However, I decided to move on from blogger and start using GitHub Pages + Jekyll to host my new website.
See you there!
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Moved on!
It's been 3 years since I last wrote on this blog and a lot has happened!
However, I decided to move on from blogger and start using GitHub Pages + Jekyll to host my new website.
This new website will be a continuation of this blog, for a new stage of my life.
See you there!
However, I decided to move on from blogger and start using GitHub Pages + Jekyll to host my new website.
See you there!
Sunday, June 30, 2013
STUDIO.COOP
Hello summer!
Time has come for another post! I’m sure some of you are eager to know what is exactly happening, all the facebook posts and the emails you have been getting from me. We will get there, don’t worry. There is some time in between that I want to fill.
As all of you know this year started in Ecuador and I had a blast, much better than the last time, it felt like a new experience in a way. Many of my childhood friends came back during our “winter” and we all managed to strengthen old friendships. It’s so cool to see how everyone is finding their own way to walk on, it is inspiring.
Once my parents got healthy again we started traveling. We went to Costa Rica and Medellin and it was great being with them! I really was afraid they wouldn’t recover to be the same travel junkies they have always been and I can’t be happier to have though wrong. They are rocking life as they always have!
A very special friend of mine from Germany came to visit me for a while and I had the pleasure to show her around a lot of special places where I hold sentimental value. We had an awesome time traveling together in Ecuador and created a really wonderful bond. I can’t wait to see her back again in Germany!
Times were great as was work; I got really deep into Google Apps Script, a necessary evil for us in order to get as many things possible done in the shortest time, building on top of Google apps. I had to discipline myself, as it is not easy at first to get work done when one is working alone remotely... I eventually got used to it and was already prepared for what was about to come...
Mid May came in very fast and it was time to continue my adventure, this time it is LA. I came earlier than expected and had some time to wait until Marcus LeVere (my Co-Founder) and Hanna came in. Hanna Radek came from Germany to help us out setting up Madding Crowd! (Kind of like our first short term employee). Marcus picked us up and showed us what would be our home and office for the next three months. It is a wonderful apartment in Brentwood with a beautiful view to the Santa Monica Mountains! We are all flatmates now, Marcus, Sara (Marcus’ wife), Hanna and me.
And I gotta say… LA is pretty awesome! The weather never seems to disappoint us and the amount of sun… It is fantastic. We are all riding our bicycles everywhere and meeting a lot of awesome people in the industry. The first week we got to grill with Don Parker, founder of Shotgun and a lot of really cool Pixomondo and industry people we have met on all different places. Every week that passes we get to network and know more and more really friendly folks.
We also did a short road trip up north with Hanna to San Francisco! What an epic city… I fell in love with it, at the point where I would someday really like to live up there…
Back on work matters, we are now three people working full time at Madding Crowd and it has evolved. We are now becoming a Cooperative Company! Apart from offering a fair profit-share to the people in our industry, we were always thinking about democratizing decisions at a corporate level. We don’t believe the future should remain only in our hands, the crowd will always be smarter and we want them to take their own decisions. The nature of a cooperative just made sense and people seem to understand right away what we are up to as soon as they even read the new name.
Of course Madding Crowd is held deep within us and it will always remain as our beloved codename. The first ones that supported us are our Madding Crowd and we would love to grant them special privileges in the future. Thanks for believing in us guys and keeping us motivated with comments and likes on facebook. If you are interested on still being part of our dear Madding Crowd, join here!
I want to also invite you to take a look at our first Pitch! A short film I am developing called Love Experiments that is about our endless quest to find the love of our life. Please check out the Pitch at studio.coop, leave us comments (you have to join studio.coop to be able to comment), follow the pitch and if you can, enrol!
Also join us at the private Google+ Community of Love Experiments if you want to have an insider’s look at its development!
We will be having a “Birds of a Feather” event at Siggraph about studio.coop which we are planning to even live-stream for everyone that can’t be there. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn in order to keep updated. We can’t wait to show the world what we are up to, and only you guys can help make it possible!
Challenging times are coming as the first production evolves and new pitches start to emerge, the next post will be after Siggraph, stay tuned!
Cheers from sunny California,
santy.
