written by Johannes Wolters

Okay, there is one minor flaw in fmx. I had to go through three days of fmx09, but then I found it. Or better it found me. The house of commerce, this big old wonderful building, where fmx is placed is a truly great place for all the things going on. But the event has now conquered four floors of the place and every floor has very high walls. So if you want to run downstairs and upstairs to catch your next meeting, to get to your next discussion, whatever, you climbed in the end all together the Everest. Or at least your legs begin to revolt. So on the last day of fmx you notice more and more people (and not only the elderly ones), who take the elevators, a little bit hidden and a little bit slow. But that’s the only flaw I have found on this years edition of fmx. I have to admit this stairs-sport is also very healthy. May be not, with all the coffee you need to drain every piece of information from this awesome conference. Again the creators of the fmx, Renata and Thomas Haegele topped the event from last year and again the numbers of attendees increased. Again more and internationally renowned speakers came to Stuttgart, again for four days the sunny town became animator’s land And that in those dark and gloomy times of worldwide economic crisis. And I did not discover one unhappy face during all those days. Must be heaven!

By Peter Plantec

Considering the lousy state of the dollar and air travel, I'd think twice about attending any European conference. It comes down to a personal cost-benefit analysis and you must weigh a lot of personal factors. There is one Euro-conference I am going to -- fmx/08, and for good reason.

fmx is by far the most important, forward looking and entertaining media conference in Europe. Heavily funded by the regional government of Baden Wittenberg, Germany, as well as significant industry sponsorships, it represents one of the best values I've seen for people who want to network, be seen, and learn cutting-edge techniques and technology. That said; fmx is also possibly the most fun I have all year.

 

 

As Senior Vice President of Autodesk’s Media & Entertainment division since 2007, Marc Petit is responsible for the development and marketing of Autodesk’s digital entertainment creation products, including Autodesk® Flame®, Smoke®, FlareTM, Lustre®, 3ds Max®, Maya®, MotionBuilder®, Softimage®, Mudbox® and FBX® software and technology.  In a career that included almost a decade at then fledgling Softimage, as well as many years at Discreet, Marc has worked closely with production studios and understands some of the unique challenges they face.  Unlike companies in other industries, such as automotive or manufacturing system design, entertainment production studios create work product judged not by industry or consumer standards, but instead, by the subjective eye of one, or a small group of individuals. The competition is intense and the “look” that producers seek in their productions is always a shifting target.

 

 

As a visual effects supervisor at ILM, Ben Snow has helmed the vfx efforts on a number of high profile films, including both Iron Man films, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Terminator Salvation and King Kong.  Snow joined ILM in 1994 to work on three-dimensional computer graphics for Star Trek: Generations.

Currently Pixar’s Global Tech and Research TD, Christophe Hery joined the studio in 2010 after spending 17 years at ILM.  Hery’s most recent work involves writing new lighting models and rendering methods for yet unannounced shows.  In 2010 he received a Technical Achievement Award for the development of point-based rendering for indirect illumination and ambient occlusion. He is recognized throughout the industry as one of the leading technical innovators and researchers in areas of lighting and rendering.

Interviewed together by AWN, here are some of the highlights...

 

 

Clay Kaytis, a 16 year veteran of Walt Disney Animation, was one of 3 animation supervisors on Tangled.  His FMX 2011 presentation centered around how after several years of development, the animation team went back to basics, simplified their approach, learned valuable lessons on a daily basis from Glen Keane, and in a ridiculously short 8 months, completed work on the film.  As he explained, Tangled allowed Disney’s visual development artists, modelers, riggers, animators, and engineers to advance the art form and raise the bar for portraying subtlety and expression in CG human characters.  Clay walked the capacity crowd through the creative steps of bringing the characters to life, the iterative process that relied heavily on Glen’s original drawings and feedback, feedback that constantly challenged the CG artists to bring realistic motion, acting and feeling to the film.

During his interview for AWNtv, Clay gave great insight into the atmosphere of collaboration and team effort that has made work at Disney so rewarding and fulfilling.  This approach to animated filmmaking, he said, has raised the level of achievement considerably. 

FMX 2012 - 17th Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Transmedia

May 8-11, Stuttgart, Germany

Newsletter #3 - January 2012

While winter continues to freeze our feet, the FMX program is already beginning to blossom. New speakers confirm their attendance, and further exciting presentations and screenings fill desks and desktops at our FMX house. Just to give you an impression of the fantastic specialist crowd we are currently gathering at FMX: The internationally renowned media scholar and Transmedia pioneer Prof. Henry Jenkins has already confirmed his coming! What's more, we're happy to announce that Autodesk is now the first official Main Partner of this year's exciting FMX.

Here we go again! It's May again, so time to travel to Stuttgart, Germany to meet, to listen, to open the eyes and the minds, to feel the sense of wonder, the pulse of the future and to be amazed by the achievements of the many professionals, as well as those of the bold young students, who present their work. For the 15^th time the Conference on Animation, Effects, Games & Interactive Media starts today and — business as usual — this year's program let your mouth drool, if you are a big fan of those wondrous worlds.

Fifteen editions ago, in 1994, the small and tiny “Film and Medienbörse Stuttgart” was held for the very first time – Prof. Thomas Haegele and his team decided to translate the German term into English and the “Film and Media eXchange” in short FMX was born.

 

 

The short film a.maize won the VES Award in the category "Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project" at yesterday's 10th Annual VES Awards in Los Angeles. The short film and FMX 2011 trailer, that was created by Falko Paeper, Roman Kaelin und Florian Wittmann, was one of three entries from the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg. a.maize was chosen as best of six nominated films at the VES Award ceremony. The VES Awards are annually bestowed by the Visual Effects Society (VES) and count among the most prestigious distinctions in the realm of Visual Effects. This year's Awards took place on February 7th in Beverly Hills.

AWNtv has posted sneak peeks of the interviews and attractions of day one through four of FMX 2010. Hear words of wisdom and impressions of the event from industry superstars like Marc Weigert, Volker Engel, Tim Sarnoff, Bruno Velazquez, David Schaub, Bruce W. Smith, Hendrickson, John Bruno, Stuart Sumida, Ben Grossman, David Sproxton, Mohen Leo, Victoria Alonso and Ed Hooks.

View them all at the FMX Channel on AWNtv!

 

 

Scorsese's Hugo grabs five Oscars: Best Visual Effects winner Rob Legato comes to FMX!
FMX mixes it up with Academy Award winners: In 2012, we dedicate two presentations to Martin Scorsese's first 3D animation feature Hugo. The critically acclaimed film has won five Awards including "Best Visual Effects" at yesterday's ceremony. Hugo features elaborate VFX that were created primarily by Pixomondo. FMX is thrilled to present Hugo's leading Visual Effects Supervisor Rob Legato as a main speaker at this year's event. Together with Ben Grossmann (Pixomondo) he talks about the challenges involved in making Hugo. What's more, in a second presentation you are able to get even closer to Hugo when Grossmann is joined by Matthew Gratzner (New Deal Studios) to dissect the impressive train sequence.