The Future of Filmmaking

The first week of December, Jon's team, in collaboration with the Autodesk Media and Entertainment Industry Strategy and Marketing Team held a workshop on THe Future of Filmmaking. The venue was the Annenberg Beach House on the beach in Santa Monica. We had a very accomplished group who looked at how filmmaking and storytelling might unfold 10 years in the future.

Holiday Lunch

In early December Jon's Autodesk team held a holiday lunch with a white elephant gift exchange.

Holiday Card

We did not really have a Christmas at home this year because of our trip to Antarctica. We did get our holiday card out, however.

Buenos Aires

Enroute to Antarctica, we flew to Buenos Aires, Argentina, on an overnight Christmas Eve flight. We arrived Christmas morning. We had been there on our 2011 sabbatical and really enjoyed the city. We arrived on Christmas day to sun and 85 degree weather. Because it was Christmas, the city was very quiet, except for the parks. We spent a couple of days reacquainting ourselves with the city - going to Ricoleta Cemetary and La Boca. The last time we were in Buenos Aires, we missed going to a tango show. A friend whose parents are from Buenos Aires arranged for us to get private tango lessons and go to a tango dinner show at El Quarandi. After our day and eventing of tango, we met up with our National Geographic guides and fellow travellers and departed for Ushuaia.

Ushuaia

We flew from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, our port of departure for Antarctica. Before boarding our ship, we took a bus tour of the Tiera Del Fuego National Park before we boarded a catamaran for a lunch tour of the Beagle Channel, where we saw some of the first wildlife - birds and seals - of our trip. Late in the afternoon we boarded the National Geographic Explorerand familiarized ourselves with our stateroom and the ship before a late evening departure across Drake's Passage for Antarctica, our 7th and last continent to explore.

Antarctica

From December 29-January 6, we took a cruise to Antarctica aboard the National Geographic Explorer. It was a fabulous trip, that was very professionally run by National Geographic naturalists and photographers. See our National Geographic expedition portfolo for detailed information on the trip. The explanations for each day below are excerpts from National Geographic daily expedition reports. Note - to see detailed National Geographic daily expedition reports for each day, click once on the expedition portfolio link above and return. The links below will then work properly.

National Geographic also produced this video chronicle of our trip...

Antarctica - Drake Passage

December 29. Today we experienced the rare “Drake Lake” – an infrequent event where the Drake Passage is calm and merciful. While it provided comfort to most on board, it made bird-spotting somewhat difficult. After all, the birds which inhabit this normally ferocious sea rely on strong winds to take to the air in search of food. While the abundance of birds was low, we documented an impressive 13 species. Tonight we cross the Antarctic Convergence Zone and push south of 60 degrees and into Antarctic waters.

National Geographic Daily Expedition Report* and RizbeeOnTheRoad blog post.

Antarctica - Half Moon Island

December 30. We have met Antarctica! Just after noon we spotted our first iceberg and knew we were approaching. By the time lunch ended National Geographic Explorerwas cruising amongst the South Shetland Islands, just off the Bransfield Strait, on the Northwest side of the Antarctic Peninsula. The navigation was full of beautiful sights of glaciers, penguins in the water, and whales to boot! We motored into Halfmoon Island to the site of a scarcely manned Argentine research base and landed amongst the abundant chinstrap penguins and numerous seabirds and seals scattered across the beach. A fantastic place to begin our tour of Antarctica. After a nice leg-stretch around the island and plenty of time to fill up our memory cards we headed home to the ship for dinner but were delayed by encountering a tabular iceberg of enormous proportions. Recap was scratched, and dinner pushed back while we cruised along the 100ft wall of ice that no doubt dropped another thousand feet below the waves. Nearly a square mile, this ice surely came from a massive ice sheet to the south and is most likely the largest berg many of us will ever see. A fine welcome to the white continent indeed! .

National Geographic Daily Expedition Report* and RizbeeOnTheRoad blog post.

Antarctica - Useful Island and Lamaire Channel

December 31. National Geographic Explorerspent a calm morning at Portal Point on Charlotte Bay fjord. We hiked on the snow-covered peninsula with several steep ice cliffs and, much to our delight, had the opportunity to slide down a snow slope. We had incredible views across the fjord at the glaciated mountains in all directions and spotted humpback whales and seals during a Zodiac cruise around the fjord. One iceberg we saw had a huge ice arch, which collapsed as we watched.

In the afternoon, we experienced Useful Island, a low granite island in the middle of a channel filled with icebergs.

National Geographic Daily Expedition Report* and RizbeeOnTheRoad blog post.