VIEW Conference 2014 to Feature Industry Heavyweights
September 11, 2014

VIEW Conference 2014 to Feature Industry Heavyweights

TURIN, ITALY – Attendees at Italy’s largest computer graphics conference, to be held October 14-17 in beautiful Turin, Italy, can now register online at  http://viewconference.it/    for the full conference, for inspiring and creative workshops led by award-winning professionals, and for practical master classes taught by expert users.

“I know from experience that the workshops and classes will fill up fast, so people should register as early as they can,” says Dr. Maria Elena Gutierrez, conference director. “We are fortunate to welcome back, by popular demand, the incredibly creative and two-time Annie nominee, Kris Pearn, co-director of the animated feature Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. Also, the brilliant Lucia Modesto, supervising character technical director at PDI/DreamWorks for Mr. Peabody and Sherman; the amazing David Schaub, animation supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks for The Amazing Spider-Man who has received Oscar and BAFTA nominations, seven VES nominations, and a VES award ; and the remarkable Brenda Bakker Harger , theater director, improviser, and professor at the entertainment technology center at Carnegie Mellon University.”

“Also this year, for the first time,” she adds, “we are welcoming Rob Coleman, animation supervisor at Animal Logic for The Lego Movie, former animation director at Industrial Light & Magic for the Star Wars Episodes I, II, and III, two-time Oscar and BAFTA nominee, and three-time VES award nominee. And, we have instructors who will give practical workshops on products from Autodesk, Wacom, Maxon, and Pixologic.”

In addition to the workshops, Coleman, Schaub, Modesto, and Bakker Harger join other award-winning speakers throughout the week who will share information about their studios’ work on the major visual effects and animated feature films of 2014, video games, virtual reality, and other exciting areas of computer graphics. 

Keynoting the VIEW conference are award-winning director, writer, producer and actor Tom McGrath from DreamWorks Animation, artist, inventor, author, entrepreneur and Pixar-co-founder Alvy Ray Smith, and award-winning legendary animator Glen Keane.

From the world of animated films:

  • Lighting supervisor and VES award winner Alessandro Jacominifrom Disney Animation Studios will give a world premiere talk on Big Hero 6, which releases November 7 in the US and December 25 in Italy.
  • Providing an early look at the 2016 Smurfs film are production designer Noëlle Triaureau and two-time Annie award nominee art director Marcelo Vignali from Sony Pictures Animation.
  • Director and VES award nominee Patrick Osborne will speak about and present the Italian premiere of Disney Animation’s  short film “Feast.” 
  • Co-head of story at DreamWorks Animation and two-time Annie award nominee Alessandro Carloni will present How to Train Your Dragon 2. 
  • Supervising production designer, Emmy award winner and two-time Annie award nominee Nelson Lowry from Laika will introduce the stop frame world of The Boxtrolls. 
  • Jerome Solomon, academic dean at Cogswell College and a SIGGRAPH national committee member, will show this year’s selections of the best in computer graphics from SIGGRAPH’s Electronic Theater.

From the world of visual effects: 

  • Industrial Light & Magic’s Scott Farrar, who has received an Oscar, six Oscar nominations, four BAFTA nominations, four VES nominations, and two VES awards, will speak on Transformers 4, for which he was visual effects supervisor and second unit director. 
  • VFX supervisor Keith Miller from Weta Digital, a BAFTA nominee and three-time VES nominee, will present work from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. 
  • VFX supervisor Kyle McCulloch, a two-time VES award nominee and VES award winner, will talk about Framestore’s work on Guardians of the Galaxy. 
  • Animation supervisor Tim Harrington will talk about Industrial Light & Magic’s work on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
  • Visual effects supervisor Stefen Fangmeier, who has three Oscar nominations, four BAFTA nominations, three BAFTA awards, and a VES nomination, and Merzin Tavaria, chief creative director at Prime Focus World, will present the visual effects in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

In addition, speakers from the worlds of game development, virtual reality, motion capture, and medicine include: Parag Havaldar, R & D Lead at Blizzard Entertainment. David Putrino from Not Impossible Labs at Weill-Cornell Medical College. Flávio Andalóand Milton Luiz Horn Vieira from the DesignLab at UFSC. Elisa Di Lorenzo from Untold Games. Pierre-Alain Gagne from DOWiNO. Philip Stevju Løken from Placebo Effects. Kim Baumann Larsen from Digital Storytelling.

“This is such a special conference,” Gutierrez says. “People come to communicate, to collaborate, and to learn. It is unlike any other conference I know. We are so honored that these incredible artists will join us in Turin for the conference and share their knowledge in workshops for groups of our attendees.  I am thrilled with this year’s program, and I can’t wait to share it with everyone.”