VFX VIEW 2019 will have speakers from animated films, gaming industry and more

VIEW 2019 will have speakers from animated films, gaming industry and more

Speakers from live-action and animated feature films, broadcast television, and games highlight a growing roster for the curated digital media conference, VIEW 2019, to be held in Torino, Italy from 21 to 25 October.

“I’m delighted to announce that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse director Peter Ramsey will speak at VIEW 2019,” said conference director Maria Elena Gutierrez. “Also among our great speakers this year is Siobhan Reddy from game industry, and Sergio Pablos who is creating a 2D animated feature in Madrid for Netflix. We’ll see Image Engine’s dragons in Game of Thrones, Spencer Cook’s Godzilla animation, Todd Sue’s art direction for Apex Legends, and Sebastien Hue’s concept art. And we’re bringing back four of our speakers with new, exciting material to share: Josh Holmes, Rob Bredow, Tom Wujec, and Alex Williams. I love the quality and diversity in this year’s program.”

Ramsey received an Oscar, BAFTA, and two Annie Awards as one of the directors of Sony Pictures Animation’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. All told, the box office blockbuster received 98 nominations and 63 wins on the award circuit this year. He previously directed DreamWorks Animation’s Rise of the Guardians, was story artist on several feature films, and has credits as a second unit director and illustrator.

Industrial Light & Magic executive creative director and head Rob Bredow will present four decades of storytelling in Star Wars, highlighting innovative visual effects created during that studio’s 40 years of work on the films. In addition to his executive role, Bredow was visual effects supervisor on Solo: A Star Wars Story and will be available to sign his book, Making Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Pablos is the director, producer, and writer for Netflix’s 2D animated feature Klaus, which is currently in post-production. The former Disney animator (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Tarzan, Treasure Planet), was executive producer and writer for Despicable Me, a writer on Smallfoot, animation advisor for Underdogs, and character designer on Rio.

Tom Wujec is a multiple TED speaker, facilitator, and design thinker who guides teams via Wicked Problem Solving to create inventive and successful products, services, and solutions. The technology pioneer and former Autodesk Fellow has written five books and was a founding professor at Singularity University. Today, his consultancy helps organisations design technology transformation and plan for the future of work.

Image Engine visual effects supervisor Thomas Schelesny and animation supervisor Jason Snymanwill present their work on Daenerys’ Dragons in the final season of Game of Thrones. The two artists have a wealth of experience with live action visual effects for broadcast and feature films.

Media Molecule co-founder and studio director Siobhan Reddy was named in Fortune magazine’s 10 powerful women in gaming in 2014. Before moving into the role of studio director, she was executive producer on Airblade, Burnout3, Takedown, and LittleBigPlanet.

Josh Holmes is the co-founder and CEO of Midwinter Entertainment, an independent game studio working on Scavengers, its first multiplayer survival shooter. Holmes is the former studio head and creative director for the Halo franchise at 343 Industries, and former producer and game designer at Electronic Arts where he co-created two franchises, NBA Street and the DefJam fighting series.

Spencer Cook was senior animation supervisor on this year’s blockbuster Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Currently animation director at Double Negative, Cook previously was an animation supervisor at Framestore where he led teams working on Alien Covenant and Beauty and the Beast. He has a BAFTA nomination for Spider-Man 3 for which he was animation director while at Sony Pictures Imageworks.

Video game artist Todd Hue was art director most recently for Respawn’s highly successful game Apex Legends. His 16 years experience includes contributions to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2; Tony Hawk’s ProSkater: Underground; and Titanfall and Titanfall2.  For the latter two, he was lead environment artist and environment art director respectively.

Escape Studios head of animation Alex Williams has more than 25 years experience in the animation industry and has film credits on The Lion King, Robots, The Road to El Dorado, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and The Iron Giant. He has worked and taught in higher education for 20 years.

Sébastien Hue is a freelance concept artist, matte painter, and illustrator who focuses on environment design and science fiction. He has created concept art and matte paintings for publishers, game developers, and feature films.

The international VIEW Conference brings top professionals from computer graphics, interactive and immersive storytelling, animation, visual effects, games, and VR, AR, and mixed reality, for a week of talks, presentations, and workshops.

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