[Special Effects]

Joe Rohde, Executive Designer and Senior Vice President of Walt Disney Imagineering, is the 3rd Featured Speaker for SIGGRAPH Asia 2009. Scheduled to speak on the 19th of December, his talk is entitled Story Structure and the Design of Narrative Environments.

Rohdes talk will cover some guidelines and principles for creating spaces that serve both the initial needs of the primary designer or storyteller and the needs of future audiences, who may seek to re-adapt the narrative to their own purposes. The rules of storytelling are well understood when applied to traditional linear forms derived from literature, but spatial environments pose challenges that require special treatment. The principles that inform storytelling in built physical space can apply as well to virtual space.

Rohde is currently an Executive Designer and Senior Vice President at Walt Disney Imagineering. He is the creative lead for Disney's Animal Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, and related new projects. He has led conceptualization, design, and production for Disney's Animal Kingdom since its inception in 1990. He also oversees creative development at Disney's newest luxury resort project in Hawaii, which is scheduled to open in 2011.

He also led development and production of Expedition Everest at Disney's Animal Kingdom. This project took him and other Imagineers to the mountains of Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibetan Sichuan, researching the background details to incorporate into the very authentic environment designed for Expedition Everest. His travels for the research and production work were featured in a series of hour-long programs on the Discovery Network.

He began his career at Walt Disney Imagineering as a model designer and scenic painter in 1980, working on the M鸩co pavilion for Epcot at Walt Disney World Resort. He also worked on numerous attractions for the redesigned Fantasyland at Disneyland in the 1980s, Captain EO, and the Norway pavilion for Epcot, before commencing his responsibilities on Disney's Animal Kingdom.

For more information on SIGGRAPH Asia 2009, please visit www.siggraph.org/asia2009

About SIGGRAPH Asia

The 2nd ACM SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Asia will take place in Pacifico Yokohama, Japan. Featuring an international conference from 16-19 December 2009, SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 offers works that provoke thoughts, explore ideas in innovative ways, address contemporary issues, interactively engage viewers in discovery, and stimulate their intellect and creativity through art, computer animation, courses, education, new technologies, technical papers, sketches and posters.

SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 also features a trade exhibition of products and services from the computer graphics and interactive marketplace. Held from 17-19 December 2009, it is also a recruitment ground for job seekers to meet potential employers. Sponsored by ACM, SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 is expected to to bring together 8,000 computer graphics and interactive technology professionals and enthusiasts from Asia and beyond. For more information, please visit www.siggraph.org/asia2009.

The inaugural SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 was a resounding success. Artists, researchers, developers, gaming experts, filmmakers, as well as academics from 49 countries gathered in Singapore, spending four exciting days to discover new products, talents, technology and techniques in the digital media industry. In all, a total of 49 countries were represented in an array of thought-provoking works and breakthrough ideas presented at the show. For more information, please visit www.siggraph.org/asia2008.

About ACM

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGGRAPH sponsors SIGGRAPH Asia 2009. ACM is an educational and scientific society uniting the world's computing educators, researchers, and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field's challenges. ACM strengthens the profession's collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.

There's a lot of hoopla going around about Paramount Pictures' upcoming November movie, "2012." It's yet another disaster movie about the "end of the world," and it's got everyone wondering whether the ancient Mayans were really on to something about December 21, 2012.

"2012" the movie stars John Cusack, who delivers a great performance in the five-minute clip of the movie that Columbia Pictures released a couple of days ago. The cast also includes Amanda Peet, Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson.

Of course, no one can pull this movie off better than Roland Emmerich, the king of disaster movies. If his name isn't familiar, he's the guy who brought "Godzilla," "Independence Day," and "The Day After Tomorrow" to now-paranoid moviegoers around the world.

The production crew poured in a budget that matches the one used in "Titanic," so it should be a blockbuster waiting to happen. If you can sit through almost 150 minutes of death and destruction, "2012" should be the movie to see next month.

The hype that's surrounding the movie is without a doubt because of the idea that the world is prophesied to end on December 21, 2012. The suggestion came from the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, the one the ancient Mayas used. According to the Mayan calendar, the 5,125-cycle of creation goes full circle on that date.

Of course, what the film's promoters purposely omitted was the fact that the date was also the BEGINNING of a new cycle for the Mayan calendar, which never ends.

So relax and check your paranoia at the door.

The highly-anticipated DreamWorks 3-D animated film “Monsters Vs Aliens” opened last week with a lot of hype, but came back with mixed reviews from various sources. Touted as the “next big thing” in cinema, digital 3-D is set to make a big splash this year and the next. Unfortunately, for a long-awaited 3-D film, some parts of the story came off as woefully one-dimensional.

