The Roppongi Spider

After breakfast Ross headed off to the Miyazaki Museum on his own while Misato and I met Mari and Emma for lunch near Roppongi Hills.

We walked through Roppongi Hills so I was able to get a good photo of a huge spider sculpture there. Then we met Mari and Emma in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt hotel and walked a few blocks to a small restaurant. We brought the Minnie Mouse backpack for Emma which we had left at our hotel the previous night. She seems to have liked it a lot and so happened to be wearing a necklace with Minnie Mouse pictures all over it.

I needed to go over my presentation a bit more so I told them that I was going to walk back to the hotel. We all walked back to Roppongi Hills and I asked Mari if there was a place where I could buy a simple case for my meishi or business cards. She took me to a very nice shop with an assortment of business card holders. Since I was a little light on cash that day I chose to pass on purchasing one of the $500 cases and used my wife's instead.

Back at the hotel I went over the presentation aloud and trimmed the movie clips I was showing in the presentation.

Once Misato returned I packed up the laptop and we headed out to Polygon Pictures by subway. It was in the middle of Korea Town in Tokyo.

Shuzo met us in the lobby entrance of the studio then ushered us into a small editing room which would serve for the small group attending the presentation. After sorting through some small technical problems I started into the presentation.

I tried to emphasize that many of the techniques which I spoke about generally can be produced using out of the box tools. I also tried to emphasize that the rigs could be simple & responsive. But there was a fair amount of skepticism.

They were kind enough to show me their rig; it was quite complex and a major technical achievement for the one guy who more or less spent 2 years programming their rig on his own. I mean this rig did EVERYTHING. I could only imagine the horror of handing such a rig to the animators at Disney.

Granted, they did a large variety of work at that studio. Perhaps once they begin pre-production on an upcoming tv series and feature animated movie they may work more closely with animators and streamline their rig.

The president of the company took my wife and I to dinner. We went to a very small restaurant but the food was incredible! Gorgeous presentation and the tastes were subtle but delicious. We talked until midnight. Shuzo had great insight into animation and Japan's place within that industry. He is a very smart guy and has a clear plan & vision for not only his company but the potential role of Japan within the animation industry.

Although the hours are long & the pay is not as good as in the States it would be fun working in Tokyo at his company.