VIEW 2015 Celebrating LAIKA’s 10th Anniversary

behind the scenes of LAIKA's 'Boxtrolls.'

TURIN, Italy -- VIEW 2015 has added a special Celebration of Laika’s 10th Anniversary, and also several special presentations about the future of video games, to this year’s extraordinary gathering of talent.

“This year’s VIEW Conference will be, without question, the best one we’ve ever presented!” says VIEW executive director Maria Elena Gutierrez. “I can’t wait for this year’s conference to begin.” VIEW 2015 takes place in Torino, Italy October 19-23.

Among its dozens of outstanding presentations, VIEW 2015 will host a special 10- year anniversary presentation by stop-motion animated specialists LAIKA. Visual effects supervisor Steven Emerson will present the world of big visual effects inside the tiny world of LAIKA, and will screen the LAIKA hit films Coraline and Paranorman.

VIEW 2015 is also hosting various sessions on the Future of Video Games: “Let’s Play Together: The Culture of Multiplayer in Videogames” and “Message In A Bottle: The Story of Telling Stories in Video Games.”

Led by Marco Mazzaglia, IT Manager/Videogame Evangelist with Ovosonico, the “Let’s Play Together” workshop will discuss how Massively Multiplayer Online games like World of Warcraft are only the final step of different ways of playing with other people. The goal of the workshop is to teach different ways of “playing together,” not only bounded to usual controller devices like keyboard/mouse/joypad, in order to enable attendees to start making their own best multiplayer game.

In his talk “The Story of Telling Stories in Video Games,” Mazzaglia will discuss how sometimes technology evolves faster than human creativity and how technology offers tools that wait to be used to tell stories or “send messages” to people in most disparate ways. Videogames are now one of the mediums that follow this rule. What are these tools and these techniques today? What “powers” do users have to tell their own stories? This session presents a journey through history and technology that will allow audience members to experience the new “alphabet of the future.”

Additional video game-themed presentations will include those from Harvey Parker and Scott Harber of Natural Motion Games talking about the new CSR2 auto racing game and Oscar nominee Henry Labounta and art director Ben Brundenell, chief visual officer at Zynga, who created the Dawn of Titans game.

Recapping the remakable Highlights of VIEW 2015:

• World premiere presentations of The Little Prince, The Peanuts Movie, and Kung Fu Panda 3.
• Visual Effects Supervisor Dadi Einarsson takes a look at Everest.
• A 40-year anniversary tribute to ILM with Oscar nominated visual effects supervisors Ben Snow and Tim Alexander, and a look at the making of Jurassic World, the number three box office leader of all time, with ILM animation supervisor Glen McIntosh and VFX supervisor Tim Alexander.
• A panel of powerful Women in Animation, featuring Producer Jinko Gotoh, Pixar’s Kim White, SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival Director Mikki Rose, SCAD Professor Deborah Fowler, and Producer Eleanor Coleman.
• Animation Film Directors panel with Mark Osborne (The Little Prince,) Jorge R. Gutierrez (The Book of Life,) Kris Pearn (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2,) Richard Starzak (Shaun the Sheep Movie,) and Shannon Tindle (On Ice).
• Aardman creative director Richard Starzak and producer Paul Kewley present Shaun the Sheep Movie.
• Michael Kurinsky explores Hotel Transylvania 2.
• Keynote speaker director Jorge Gutierrez journeys through his life of storytelling with pictures. Keynote speaker Shannon Tindle shares his adventures making a Google Spotlight Story. Oscar winner Glenn Entis recounts the spirit and stories of PDI.
• Director of Photography Kim White illuminates Joy, the main character in Pixar’s Inside Out.
• Presentation of The Peanuts Movie with Supervising Animator Scott Carroll.
• Keynote speaker Randy Thom, Director of Sound Design at Skywalker Sound and two-time Oscar winner, presents “Teaching the Camera to Listen: From Apocalypse Now to The Peanuts Movie.”
• A look at Home with Jason Reisig, Head of Character Animation at DreamWorks Animation.
• Pixels presentation with Daniel Kramer, Visual Effects Supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks.
• Behind the scenes of Night at the Museum 3 with MPC’s VFX supervisor Erik Nash.
• VIEW Conference Finale: world premiere keynote address on Kung Fu Panda 3 by DreamWorks Animation co-director Alessandro Carloni.
• Keynote address from Oscar-nominated VFX supervisor Chris Townsend presenting “Avengers: Age of Ultron, Hulk, Vision, and the Gang.”

“In addition to our extraordinary conference planned for this year, I also want to tell people to be sure to register now for the interactive workshops that happen on Monday, October 19, and during the conference,” Gutierrez adds. “We are presenting a wonderful opportunity for students and professionals from around the world to learn from Screenwriter David Misch, Director Kris Pearn, Photographer Michael Rubin, Chief Creative Officer Henry LaBounta, and all our other wonderful workshop coaches. I can’t think of any other gathering in the world where such a diverse array of talent would ever be possible.”                                

The VIEW Conference’s digital movie festival, VIEW FEST, also in Turin, takes place October 16-18.

Source: VIEW Conference

Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.