmer, studio owner and the visual arts education coordinator at the International Academy of Film and Television in Antwerp. Midge Sinnaeve joined the fellas to talk awkward clients, how one becomes a ‘professional’ and the Super Bowl from a European perspective.

• Chris met today’s guest when he interviewed him for episcura.

• The confusion of time zones and what is Central European Time?

• Midge was bitten by the 3D bug during a science competition in Ireland. He was using Strata 3D.

• Midge worked in web design for a while, and then someone handed him Maya so he could try to get back into 3D.

• Midge has used a number of 3D software packages. At this point in the podcast he mentioned Cinema 4D.

• Correction: Chris mentioned that a BMX rider died, it was Dave Mirra. We apologize that Chris said Matt Hoffman. Live long and prosper, Mr. Hoffman.

• What’s an animatic?

• Midge’s company is called Daze.

• Midge said sending clients rough 3D or animatics can frighten them. He said it’s comparable to the Uncanny valley. If he sends something really rough, they’re scared, too polished and they’ll ask for changes not permissible within the time table.

• Chris mentions his recent viewing of Mad Max: Fury Road.

• Chris tells Midge & Paul about the Canadian super bowl, The Grey Cup.

• Dramatic Chipmunk vs. Johnny Carson.

• Midge got his own 3D department at International Academy of Film and Television in Antwerp by walking down the street?

• A few of the artists that inspired Midge:

  • Alex Roman and his The Third & The Seventh.
  • GMUNK.
  • Ash Thorp.

• Midge prefers to show students the “how & why” of the process, rather than teaching the software. So he teaches them how to do the same thing in 3DS Max and Blender.

Thanks to Midge for joining us all the way from the land of delicious beer. Hey, we should probably have him on again. In person! At a Belgian pub! You should give us a single dollar over on Patreon to make that happen. Thanks for listening. Talk to us on Twitter or Facebook, we’re desperate for attention.

Director & animator Jamil Lahham joined us in part 1 of this conversation where we discussed winning an Oscar, working on Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs and what is a bad film? In the second part of our live show, Jamil tells us about his attempt at stand-up comedy, his award winning animation and the attitude needed to complete those personal projects.

• Jamil tells about his short Dirty Laundry Day which recently won Best Animation at the Filmmaker International Film Festival in Spain.
• Chris was inspired by Jamil’s blog about his short especially, “Do ANYTHING a day.”
• Jamil says you have to struggle with your brain. You have to stop yourself from quitting sometimes. For example, seeing student animations from the French schools of Supinfocom or Gobelins should be inspiring, not a deterrent.
• Paul quotes Merlin Mann about setting priorities and being who you want to be.
• Paul loves the sound design in Dirty Laundry Day and Jamil shares that it was done by Chris Kukla.
• Jamil was incredibly happy with Christina Ellis, who did amazing work with the color of Dirty Laundry Day.
• Some of Jamil’s CG inspiration comes from Pocoyo, a Spanish-British animated series.
• Jamil suggests that we watch Anomalisa, a gorgeous stop-motion film.

There you have it! You can find the award-winning animator and all around inspiring dude, Jamil Lahham on Twitter or at his personal blog. For updates about our show and the new season, stop by our Patreon blog.Thanks for listening!

“You go to school to learn a craft in some sense, but more than anything else, you’re learning about yourself.” The Michigan-Edmonton duo of Paul & Chris were lucky enough to chat with animator & director Jamil Lahham who shared those words about university. Jamil tells us about the organic nature of traditional animation, animating cycles for iPads and the weight of an Oscar.

• Jamil was a part of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, the Academy award winning The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore and his wonderful short Dirty Laundry Day.
• If you want to learn even more about Jamil, have a look at this interview at episcura.
• Jamil went to Ringling College of Art + Design and has mentored students in the animation department for the last 3 years.
• While in Syria, Jamil attended Damascus University to study interior design.
• Jamil did his internship at EA.
• Artist William Salazar explains how he prefers to draw 2D over his 3D work to get the movement right.
• Andy Serkis (Golem) waged war animators back in 2014, saying he did all the work.
• The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore won an Oscar. Jamil said he got to carry it around the studio briefly, and that it is ‘heavy as s**t!”
• Paul has downloaded The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore app for his daughters and they love it.
• The movie and the app are based on a story by WIlliam Joyce.
• Jamil is learning Python because it works in Maya.
• Jamil challenges the idea of “bad” movies on our Film Frown podcast. “What is good and bad?”
• Jamil and hosts agree that you need to seek your own happiness and not compare yourself to others. Chris says former guest Sally Ann is a perfect example of making your own way.

