Congratulations Javier!

Wow. What an amazing Oscar season for Spain! After our own Technical Achievement Award win, Javier Bardem became the first Spanish actor to take home an Oscar in the category for “Actors in a supporting role” for his part in “No Country for Old Men”.

From the stadium of the Kodak Theatre, Javi dedicated his award to the creators of the film, to Spain and to his mother, saying: “Mum, this is for you, for your grandparents, for your parents Rafael and Matilde. This is for all the Spanish comedians that, like you, have brought dignity and pride to this trade. This is for Spain!”

We couldn’t agree more….

¡¡¡¡Felicidades Javier!!!!

The End

So that’s it! Everyone is back in the office after several days in Los Angeles full of emotions and memories that will get lost in time. Our trip back to Madrid was quiet and calm...

We are now back at work and everything seems normal again, the meetings, the emails, everything. We hope that the Academy Award will motivate us and remind us that we can and have to continue to work on innovative technologies the coming years.

Finally, although the strict rules of the Academy require that the prize is awarded to specific people involved and not to entire teams or companies, we’d like to remind ourselves and everybody that RealFlow is the work of a huge group of dedicated people who worked and still work day in day out to make it the success it is today. We would like to thank a number of people who have helped and supported us throughout this adventure. Thank you to our sponsors: Comunidad de Madrid, ICEX, IMADE, Ministerio de Cultura de España, Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio de España, Expo Zaragoza, PromoMadrid, Cornejo Tailors, Pedro del Hierro and Galatti. Thanks also go to our friend José Negrete for joining us and recording our trip to Los Angeles, to Oscar Monzon who recently left Next Limit after four years of help building the RealFlow success, to Carlos Pegar for his extensive contribution to the product, and to the entire team of NL developers, programmers, technicians, testers, sales and marketing people without whom Next Limit and RealFlow would not be achieving this level of success and recognition. Thank you.

The Academy Awards

Saturday the 9th of February promised to be an excellent day. The sun was shining brightly outside. We had just filled our stomachs with massive blueberry pancakes and gigantic cappuccinos. And we were looking forward to one of the most exciting, important and special evenings of our lives: The Academy Awards annual Dinner and Ceremony; our reason to come to Los Angeles; our long-awaited reward after years of hard work; and a reason to be very nervous!

From noon onwards everyone was getting ready to look their very prettiest in the elegant suits from Cornejo Tailors and beautiful dresses from Pedro del Hierro and Galatti. Actually, Victor, Ignacio, Angel and Phil waited around while the girls endured beauty treatments and hair styling (why is it always the women who have to suffer to look pretty?) at the hairdresser’s.
At exactly 5 pm everybody gathered downstairs in the hotel lobby, looking their best and trying not to break out in huge sweats. We drove down to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard and arrived half an hour later, precisely in time for the cocktails. Piccolos opened the doors of our car with a chic “Welcome to the Beverly Wilshire ladies and gentlemen.” They might just as well have said: “Welcome to the wonderful world of luxury, fame and glamour; welcome to the Hollywood of the stars.” We all stepped out on the red carpet and realized what an amazing night this was going to be.

Once inside, we received our table cards and the award winners were given buttonholes to pin on their jackets. Victor, Ignacio and Angel left to speak to people from the American press, including journalists from CNN, and the rest of the Next Limit group got busy ordering champagne and attacking the silver bowls full of nibbles. While waiting for the dinner to start at 6:30, we took lots of pictures and met with Mark Stasiuk and Lauren Miller from Fusion CIS who, as RealFlow experts, collaborate with Next Limit to promote and support RealFlow in the USA.
Finally, the huge red curtain separating the dining area from the drinks area opened, revealing a spectacular ballroom decorated with Oscar statuettes, expensive chandeliers and dozens of set tables waiting to be occupied. All guests wondered off in search of their table and when the last bell rang, the last people took their seat. Dinner was served quickly. A starter of mozzarella, tomato and asparagus salad was followed by a healthy dish of ravioli, and a “double-dish” of seabass in white wine and parmesan cream and entrecote in truffle sauce. A dish of petit deserts completed the dinner. While guests were enjoying the food and wine, an illusionist brought entertainment to the stage, changing suits without anybody noticing, sitting on invisible chairs and making two-dimensional birds in books fly.

