CGAM 2008 Conference review

I realize this event was a month ago, but better late than never.

CGAM 2008 (March 10^th/11^th) in Hollywood was the first-ever global conference for marketing and advertising professionals focusing on cutting-edge technology and the value of Computer Generated Images (CGI).

Brochure Verbiage:

“CGAM clarifies the CGI world by giving you access to key, world-class suppliers in the industry. Learn firsthand the services they offer and their benefits. CGAM also allows you to see what others OEM's and their advertising agencies are doing in the industry. And keeps you connected with the latest trends and technologies, allowing you to be one step ahead.”

Topics:

From the Beginning: The History of CGI
Taking Care of Business: The Process
Product Evolution: Using Data Planning
The Art of the Sneak Preview: First to Market
The Value Proposition: Saving Time and Money
CGI 101: Make the Impossible Possible.
The Great Debate: CAD vs. Digitized Modeling
HDRI Photography & Motion Capture
HDRI: What is it? How to use it?
Keep Things Moving: Capturing Motion
Creating a Work of Art: Utilizing the Team
Success: Who Can Help Make it Happen?
Keeping it All Together: Managing the Process
Innovating with CGI Series
From the Big Screen to Your Office: What Can We Learn from Hollywood?
How the Agency Works?
Goofing off? Or Getting Things Done?: The Creative Process
A Whole New World: Creating Virtual Sets
CGI Myth Busters
Under Lock and Key: Is My Data Safe?
The Bottom Line on the Bottom Line: Is CGI Cost Effective?
Moving Towards a Virtual World: Will CGI Replace Traditional Media?
Keeping it Real: Is the Quality There?
Change the Channel: Embracing New Media
The Future: Oh the Places We'll Go

Venue:

The two-day event was held at the Renaissance Hollywood hotel. Located in the heart of Hollywood, the Renaissance Hotel is part of the Hollywood & Highland Center and home to the Kodak Theatre (home of the Academy Awards Ceremonies) and is steps from Grauman's/Manns Chinese Theatre and Hollywood Walk of Fame. I was born about a mile from there, worked for a spell at Cannery Agency when it was across Hollywood Blvd. above the historic El Capitan Theatre, so I’m biased as these are my stomping grounds and find it soothing to visit, albeit seldom. It was a perfect place for an event (hint-hint FITC) – don’t get me wrong…North Hollywood/Universal City is great…but it’s different than the being in the heart of Hollywood.

This was a very well organized event – especially considering it was their first one. From parking and badge pick-up, speaker sessions, vendor exhibitions, Wolfgang Puck catered lunches – it all went really very smoothly. This event had just one track, meaning you don’t miss any speakers and I think I like this approach more as opposed to having to choose between two or three people you enjoy speaking at once.

Content:

The speaker list was superb and people indeed came from all over the world to hear them. I knew CGAM would be automotive focused, but I wasn’t expecting it to about 75% automotive related, which it was and since that’s the field I’m in – I was pleased. That enabled me to get a chance to talk with speakers Sam Mancuso (GM), Alex Hultgren (Ford), Tom Haynes (Chrysler), Jim Jandasek (Chevrolet), Linda Kato (Nissan) and many of their ad agencies, CGI and software vendors.

I found out the cost of CGI has dropped significantly and it is still pricy, but about the equivalent of a major photo shoot. The difference is once a photo shoot is done, it is pretty much the end of an assets lifecycle; it can be manipulated later but not very much. CGI is vector based, so you can of course, always edit, move, transform, change texture, color, environments etc... One great cost-savings example a vendor shared was about an OEM who took a 2007 automotive TV ad and swapped out only the shell of the car to a 2008 body style –so they got two commercials for the price of one.

I wanted to know more specifically how to streamline CGI data from OEM to Agency, to where I work, a 3^rd party online publisher. Part of my job is creating unique advertising apps. I spoke with GM, Chrysler, and Nissan and found out that traditionally this data is “owned” by a mix of OEM and agency. In the end though, the OEMs keep the super sensitive CAD data vaulted, and then they give a ‘watered’ down model to the ad agency for TV/Print/Web purposes. I sensed an unspoken theme regarding content, i.e., the agencies and CGI vendors want to keep control of it as much as possible. I can under$tand why. You won’t find many CGI houses bypassing an agency of record to get CAD data directly from an OEM – they get ostracized if they do. Which makes sense, but something I suspect to change in the next few year with the proliferation of UGC (User-generated-content).

This is not to say the car manufactures or OEMs are not willing to share CGI assets with 3^rd party vendors. They are interested, actually. Where I work, we could certainly gain from using these assets and that can enable us to build unique ad products.

I met some extremely helpful reps from software vendor, Bunkspeed. I had not heard of their software (Hyperdrive) until this show. It’s truly amazing and was very easy to use. I was making rather fascinating, animated 3d environments in minutes.

A technical engineer has since been helping me achieve an effect I have wanted to do for about two years. I cannot do without a 3d modeling app and they have been very enthusiastic to help me fuse their software with Flash. I’ll let you know when I’ve actually finished this one. When I mentioned the effect to a London-based television director attending the show, he said, “brilliant, may I use that, mate?” I said “sure”, and then he then showed me how he took footage of Steve McQueen from Bullet and created a national TV spot using $200 software! That was amazing.

To wrap up:

From Pal Debevec’s keynote to Richard Chuang’s session, The Future:Oh the Places We'll Go”, it was captivating and I left inspired. Perhaps the biggest revelation for me was that I came into the conference thinking CGI was only for creating dancing M&Ms, Halo type games, and resurrecting dead actors to do new automotive ads. It turns out CGI is all around us in ways that surprised me. And, technology used to create these experiences has matured greatly in the last four years. Combined with massive advances in personal computing power (10 million-fold since the beginning of CGI), one no longer need be a 3D expert to use CGI. Today, 3D models, HDRI (High Dynamic Range Imaging), and software are inexpensive and trickling into all forms of digital media. They say we’re at a crossroads with CGI and it will trickle more and more into new media.

There were two stand-out speakers who addressed New Media and the streamlining of data. The OEMs agree they now require “Asset Czars” because even with current efficiencies, there is much more to do in this area – including getting these assets to 3^rd-party publishers. One stat was that for any given CGI asset, 75% of the time it is unnecessarily replicated at least 10 times across each organization it touches. I see this happening too.

In all, I was very grateful to attend, I recommend the show, and I will surly come back in 2009.