Cross-pollination was in the air at Haus der Wirtschaft, which housed this year’s fmx. With cutting edge presentations and multimedia halls, fmx is no SIGGRAPH, but has its own identity. Unless noted otherwise, all images courtesy of fmx.

The air in Stuttgart was charged with yellow-green dust as southern Europe experienced one of the heaviest pollen seasons in decades. Nobody seemed to be bothered by it… not even me. It was prophetic. Cross-pollination was in the air and fmx/06 was at the core.

Haus der Wirtschaft — Stuttgart’s largest building — is rooted firmly in the center of this ancient city. With more than 5,500 square meters (more than 17,000 square feet) of exhibition space, this magnificent, battle-scarred 19th century venue has been updated with taste and affection. Today, it is one of the most cutting edge and comfortable multimedia exhibition halls in Europe. Sure, the Haus may be small by Las Vegas standards, but what it lacks in square footage, it makes up for in charm and class. It is the traditional home of fmx and was the site of fmx/06, the 11th International Conference on Animation, Effects, Realtime and Content, held May 3-6. Make no mistake, fmx has no aspirations to be like SIGGRAPH, it has charted its own separate destiny and you really ought to know about it.

fmx/06 was, by any measure, a huge success. This is a complex business, so there is no way I can give you a complete description of it here. It might help you to go to its website and look around a bit. They have a complete schedule of what went on there, but I’ll give you my take on it. As I’ve stressed over and over, fmx retains a measure of intimacy and accessibility that SIGGRAPH used to have years ago. It’s a grand show and it pulls in the right people from everywhere. Oh, and it is nearly entirely in English — now the international standard language in media entertainment. If you happen to crave one of the few presentations given in another language (and I did, several times), there’s simultaneous translation via wireless earphones.

Here are just a few statistics about fmx to get you up to speed. This year saw more than 5,000 visitors, an increase of 40% from last year, with many of the new visitors coming from the U.S. The schedule was peppered with talks, screenings, workshops and demonstrations that ranged from technically interesting to artistically fascinating — 350 speakers in all. They came from all over the world and presented a first-class line up of more than 300 talks, demos, workshops and screenings about creation, production and distribution in all forms of digital content. I’m sure there were a few clunkers among the talks, but I didn’t see one.

The important thing is: all these brilliant minds in one place lead to a lot of cross communication. You’ve got games people talking with key feature film people, content producers talking with content buyers, the press talking with everybody and perhaps, most important of all, students talking with potential employers… strutting their stuff. I came home with a pile of DVDs to review and give feedback on. The few I’ve seen so far are way above average; at least one is stunning.

AWN’s Dan Sarto dug into a treasure trove of animated films to present some truly strange and brilliant pieces. Courtesy of Peter Plantec.

I attended as many presentations as I could and found myself impressed. Since I often teach a course on how to create a great demo reel, I naturally gravitated to screenings of impressive short animation like Shelly Page’s “Eye Candy,” and our own Dan Sarto’s “Choice” animations. Shelly is always a treat and Dan dug deep into his archive of new favorites and came up with some truly strange and brilliant pieces.

The quality of speakers is always very high at fmx and this year pushed that standard even higher. Meanwhile, I presented a seminar on how to get the job you want in digital animation, anywhere in the world, as part of the recruitment effort at fmx. This program gives young people and established artists and technicians the opportunity to get the inside poop on what’s expected and to sit down with studio people that count. In most cases they actually got to sit down with the ceo or producer or key HR people and present their case and ask questions. I also hosted several panels where studios from both eastern and western Europe talked about what it would be like working for them, where their pay scale sits and what their expectations are.

Another interesting happening in cross-pollination came from the large number of studios from not only Europe, but also China and India. These areas are also big media buyers and sure enough, buyers were talked about what they’re looking for. I got to chat with many of them to gain insight into distant emerging media markets.

But maybe the biggest draw at fmx was the chance to see how it was all done. The super multimedia presentation halls were packed to overflowing with visitors anxious to experience the content creation wisdom of our times. Here is just a taste:

The first presentation I saw was on advanced concept pitching. Pascal Rodon and Pierre Marie Fenech of Action Synthèse in Marseille gave a fascinating presentation on how they are pitching the idea of a new Wizard of Oz movie using the original sound track with Judy Garland, but lip-synching animated characters. They demonstrated how they created a few minutes of finished footage to invoke the charm of the final movie. It was very impressive. With typically exquisite French art direction and lovely character design, that short clip would certainly sell me on the film. If Hollywood doesn’t grab a piece of it, they’re crazy.

Oscar winner Chris Landreth was there, but sudden illness prevented him from getting in on all the action. I’d looked forward to seeing him again.