I checked the calendar and recalled that six years ago yesterday, I returned from a junket to Catalina Island courtesy of the MetaCreations Corporation, which held its first (and only) company retreat from October 16-18, 1997.

MetaTools (Kai's Power Tools, Bryce, Kai's Power Goo) of Carpenteria, CA, was cash rich in the tech salad days and recently merged with rival software company Fractal Design (Painter, Poser and Ray Dream, from a recent acquisition) of Scott's Valley, CA, to create MetaCreations, "The Visual Computing Software Company." They acquired the companies Specular (Infini-D) and most signicantly, Real Time Geometry of Princeton, NJ. This would be the first time that all the employees from the various companies would be in one place at the same time.

MetaCreations vice-president of communications Sallie Olmstead called me a couple of weeks before the retreat to tell me that CEO John Wilczak had wanted me to photographically document the event. I had taken photos of MetaTools booths at several trade shows and company parties in San Francisco, including one at the Exploratorium in 1996 that had Chris Isaak as the main entertainment and Stanley Jordan as the opening act. She said my wife, Lupita, was invited to come along as well. "She can be the photographer's assistant," she said. "Twist my arm," I answered.

We walked onto Southwest flight #924 departing from San Jose on the morning of October 16, 1997. The Fractal Design employees that comprised the majority of the passengers looked on with suspicion as I entered wearing my MetaCreations t-shirt with chrome trefoil logo on the back. Not only had they not even SEEN the t-shirt before (MetaCreations employee Teresa Bridwell had given it to me the previous month at Seybold SF) but I subsequently learned that they HATED the idea of losing their identity and feared that their products would all be reformatted with Kai Krause-designed interfaces (we should all be so lucky, hehe...).

We arrived at LAX and were transported to Long Beach for embarking on the Catalina Express as we passed by the Queen Mary, past the breakwater and out towards the tiny town of Avalon on Santa Catalina Island. The day was sunny and clear with the salt water spray and breeze of the 1 hour and 15 minute ride providing a memorable tactile sensation.

After checking into the Glenmoore Hotel, we spent the day exploring the downtown area. We came across Shawn Brenneman as he was displaying his yo-yo prowess in a local restaurant. In the evening we were treated to dinner and dance inside the Avalon Ballroom and Casino. Comic relief was provided by actor Charles Fleischer, an avid Bryce addict. You may recall him as the voice of "Roger Rabbit" from the Disney film.

What a blast it was to be inside this lovely and historic structure - I thought of the likes of Benny Goodman and other classic big bands performing there in the era's heyday. But it was the synergy of having all this brilliant and creative brain power concentrated in one place that was the most exciting: Kai Krause, Alexander "Sasha" Migdal, Mark Zimmer, John Wilczak, Ben Weiss, Andrea Pessino, Phil Clevenger, John Derry, Ken Musgrave, Sreekant Kotay, Frank Casanova, Ian Gilman, Jackson Ting and just too many more to name.

After dinner, each of us were given a duffel bag containing a hat, fanny pack, long-sleeve shirt and "letterman's jacket," all with the MetaCreations trefoil logo embroidered on it.

The next morning's presentation inside the sumptuous art deco theater beneath the Avalon Ballroom began with a keynote by the Jet Propulsion Lab team that worked on the Mars Pathfinder rover, the lesson being to demonstrate what can be achieved through team work and innovation. After the JPL talk, MetaCreations CEO John Wilczak gave a Kai's Power Show presention of the company's arsenal of products, stock performance and goal of creating "a new web design tool series based on MetaCreations technology." Following the lecture he made the extraordinary claim to the convened 300 employees that rumors that he and Kai Krause didn't get along with each other were untrue.

John then announced a break and instructed all to exit the theater so that the photographer (me) could get a group photo. Here's the only group portrait ever taken of MetaCreations:

Then, various software product demonstrations ensued. Mark Zimmer demonstrated a paint product that had an interface similar to that which first appeared in KPT 5. Next, Kai took to the stage and demonstrated Kai's Photo Soap and a product called "Turbulance" which showed a Goo-like "funware" concept that took the high math of the algorithms in a simple and intuitive interface (it was never released as a standalone product, but was incorporated into KPT 6).

