Dennis Muren, Hans Zimmer, Mireille Soria and other top creative innovators from animation, VFX and games to present at 5-day event.
TURIN, ITALY – Program selections have been completed for Italy’s largest digital media conference, VIEW 2018, running October 22 to 26, with five full days now set with award-winning speakers and workshop leaders presenting their work in visual effects, virtual reality, film scoring and sound, storytelling, art direction, photography, animation, games, and multimedia.
“I’m extremely excited to present the full program for VIEW 2018,” says Dr. Maria Elena Gutierrez, director of the curated conference. “We have Oscar, BAFTA, VES, Emmy, Golden Globe, Grammy, Annecy, and Annie winners coming to Torino to join the VIEW family and share their knowledge and amazing artistry with our attendees. I’m telling everyone: Don’t miss this year’s conference!”
Keynote speakers for VIEW 2018 include:
- Hans Zimmer, composer and record producer known for integrating the electronic musical world with traditional orchestral arrangements, has composed scores for more than 150 films, won 120 awards (Oscar, BAFTA, Grammy, and more), and received 231 award nominations. He is currently working on Wonder Woman 1984, The Lion King, and X-Men: Dark Phoenix.
- Dennis Muren, creative director, Industrial Light & Magic and legendary senior visual effects supervisor, has received nine Academy Awards and 13 Oscar nominations for best visual effects, more than any other visual effects supervisor. He became a VES Fellow in 2010.
- Mireille Soria, President, paramount Animation, formerly producer for DreamWorks’ Madagascar Films, now leads Paramount’s animation division. In 2006, she was nominated for the Producer Guild of America’s outstanding producer award.
- Rob Bredow, senior vice president, executive creative director, and head of ILM, was a co-producer and overall visual effects supervisor for Solo: A Star Wars Story. He has received multiple VES award nominations and an Annie Award nomination.
- Dr. Donald Greenberg, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Computer Graphics at Cornell University, continues to pioneer innovations in computer graphics and virtual reality with his students. He has received many honors including the highest honor in computer graphics, the Steven Anson Coons award.
- John Gaeta, senior vice president creative strategy at Magic Leap, a developer of mixed reality technology, is known for his work on the Matrix trilogy (Oscar and BAFTA award), and for co-founding Lucasfilm’s Immersive Entertainment division ILMxLAB, where he was executive creative director.
- Nora Twomey, director and co-founder of Cartoon Saloon, received Oscar, Annie Award and Annecy Cristal nominations this year, for the studio’s animated feature The Breadwinner. She previously won an audience award at Annecy for The Secret of Kells.
- Jan Pinkava, creative director for Google Spotlight Stories, received an Oscar for directing the animated short film Geri’s Game, an Oscar nomination for writing the animated feature film Ratatouille, and a 2018 Primetime Emmy nomination for Spotlight Stories’ interactive program Back to the Moon.
- Kim Davidson, founder and CEO of SideFX, received an Academy Technical Achievement award in 1998, and this year accepted, on behalf of SideFX, an Academy Award of Merit and Oscar statue for the creation and development of the Houdini visual effects and animation system.
It’s the 25th anniversary of the Jurassic film series that began in 1993 with Steven Spielberg’s ground-breaking Jurassic Park -- Dennis Muren served as visual effects supervisor on the film, which single-handedly led Hollywood into the brave new world of CG effects. Fellow Industrial Light & Magic artists joining Muren at VIEW this year are David Vickery, who was overall visual effects supervisor for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Glen McIntosh, animation supervisor on the two most recent Jurassic films.
More conference highlights:
- Visual effects supervisors showing their work on major feature films and other projects include Dan Glass (Deadpool 2), Geoffrey Baumann (Black Panther), Bill Watral (Incredibles 2), Matt Aitken (Avengers: Infinity War), Dadi Einarsson (Adrift), Mike Ford (Hotel Transylvania 3), Jaoa Sita (Image Engine), Jay Worth (HBO), Juri Stanosske (Mackevision), and Karl Herbst (Smallfoot).
- Industry leaders presenting at VIEW include Glenn Entis, PDI co-founder and currently part-time consultant and advisor to animation, videogame, and digital media companies; Aaron Allport, vice president, Art-King; Milan Jovovic, co-founder and chief creative officer at Nordeus, Wieke Schrakamp, communication manager, IJsfontein; and Heiko Burkardsmaier, executive producer, Mackevision.
- From the world of animation, VIEW speakers include Emmy award-winning director Vincent Morisset at Studio AATOAA; Marino Guarieri who directed Gatta Cenerentola; Simone Giampaolo, director of animation at Aardman Animation; Alex Williams, head of animation at Escape Studios; Troy Saliba, director of animation at Double Negative; Ronald Kurniawan, production designer for Smallfoot: and Annie Award winner Danielle Feinberg, director of photography for Coco at Pixar Animation Studios.
- Storytellers at VIEW this year include Daytime Emmy award winner Kan Lee, head of story at Baobab Studios; David Misch, producer, stand-up comedian, and screenwriter; and Emanuela Cozzi, storyboard artist at Laika.
- Art directors at VIEW: Peter Ellis, art director, Epic Games; VES award winner Nathan Phail-Liff, art director, Ready At Dawn; BAFTA winner Jan-Bart Van Beek, art director, Guerilla Games; and BAFTA winner Henry LaBounta, senior art director at Electronic Arts.
- Creative directors at VIEW include Nathan Fox, creative director, Sucker Punch Productions; Veselin Efremov, creative director at Unity Technologies; and Marco Ivancich, multimedia design manager at Pininfarina;
- Rounding out the program are Gianni Ricciardi, audio director and music producer at WANT Musik and Matteo Milani, sound designer at Unidentified Sound Object.
The international VIEW Conference, Italy’s premiere event for Computer Graphics, Interactive and Immersive Storytelling, Animation, Visual Effects, Games, and VR, AR, and Mixed Reality, brings top professionals from those fields to the beautiful baroque city of Torino, Italy for a week of talks, presentations, and workshops.
Registration for the conference is now open.
Watch AWN interviews with past VIEW Conference presenters on AWN’s YouTube Channel.
Source: VIEW Conference
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.