The film was without a doubt fun to watch, with voice actors Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Seth Rogen and Stephen Colbert providing a few good laughs every now and then. The animation was impressive and the “moral of the story” well in place, making it a really good film to watch with the kids.

The problem was that the plot left much to be desired – “Wall-E” and “Coraline,” both hardly on par with “Monsters Vs Aliens'” 3-D technology, told a much better story. It was fun watching a 50-foot woman (actually, 49-foot-11) and her monster friends save the world in typical DreamWorks kick-ass fashion, but there simply wasn't much else to talk about plot-wise.

What's interesting is that Dave Katzenberg, DreamWorks CEO and one of the most outspoken advocates of digital 3-D technology in animated films, seem to have missed the “story” part of things by a bit with his company's latest film. Other advocates of 3-D have mentioned time and again in the past that no matter how sophisticated film technology becomes, films are only as good as the stories they portray.

Of course, the plot of “Monsters Vs Aliens” may have come off as lackluster simply because of great expectations – the more sophisticated the technology is, the more sophisticated the story should be, right? Some might claim that “Monsters Vs Aliens” may have been better-received if it was created in a different format, though I highly doubt that.

Plot-related gripes aside, I think “Monsters Vs Aliens” is still a step in the right direction for 3-D technology in film. The animation quality were better than that of some of last year's more notable 3-D animated films, indicating that the technology is evolving quite a bit faster than expected, considering the global economic slowdown.

Despite Dave Katzenberg's slightly off-target attempt at telling a good story, I think he's still right about his predictions that 3-D and the rest of the film industry will continue to do well despite hard economic times. It'll be interesting to see what DreamWorks' next step will be, since I'm pretty sure they'll be learning a lot after dipping their toes in the water with “Monsters Vs Aliens.”

George Lucas has plans to release all six Star Wars movies in 3-D pretty soon, showing just how impressed he is with the new technology. Aside from that, a lot of bloggers think that the move is also an attempt to finally become the most successful film in history. And no, it's not up against James Cameron's “Titanic.”

“Hulk Vs Wolverine” harks back to Wolverine's very first appearance in the comic book world, in “The Incredible Hulk #181.” Back then, Wolverine was a special elite agent sent by the hoods who created him to capture the Hulk, only to be cornered with the big green guy by the very people who gave him his mission. The result is a magnificently bloody, action-packed 40 minutes that makes me wonder how so much red still managed to hold down a PG-13 rating.

As we say goodbye to the ultimate year of mixed emotions in the film industry, we can't help but look forward to what 2009 has in store for movie lovers everywhere. So far, from what I can see, it's going to be the Year of the Movie Geek, with movies left and right harking back to the heydays of comic books, cartoons, and Japanese animation. Oh joy.

Let's start with the comic books. All eyes are on Zack Snyder's 2009 opus, Watchmen. In an alternate universe, superheroes live with ordinary people and get into trouble with the superpower governments of the US and Soviet Union. Snyder is well-known for his testosterone-loaded adaption of the graphic novel 300.

Another comic book adaption to watch out for is The Witchblade, the story of a female detective who comes upon a mysterious gauntlet and gets superhuman powers from it. A TV series has been made about it before (and from what I've seen, it was pretty so-so), so it'll be interesting to see how the movie version does.

But perhaps the most anticipated 2009 comic book movie is X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Hugh Jackman reprises his role as Logan/Wolverine in the X-Men movies, but the Origins story takes place 20 years prior to the trilogy. If you've always wondered how he got his claws and adamantium skeleton, you won't wanna miss this one.

Moving on to the cartoons. It's going to be a banner year for kids who grew up in the 80's, with Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen and G.I. Joe: Rise Of Cobra slated for release in 2009. The first Transformers movie was a visual feast, and left fans wondering just what Starscream was up to when he left the Earth's atmosphere in the closing credits. This G.I. Joe movie is the first one, and if it can get over the same challenges that the first Transformers film faced, the G.I. Joe franchise is bound to be good for another two or three films.

The keynote speeches by Prof Don Greenberg and Pixar sage Rob Cook weren't the only central attractions in the first ever SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 in Singapore. Delegates were also treated to some eye- and mind-candy in the Art Gallery, Computer Animation Festival and the Emerging Technologies showcases. While I knew these events were crowd-pleasers in the international SIGGRAPH festivals, my expectations were totally blown away by what I saw.

Pixar Animation Studios has come a long way from its Toy Story beginnings in 1995. Since then the company has had an unspoken tradition of coming up with 3-D animated films that ups the ante for others in the industry every single time. This year, it raises the bar yet again with their latest visual masterpiece, WALL-E.

I just saw this yesterday, and it's worth the ticket price you pay... wherever you are.