Day 3

Pixar took us out to dinner on Monday, or maybe Weta did, all I know is that I didn't pay. And since we were meeting with the software development guys, and the head of software development at Pixar has a brother who just happens to be a world famous chef, who just happens to have an Italian restaraunt in Los Angeles with a two month wait for a table, well, we got treated pretty well, I guess. All fourteen of us. We got to sit in the private room in the back. I wouldn't say that Italian is my favorite food, but this was a very good meal. I even drank some red wine, and it wansn't awful. For me that's saying something, since I usually can't stand the stuff.

President of Walt Disney Feature Animation and founding member of Pixar Ed Catmull gave the keynote speech for Siggraph. He was awesome. He talked about "ideas" vs. "people". In short, you can give a great idea to a mediocre team, and they'll just fuck it up, but if you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they'll either make it work, or throw it away and come up with somehting better.