Monday, October 10, 2016

Dug in Real Life

Disney posted this because they knew I would post about it. Well, maybe not, but I had to post about it to add to my collection of instances where Disney•Pixar's UP has been brought into the real world.

Found at Cinema Blend.

Friday, October 7, 2016

Press Release: Two-time Oscar Winner Rob Legato Rounds Out VIEW 2016 Program



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

COUNTDOWN TO VIEW 2016

Two-time Oscar winner Rob Legato, visual effects supervisor for
Disney’s The Jungle Book, rounds out a stellar VIEW 2016 program.

Film, Games, and VR Industry Leaders Offer 18 Workshops
  
TURIN, Italy (October 6, 2016) VIEW Conference 2016, Italy’s renowned computer graphics and digital media conference kicks off its 17th annual conference in only three weeks (October 23-28) and has added two-time Oscar winner Rob Legato, visual effects supervisor for Disney’s The Jungle Book, to the stellar 2016 program.  The conference includes 18 different workshops, including those for storytelling, storyboarding, virtual movie production, pitching, directing, animation posing, CG environments, visual imaging, character design, VR game development, photography, portfolio review, and tricks of the trade for jobs and hiring.

VIEW has become one of the most highly regarded digital media conferences in the world by bringing top professionals in computer graphics, animation, game development, and research to beautiful Torino, Italy each year. 2016 is no exception as speakers from four of the top five worldwide box office hits present at VIEW 2016 as well as those representing other important films, games, and virtual reality applications.

This year, workshop leaders include Zootopia Director Byron Howard “The DNA of Disney Character Design.” Sausage Party Director Conrad Vernon “Pitching Storyboards,” Kubo and the Two Strings Screenplay Writer Marc Haimes from Liaka “7 Hacks to Avoid Becoming a Hack,” The Jungle Book Environment Supervisor Audrey Ferrara from MPC on Making Environments Work,” Alice Through the Looking Glass Animation Supervisor Troy Saliba “Animation Posing and Composition,” Cornell University Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Computer Graphics Donald Greenberg, “Visual Imaging in the Electronic Age,”  Epic Games Evangelist Luis Cataldi on “On-Ramp to Unreal Engine,” Savannah College of Art and Design Professor Deborah Fowler “Procedural Techniques using Houdini,” Director of The Rubin Collection’s Michael Rubin “Photographic ‘Haiku” Masterclass,” and Pixar Director of Photography Sharon Calahan “Storytelling with Light.” 

Conference Director Maria Elena Gutierrez encourages anyone interested in taking a VIEW workshop to register now to reserve space. “Our workshops this year exceed any we’ve offered in the past in number and quality,” Dr. Gutierrez says. “They go beyond any offered at other venues, large or small. We are giving artists the opportunity to interact with the directors of major animated feature films, art directors, animation supervisors, and others. This is in addition to our fabulous talks. We have directors and visual effects supervisors from the top films this year, innovative game developers, and researchers leading the way in virtual reality. It will be an extraordinary conference.” 

VIEW 2016 Keynote speakers 

Professor Dr. Donald Greenberg of Cornell University has received the highest honor in computer graphics, the Stephen A. Coons award. Five former students have won Hollywood’s Technical “Oscars”, and five have won the prestigious Siggraph Achievement Award. Dr. Greenberg’s keynote will address what’s necessary to improve VR technology and VR’s future potential.

Byron Howard, Director of Walt Disney Pictures’ Zootopia will share the artistry, research, and technology that made this animated feature possible. The critically acclaimed film has earned more than one billion US Dollars worldwide, and stands at number two in the 2016box office. Howard received an Oscar nomination in 2008 for directing Bolt and an Annie nomination for Brother Bear.

Victoria Alonso, Executive Vice President Physical Production, Marvel Studios will take VIEW attendees inside Marvel’s brilliantly successful cinematic universe. At Marvel, she oversees all physical production, post-production and production technical operations, one of the few women ever to hold this position in a studio. In 2016, Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Civil War jumped to number one at the box office with more than one billion dollars in ticket sales worldwide. Marvel’s highly anticipated film Doctor Strange releases on October 26 in Italy, during VIEW.

