Riverfire 08'

Yesterday was the start of the week-long River Festival in Brisbane, a celebration of the Brisbane River that the city is named for and runs through the down town area. It is the defining geographical element of the area.

The first night of the festival and the biggest is the River Fire event. Basically it is a small air show and huge fire works display that encompasses the entire city. They were expecting half a million people for the show so Mariana and I walked down to the Botanical Gardens a few hours before to get good seats right on the river. We invited some friends from Pandemic and made a large picnic out of it.

We all sat around, ate, talked, popped open some beer and wine and waited for the 7:00 start of the event scheduled for just after sundown. The area was filling up fast and the river was choked full of sail, motor, and large party boats. Amongst the large office buildings that line the river there are quite a few apartment towers that were full of people partying and enjoying the festival, waiting for the show to begin.

The event is kicked off by an Australian Air Force F-111 making a low level "dump and burn" where it screams in at a couple of hundred feet off the river and dumps fuel out the back while firing the afterburner which makes a giant fire trail out the end of the jet that lights up the sky like daylight and is incredibly loud.

I can't even imagine how much it must cost to run as there are about ten or so fireworks bases in the city that are shot off in coordination with each other. I heard today that the whole show uses 300 tons of fireworks. There were fireworks firing off multiple barges on the river, on the bridges, they were even firing them off of the top of the sky scrapers in CBD. I was in awe of the size of the show, there were fireworks going off in front, to the sides, behind, and above us. It was the most amazing pyrotechnical display I have ever seen. The buidlings were full of people and camera flashes were sparkling along the skyline which added to the moment. After almost a year here, the good times and the bad, it was one of those nights that makes it all worth it and reminds you why you are here.

New Building and Close Calls...

Dark days at Pandemic Studios. Sadly, our project got cancelled this week. There were a few reasons going around as to why, and you might be able to pick up the info on the rumor mill from Kotaku but, as an NDA'd employee I am not going to discuss the project or the reasons. All I know is having a project ripped out from under you sucks.

Pandemic was actually very cool about it all. They have spent alot of money, and taken a lot of time to build their team and they have done just about everything they can to keep it in tact. Some team members are being moved to another, smaller team in-house, some are being flown to Los Angeles to help out on other projects that need extra hands for the next four months. Sadly, some were deemed redundant and had to be let go and yesterday was dark Thursday.

I had a meeting with the producers on Monday afternoon and was told that I would be moved to the team in house and that I was pretty much safe. I got really lucky. I will be working on a smaller team that seems to be very organized and I am excited about the project and working with some of the new and familiar faces. Thanks to Steve for requesting me by name.

I have never been on a team that has been broken up and it was an unpleasant experience. Yestrday, I was working away and a producer came over and grabbed the guy sitting next to me. "Can I talk to you for a minute"? I thought nothing of it until about five minutes later someone from HR came up and grabbed his backpack and cigarettes. I never saw him again. Even though I knew I was safe I started to panic a bit and shuddered everytime I saw the producer or HR girl walk by. All in all, they kept the lay offs to a minimum and I am thankful for that. It is just sad to see a good team broken up but it was totally out of Pandemics control and I thank them for handling it as well as they did. Good company.

So, with that out of the way. We are moving into our new, modernized building on Tuesday. We are packing up our desks today and will be off Monday. By Tuesday it will be a new team and new domain. The nice thing is that it is right around the corner of our current location which is in a great neighborhood.

The new building is pictured above and the other shot is just a magnificent colored sky from the other night. Sometime I will do a post strictly on the evening sky here which always seems to be a different color and spectacular none the less...

Still kicking.

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