ILM's Chief Creative Officer and Senior Visual Effects supervisor John Knoll kicks off the VIEW Conference on October 15.
From Foodimals to giant robots, games to comic books, growing a business to fostering research, lighting photorealistic characters to rigging cartoon characters, and storytelling in all forms, VIEW 2013 is nearly at hand with a great story to tell. The VIEW conference, Italy’s premiere digital media conference, runs October 15 to 18, immediately following VIEWFest, October 11 to 13.
At VIEWFest, The Italian premiere of the animated film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 with directors Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn. Director Dan Scanlon will present Disney/Pixar’s much loved animated blockbuster, Monsters University. Javier Jimenez, co-founder of Mirada Studios will attend the “Tribute to Mirada,” featuring some of the finest music videos and commercials of our times. And, award-winning independent filmmaker Peter Chanthanakone will introduce three of his animated short films.
Also screening at the digital film festival: the Italian premiere of the animated mini-feature The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow, Pixar’s short animated film “Blue Umbrella,” the live-action feature Gravity, the documentary Google and the World Brain, the best of SIGGRAPH 2013, and Italian Mix 2013. October 14 brings three VIEW pre-conference workshops, an all-day workshop on lighting, appearance, and animation for photoreal digital actors with computer graphics master, Paul Debevec, Associate Director, Graphics Research – USC Institute for Creative Technologies. PDI/DreamWorks Character TD Supervisor Lucia Modesto provides rigging principles for animators, and Daniele Angelozzi offers modeling for 3D printing. All three will present further workshops or talks during the conference.
No matter what form digital media takes, at its center is the story and VIEW 2013 offers an inside look at storytelling from renowned professionals. Javier Jimenez co-founded the studio Mirada with director Guillermo del Toro, director Mathew Cullen and director of photography Guillermo Navarro and has since collaborated with leading creative minds in feature film, television, advertising and literature. David Misch author of “Funny: The Book / Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Comedy” has been a comic folksinger, stand-up comedian, and screenwriter. Yiotis Katsambas, FLIX Product Manager at The Foundry and original in-house developer of FLIX at Sony Pictures Imageworks, will discuss the revolutionary workflow that allows for unparalleled creative collaboration between directors, editors, cinematographers, storyboard and previs artists. David Volker, Creative Director of Moonbot Interactive will offer games as an expressive medium.
Industrial Light & Magic’s Chief Creative Officer and Senior Visual Effects supervisor John Knoll kicks off the VIEW Conference on October 15 with a keynote address during which he will deconstruct the visual effects in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim from Warner Bros. Other speakers focusing on live action visual effects include ILM’s Roger Guyett (Star Trek into Darkness), Christopher Townsend (Iron Man 3), Image Engine’s Peter Muyzers (Elysium), Framestore’s Max Solomon (Gravity), Look! Effects Henrik Fett (The Making of Warm Bodies), Sony Pictures Imageworks’ Troy Saliba (Oz the Great and Powerful), and MPC’s Marco Carboni (World War Z).
Sony Pictures Animation’s Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn, directors of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, give the closing keynote and in between offer a workshop on creating the wacky Foodimals stars of their animated feature. Also taking attendees through the making of animated films are Pixar Supervising TD Christopher Burrows who helped create the stunning backgrounds in the short film “Blue Umbrella, and Sandra Karpman who offers “The Secret Camera Rules of Pixar.” Bruno Chauffard will present the making of Despicable Me, writer/director Stephan Franck will present his animated special The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow, independent filmmaker Peter Chanthanakone tells attendees how to accelerate the 3D animation pipeline for independent short films, and Massimo Carrier and a crew from Maga Animation Studios offer a layout workflow for CGI action TV series. Two experts in stereoscopy offer their knowledge and experience to attendees interested in live action, animated films and games: Parag Havaldar from Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Jon Karafin, director of production technology at RealD.
Game and transmedia developers will revel in talks by Adam Volker (Moonbot Interactive creative director), Massimo Guarini (Ovosonico president and CEO), Marco Mazzaglia (IT Manager and evangelist at Milestone), Luca Deriu (CEO Playsis), Francesco Testa (Lastrego & Testa Multimedia), Matteo Da Pont (CEO Ovolab), (CEO Touch Press), and David Moscato (CEO Kobalt Entertainment).
During the conference, attendees can master CG tools and techniques in the many practical workshops on specific software tools. And, because we all know that it takes more than artistry and software skills to create a successful career, Matteo Lana and Rocco Tartaglia from Tiny Bull Studios share the joys and sorrows of being Indie developers, Antonio Farina gives his advice to Indie developers, David Salesin, who leads the Adobe Creative Technologies Lab, which he founded in 2005, gives his observations on doing research and on creating sublime user experiences, Glenn Entis, co-founder of PDI, former CEO of DreamWorks Interactive, and Chief Visual and Technical Officer of Electronics Arts, and a founding partner of Vanedge Capital, shares lessons learned from a career in digital media, or “The Talk I Wish I Had Heard 36 Years Ago.” “I am so honored that these amazing people have agreed to share their knowledge and inspire our VIEW Conference attendees,” says conference director Maria Elena Gutierrez. “October is a beautiful time to be in Torino, and 2013 is one of the most exciting years ever to be at the VIEW Conference.”
The VIEW Conference takes place in beautiful Torino, Italy on October 15 to 18, with pre-conference workshops on October 14. VIEWFest takes place October 11 to 13.
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
