A quick one!
Some of my shots were published in the article about Mark Breakspear, my supervior. Sweet.

http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=5064&page=1

It’s 7.55pm and the playoff game of the Canucks VS Chicago is live on TV. It’s 3-3 and really tense. There’s one period to go so 20min on the ice. If the Canucks win, they’ll go to the next round, if they lose, they’re out!
Chicago has been strong so far so I’m getting tense every time the puck goes near a goal. Come on boys, win the fucking game!!!!!

This past sunny weekend has been very busy with a short hike, some street hockey, a fancy Belgian restaurant and some clothes shopping.
Adele brought us in the forests of Capilano, just in North Vancouver, so we got a bus to get there. It’s so cool to have proper hikes so close to the city.

7.59, the 3 period starts!! aaaaah.

Yeah the walk was fun but a bit short. Anyway.
After that we went to a large parking lot to play some hockey.

wow, that was nearly in!

It’s the first time I get to play the game and so was it for the 6 other people playing with me. Most of them are work colleagues. With all different levels of confidence on roller

GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAL! Yeaaaah!!!! 16minutes to go! Chicago is scarily fast.

blades, the game was a bit uneven but we all managed to score some points and put the ball in the garbage made goal. Most of us had all sort of pads but we all mang

SHIIIIIIT, Chicago just scored! Fuck damn fuck!

We all managed to hurt ourselves! knees, necks, hands, feet,… hockey can be dangerous. oh and some

Ha! penalty for Chicago for a straight punch in one of the Canucks’ face…. I don’t know who it was, the commercial just came on screen too fast…

So yeah everyone was pretty excited and we’re hopefully going to do this again this week!!!
After the hockey, Adele and me went for a fantastic dinner in a Belgian restaurant called Chambar. That was fine gastronomy…. I even managed to ask the chef what patatoes and fat he was using to make the fries taste so Belgian. So now I just need to buy a frier and try it at home

Shit, Luongo, the goal keeper, is hurt. Wait a second, he looks like he’s faking it…. idiot…. oh well, maybe he got a stick in his chin…

Yeah and this Sunday, I bought some t-shirt including one with a big Panda face. How exciting.

GOOOOOAL !!!! from Daniel Sedin!!!!!!!! 5-4 and 7 minutes to go!!!

Er, what else,…. next weekend I’m gonna go camping by Shave river.

FUCK!!!!! Chicago scored again!!!!! 5-5…….. just 45 seconds after our goal… This is so tense. What a game.

Ok now I’m going to watch the end of the game.

DAAAAAAMN!!!!!!! Chicago scores again, What the fuck is going on!!!!!!
and again….. Noooooooo! it’s 7-5….
…
Shit we f***ing lost….

See ya…. but here are some pics!

It’s been so long since my last post here that I don’t even know what to start with today. I’m listening to some podcast from the Get Physical Music so hopefully that will help me getting inspired.

If you’re into electronic music and into podcasts, check out “Get Physical” (house) as well as the “Hospital Records” podcast (DnB) and Solid Steel (by Ninja Tunes)! They’re just awesome.

Since my last post, a billion things happened and one of the major change is that I moved to a new apartment! My good friend Dan and I decided to share an apartment and our choice went for a tall building in the very heart of Vancouver downtown. We are precisely in Yaletown which I believe is the nicest area in Vancouver. We’re on the 22th floor, just by the 2 big stadiums with a good view of the mountains and a water creek 2 blocks away. I can actually see some people kayaking there are the moment.
Oh, and work is only 30min away, on foot!

View Larger Map

As you can see on the pictures, we have plenty of windows around so the place is very bright all day! The living room is absolutely huge (to the city standards), and the den is very pleasant with its attached terrace. Most of the furniture is sadly from ikea. Yesterday, my friend Tiago came to watch a movie and he couldn’t stop saying “oh, I have the same shelves at home, and the same table mats, and the same tea table…” Stop it!!!!

Workwise, my contract at CIS Vancouver got extended until early January so I’m feeling good about the coming months. We still work from 9 to 5.30 every day which is absolutely great. No more 10, 12 or 16 hours days like in London! We had some overtime going on on Angels and Demons but it wasn’t too bad.
I’m presently working on a Disney movie called “Tooth fairy” which is a movie for kids starring the famous pro wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson… How odd to have a fighter playing a tooth fairy The work is all right but not much of a challenge. I kinda miss the big projects sometimes.

