[FWD] Manwe about CAFe'99 festival
ZXNet echo conference «zx.talking»
Hello All!
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From: Alexander Matchugovsky
Subject: CAFe'99 report
Date: 04 Sep 1999
X-Comment-To: All
Newsgroups: fido7.demo.design
Good Night, All!
Impressions of CAFe'99 demoparty (Kazan, August 28-29).
Manwe/SandS (manwe@chat.ru, www.sands.da.ru).
For the delegation of Muscovites (at least that part of it, in
which included me) impressions of the party and the whole trip as a whole
remained purely positive. I think, and other visitors
We had a lot of fun - the party was held on the eve of the Day
Independence of Tatarstan, and the pre-holiday atmosphere enlivened
everything around: on the central street (almost a copy of the Old
Arbat in Moscow) workers strengthened all kinds of garlands, and under
orchestras rehearsed with them, performing surprisingly pleasant and
a variety of music. So, walking in the morning in search of
familiar food (in the sense that any cafe offered a menu with
such names of dishes that one could already talk about these names alone
break our tongue, so we didn’t dare order the dishes themselves :),
we stopped to listen to some jazz quintet (oh,
like us with Maxi G.C. admired the sound of live jazz drums
installations! :). And when familiar food was finally found
(the only McDonalds in the city), we offer a super free smileWe also got an almost symphonic one located opposite
orchestra (about twenty people... hmm, well, this is half a symphony
orchestra - also good), which delighted us with a selection of works
Bizet :) Overall, the central part of the city produced a pleasant
impression: low, neat streets (apart from a few
ruined houses :) and a friendly atmosphere. True,
traffic lights were extremely rare, and they served mostly
parts for decoration, because they did not work correctly (not all,
of course, but still :). So, heading to the venue
party, we were charged with positive energy, which was very
By the way, after sleepless nights.
Before we begin to describe what is happening at the party,
place, I want to share my opinion about the work of the organizers.
CAFe'99 is the only party I've seen that has errors
and the shortcomings, if they were allowed, were not caused
carelessness, hysteria or stupidity of the organizers (as
at many other parties), but only inexperience. That is, they were
quite forgivable shortcomings, because the main thing was clear: the organizers
We made every effort to ensure that the party was liked by visitors.
This is very valuable. And all the work was carried out in a fairly coordinated manner
(which is quite surprising, because 4
platforms, each of which was looked after by its own team. How is thisthe number of people worked harmoniously, it’s hard to explain). All
passed very calmly, without nerves - I was disposed to this
the atmosphere of the party, and the temperament of the organizers themselves - obviously
the main component of success and precise work.
As for the party-place: the cinema hall of the House of Culture, that is
large screen, complete dimming, good ventilation, powerful
audio system, microphones on stands, plenty of seating,
hall, buffet. At first glance, the projector is no worse than
Bytefall, however, as it turned out later, there was no way
brightness/contrast/color settings, from which the image
it looked a little overexposed and a little yellowish. However,
complete darkening of the room is a big plus, thanks to
which image still looked good.
Of the minuses, it is necessary to note, first of all, mono sound (the same
same problem as on Sound Storm). It turned out that the organizers
Seeing two large speakers at the edges of the stage, somehow I didn’t even
We thought about checking the amplifier for mono/stereo type, and so
It's clear that it's stereo. Quite logical, and nothing objectionable in
this is not the case, however, if the guys had more experience in carrying out
of such events, they would check every one, even the most
obviously, a trifle. That's why I say that if there are any shortcomings and
were, then only due to inexperience... Then, during the demonstrationworks in nominations such as "intro" (that is, without music) presenter
constantly commented on something and joked in every possible way, obviously to
the public was not bored. Caring for the audience in itself
commendable, but in this form completely inappropriate, which is what was meant
reported to the organizers. On the second day the defect was corrected
(again: what attention and respect for the wishes of the audience!).
In addition, regarding music competitions: it’s a pity that our
the train arrived after the party had started, as a result of which we made it in time
just to the very end multichannel music compo. It's a pity because
only the next music competition (4 channel MOD) was successful
carry out humanly, namely, to finally build the sound
systemy (never trust default settings! :) and
organize output to the projector the number of the current job (instead of
to announce into the microphone every time). But the main thing is that any
the shortcomings noticed were immediately corrected, no one treated
the principle “it will do.”
