The annual VIEW conference held in Torino, Italy, is unique in the world of computer graphics conferences. The uniqueness comes from the blend of elements, rather than from any one particular feature. Torino, Italy
VIEW is a curated conference, with speakers selected from the world of computer graphics by Director Maria Elena Gutierrez. Each speaker presents his or her work in the same auditorium throughout the four days, an auditorium that accommodates approximately 500 people. The audience comes and goes through the day, and there are workshops in other areas of the conference center, which accounts for the total attendance reaching 5,000-plus. But, you could sit in one comfortable theater seat all day and hear all the major talks in a setting that is far, far more intimate than, for example, a large production session at SIGGRAPH. And yet, the presentations are on many of the same topics and of the same high quality.
The result is dramatic. The speakers are the top professionals in their field. The audience is engaged. The speakers typically finish their talk, return to their seats, and join the audience for the next talk.
Why do such renowned speakers come to Italy from all over the world to attend VIEW, and then ask to return?
It was an unforgettable experience for me, writes legendary animator Glen Keane, who was a keynote speaker. Keane's animated film Duet is now on the short list for 2015 Oscar nominations. In addition to Duet, a hand-drawn short film for mobile devices, Keane shared his inspiration in creating such well-loved animated characters as Ariel in The Little Mermaid and the Beast in Beauty and the Beast.
Glen Keane
A second keynote speaker, Alvy Ray Smith, award-winning computer graphics pioneer, inventor, Pixar co-founder, artist, and author, gave an eye-opening talk called Pixels to Pixar. Smith, who is no stranger to computer graphics conferences, dives deeper into VIEW's uniqueness in a note sent after the conference:
The VIEW conference verified Turins claim to be a city of magic, Smith writes. The brew in this case consisted of toads, mushrooms, and a witch, of course. The toads were us, I suppose - the carefully selected mix of speakers. Ive never so enjoyed the speakers at a conference more. I liked them all. I even attended most of their wonderful talks - thats got to be a first for me. Im saying this after having attended decades of conferences. The mushrooms were the white truffles in season. The elixir was vintage Barbarescos. And the good witch! She was Maria Elena Gutierrez, whose brainchild VIEW is, a tiny sprite of a woman whose quiet grace made us all want to perform at our best. A truly fine celebration of animation thats not to be missed.
Alvy Ray Smith and Stefan Fangmeier
Also on the short list for a 2015 Oscar nomination is Feast, a short animated film that Director Patrick Osborne from Disney Animation Studios presented at VIEW. Both Duet and Feast have already received Annie award nominations.
Speakers representing films now on the short list for 2015 visual effects Oscar nominations included Industrial Light & Magic's Scott Farrar (Transformers: Age of Extinction), Weta Digital's Keith Miller ( Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), Framestore's Kyle McCulloch, and MPC's Jo Plaete ( Guardians of the Galaxy).
And, representing animated feature films likely to receive Oscar nominations were Rob Coleman from Animal Logic (The Lego Movie) , Alessandro Jacomini from Disney ( Big Hero 6), Alessandro Carloni from DreamWorks ( How to Train Your Dragon 2), and Nelson Lowry from Laika ( The Boxtrolls).
Rob Coleman
In addition to these speakers, Animation Supervisor David Schaub of Sony Pictures Imageworks returned to VIEW to present the studio's work on The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and to host a workshop on physics for animators. Character Technical Director Supervisor Lucia Modesto of PDI/DreamWorks returned to offer rigging workshops. Animation Supervisor Tim Harrington from ILM presented Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . Stefen Fangmeier gave a talk on the effects in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Bill Watral from Pixar Animation Studios brought the charming short film Lava. And, No lle Triaureau and Marcelo Vignali of Sony Pictures Animation brought cuteness in the form of artwork, production designs, and animation tests for the first fully computer-generated Smurf movie, scheduled for release in 2016.
Moving into other areas of computer graphics, one of the most heart-warming talks was from David Putrino of Weill-Cornell Medical College who presented Not Impossible Labs' groundbreaking Project Daniel, which utilizes 3D printers to make prosthetic arms for children of war in south Sudan. There were also talks on immersive virtual reality for storytelling (Kim Baumann Larsen), on game pipelines from Blizzard's R&D Lead Parag Havaldar, a workshop on improvisational acting given by the inimitable Brenda Bakker Harger, theater director and professor at the Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center, and many others.
Most of these speakers have attended and presented their work at various conferences over the years, so after VIEW, I asked a few of them to help me understand what makes this conference unique. Here are their voices:
Keith Miller of Weta Digital writes, I had the pleasure of attending my first VIEW conference in Turin this year where I was able to present Weta Digitals work on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Even ignoring the beauty of what the city itself has to offer, I have to say that I was really impressed with the conference in a way that Ive not experienced at other, much larger and perhaps more extensively funded events even. What VIEW is truly able to achieve is a sense of a community - not only amongst the attendees - but the organizers an