Time has come for another post! I’m sure some of you are eager to know what is exactly happening, all the facebook posts and the emails you have been getting from me. We will get there, don’t worry. There is some time in between that I want to fill.
As all of you know this year started in Ecuador and I had a blast, much better than the last time, it felt like a new experience in a way. Many of my childhood friends came back during our “winter” and we all managed to strengthen old friendships. It’s so cool to see how everyone is finding their own way to walk on, it is inspiring.
Once my parents got healthy again we started traveling. We went to Costa Rica and Medellin and it was great being with them! I really was afraid they wouldn’t recover to be the same travel junkies they have always been and I can’t be happier to have though wrong. They are rocking life as they always have!
A very special friend of mine from Germany came to visit me for a while and I had the pleasure to show her around a lot of special places where I hold sentimental value. We had an awesome time traveling together in Ecuador and created a really wonderful bond. I can’t wait to see her back again in Germany!
Times were great as was work; I got really deep into Google Apps Script, a necessary evil for us in order to get as many things possible done in the shortest time, building on top of Google apps. I had to discipline myself, as it is not easy at first to get work done when one is working alone remotely... I eventually got used to it and was already prepared for what was about to come...
 |
| my workplace in Guayaquil with all my friends motivating me in the background |
And I gotta say… LA is pretty awesome! The weather never seems to disappoint us and the amount of sun… It is fantastic. We are all riding our bicycles everywhere and meeting a lot of awesome people in the industry. The first week we got to grill with Don Parker, founder of Shotgun and a lot of really cool Pixomondo and industry people we have met on all different places. Every week that passes we get to network and know more and more really friendly folks.
We also did a short road trip up north with Hanna to San Francisco! What an epic city… I fell in love with it, at the point where I would someday really like to live up there…
Back on work matters, we are now three people working full time at Madding Crowd and it has evolved. We are now becoming a Cooperative Company! Apart from offering a fair profit-share to the people in our industry, we were always thinking about democratizing decisions at a corporate level. We don’t believe the future should remain only in our hands, the crowd will always be smarter and we want them to take their own decisions. The nature of a cooperative just made sense and people seem to understand right away what we are up to as soon as they even read the new name.
Of course Madding Crowd is held deep within us and it will always remain as our beloved codename. The first ones that supported us are our Madding Crowd and we would love to grant them special privileges in the future. Thanks for believing in us guys and keeping us motivated with comments and likes on facebook. If you are interested on still being part of our dear Madding Crowd, join here!
 |
| our workplace |
 |
| our awesome team |
 |
| Our view from our workplace/home |
I want to also invite you to take a look at our first Pitch! A short film I am developing called Love Experiments that is about our endless quest to find the love of our life. Please check out the Pitch at studio.coop, leave us comments (you have to join studio.coop to be able to comment), follow the pitch and if you can, enrol!
Also join us at the private Google+ Community of Love Experiments if you want to have an insider’s look at its development!
We will be having a “Birds of a Feather” event at Siggraph about studio.coop which we are planning to even live-stream for everyone that can’t be there. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn in order to keep updated. We can’t wait to show the world what we are up to, and only you guys can help make it possible!
Challenging times are coming as the first production evolves and new pitches start to emerge, the next post will be after Siggraph, stay tuned!
Cheers from sunny California,
santy.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
2013 starts with Madding Crowd
2013 has started and I hope you are doing great!
It was New Year's Resolution time two months ago and I didn't get to post mine... It's been delayed since I've been waiting for the right moment to do this blog post, but anyways, here it comes... during this year I want to get really fit and keep it that way! I sit way too much on my computer so it’s time to do some sport! The Camino has helped me gain the starting condition, now I only have to enhance it! Now two months have passed and I'm on fire!
My year has started great! I've been very busy creating something unique and with a lot of sentimental value to me…
Yes, we are making it real! After the Camino, I had a great skype session with a fellow colleague and friend of mine Marcus LeVere who had read my thesis. We have similar ideals and both saw the potential on working together to bring it to life. Therefore we agreed to not have a "job" and work on it full-time!
We have been working on all the bits and pieces of Madding Crowd since November, living with very little, but really happy to build something that will benefit the entire industry. We just launched v0.2 and have started to invite our friends in. If you are eager to get early access and find out what we are up to click on the logo above for a pleasant surprise...
