Italy’s VIEW Conference celebrates its 17th anniversary with full program of keynote presentations, production sessions, workshops, talks and more.
TURIN, ITALY -- 2016 marks the 17th anniversary of the VIEW Conference, which brings top professionals in the animation, visual effects, game development, and overall computer graphics industry to Torino, Italy. Speakers at previous conferences have included Oscar winning directors, sound designers, screenwriters, game designers, musicians, visual effects supervisors, and researchers.
This year, Byron Howard, director of Disney’s blockbuster animated film Zootopia will keynote the conference as will producer Brad Lewis, who will present the animated film Storks for the first time in Italy. Additional keynote addresses will be given by Conrad Vernon, director of the surprise hit Sausage Party, Victoria Alonso, VP at Marvel Studios, Roger Guyett, Overall VFX Supervisor for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and computer graphics professor Dr. Donald Greenberg of Cornell. Dr. Greenberg will address virtual reality, the hottest topic this year, in his keynote address.
VIEW also welcomes many other top professionals who will also be speaking during the five-day conference. Audrey Ferrara from MPC in London is presenting The Jungle Book. VFX supervisor Steve Emerson and screenwriter Marc Haimes are coming from Laika studios to present Kubo and the Two Strings. Sharon Calahan from Pixar, a director of photography and recent inductee into the cinematography branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will share the visual design for the painterly realism in The Good Dinosaur in a talk and a workshop. Also from Pixar, John Halstead will introduce Hank the remarkable seven-legged CG octopus from the popular Disney/Pixar film Finding Dory.
Virtual Reality
- Dr. Greenberg, whose research is supported by Oculus, Pixar, DreamWorks, Microsoft, Intel, Valve and Autodesk as well as with government funding, has titled his keynote address, “VIRTUAL REALITY – What’s necessary to make it real?”
- Maureen Fan, CEO and Co-Founder of Baobab Studios examines storytelling in VR through her studio’s short film, Invasion, which has been accepted at traditional animation festivals.
- Lucasfilm CTO Rob Bredow will share Industrial Light & Magic’s adventures in immersive cinema through that studio’s VR research center, ILMxLAB.
- Brian Pullen, VR designer at Google will introduce Daydream, Google’s new high-end mobile VR platform.
- Luke Youngman, executive producer and Felix Massie, director at Nexus will bring Google Spotlight Stories to VIEW.
- Tuna Bora, production designer for Oscar winning Patrick Osborne’s Spotlight Story Pearl, will talk about designing in this new medium.
- Pratik Shah, a research scientist at MIT’s Media Lab showcases the use of VR in medicine.
Other speakers at VIEW 2016 include David Freiss, director of Open Season: Scared Silly; Ryan Tudhope, vfx supervisor for Deadpool; Troy Saliba, animation supervisor on Alice Through the Looking Glass; Josh Holmes, Creative Director for 343 Industries, Chris Perry, short film director and associate professor at Hampshire College; Adam Gazzaley and Matt Omernick from Akili; Daryl Anselmo, art director at Zynga; Adam Orth, creative director at Three One Zero; Siobhan Reddy, studio director at Media Molecule; Barry Meade, co-founder of Fireproof Studios; Adam Volker, creative director at Moonbot Studios; Daniel Fountain, puzzle designer at State of Play, and others yet to be announced.
VIEW’s unique format encourages the participation of speakers, whether keynote or those giving talks, throughout the week. The speakers can attend most of the talks as an audience member which facilitates a greater depth of interaction among speakers and audience members. Attendees also have an opportunity to learn from speakers in interactive workshops giving them a rare chance to learn from such highly successful and in-demand professionals.
Additional workshops include:
- Sharon Calahan (Pixar) on storytelling with light
- David Feiss (director of Open Season: Scared Silly) on storyboarding
- Troy Saliba (animation supervisor on Alice Through the Looking Glass) on animation posing and composition.
- J. C. Cornwell will offer portfolio reviews
- Alex Williams (head of animation at Escape Studios) will leads a 3D Animation “Taster”
For the first time, VIEW has stepped into the world of start-up incubation by offering game developers the opportunity to accelerate their investment potential. Five applicants will be selected by a team of experts and investors to participate in a virtual two-week program leading up to the VIEW conference where they will attend a four-day boot camp ending with a “pitch party” to investors.
Leading into VIEW is the annual digital movie festival, VIEWFest, will showcase an exciting program of animated films and talks including the Italian premiere of Laika Animation’s Kubo and the Two Strings, presented by visual effects supervisor Steve Emerson. SIGGRAPH 2016 Computer Animation Festival, Jason RM Smith will present the Italian premiere of the SIGGRAPH 2016 Traveling Electronic Theater. Also screening at VIEWFEST is Pixar’s animated short film Piper, Oscar-winner Patrick Osborne’s new VR short animation, Pearl, and Baobab’s VR short animated film, Invasion!
VIEWFEST takes place October 21 - 23 in Torino’s Cinema Massimo, the famous landmark, the Museo Nazionale del Cinema’s (Cinema Museum) theater.
VIEW Conference takes place October 24 - 28 in the city’s Torinoincontra, conference center.
Source: VIEW Conference