After that, i’ll work on a small production called “Zombieland” and then something bigger,”Salt”, starring Angelina Jolie. What’s great about it is that I’ll be working with a fantastic supervisor, Mark Breakspeare, who is definitely the funniest man I know! He’s beautifully offensive and borderline. Love it! He’s great at keeping everyone happy in the team and is also very talented.
He’s doing this thing all the time, giving FAIL cards whenever someone does something stupid and always puts a quote explaining why.
FAIL, for making great CG look awful.
FAIL, for deleting renders that were approved by the client
FAIL, for sucking at compositing
FAIL, for not having chocolate
The only one I got so far was:
FAIL, for being Belgian….

These days, on Tooth Fairy, the supervior Randy sometimes walks around with his guitar and playing random soothing sounds. How nice.

–

Time just flies. I’ve been here for 5 months now and I had the chance to do so many things already. I went snowboarding a lot during the the winter but still haven’t been in Whistler…. Damn!!!!! Then I did scuba diving, went to the Canadian Rockies, went golfing, skating, cycling, hiking…! Vancouver’s great. I took 3 weeks off, went to Cuba, bought new furniture for the apartment, got a new keyboard and soon some audio monitors!

Here are the videos of my 2 latest trip if you haven’t seen them yet.

Cayo Coco, Cuba - March 2009 from Thierry Muller on Vimeo.

Rockies - April 2009 from Thierry Muller on Vimeo.

And yesterday, I started practicing inline hockey. I’m picking it up quickly so I’ll be able to play the game soon! then I wen to see a puppet show and finished the day with a barbecue. And today was another hiking day.

Hare are some pics from the past months.

Talk to you later!

They’d better win. Thet’re losing 3-2 and there are 12 mins left.

Here is a video of Saturday at Cypress Mountain. : )
Dan is in grey, and he’s going to share an apartment for the 1st of March.
Adele is in Blue, she’s a work colleague.
There’s also Henri and Lionel around.

Cypress 14 Feb 2009 from Thierry Muller on Vimeo.

10minutes to go. Go Canucks Go!

We went to Cypress Mountain this weekend.

Some photos :
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=216659&l=5c33c&id=798345034

We bumped into the moguls World Cup 09 where the Canadians won it all!

Last week, when Gillian was around, I took some photos of Vancouver and I find them quite nice, so here they are :

Today, I went snowboarding again in Cypress Mountain, it was sunny, chilly (-6*C) and the snow was hard as concrete since it hasn’t been snowing lately up in the mountains. It was truly enjoyable though, especially since I bought my own board, boots and bindings. I’m so glad to have it, and it looks great. I managed to find very good equipment for decent money, and on to of that, they all match in colour. I got lucky. I’m all in black, white and red.
I was actually laughing at some girls purchasing boards in a store. They couldn’t care less about the specificity of each board. They we picking a coulour and then asked the salesguy “Is this a good board?”, “Do you have it in apple green?”. Haha, on the other side, the guys all all over the technical bit. “How’s the flex? Should I go for a sintered or extruded base? Should I get a Banana board?”

The board I got is a Nitro Volume, with Elan bindings and 32 boots with the Boa things that replaces the laces. It’s just awesome.
Anyway, having the gear is so good. No need to go through the shitty rentals anymore.
The proximity of the mountains is great, we even got the in a cab…. And look at the beautiful scenery!

That’s it for now.
Take care and feel free to write a comment!!!

The past week’s been pretty hectic with plenty of busy evening and little time for writing. As you can imagine, I still know very little about Vancouver and it’s richness, so I’m trying to make the most of the early days here. It’s been 3 weeks that I’ve been here now, and considering the rainy/foggy/cold weather condition, I haven’t had the chance to walk around so much. As a result I was more focused on enjoying the indoors joys. I spent two evenings in sports bars, watching and supporting the Canucks (Vancouver Hockey team) during the past week. They’ve been pretty lame lately, losing about 6 or 7 games in a row. Go Canucks, Go!

Jeez, I’m listening to the BBC again, and they have that show called “In New DJs We Trust” introducing fresh tunes. I’m literally banging my head like crazy. Try it out, HERE. It starts with a killer song of DeadMau5!!

I also had the visit of my girlfriend Gillian for 5 days and we took that opportunity to go snowboarding to the local mountain, Cypress Mountain. The weather was absolutely perfect with temperatures around 15-18*C, clear skies and delicious sunshine. I’m progressing really well (my friends say) but I still managed to get 6 bruises around the tailbone. Ouch! I’ve been physically recovering from from snowboarding for 5 days now. I still have a sore neck….
Gillian and me also managed to go to a $5 Comedy Night where 7-8 comedians came to tell us their best stories. That was well funny.