We seem to have sorted out the disadvantages. Everything else is a plus! :)
Cheerful (but not noisy!) atmosphere, meeting deadlines (both
of the day the party ended not very late, and there was still time
chat, watch all sorts of videos and demos on the projector, and
during breaks you could go to a cafe), girls... :)
It should be noted that during non-competition times, spectators were offeredQuite a variety of entertainment. For example, people from different
cities showed their videos (somewhat reminiscent of HRG
video filming :), and I had the honor to enlighten the public on the subject
foreign demoparty, that is, to demonstrate and
comment on the video from EuroNews about Assembly'99 (thanks
Digimind, who heroically downloaded me a multi-megabyte
MPEG modem!). Work with Assembly animation was also shown
compo (second place is the most valuable, in my opinion), which
caused a mass of smiles and thunderous applause (as, indeed,
the following demo "SPASMO - Impossible Mission"). K
Unfortunately, the demo "Moral Hard" did not work on the projector
Candy" by Blasphemy (she has some kind of tricky video resolution), but
intriguing "now you will see the best demo created on PC in
lately" and the monitor placed on a raised platform, however
less, attracted all eyes - the demo was shown and also
caused applause. During another break there was
traditional children's fun - watching the video "Bill" three times
Gates and Cake", as well as a story about the first public demonstration
Windows'98 (when it hung before the eyes of y millions :). Occasionally
the pauses were filled with music, but not just like that, but with meaning, about what
reported inscriptions on the screen like "Assembly'99 MP3 music compo,1st place. Purple Motion" etc. Then also CocaCola drinking
compo, Wild compo... In general, what was happening was quite
varied and interesting. No less interesting events
also happened in the evening/night time: walks around the city,
completion of competition works, etc. By the way, one of the night
the walk could end with us spending the night on the street (we
returned to a closed door with a non-working intercom), if only
Nazgul/CEG with the grace of a real ninja would not jump at
balcony of the second floor and, making your way inside and going down to
first floor, would not have opened the door for us.
In general, funny moments happened at every step, not all
describe it. Individual shots: a fat, mustachioed (and drunk) conductor in
train, looking in surprise at the big one for a minute
a plastic bag with garbage in a bucket... and after it
I still manage to focus my gaze, with the words “Wow...
This is not a place for garbage..." with a practiced movement
throwing this bag out the train window. Or fell asleep on
award ceremony after a sleepless night Maxi G.C., who
sleepily crawls onto the stage and, instead of speaking as expected, gives
the phrase “Thank you everyone...” in the tone that is usually added
"Everyone is free." What about the idea of warming up pizza by ironing it with an iron? Athe only learned Tatar word is “gafuytgs” (“sorry”),
used instead of an interjection? Or the commentary from the presenter to 64K-
intro "this intro could compete with the works from the competition
megademo" and my sarcastic "exactly, the number of bagels"...
No, it was definitely fun, and, let me tell you, for one thing
It's worth going to a party in another city.
About the presented works. Hy, 4 channel MOD compo, like the most
high-quality at Russian competitions and not inferior to the best
foreign analogues :), and here it didn’t disappoint. Unconditional masterpieces
- two modules from Maxi G.C. But there were, however, not very successful ones.
work.
Graphics... The 3d render was dominated by Bryzovo landscapes. B
hand-drawn graphics competition, there were some good works, but by the standards
Bytefall they would have ended up somewhere in the middle of the result
list.
Multichannel Music (I listened to this already at home) - there were several
very professional works (Xanth, Maxi G.C., etc.), there were
just cute and good things (Megus, EA, Maxwell...), but there were also
strangely low quality. Why is it "strange"? Because after all
preselection was carried out, and I’m afraid to even imagine what happened
eliminated :) Although, from the selected two works it should be
disqualify: one was exhibited at paradox'99, the other
very similar to a remix (may the author forgive me - I’ll take it off beforehat's on him if he plays the guitar and drums like that and sings with
impeccable English pronunciation). However, half
The work is worth saving in the collection of modules.
Intro... I'm already a little confused and now I'm not able to
differentiate works according to nominations: PC 1Kb intro, BK 4K-intro,
ZX 4K-intro... It seems like there were good jobs everywhere. Here's PC 4K-
intro I still remember something: two works were very interesting.
Demo compo didn't happen. That is, one demy after all
They delivered it, they didn’t have time to finish the other one, etc. Full-fledged competition
it didn’t work out, and the authors of the out-of-competition demonstration (that is, we
:) they didn't want to. Hy, it's okay - in my opinion, no one
got upset. But there was a short animation compo (it seems
four works, and quite funny ones at that).
After the animation compo, the organizers left to count
votes (for the second day, since the first was counted the day before),
and we discovered an old piano behind the stage (with broken
keys, but perfectly tuned!) and with the appeared it is unclear
where the Beatlemaniac girls performed “Imagine”, followed by
"First Night By The Sea" :) It should be noted that even in the absence
The organizers behaved very decently. After closing
party there was trash left in the hall... one beer bottle. All.
Although there were about a hundred people :)Well, at the end there will be a traditional (but completely
sincere!) gratitude to the organizers and wish them to hold
CAFe will be even more successful next year.
P.S. Yes, well, and, of course, taking this opportunity, I want to convey
hello, etc. :) In general, I hope to see all the interesting people,
who I had a chance to meet at CAFe'99, at the next CAFe and
other demoparty. Hey and congratulations to all the winners and thank you
rivals in music competitions. Here it is :)
Bye. Yours Manwe/SandS.
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Best regards, Wladimi