Big Hero 6 to Guardians of the Galaxy: learn VFX from the masters

Set in the beautiful city of Turin, Italy, registration for the VIEW conference is now open. VIEW is a conference of 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.

Returning this year will be the 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 and the remarkable Brenda Bakker Harger, theatre director, improviser, and professor at the entertainment technology center at Carnegie Mellon University.

Special guest lecturer Rob Coleman will be at VIEW. He was animation supervisor at Animal Logic for The Lego Movie, and was previously animation director at Industrial Light & Magic for the Star Wars Episodes I, II, and III. And instructors will give practical workshops on products from Autodesk, Wacom, Maxon, and Pixologic.

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 Jacomini from 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.
• Director and VES award nominee Patrick Osborne will speak about and present the Italian premiere of Disney Animation’s short film "Feast."
• 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.
• 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.

VIEW Conference, October 14 – 17, 2014, Turin Italy. For more information and online registration, visit www.viewconference.it