About WORK

As most of you know, I am now working as a Compositor on the movie “Angels and Demons“, the adaptation of Dan Brown’s book. Dan Brown is mostly known for his bestseller “Da Vinci Code”, so the movie should be a hit.
The company I’m working for is CIS Vancouver, which did a lot of work in TV in the past (Stargate,…) and some cool films such as Tropic Thunder, Blades of Glory, The Golden Compass, Hot Rod,…

On my immigration letter, my official job title is : Senior Animation Effects Editor, how flashy!

I like how we don’t do overtime here. I work from 9 to 5.30 and that is IT. Overtime might be required sometimes but they’ll be happy to pay me for it. Goodbye 14 hours days.

It’s definitely smaller than Double Negative London but that’s why I’m really glad to be here. The compositing team (which I’m part of) only counts 11 people, while we were about 120 in London. Hehe. The work offers big challenges and I feel I’ll be able to progress a lot there.
I find myself with a bit more freedom of creation since the guideline for the job are quite blurry. I liked it today when the supervisor, Mark Breakspear, told me “Just make it look how you would like it!”. He’s British and freaking hilarious!

Funny fact: He was the compositor of this very famous amateur video “Flight 405″ (famous in the VFX world) :

Enough chit-chat, here are some photos (click on the images).

Talk to you soon!

Some more various photos taken during my first week:

It was about time, after a week spent here I finally got my new laptop, a shiny Macbook pro! My first Mac ever. First impression… well it looks good and performs really well but it looks like it crashes more than a PC. Maybe I need to get used to it and its flaws.

A real lot happened since I landed in Vancouver airport, and I don’t want to write a novel here so the best is probably to show you pictures, it’s always more popular than the old fashioned text to read,… innit?
Just to let you know, I’m listening to the BBC while writing since the Canadians don’t have a decent electronic radio. Mr Pete Tong will drive my fingers and my mood while writing and editing the pics.

First things first, my arrival. It’s been a looong way to go from Brussels to Vancouver. Well, nearly 24 hours in total. 2 planes and 11 hours in the air, a 7 hours stop in London and some commuting. It wasn’t super fun but I only had to do it once, so, no worries. I wasn’t actually too tired at my arrival. Two colleagues, Daniel and Nik, as well as Nik’s girlfriend Jessica came to meet me at the airport! How nice! It was about 6pm so we all went to a sushi restaurant.

After that, Dan and Nik brought me home and we all discovered my apartment which is located in the area called Downtown. They helped me out with my bags and everyfing.
I’m basically at the epicentre of Vancouver. CIS, the company that hired me here, chose this apartment for me since they offered me 2 months of accomodation, sweet.
It’s basically a 1 bedroom suite on the 13th floor of the Electra Tower, fully furnished and ready to walk in. They even provide sheets, towels, iron, coffee maker,… which makes my life easier.

This is it for today.
I’ll post some more about my job and the few things I’ve done since my arrival very soon. Things like my first ever snowboard lesson for instance…

Take care.
Thierry

ps. There’s no better sound than what you can find in London.

The journey was long and quite exhausting. After being on the move for 24 hours in a row, I finally arrived in Vancouver.
I’ll write a new post as soon as I receive my new Macbook Pro!

In the meantime, here are a few photos taken from apartment and another of the greetings I got on my arrival at the airport.

Le trajet a ete long. Apres avoir ete en deplacement pendant 24 heures, je suis enfin arrive a Vancouver.
J’ecrirai a nouveau lorsque je recevrai mon nouveau Macbook Pro.

En attendant, voici qques photos de la vue depuis mon appart et une photo de l’acceuil qu’on m’a reserve a l’aeroport.

The D day is today!

It’s 3.45am and I’m tired. I’m going to bed in a few minutes and I’ll wake up at 5.30am, have breakfast and head to the airport. All in all, it’s gonna take me 24 hours to reach Vancouver. Tough!

It was therefore time to say goodbye to the family and eat the good local food a last time… My grandma even shed a tear saying goodbye. I never saw her cry in the past 25 years. I felt a bit emotional. My grandparents are old and it might have been the last time I see them…

I spent a relaxing new-year eve with my best friend Romain so it was different than the usual big night out. We ended up watching movies and the silly shows on TV, while drinking champagne and falling asleep on the sofa. It was cosy.

I’m going to buy a laptop as soon as I arrive so the next post might take about a week to come.
In the meantime, feel free to correct my broken English in the box on the right.

Here are some pics. Just click on this pic to see the others.