Nerves were rising high now that the moment of truth came near. Jessica Alba, the famous actress presenting the event, took to the stage and let various other awards and award winners pass the revue. RealFlow came up fourth, first in the group of fluid simulation, and Jessica struggled to give a correct introduction including all the tongue splitters she had to read out loud from the teleprompter. Her final words were: “For the creation of RealFlow, the Academy is pleased to present Technical Achievement Awards to Victor Gonzalez, Ignacio Vargas and Angel Tena. Gentlemen?” Then the applause broke loose (especially from the Next Limit table), and the winners took the stage. A bit nervous but in control, Victor first thanked all the people at Next Limit and the Academy, and went on to address the audience in Spanish, because after all that’s where we are from! Ignacio took over saying “Thank you to everybody in the company, because we are thirty people and not only us” and subsequently dedicated the award to his family, and in particular to his grandfather, his little daughter and his girlfriend Hanna. Finally Angel, nervous to make it all too long, quickly expressed thanks to his colleagues, his wife Paloma, and to Mark Stasiuk, also seated at the Next Limit table.

Excited but relieved, the winners returned to their table where the nerves slowly recessed so that they could finally relax and fully enjoy the rest of the evening. Lots of other winners went up on stage and did their speeches, including big Oscar statuette winners David A. Grafton (who held a hilarious speech) and the president of the Eastman Kodak Company (who actually comes from Lugo in the north of Spain).

Then, suddenly, it was all over, and all guests were told to go back to the cocktail area where official pictures of all the winners and Jessica Alba would be taken. While we had some more champagne, Victor, Ignacio and Angel kept smiling standing in the top row of winners while their pictures were being taken. Those smiles stayed on their faces for the rest of the trip (and will probably stay for the rest of the year).

Finished shooting photos, the guests left one by one, and we also took off around 11 o’clock, which is of course way too early for the true, celebrating Spaniard. Therefore we decided to take the party elsewhere and have a few drinks in a more relaxed atmosphere to celebrate our great achievement. Unfortunately, after American custom, bars were closing around 1 am, forcing us to conclude the fiesta and return to the hotel. Tired but fulfilled, we dove under our blankets and fell fast asleep. The next morning we awoke, thinking: “Was it all a dream?” But Victor, Ignacio and Angel looked at their bedside tables and saw their fancy folders with their Academy Awards Certificates…. Theirs…. forever.

The Awards Ceremony

Ladies and Gentlemen: The big day finally arrived. Today, they presented us with the Technical Achievement Award – or, that is to say, Jessica Alba gave it to us. We got to the Hotel Beverly Wilshire at 5 p.m., where the red carpet awaited us. We had our picture taken and gave some interviews, all of us in black tie.

Everything started punctually. At 6.30 they opened the ballroom where the dinner and ceremony were to take place. There were about 30 tables with 10 or 12 people at each. There were between four and five hundred guests, including the press. It was all very glamorous: the room was full of posters about the technical awards and giant Oscar statues, and the dinner was elaborate. Finally, the moment came when Jessica Alba came onstage to present the awards. We were fourth in line, and, when our turn came, we went up, shaking with nerves, and said a few words of thanks (to the Academy, the Technical Committee, everyone at Next Limit, our families…)

Then, of course, we had a lot of photos taken - one of them with David A. Grafton, a special effects guru from the pre-digital age who was involved in Star Wars and Blade Runner - before heading out for a walk along Santa Monica.

But, of course, that’s not all…watch this space for more photos and the next installment!