Our goal is to make Madding Crowd self-sustainable in the future, but we still need to steer it in the direction we want. We have learned a lot while developing it and hit some big barriers for whom we had to find our own way around. But for all those kind of things you can visit the Madding Crowd blog.
One of the many benefits of working at Madding Crowd is the location independence that I now have. Since everything can be managed and developed online, I took it very seriously and started work-traveling, becoming a bit of a nomad. It has been a fantastic experience!
I spent the first month working in Chicago at my best friend's place. I really like that city and we had an epic time, even spent my birthday there!
 |
| my workplace with the perfect motivation, 312 beers and Audrey Hepburn |
It's really awesome to have your best friend as flatmate! We had a lot of fun and the weather was actually quite nice since I was coming from 25cm of snow in Zurich at my brother's place... I heard things don't look as nice recently.
After a great time in Chicago, I had to say goodbye earlier and head to Guayaquil-Ecuador to to the place I grew up. My parents were not feeling very well, my dad broke his Achilles tendon and my mom got herself a lumbago... Good thing I am actually able to work from everywhere!
Thankfully, they are both doing great back again and I'm still in Guayaquil, but not for much longer. The adventure continues in May, but more on that on the next blog post!
Be sure to stay tuned, there are many things to come with Madding Crowd maturing. It's great to see our little baby grow, kind of scary too though.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Best 12 of 2012!
This post to celebrate this year's openly available best short films that inspired me all along and to wish you all a Merry Christmas and an even better year to come!
The Best 12 Animated Short Films I have seen in 2012!!!
(no real order and <10min)
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Graduation, Studies in Germany and some walking
Many things have happened in all the time that has passed...
First of all,
I GRADUATED!!!
After four years of intensive learning (yeah right) I got my Bachelor of Engineering in Audiovisual Media from the Stuttgart Media University! And yes… thank you mom for pretty much pushing me to get an engineering degree. I bet she is really proud of me now! But I am really thankful to her, since my technical background has come really in handy and has given me a huge advantage now that I specialize in Computer Animation. I still got to do what I love to do, but now I even know what is involved behind it…
It was an incredible time! I would always repeat everything what happened if I had to choose again! Studying in Germany and at the Stuttgart Media University is awesome for many reasons
• People are incredibly friendly and dedicated!
• The program is really broad (it involves all Media types) but gives you a solid base knowledge on them and a lot of free time which you can use to specialize in the Media you like.
• While not all of them, faculty is really experienced and open to help you out. I was even fortunate enough to actually build friendships with a few.
• It has great exchange opportunities to go abroad and specialize in deep in whatever you want. (Singapore FTW!)
• University does not cost, so you can spend that money traveling, widening your horizons.
• You can drink beer already with 16 so forget about no alcohol on college. (we could even buy beers at university)
• Parties? Germans students do know how to have fun!!!
• Stuttgart is a small city (500k+) but big enough to offer a wide variety of entertainment. Plus, the FMX is held in Stuttgart too! If you are doing something with CG, it is a great place to be around.
Those are really just a few of all the reasons why I loved studying there… thank you Germany, thanks for making it possible for everyone to study in your beautiful country. You will always have my gratitude and appreciation!
The last months of University were really cool! I had to only write my Thesis since all my credits from Singapore got transferred. It was therefore a rather chilled semester. It was the semester where I got to really delight myself in a peaceful student life enjoying all the benefits of great friendships at a great place. It was definitely the best ending for this chapter!
Now you might wonder what on earth I wrote my Thesis about… Well it wasn’t any animation or heavy duty techy stuff… It was probably the last time I could go crazy and try to go experimental pushing certain limits, so I spent three months putting in words a dream I have of the future of the Computer Graphics Industry.
My Thesis is called:
Abstract
It was really fun coming out with all the ideas that form Madding Crowd and it felt really great to go crazy and do something outside of the box that could potentially benefit all artists in the industry. I look forward to hear from you if you get to read it! Don’t hesitate to contact me.
After sitting on a chair in front of my computer for the last 4 years I also decided to go out for a walk. So three days after I finished writing my Thesis I found myself at Irun in Spain on my own, walking the northern St. James Way (Camino de Santiago). With my small backpack I walked for about 1000km through the entire Spanish coast till the End of the World, Finisterre.
