Erich Roth (left), exec director of VES, and Digital Eye Peter Plantec stand in front of the Kings Hall in Stuttgart during fmx/05. All photos courtesy of Peter Plantec. Photo credit: Kevin Geiger; all other photos: Peter Plantec.

I was asked to speak at fmx in 2004. At the time I didn’t even know what fmx was. I went. I spoke. I was impressed, so I spoke again this year about how to put together a “killer demo reel” on the 10th anniversary of the event, held April 27-30 in Stuttgart, Germany. I was amazed to discover that a record 3,500 people showed up for fmx/05, a 50% increase over last year. Fortunately, the organizers had expanded the program and attracted many top speakers. In addition, the percentage of women attending appears to be increasing rapidly.

On opening day, program coordinator/founder Thomas Haegele was surprised and delighted to be presented with a congratulatory video message from director Roland Emmerich (The Day After Tomorrow). Packed audiences got to hear first-rate international speakers talk about their animation and visual effects projects: Richard Chuang, co-founder of Pacific Data Images/PDI (today part of DreamWorks), keynote speakers Eric Roth (exec director of the Visual Effects Society), David Sproxton (Aardman Animations), Sims 2 art director David Patch (Electronic Arts), as well as representatives of the Academy Award-winning films The Incredibles and Spider-Man 2.

Wearing two hats I also hung out with all sorts of interesting, talented and often powerful people. I wanted to get a better feel for the state of Digital Content Creation (DCC) around the world.

A Big, Intimate Conference
fmx attracts a wide range of animators and vfx people from around the globe. In fact, in its 10th year, fmx/05 became the largest DCC conference in Europe. Heavily supported the Stuttgart Film Academy and the local Baden-Württemberg government as well as many commercial companies, including the familiar Softimage, Adobe and Autodesk. This year fmx also hosted the “sold out” Animago Awards too. Animago is the most important contest for digital content creation in German-speaking countries and is something to behold.

All in all, this is a big, well-organized event that feels small. I found it to be much more intimate than SIGGRAPH. I got to spend quality time, without loud music, with the people I wanted to talk with or renew old friendships with, and I met some new folks that I intend to stay in touch with. I’m also developing a more global view of our field. I only wish SIGGRAPH party organizers would take a cue. For years, I’ve been frustrated by networking with people over there amid loud music.

Meanwhile, the quality and quantity of the fmx/05 seminars and presentations were impressive. Most seminars were presented in English, but I found many of the ones on advanced vfx were in German. I don’t speak German, but not a problem. They all had simultaneous translation via earphones. I was very impressed with the quality of that service. It gave me access to information I would not otherwise have.

fmx is hosted in Stuttgart’s venerable Haus der Wirtschaft. This is the high-tech multimedia “Kings Hall,” which accommodates more than a thousand participants.

A Cornucopia of Presentations
It was frustrating to try and pick what presentations I could attend, since there were half a dozen going on at any one time. The range of topics was very large. “In-depth” seminars included:

• Ed Hooks’ famous “Acting for Animators” course.

• “Life drawing for animators” by U.S. artist Jeanine Breaker, famous for her spectacular wide aspect pastels.

• “VFX Producing” by vfx producer Sacha Bertram, author of VFX.

• “Developing Interactive Narrative Content Seminar” by the highly respected sagasnet, a German company specializing in helping producers develop content.