2014 VIEW Conference Keynote Speakers Announced

“Alvy Ray Smith, Glen Keane, and Tom McGrath are highly respected gurus in the computer graphics and digital entertainment industry, and we are ihonored to host them in our beautiful city,” says conference director Dr. Maria Elena Gutierrez. 

As Gutierrez explains, Alvy Ray Smith invented core computer graphics technology and co-founded Pixar, the first studio to make a CG feature film, the famous Toy Story. “Glen Keane created and animated some of our most renowned and most-loved Disney characters: Tarzan, the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, Ariel in The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, and Aladdin. Now, he’s working with Google to create a state-of-the-art interactive, animated story for mobile devices. Tom McGrath wrote and directed one of the most successful CG animated feature film franchises, the three-film Madagascar series, the first to give CG animated characters a wacky cartoon style, ” she adds. In November, DreamWorks will release the fourth film in the series, The Penguins of Madagascar, for which Tom McGrath was a writer and executive producer and also the lead as the voice of Skipper the Penguin. 

The 2014 VIEW conference will take place October 14 to 17 in Turin (Torino), Italy, a baroque city in the foothills of the Alps known for cars, chocolate, and cinema. The largest computer graphics conference in Italy, VIEW is celebrating its 15 th  year of bringing top talent and remarkable visionaries to Turin. The VIEW conference follows the annual VIEWFest digital film festival. Most talks are in English, with translation available to and from Italian and English.

“We will roll out announcements to introduce more speakers and our workshop series over the next few weeks, so please stay tuned,” Gutierrez says. “I am so enthusiastic about our 2014 program. It matches the amazing conferences we’ve had before and takes us beyond.”

More information can be found at www.viewconference.it.