Eighteen years later

My very first trip overseas by myself was a student exchange program, in a cute town on the English Channel, called Bournemouth. 

I have fond memories of that place. Many first times. Other than the obvious first exposure to real spoken English language, I got to learn a lot about the world just by seeing something different than what I was used to. It was my first time clubbing, my first time experiencing a cold beach, a sunrise at 5am, and my first time trying several interesting (for an Italian kid) foods and beverages. 

Novel delicacies that were frankly hits and misses with me included fruit-flavored chocolate, pasta with ketchup, lemon curd, vinegar fries, honey glazed salted popcorns on the pier, but also hard cider, and British ales. It was most of all my first time making international, longtime friends. I would bet the experience had a lot of repercussions in my life although, not having a time machine handy, I will never know.

So here I am, eighteen years later, on my way back to that cute English town. And for work, none the less. My old friend and ex colleague Sofronis invited me to join, so I'll be talking about what's new at Pixar. I'll be part of a panel and introduce our Universal Scene Description at BFXPro, and talk about our experience changing from a Reyes Renderman to a Path Tracer Renderman, at BFXCore next week.

For those who may not be familiar with it, BFX is a fairly new conference and festival. It takes place in Bournemouth, UK and, while hosted by the Arts University of Bournemouth, it has many industry partners such as Dneg, Framestore, MPC, The Mill, Cinesite, Creative Skillset and BAFTA. 

I will also be hanging out in London a day or two. If you're around, come say hi!