Mike Mitchell, Director and Walt Dohrn, Co-director of DreamWorks Trolls will offer behind-the-scenes looks at this unique animated film, which releases in Italy October 27, during VIEW. Mitchell directed Shrek Forever After, executive produced Kung Fu Panda 3, and was a writer and storyboard artist for Nickelodeon’s TV series “SpongeBob SquarePants.” Dohrn was a story artist on Shrek 2, Shrek Forever After, and Rise of the Guardians, and a writer for “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

Conrad Vernon, Director of Annapurna/Columbia’s Sausage Party will use clips from scenes in films he has directed to document an award-winning career that led to the 2016 surprise hit, the R-rated animated film Sausage Party. Vernon received an Annecy Cristal award nomination for the animated film Monsters & Aliens, and Annie nominations and a Palme d’Or nomination for Shrek 2.

Brad Lewis, Producer, Warner Bros.’ Storks will reveal the unusual creative and production aspects of this film in his keynote speech. Previously, Lewis was a co-director, writer, and voice actor (Tubbs Pacer) for Disney/Pixar’s Cars2 and a producer of Ratatouille for which he won the AFI Movie of the Year award.


More Outstanding Animated Feature Filmmakers:

Pixar’s Director of Photography Sharon Calahan recently received an Annie nomination for the production design in The Good Dinosaur

Pixar’s Supervising Technical Director John Halstead helped bring Hank alive in Finding Dory, the number one box office hit in 2016.

Visual Effects Supervisor Steve Emerson’s team used computer graphics to expand the universe of Laika’s stop-frame animated film Kubo and the Two Strings, 

Director David Feiss, whose career spans television and feature film animation, shares unique insights into the making of Sony Pictures’ video feature Open Season: Scared Silly. Feiss has received two Primetime Emmy nominations, a Daytime Emmy nomination, and an Annie nomination.


Award-winning Visual Effects Supervisors for Blockbuster Films

It is fitting that Torino, which boasts the Museo Nazionale del Cinema, the National Museum of Cinema, should host the visual effects supervisors who were instrumental in creating blockbuster films this year.

 Two-time Oscar winner (Hugo, Titanic) Rob Legato, Visual Effects Supervisor for Disney’s The Jungle Book, which holds the number four position in the 2016 worldwide box office tally.

 Four-time Oscar nominee Roger Guyett of Industrial Light & Magic, Visual Effects Supervisor for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The film earned more than two billion US dollars putting it into third place in the all-time, worldwide box office. Guyett received an Oscar nomination for that film, and for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Star Trek, and Star Trek into Darkness. 

 Three-time Oscar nominee (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Star Trek, Transformers) Russell Earl, Industrial Light & Magic’s Visual Effects Supervisor for Captain America: Civil War, the most successful live-action film this year.

 Primetime Emmy and VES award nominee Ryan Tudhope, Visual Effects Supervisor at Atomic Fiction for Deadpool, another live-action film in the 2016 top-ten in worldwide box office receipts.

 VES award nominee Audrey Ferrara, Environment Supervisor at MPC will show her team’s work on the complex CG environments which became the entire jungle in The Jungle Book.

Virtual Reality, the Hottest Tech Topic This Year

Will virtual reality ever achieve the hype surrounding this exciting technology, which, after 25 years in development, has finally reached consumers? VIEW 2016’s speakers starting with keynote speaker Dr. Donald Greenberg from Cornell University provide an important perspective.  Other speakers include:

Rob Bredow, Chief Technology Officer at Lucasfilm, will showcase the experiments into Cinematic Virtual Reality being carried on at ILMxLab. ILMxLab is one of six R&D centers at Disney looking into Virtual Reality. In addition to his role as CTO, Bredow previously received four VES nominations while visual effects supervisor on Sony Pictures’ animated features.

Maureen Fan, CEO and Co-Founder, Baobab Studios will share her studio’s success with VR storytelling. Co-founded by Eric Darnell who directed all four Madagascar films and Larry Cutler who was DreamWorks’ Global Head of Character Technology, Baobab’s debut short film “Invasion!” was accepted at Cannes, Tribeca, and Annecy. Fan was formerly VP of games at Zynga.