Partying in L.A.

Yesterday we went to a party in the Consulate, hosted by Inocencio Arias and his wife. It was a wonderful evening, with 50 guests. We would like to thank the Consul General for his kindness, welcoming us into his own home (in the Hollywood Hills, no less, and with spectacular views). The only flaw was the two hours it took us to travel the 15 kilometers from Santa Monica to Hollywood! When we arrived at 8 o’clock the party was in full swing. We were pleasantly surprised to see the Consul’s wife and grandson helping with the canapés, while we played with his dog. We felt both flattered to be there, and very much at home. We met quite a few people, but most of all we caught up with various friends from the sector – clients, producers, artists and so on. It was also great to meet the L.A. delegation of ICEX and some of the local Spanish community. We took a few photos, before the evening drew to a close at around 11.

We are now just a few hours away from the big day – to tell you the truth, we are feeling more than a little nervous, and we still haven’t prepared our 30-second speech!

Warming up

Hi from Los Angeles again! We have the whole team here now, and you’ll see that we haven’t wasted any time! We’ve had a full schedule of business meetings and visits to clients and resellers, we haven’t stopped! One thing you have to bear in mind here are the massive traffic jams that build up around 6pm everyday and convert a half hour journey into an hour and a half!
We are still suffering the effects of the giant portions of food here, and the extra calories- but it’s just a question of getting used to it (and the couple of extra kilos). We have also been up to the observatory (at night) to see the impressive views across LA – thousands of houses, lights, cars, skyscrapers, and several dozen airplanes queuing up to land at LAX. It’s a hypnotic spectacle that can’t be missed if you are ever here in Los Angeles. This was really the only relaxing moment in the whole day!

Tomorrow we have the reception at the consulate, we’ll be sending a summary of the event. Wish us luck…

We're in Los Angeles!

Hi everyone, we’re now in Los Angeles!! That is after some 13 hours of flying, and with jetlag that makes you wake up at 6am in the morning, but we’re here! The journey was smooth, no stress, and no lost baggage this time (great!), so we don’t have to run around in a hurry buying clothes like on previous trips. And it’s actually much better to fly direct from Europe to the West coast- you arrive in daylight in Los Angeles, and can enjoy at least part of the day. The flight was good, passing over Greenland and Northern Canada- its amazing to think you can travel so far across the globe in just a few hours. I’m sure it goes without saying that the views were spectacular- great expanses of snow- so many thousands of kilometers of it that its hard to comprehend that global warming is actually a reality.

Today we have been relaxing, doing a bit of shopping. The dollar is really cheap against the Euro (1.5 dollars to the Euro) and so it goes a long way, although the bad thing is that you end up spending more because of this. And of course we are suffering the same problem we always have - the food. It’s impossible to eat small amounts here! Every dish is gigantic and even the salads have thousands of calories, but well, what can you do? It’s very difficult for a Spaniard who is accustomed to potato “tortilla” and “jamon” to get used to this kind of food. With regards to the weather, the wind is cold and when the sun comes out its bearable, but when it doesn’t it feels pretty chilly. People often think that LA is like the Caribbean, but its nothing like that- it’s freezing!

Los Angeles, for those that don’t know it, is not so much a city, more a city of cities. Its like if you imagine Madrid and all of it’s surrounding towns all joined together- from Madrid to Villalba. Going from one place to another involves a car journey of anything form 10 to 50 kilometers. It’s difficult to be in Los Angeles more than a couple of days without having to hire a car (yes there is a metro and a few buses but only symbolic really). And in two taxi journeys you’ve already paid the same as it would cost to hire a car.

Tomorrow we have another flight, this time domestic, for a technical meeting. We’ll be back in LA on Thursday. Thursday and Friday we have reserved for meetings with other people in the LA area, and then Friday night is the reception at the Spanish Consulate, and Saturday…. The big day!

Until the next report.