An incredible journey full of adventures, experiences, bonding with nature and wonderful people that took over a month under immense heat, rain, sweat, cold, mountains, tendinitis, pain, sun, beaches, sleeping bag, stars, birds, stories… I could go on and on about it, I really loved it! It was by far the biggest physical challenge I have had and a big pause in my life where I got to live a completely different one, the one of a pilgrim. It was amazing!
After the “short” walk I weighted 6kg less and had cleared my mind completely since I had a LOT of time to think about my life and what comes next. When I came back many things happened that changed the course of my life. But more on that at a later point… let’s just say,
things are getting a little bit mad…
First of all,
I GRADUATED!!!
After four years of intensive learning (yeah right) I got my Bachelor of Engineering in Audiovisual Media from the Stuttgart Media University! And yes… thank you mom for pretty much pushing me to get an engineering degree. I bet she is really proud of me now! But I am really thankful to her, since my technical background has come really in handy and has given me a huge advantage now that I specialize in Computer Animation. I still got to do what I love to do, but now I even know what is involved behind it…
It was an incredible time! I would always repeat everything what happened if I had to choose again! Studying in Germany and at the Stuttgart Media University is awesome for many reasons
• People are incredibly friendly and dedicated!
• The program is really broad (it involves all Media types) but gives you a solid base knowledge on them and a lot of free time which you can use to specialize in the Media you like.
• While not all of them, faculty is really experienced and open to help you out. I was even fortunate enough to actually build friendships with a few.
• It has great exchange opportunities to go abroad and specialize in deep in whatever you want. (Singapore FTW!)
• University does not cost, so you can spend that money traveling, widening your horizons.
• You can drink beer already with 16 so forget about no alcohol on college. (we could even buy beers at university)
• Parties? Germans students do know how to have fun!!!
• Stuttgart is a small city (500k+) but big enough to offer a wide variety of entertainment. Plus, the FMX is held in Stuttgart too! If you are doing something with CG, it is a great place to be around.
Those are really just a few of all the reasons why I loved studying there… thank you Germany, thanks for making it possible for everyone to study in your beautiful country. You will always have my gratitude and appreciation!
The last months of University were really cool! I had to only write my Thesis since all my credits from Singapore got transferred. It was therefore a rather chilled semester. It was the semester where I got to really delight myself in a peaceful student life enjoying all the benefits of great friendships at a great place. It was definitely the best ending for this chapter!
Now you might wonder what on earth I wrote my Thesis about… Well it wasn’t any animation or heavy duty techy stuff… It was probably the last time I could go crazy and try to go experimental pushing certain limits, so I spent three months putting in words a dream I have of the future of the Computer Graphics Industry.
My Thesis is called:
“Concept of an Open Online Production Community-Studio”
This Bachelor Thesis presents the concept of an Open Online Production Community-Studio. The Community-Studio, called Madding Crowd, is conceived as a non-profit organisation, dedicated to bring independent film projects to life through crowd collaboration in a virtual studio open to anyone interested.
For the creation of this virtual studio, the way existing normal production studios and online communities work is analysed and these features are then transferred and adapted to fit a state of the art open online facility which can be accessed by anyone, everywhere, anytime.
(click on the Madding Crowd logo if you want to read it!)
After sitting on a chair in front of my computer for the last 4 years I also decided to go out for a walk. So three days after I finished writing my Thesis I found myself at Irun in Spain on my own, walking the northern St. James Way (Camino de Santiago). With my small backpack I walked for about 1000km through the entire Spanish coast till the End of the World, Finisterre.
An incredible journey full of adventures, experiences, bonding with nature and wonderful people that took over a month under immense heat, rain, sweat, cold, mountains, tendinitis, pain, sun, beaches, sleeping bag, stars, birds, stories… I could go on and on about it, I really loved it! It was by far the biggest physical challenge I have had and a big pause in my life where I got to live a completely different one, the one of a pilgrim. It was amazing!
After the “short” walk I weighted 6kg less and had cleared my mind completely since I had a LOT of time to think about my life and what comes next. When I came back many things happened that changed the course of my life. But more on that at a later point… let’s just say,
things are getting a little bit mad…
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