SORRY!! I should've warned of its "in progress" stage in the title. But its written now, so please forgive the delay and enjoy the rest of the ADAPT story. ITS LONG, but again, shouldnt take up too much of your day 
How ADAPT went. part 2
My presentation was over but the stress was far from done. That night I was asked to attend a cocktail party to celebrate the speakers and blaaaaa. I didn’t want to go, cause Im not much of a cocktail person, but it was actually written MANDATORY on the schedule so I didn’t have much choice. Not that they would have set the cops on my ass for not showing up… but I would like to be invited again next year, so best make a good impression. The evening was not only supposed to be for partying but also for autograph signing. I wasn’t told if Id be signing anything or not, but my boyfriend convinced me that it would be a good idea to get some sort of autographable material ready for the evening. He had the BRILLIANT idea of putting some images together to fit standard photo size, so that we could simply upload them to the Walmart photolab and pick them up in just an hour! Not only was it fast, but it made such lovely promo sheets! Yeah, sure, theres Kodak written on the back, but at 19 cents a print, I wasn’t complaining!
Ok, so we rushed like crazy to get these prints done and then my boyfriend rushed me to the hotel for a quickie… HA! Just kidding, he rushed me to the hotel to make sure I wasnt late. He couldn’t stay cause he had to work. This meant I had to be sociable with strangers all evening...nonononono, not my thing. The music was excessively loud, the food was weird (blue and red nachos???) and the only people I knew were a couple teachers I had back in cégep and some of the ADAPT reps. I was bored out my mind… Then, a dude that had attended my presentation, came up to me and wanted to thank me again for giving such a nice presentation and for opening his eyes to certain aspects of the business and so on. He was really sweet and obviously highly motivated to get where he wants to be. When I finished talking with him, I felt like my knees were going to cave in so I hurried inside to the only two sofas in range. AHHHHH my butt on a nice comfy sofa…. Yes…. So I whipped out my sketchbook and began to sketch Batman. I had decided to finish my sketch and then leave… but a chick who had also attended my presentation came up to me and went on to explain which aspects of my talk had reached her and how. It was really nice to feel appreciated and to know that I actually helped a couple people. I strive to be like all the awesome artists who have never hesitated to give me advice or council. Bla bla bla… then I went home…. Was nice to talk to those two people, but overall the evening was horrible for me. Oh, I did order a drink at the bar at the same time as
Phil Tippet though! I didn’t say hi…. Cause im lame… I was much too intimidated to talk to him… silly me…
Wednesday, I went to the Transformers presentation given by an awesome guy by the name of Todd Vaziri
[link] . He was great and it was incredible to see how the film was made. That day I also attended
David Krentz’ presentation
[link] . His wasn’t as dynamic as Todds but his artwork and experience blew my mind!!! Then…. Then I had to prepare for the VIP supper that evening… The VIP supper that all the speakers were attending and that my bf couldn’t attend because I was too low in the speaker hierarchy … So I had to go ALONE!!! Can you imagine the stress of being surrounded by a huge number of big shots and having to mingle???
