Yep. This blog is still alive. And since I am not “home” anymore, I better be postin’ ma updates!
I will now write in English – I think most will understand and the ones that don’t quite yet want to learn it (right, Mama? ;)).
So, VERY quick recap: I came home from Vancouver Film School and immediately started working in a small, cozy and nice studio in Chur: the pixelmolkerei.
I could fully indulge in my “I want to be a generalist” role; from rigging to live action shootings, editing, etc. The team quickly felt like family, even though I kept an open eye for a job in Canada and later the UK. Therefore goodbye wasn’t pleasant and no matter how many lines I write here, I know Thorsten will still mock me for Polygons, Curryballs and for leaving the PiMo and to Laraine I will still be the good old “Kackvogel”. Well, in short: I miss them!
Talking of which: to see the images of my emptied room in the Chiefologen-AG-WG (in short: my flat-room) still makes me a bit sad. I lived with a bunch of my closest friends and I never ever wanted to trade the 4-5h commute for a place closer to work. Nights were long – even for me as a guy that never parties – because there was always food to be cooked, a Kniffel to be played or terrible sense of humor to be “performed”.
After moving out the few things I had in there, I packed my bags very lightly: for the first time since years I didn’t fly with a bike. One bag & one backpack; felt like cheating. I switched to the “Masterbedroom” and slept one last night above pretty Zurich.
Why am I moving out, having a last night and so much heartache? Soon. Relax. Or skip a few lines.
I expected the worst:
- 7501274 people at the airport that want to fly at New Years Eve
- “Sub-below-zero”-standard-flight, packed with passengers
- Lengthy journey to my airBnB-flat
…and got the best:
- The airport was so empty, it was eerie
- sweet crew, an entire seat row and a view for the Götter du, hä!
Did you see those waves in the clouds? Like a cotton-ocean. So awesome! - One bus. 2min walk. Bed.
Did I say “Bed.”? Nono, I was mistaken: “Cookie! Bed.”
When I got to my room I found this life-saver from my host. Without a growling stomach I slept as if I was still back home. Just waking up alone was a wee bit sad…
What do you do to conquer sadness? You buy bikes. And gear. So I did.
Since I heard about shady bike vendors in the Londoner suburbs my search was thorough and lenghty. But I found a guy that was even offering to sell me a bike right away, despite the holy Sunday.
After the tube (=metro) and some walking I found myself in a Londoner suburb. A shady one. Well done, Mischa!
But behind that metal door was a lovely Brazilian guy that sold me a bike just to my needs: Simple and working. The breaks are a bit lacking, but who needs those when you have such a fancy new bike helmet, right?
A little while later I went to get some clay to continue what I had started back home (the guy below on the right): figure sculpting to get all that anatomy off the computer screen into the real world. After 2.5h I got to this lovely clay shop outside of London. The guy working there guided me to the finest (actually the cheapest) clay and even gave me a lift to the trainstation. Carrying 40kg of clay I wasn’t unhappy not to walk there for 45min..
“Yeah – Ok”, you might say. “But why the UK and why did you try to look cool in the bike picture?”. Well, you have to try new stuff, right? And about the UK: I got a job at Double Negative as 3D Generalist TD. “TD” stands for “Technical Director” and means pretty much just “dude”. Sounds fancy though, right?
How is work? Awesome! I am flabbergasted by the pipeline they have (to any non-3D folks: I am talking about the flow of data from and to different departments. Sorry, hit no oil) and how smooth such big shows run. Sure, there are bumps and nicks, but relative to the big picture this is smooth as fu#!%. People are super nice without exception, except Rob. Rob is the only one that can take this joke. Everyone is happy to help, very talented and generally in a good mood. I like going to work – not only because there is free breakfast, but because I learn a ton while smiling.
Right now I am rigging. At least I try my best to do so. They have loads of custom tools and my mentor(ish) go-to-guy deserves only the best for helping me all the time when his code gets above my head or the node-tree seems more like spaghetti with meatballs.
The show is official, so I should be fine mentioning what I work on: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. It looks creepy-sweet and it is great to see an asset I published (=uploaded to the “main server”) show up in a render just hours later. Did I mention that I love the pipeline?..
And of course many other things happened… a couple of shorts:
- The picture on my DNeg-ID has a misprint. The prominent red area on my face makes me look like I have a terrible rash.
- Because I commute for 10min instead of 2h I have so much time on my hands, despite being the first one in and the last one out of the studio.
- A cab driver scared me shitless when he started talking to me at a red light. I assumed he would yell at me, but instead he asked me whether I thought it was safe to ride a bike in London because he just bought one himself and wasn’t sure he should ride it.
- The title of this post is not only because people drive on the left side of the road. They even switched the breaks on the bike!!
- Tomorrow I will move in my flat. An absolute beauty, yet affordable, together with a German that works at DNeg, too.
One thing left to say: Thank you all – once again – for all the support and encouragement. I doubt I would be here without it!
Cheers,
Mischa
Mischa Kolbe 