Brian Pullen, VR Designer at Google designed launch applications for Daydream, Google’s high-end mobile VR platform and will bring the processes he developed along with the principles and lessons learned. 

Adam Orth, CEO and Creative Director of Three One Zero will share his inspiring story of overcoming tremendous odds to start a studio that created the critically-acclaimed VR experience ADRIFT.

Tuna Bora, Multi-Disciplinary illustrator and Designer was production designer for Oscar winning director Patrick Osborne’s “Pearl,” a Google Spotlight Story and Osborne’s debut film in VR. Bora practices visual storytelling across many fields.

Luke Youngman, Executive Producer and Deputy Head of Production and Felix Massie, Director, both at Nexus bring the latest and most interactive Google Spotlight Story, “Rain or Shine,” which blends 2D and 3D animation, spherical cinema-quality video, full-sphere surround sound, and sensor fusion techniques. Before joining Nexus in London, Youngman and Massie were both at Aardman Animations. Massie received an Annecy Cristal nomination for “Keith Reynolds Can’t Make it Tonight,” and numerous nominations for “In the Air is Christopher Gray.”

Pratik Shah, Research Scientist at MIT Media Lab moves Virtual Reality into medicine via clinical imaging of the human body. Among his many roles, Dr. Shah leads the health and technology efforts run by the MIT Media Lab’s Camera Culture Group. Dr. Shah has received a national award from the American Society for Microbiology, as well as an independent fellowship award from Massachusetts General Hospital.

Games at VIEW

Josh Holmes, Franchise Creative Director for 343 Industries, the Microsoft Game Studios unit formed to oversee development of Halo, which includes video games, novels, comics and other multimedia content. 

Adam Gazzaley and Matt Omernick, Co-Founders of Akili, a start-up company that integrates video games and neuroscience to treat specific cognitive disorders.

Daryl Anselmo, Art & Creative Director at Zynga will consider the emotions of game development.

Barry Meade, Co-Founder, Fireproof Studios where a small team of self-funded artists created Room, a 3D game and Apple’s iPad Game of the Year.

Adam Volker, Creative Director, Moonbot Studios offers a painter’s vocabulary for games. Volker was art director for the short film, “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” which won an Oscar in 2012 for best short animated film.

Mauro Fanelli, Co-Founder, Mixed Bag, which published the first Italian indie-game on PlayStation 4. Fanelli will introduce his studio’s upcoming action adventure game.

Daniel Fountain, Programmer and Puzzle Designer, State of Play, which uses physical models in their games.

Marco Mazzaglia, IT Manager and Videogame Evangelist, T-Union, looks at the role of IT in game development.

Leading into VIEW is the annual digital movie festival VIEWFest, showcasing an exciting program of animated films and talks including the Italian premiere of Laika Animation’s Kubo and the Italian premiere of the SIGGRAPH 2016 Traveling Electronic Theater. 

VIEWFEST takes place October 21 to 23 in Torino’s Cinema Massimo. 

VIEW Conference takes place October 23 to 28 in the city’s Torinoincontra, conference center.

For more information about the VIEW Conference and VIEWFEST, please visit the website: http://www.viewconference.it 

FEATURE FILMS PRODUCTION / POST-PRODUCTION 
Disney/Pixar’s Finding Dory 
Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Disney Animation’s Zootopia
Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War
DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls
Disney’s The Jungle Book
Laika’s Kubo and the Two Strings
Fox’s Deadpool
Annapurna/Columbia Sausage Party
Sony Pictures’ Alice Through the Looking Glass
Warner Bros.’ Storks
Disney/Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur
Sony Pictures’ Open Season: Scared Silly

GAME DEVELOPERS 
Akili Interactive
Zynga
Three One Zero
Fireproof Studios
Moonbot Studios
Mixed Bag
State of Play
T-Union
Twitch
Epic Games
  
VIRTUAL REALITY 
Lucasfilm / ILMxLAB
Google
Cornell University
MIT Media Lab
Baobab Studios
Nexus
Epic Games


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