Work, non-work, and A Scanner Darkly

I’ve routinely been working past midnight the last couple of weeks as we make a final push to get our software finished. Although it’s just coincidence that we usually ship right before WWDC, it reminds me of the old days of trying to get betas ready to demo before Macworld Expo or one of the other yearly conferences.

I took a break from that on Sunday, my third Father’s Day. Big breakfast with the family, mowing the lawn with some iPod tunes, putting together a baby crib, lunch, then headed down to the Austin Sketch Group meeting and talked animated films and art while sipping a chocolate coffee drink which had entirely too much caffeine in it. Bob Sabiston came by to recruit folks for Richard Linklater’s upcoming film, A Scanner Darkly (based on the Philip K. Dick book). It will employ the same rotoscope technique used for Waking Life, but perhaps favoring a more consistent style rather than the individual inventiveness of that previous film. Should be fun to see the result, and in the wake of Shrek 2 box office numbers it’s good to see some investment in creative, lower-budget animated films.

Manton Reece @manton