Sunday, November 4, 2007

Time to head home

US demomakers - start your engines!

It is now 08:30 here in San Francisco, and after spending the previous eight or nine days either travelling or doing outreach, it will actually be good to set foot on native soil again. For me, that means Norway, for Steeler, it is Germany, and for Gargaj, it is the home of the "Culture Crash" (or Hungary, as some people say :)

It has been an amazing trip, and we have our suitcases filled to the airline allowed limit with ideas, concrete in-the-works initiatives and so much "go get it done!"-spirit that we would probably blow red on a breathalizer. :)

We know that it must be frustrating for some not to be let in on the concrete, hands-on, actual stuff that has come out of this initiative, and for that we apologize. That is just the way it is when you deal with these kinds of businesses. We can however promise you this: you have not heard the last of "Demoscene Outreach Tour 2007". Not by a long shot. :) Things are happening, things are moving, great things (at least we think they are great, you are of course free to disagree when the time comes :) are going to happen in the coming year.

Note! This blog isn't dead - we will post pictures and video when we get back home, as well as news about results from this trip, but probably not as frequent as this last week. :)

Now is also the time to do the most demoscene thing of all: greetings! This trip would not have been possible had it not been for these great people:
  • Rick of Pixar: Thank you so much for inviting us. We know it started as a half-joke, but once we picked it up and started to actually look into it, you were there every step of the way, helping us and supporting us. Also thank you for being a great San Franciscan host!
  • Shiva of Kolor: Your hospitality here in San Francisco has been unrivaled by anything we have experienced. Letting a second German, a Norwegian and a Hungarian basicly take over your appartment for over a week is beyond kindness. Thank you!
  • Josh, Danielle and Marshall of Lucasfilm/ILM: Thank you for setting up our visit to your campus - your hospitality is greatly appreciated, and our presentation for you guys was one of our best we think. :)
  • Temis of NVIDIA: Not only did you support us, but you actually had a plan as well! :) Thank you for having us (twice!), for coming to some of our other presentations, for giving us feedback and tips during this whole thing.. and for driving us places (and taking us out for genuine mexican food (with Government Cheese!)
  • Everyone we met, talked to or presented for during this trip: Thank you for listening, thank you for watching, thank you for engaging in discussions and brainstorming with us! Now your time has come - rise up and DO SOMETHING in the demoscene! :) Consider yourself challenged! (that includes you, the first graphician from LucasArts - you, the artist who wants to code (start with Processing!) - you, the ex-scener who is not making demos any longer - and YOU, the person who is reading this right now!)
..and so, we leave you with this image from a short outing we managed to squeeze into our program - a half day of actual sightseeing in San Francisco - we hope you have enjoyed this little blog as much as we have. Our contact information is listed on this page - use it!

5 comments:

Greg said...

keep us posted on the developments guys! I think your dedication and efforts to introduce the demoscene to the mainstream, to get support from the industry is unseen. you absolutely make demoscene history!

(and forgive gargaj for not being such and apple enthusiast. :) he still has to see the light... :))

Anonymous said...

It has been a pleasure to read about your outreach activities. Thanks! Have a safe trip home.

Ciaran said...

Should we keep an eye on this blog, or has it served it's purpose for now?

Bent S. said...

ciaran: We will be updating it at least for the coming week, and after that we will post when the things we have worked on start taking shape.

The best thing is probably just to add the RSS-feed to your RSS-reader/browser. :)

Oh, and we will be posting more pictures (and video) when we get back to Europe.. and get through the jetlag :)

Anonymous said...

We look forward to seeing both more pictures, videos and of course YOU.