CS Session Write Up – Lifting The Lid On Amazing Craft

Twin Freaks Album Cover
Twin Freaks – the collaborative album between Sir Paul McCartney and Roy Kerr (aka Freelance Hellraiser)
Solar Restaurant
The layout deisgn of the 2D solar restaurant
The live version - painted white area to define the restaurant area - big steel solar panels overns
The live version – painted white area to define the restaurant area – big steel solar panels overns
Screen-Shot-2013-03-26-at-6.02.16-PM1
Thu Thu’s Iconic Biker Jacket – modern style, authentic Vietnamese patterns
Advert for Sony Playstation - the room is manipulated and transformed via a light display whilst the viewer remains sat in the centre.
Advert for Sony Playstation – the room is manipulated and transformed via a light display whilst the viewer remains sat in the centre.
Laser light forest - viewers can interact and move the 'trees'
Laser light forest – viewers can interact and move the ‘trees’
Sony Play Station Advert
Advert for Sony Playstation – the room is manipulated and transformed via a light display whilst the viewer remains sat in the centre.
Light box
George Clooney in the rig, inside an enormous light box
So simple its genius - eye tracking technology allowing Tempt to start drawing again
So simple its genius – eye tracking technology allowing Tempt to start drawing again
Project Daniel
Daniel with his new arm
Learning how to use the 3D printers
Learning how to use the 3D printers

After everyone had stocked up on Danish Pastries and cucumber water, the first speaker to take to the stage in front of an audience of 60+ was Roy Kerr; a record producer and innovator in the use of technology in the music industry in the late 90’s.

Kerr discussed his mix A Stroke of Genius – a track that we would now call a ‘mashup’ of Christina Aguilera’s Genie in a Bottle and The Strokes’ Hard to Explain. This was one of the first times technology had been used as a way of mixing different tracks together, and as a result A Stroke of Genius went viral (an impressive feat considering this was pre-social media), achieving huge accolade as a song that defined the possibilities of new technology. Kerr then went on to discuss his collaboration with Sir Paul McCartney, digitizing and remixing his extensive back-catalogue – creating a modern sound to songs written 50 years ago, exclusively using the sounds in McCartney’s catalogue. Kerr finished his speech iterating the importance of collaboration and partnership in the creative industry.

Following Kerr was Antto Melasniemi – a Finnish entrepreneur / restaurateur, who discussed his pioneering project of solar powered pop-up restaurants, tapping into the current pop-up business trend. Understandably this was a very high-risk project, but proved successful on the sunny continent, and was rolled out across many European cities. From a design point of view one of the innovations in this project was the design of the restaurant itself, which very accurately mimicked the initial sketch, with all the signage being hand painted on the ground, surrounding an enormous white rectangle which defined the restaurant area (apparently those wishing to smoke automatically walked outside of the white area before lighting up).

The third speaker to go was fashion designer Thuy Duong Nguyen, who at a very early age began her own fashion brand Thu Thu – with designs that merged authentic Vietnamese patterns with a modern style. Thuy discussed the trials and tribulations of making it the fashion industry – twice yearly deadlines that require a complete new range, whilst still maintaining a consistent style. Although, as she later noted there is something to be said for the joy of creating something under pressure – a thrill for creative’s and a nightmare for project managers.

After a bit of mingling in the break we returned to be blown away by the enthusiasm and quirkiness of ‘Marshmallow Laser Feast’ – a duo focused on creating stunning visual effects via the manipulation of light, working on briefs from music videos to advertising. The duo can be seen as the innovators in the field – creating stunning interactive displays such as a laser light forest in a warehouse, and an airflow simulation experience around a Formula 1 car. The interactivity in this field is incredible exciting, with many parallels being drawn to the Oculus VR technology, it seems we’re just being given a preview of the entertainment systems of the future – complete submersion of augmented reality that leaves the 2D computer screen seeming incredibly dated. Although it would be very easy to get swept up in the visual bamboozlement of the technology itself, the duo emphasized that the bigger picture must always be considered; ‘Narrative, no matter how abstract is still the most important thing’, and a closing statement of ‘Technology is a means to an end’.

Next up was Oscar award winning Mike McGee – the Creative Director at Frame Store, who were responsible for the visual effects behind the blockbuster Gravity. Although at the beginning of his speech I don’t think anyone in the audience doubted the complexity of the visual effects behind Gravity, by the end of it we were simply mind blown at what they achieved. As McGee put it, the three challenges unique to this project were as follows:

  • The Director Alfonso Cuarón’s love of the long shot – no shot cuts via a sneaky change of view-point here
  • The amount of shots that required the simulation of zero gravity
  • The film is set in space. They weren’t able to film anything in space.

Recreating zero gravity may seem relatively straight forward – stick the actor in a rig and swing them about a bit. Unfortunately the effect of gravity would be apparent on the faces – hair and cheeks drooping as the actor went upside down. Therefore the solution to this was to keep Sandra and George still, and move the cameras instead. The problem with doing this is that the lighting would change as the cameras moved around the person, therefore the lights would also need to move, which resulted in an enormous light box being required, where the actors could be suspended in the middle, and all lights and cameras could move around them. And even all of this… was only to film the actors’ faces – everything else was to be generated digitally. That’s just a glimpse of the mammoth task that required 4 years of dedication by over 400 people – incredibly inspirational.

McGee wasn’t an easy act to follow, so we all waited in anticipation as connection was made with Mick Ebeling, who was to be streamed live from New York. There are not many that could have followed McGee, but Ebeling nailed it.

The first project that Ebeling discussed was his collaboration with LA graffiti artist Tempt, who was iconic in the 1980s but now suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease – meaning he is fully paralyzed with the exception of his eyes. Due to the current healthcare system in the US, communicative technology for those with such a disablement is exclusively for the rich, or those with premium healthcare insurance – meaning those like Tempt are left with the excruciatingly frustrating task of communicating by blinking at correct letters as an assistant points through the alphabet, letter by letter. Ebeling, like many of us, was baffled that in an age of such advanced technology, such a flawed form of communication was still being used. So he set about creating a new system that could solve this problem, and collaborated with a small group of programmers and techies that could invent what actually became an incredibly simple looking device that could track the movement of the eye, and draw this movement onto a screen. This technology combined with software similar to Paint, meant that somebody who had been paralysed for so long could now start drawing again, and creating art.

“That was the first time I’ve drawn anything for 7 years. I feel like I had been held underwater, and someone finally reached down and pulled my head up so I could breath” as Tempt put it himself. Incredibly powerful, and that was just the warm up…

The main project that Ebeling was here to discuss was Project Daniel – a project that saw Ebeling travel to war-torn Sudan accompanied with several 3D printers, with the aim of printing prosthetic limbs for a Daniel – a 16 year old who lost his arms after the farmland where he was working was bombed. The project was a success, triggering off a much larger project where Ebeling began training a small group of hospital technicians in how to use and maintain the 3D printers, so as the ever growing community of victims disabled by the civil war could be returned their independence. This was incredibly uplifting – just seeing how technology that is still relatively new can truly transform lives left everybody in the room moved. Ebeling had predicted it would take the trainees about a month to produce a set of limbs – in fact they were able to produce 2 complete sets in the time it took Ebeling to fly back to America. The technicians are fuelled by a desire to fulfil the demand for their services, which grows with every bomb dropped.

This video explains it all Project Daniel

Six incredibly inspirational, and varied speakers crammed into 4 hours. I could have sat there all week.