But the product that made the greatest impression was a scanning camera that used triangulation to capture a 3-D surface area, complete with color and texture information, based on technology gleaned from MetaCreations' acquisition of Real Time Geometry (RTG). Former Russian nuclear physicist Alexander "Sasha" Migdal, founder of RTG, continued the presentation and demonstrated how the economical "trixels" of the technology could facilitate 3-D streaming on the web. He also showed a 3-D model technology called "Chisel," which was never released.

After a brief Q&A with Wilczak, Kai, Zimmer and Migdal, all were dismissed to enjoy the day, as employees played miniature golf, biking, went for a cruise on a glass bottomed boat, or - like Julie Sigwart - went scuba diving in the 90-foot visibility waters.

After resting up mid-afternoon, the main event of the retreat was a luau on Descanso Beach. While I was photographing the employees at their tables and socializing by tiki torch, Lupita put together a plate of food for me, letting me know that she'd put extra guacamole on my plate. Well, I was hungry and shoveled down the "guacamole," later - after drenching my throat with a couple of Corona's - learned that it was wasabe, not guacamole. Sree Kotay said, "Too bad no one took a photo of that!"

We all - yes, photographer included - continued dancing and drinking to life, the plan was brilliant. Wilczak had accomplished the enmeshing of the various cultures, at least for one night. Someone brought forth some Bacardi 151 proof rum (or was it lighter fluid?) and a few brave, drunken souls spit out the liquid in a flaming plume, much to the delight of the crowd.

Many had donned the MetaCreations shirt given the previous night, some wore Hawaiian shirts to coordinate with the plastic leis and fraying palm hats on their heads. Others wore t-shirts with the name "Skunk Works" on the back, and one gentleman wore a t-shirt saying, "As a matter of fact, I AM a Rocket Scientist." Not sure if that was Doc Mojo, or someone left over from JPL...

Party on: after the luau, many ended up at a pool hall and after a while, Lupita and I headed out for someplace quieter. Out near the waters edge we came across Dr. Sasha Migdal still wearing his lei and palm hat on his head - he looked like the cartoon ad character that would ask, "How would you like a nice Hawaiian Punch?" We wandered into a restaurant called the Blue Parrot, and there in the bar was Kai playing 3 games simultaneously with 3 different people: Phil (Go) and Ben and Andrea (chess). So we stayed there for the rest of the evening.

The next morning was combination hangover and the blues signaling the end of what we all sensed was an amazing, truly unique - perhaps historic - event. We headed off of Catalina Island back to Long Beach for the trip back to San Jose and the 100 mile drive back home to Modesto.

I sent all negatives to Sallie Olmstead after making a few prints and duplicate contact sheets of the 30 rolls of film I'd shot (30 X 36 exposure rolls = 1,080 images). Referring to the contact sheets was how I was able to provide such detailed recollections of the event.

Regrettably, a few short months later, Wilczak exited and signaled the beginning of the end of what made MetaTools/MetaCreations special. A year later, Kai left the company. If John was the head of the company, Kai was its heart and soul. What remained was finally gutted at the end of 1999 as MetaCreations sold all graphics programs to focus exclusively on MetaStream, streaming 3-D for the web, based on the RTG technology.

Unfortunately, the negatives from the event disappeared and no former employee I've contacted knows where they are. God, I'd love to have those back. If anyone knows where they are or who might have them, let me know so I can retrieve them and to expand my Meta photo gallery on my site and make them available for anyone that might want. The negatives might be in a yellow Kodak photogaphic paper box.

Some former employees remain nostalgic for those days, others - embittered - want to forget. Craig Clevenger won't even mention his former employer's name in his blog.

But I can't forget. I'm stuck as historian for this grand experiment and this lovely time six years ago that might've been lost forever.

Posted by: Adrian / 7:02 PM
permalink