So I showed up at the designated time and place… nervous as hell… David Krentz was waiting with his beautiful wife and four other people, unknown to me at the time, were also there. We were told to go downstairs… that the LIMO would drive us to the restaurant! When I arrived at street level I had to restrain myself from screaming, because 5,6, no 8 stretch S.U.V. limos were parked at the hotel!!! WHAT?!! So I hopped in and sat quietly. Then the dude next to me spoke to me and was very kind. But that still didn’t calm my nervs. When we got to the restaurant, we were told to enjoy the terrace and that dinner would be served at 8. I walked through the very fancy restaurant and out onto the terrace…the terrace enclosed by sofas and four poster beds with flowing white sheets. I say again…WHAT??!! So I sat down… alone… feeling OH SO AWKWARD…. What do I do?? What do I freakin do!!! Then the next batch of people came out and among them was
Todd Vaziri. Id been at his presentation, I could use that to get into a conversation..yes yes… that should work… so that’s what I did. I went up to him and said how much I enjoyed his presentation and so on… He happened to be talking to the nice dude who had chatted with me in the limo, and that dudes very kind wife. I then found out that he was a top animator at PIXAR and that he’d worked on pretty much every project since A Bugs Life!! So there I was, talking to two very experienced and extremely talented CG artists, downing blue vodka drinks like water and saying no to every big busted waitress who offered me a weird appetiser. (I don’t like fancy stuff. I'm a Britt by blood, so give me roast beef, not some twisty plant life covered in fish eggs!) It was amazing listening to Todd speaking about Ang Lee, Lucas, Speilberg, so casually. I learnt a few secrets and found out stuff I had no idea about. Can you imagine? I was speaking about Transformers with a dude who actually worked on it! When does that happen! Never! I asked questions about the industry or about a particular aspect of the film and he answered!! They spoke about differenced between ILM and Pixar, both film and employee related, and I listened in awe.
Yeah, so even after having warmed up to these guys, I was still very uncomfortable in the flashy setting and dreading the moment when I would again find myself alone. Then Todd spoke went aside and spoke to
Ed Jones (Star Wars, ET, Indiana Jones, Terminator 2..) and I followed
Micheal Fong (Pixar dude) to another group (more Pixar people including
Andy Schmidt). Then I was introduced to
Paul Hellard (editor at ballistic publishing
[link]) and
Renee Dunlop (journalist/writer/2D /3D digital artist
[link]). At the time, I didn’t know how important these people were… I just enjoyed talking with them. They were extremely warm and kind and very interesting. Then I was introduced to
Geoff Foulds from Autodesk (www.autodesk.com) who was equally nice and fun to talk with. I actually ended up sitting with them to eat.
Thank the lord, there was steak and chips on the menu!!!! I spoke mainly with Geoff about pretty much anything. Yes we spoke about what he does and what I do and how they tie into each other, but hell, we even spoke about politics at one point. I also spoke to Paul a lot about my trip to Australia because he is from Victoria, AUS. Lots of wine and lots of laughs! During the evening, I got my ADAPT book signed by all the ADAPT team. They had asked me for my signature, as they had done for all the speakers they could approach. So I decided I wanted to have theirs because they are the ones that made it all happen and because they were amazing with me throughout the week. Then I had a long chat with Paul and Renee out on the terrace to get away from the hectic restaurant. I guess I made a good impression because Renee asked me if I could provide some artwork for an article she was writing! I hope to illustrate something for Ballistic some day.
Eventually, I needed air! So I went outside, spoke to a couple more people, spoke to Todd again and then caught the next Limo back to the hotel. I was riding with Todd and with two other people I didn’t know, who ended up being, a Disney animator turned award winning director, and his wife. We spoke about Australia cause they had gone to New Zeland on a trip and also about Montreal cause they love the city so much. They also started talking about how nice the hotel was and such… at which point I said… “Well, when I get to the hotel, I have to walk and then take the metro home! HA!” They were like “Oh nooo” hahaha. I told them it was perfectly safe and that it was fine. But it was so strange to have such important people worry about my safety like that. WEIRD!
The evening completely drained me and I decided not to attend the rest of the weeks events. All that socialising made me very anxious. I basically slept Thursday and Friday, cause I was still sort of in shock. It was an amazing opportunity, organised by amazing people and my presentation actually went well… but it was also a VERY, VERY, VERY hard week for me, cause I had to face so many fears and also had to make a good impression. The stress of the week even caused some friction between my boyfriend and I. But we sorted it out and its all good. After the happy chaos… life goes on…
THE END.
ADAPT DIARY on CGSociety written by Renee Dunlop and Paul Hellard:
[link]
photo slideshows in diary: (im in a couple, but its like wheres waldo??)
[link]
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A few pics from the conference taken by Jonathan Abenheim:
[link] 
My TMNT ebay listings!
Anguish
Tired
I Have To Pee