Stay tuned for part 2 where we learn about Jamil’s animated short and how one stays focused. Thanks to you for listening. A very special thanks to our patrons and of course Jamil Lahham.

Or: “You’re on Camera Whether You Like It or Not”

This is part deux of our conversation with Carolyn Fung & Paul Juricic who were grad students at The Centre for Digital Media. Their final project at the CDM was Project ACME, a personal archiving tool to collect and sort your digital data. We start off talking about the amazing physical archives they visited. For the sake of your sanity in the following notes, “Paul” is our guest. “Host Paul” is the co-host who says he loves pop music.

• Carolyn tells us about the treasures of The Museum of Vancouver and the Planitarium. Organizations like the institutions mentioned above don’t have the funds to create a digital archive for their treasures.
• Chris mentions the amazing Storycorps project as an example of a successful archive project.
• Carolyn shares that part of her work with NGX Interactive is about making an interpretive design. How do you make things relevant to people?
• It turns out that many TV shows in the late 80s and 90s reused tapes so there is no official record of the show USA Up All Night.
• Paul suggests we seek out Mél Hogan to learn more about the opportunities in archived data.
• Chris shares a fiction book that deals with digitizing books in a unique way, Vernor Vinge’s Rainbow’s End.
• We talk about the volume of pictures we take these days versus the past when we used film. Carolyn mentioned that she recently did a hike at Deep Cove and when they reached the top everyone pulled out their phones instead of enjoying the view.
• Paul says that he wishes the criticism around twitter wasn’t focused on the stream of conscience, or somewhat silly posts and concentrated on the broadcast or spam of companies that get in the way of communication.
• Paul uses BBM with a group of friends to stay in touch. There’s less corporate distractions and therefore it is a better tool than twitter for him.
• Paul tells the story of a This American Life episode where two friends were exchanging old pictures of themselves and one noticed his grandmother was in the background of his friend’s picture.
• Chris wants a Mr. Show with Bob & David sketch about people looking at old photos recalling the documentation process of the picture and not the subject matter.
• Paul wonders if there is any inch of Grandville Island that hasn’t been documented by people’s pictures.
• Paul discusses the future of Project ACME.
• Paul uses his traditional podcast plug time to tell us all that we should watch Fargo.
• Carolyn tells us to all go out to our local spaces that are trying to teach us about the local history, no matter the scale. They need our support and input.
• Host Paul is very happy that we had a tremendous number of live listeners during this show. Listen live at 7pm MST or 9pm EST on Thursday evenings.

Find Carolyn on twitter, @carofung and Paul says you can find him on a sidewalk in East Vancouver. (Or Linkedin.) Thanks to both of them for joining us and patiently waiting for the release of this episode. Help us release more episodes, learn more over at patreon.com/msauce. Or yell at us at facebook.com/montrealsauce.

On this episode the gents talk about preserving memories, archiving, data and private interests. The guests are graduate students from The Centre for Digital Media, Paul Juricic and Carolyn Fung. For the sake of your sanity in the following notes, “Paul” is our guest. “Host Paul” is your Trill podcast host, not a symbiont.

• Previously on Montreal Sauce…Carolyn has been on before so she updates us on the project she was involved in before, True North.
• Paul tells us about the previous team he worked with Altru.City.
• Carolyn is now working with NGX Interactive.
• Paul tells us about Archinodes and the graduate project, Project ACME.
• Archinodes design lab was started by Paul Juricic, Mél Hogan and Jeff Traynor.
• The graduate project was a prototype built on an an earlier idea, Arc.
• Paul said they explored various services like Delicious and Pocket.
• Dig Paul’s ride.
• Carolyn and the team played with physical objects to get an idea of how people handle things before building their interface.
• Is Evernote useful or just a “dumping ground?”
• Permissions and sharing were interesting challenges. For example, Apps like Slack want to make your entire workflow easily accessible. However, Google Drive wants you to use their service, so Slack had to come up with a workaround to get your Google Docs into their app.
• The prototype app the team worked on is for analyzing and exploring your data, not making content. Paul says it’s similar to Hootsuite, which is a tool to manage your other social media accounts.
• Chris shares his new fascination indiewebcamp, which is about syndicating your data to other services and keeping control of it.

Really fascinating conversation with Paul and Carolyn about telling stories about the past versus controlling data. The next episode will be part 2 of the live chat and we’ll continue the conversation about the various methods organizations use to archive information. Be sure to check out Carolyn’s Twitter account or stalk Paul on LinkedIn. If you want to follow the production of the show, check out our blog on Patreon.