Italy’s premier international event boasts a roster of award-winning guests, including ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ co-director Joaquim Dos Santos, BAFTA Award winner and Oscar nominee Henry Selick, and Netflix’s ‘Nimona’ directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quane; event runs October 15-20.
The VIEW Conference, Italy’s premier international event on Computer Graphics, Interactive Techniques, Digital Cinema, 2D/3D Animation, VR and AR, Gaming, and VFX, has launched its official program for 2023. The stellar lineup includes keynotes, talks, presentations, workshops, and masterclasses – complete details are available here.
An English-speaking event, VIEW Conference takes place October 15-20 in the beautiful baroque city of Turin, Italy. Tickets are now available from the official VIEW Conference website.
VIEW Conference also offers an array of educational sessions, including portfolio reviews, interactive “Ask-Me-Anything” sessions with experienced industry leaders, and even mock interviews.
Here is a sample of the event’s confirmed speaker lineup:
Joaquim Dos Santos – Annie Award winner
Director of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the 20+ year animation industry veteran began his career as a storyboard artist on Sony Television’s Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles and Men in Black: the Animated Series before moving on to storyboard, direct and produce on a variety of animated television shows such as Warner Bros.’ Justice League Unlimited and Teen Titans, as well as Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra and DreamWorks Animation’s Voltron: Legendary Defender.
Peter Sohn – Annie Award nominee
Elemental director and vice-president/creative director at Pixar Animation Studios, Sohn joined the studio in 2000, working in the art and story departments for Finding Nemo. He went on to work in the art, story, and animation departments for The Incredibles, animating members of the Parr family, for which he received an Annie Award nomination. He also worked as a story artist on WALL.E before his Pixar directorial debut in 2009 with the short film Partly Cloudy. Sohn is also the voice talent behind some of Pixar’s most memorable characters, including Emile in Ratatouille, Scott ‘Squishy’ Squibbles in Monsters University, and SOX in Lightyear.
Sam Fell – Academy Award and BAFTA Award nominee.
Director of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, Fell’s career as a writer/director started with the short film The Big Cheese for 3 Peach Animation/Channel 4. He then joined Aardman as a director and animator on commercials and short projects like Pop, Chump, Peter Lord's' Oscar-nominated short film Wat's Pig, and the BBC series Rex the Runt. He developed the children's TV series Rabbits! and feature animation projects, including Flushed Away, which he directed - it was Aardman’s third and final animated feature produced with DreamWorks and the studio’s first entirely CG project. Fell went on to direct The Tale of Despereaux for Universal in London with Framestore before directing LAIKA's second feature film, ParaNorman (with writer/director Chris Butler), released in August 2012 and nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA in 2013.
Director of Nimona, Bruno studied illustration, fine arts, and computer animation before joining Blue Sky Studios as a junior animator on Ice Age: The Meltdown. More recently, Bruno directed Spies in Disguise and published his graphic novel “Urban Legendz.” Additional animation credits include The Peanuts Movie, Ice Age: Continental Drift, and short films Surviving Sid and the Oscar-nominated No Time for Nuts.
Director of Nimona, the 27-year animation industry veteran began his career as a traditional animator for Walt Disney Animation Canada. He served as storyboard supervisor on the live-action Disney film Enchanted and continued working in the story department for various studios before his feature directorial debut with Spies in Disguise. Additional film credits include TITAN A.E., Arthur Christmas, Hotel Transylvania, and the Oscar-nominated Ferdinand.
Director of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Rowe wrote and co-directed the original action comedy Connected with Michael Rianda for Sony Pictures Animation before joining Nickelodeon.
The duo went on to direct and co-write the Oscar-nominated animated feature The Mitchells vs the Machines. Rowe also worked as a staff writer on Disney Television Animation’s Gravity Falls and Matt Groening’s Netflix series Disenchantment. He is a graduate of the CalArts Character Animation Program.
Henry Selick – BAFTA Award winner and Academy Award nominee
The Academy Award-nominated director of stop-motion animated films, including Laika’s BAFTA Award-winning Coraline, will share his wealth of talent and experience via a virtual talk.
Selick directed Disney’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, both produced by Tim Burton. In 2022, he returned to stop-motion feature animation as director of Netflix Animation’s Wendell & Wild, based on his original story; the film was co-written and co-produced with Jordan Peel.
Peter Ramsey – Academy Award and BAFTA Award winner
Director of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, executive producer of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, Ramsey most recently directed an episode of Netflix’s We the People. He co-directed, with Bob Persichetti and Rodney Rothman, Sony Pictures Animation's feature film, the Academy Award winner Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. For his work on the film, he received an Annie Award from ASIFA-Hollywood for Outstanding Achievement for Directing in an Animated Feature Production.
Doug Chiang – Academy Award and BAFTA Award winner
As vice president and executive creative director of Lucasfilm, Chiang oversees designs for the Star Wars franchise, including films, theme parks, games, and new media. His Star Wars experience spans over 25 years, beginning in 1995 when George Lucas selected him as head of the Lucasfilm art department for the Star Wars prequel films. He has since been Lucasfilm’s principal designer for Disney World Resort’s “Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge” and “Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser,” production designer on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and the live-action series The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Ahsoka.
Marc Scott - VES Award nominee
The DreamWorks Animation veteran is currently serving as visual effects supervisor on the studio's upcoming 3DCG animated musical, Trolls Band Together. Scott’s credits include over 50 films ranging from the Titanic to Cutthroat Island. He started his career at DreamWorks as a compositing supervisor 20 years ago.
Giacomo Mineo – Emmy Award nominee
DNEG VFX supervisor Mineo led the studio’s team - under the direction of Oscar-winning production VFX supervisor Andrew Jackson, delivering over 100 shots for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. The team crafted shots from a library of 400+ practically shot elements, helped visualize physical phenomena ranging from subatomic particles and huge nuclear blasts to exploding stars and the formation of black holes, embracing old-style practical effects techniques – such as miniatures, massive and micro explosions, thermite fire, long exposure shoots, and aerial footage – and complex compositing treatments. The DNEG team created the VFX shots by combining only real elements, without any reliance on CG.
ND Stevenson – National Book Award nominee, New York Times best-selling author
Author, creator, and executive producer of Netflix’s Nimona, he is the author and illustrator of “Nimona” from which the film was adapted. He is also the author and illustrator of “The Fire Never Goes Out,” the co-creator of Lumberjanes, and was the showrunner for the award-winning Netflix series She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.
DNEG Animation’s global head of character animation and 30+ year industry veteran began his animation career at Walt Disney Animation, working on the original The Lion King and Pocahontas, with other feature animation credits including Kung Fu Panda, Shrek Forever After, Puss in Boots, How to Train Your Dragon 2, and Rise of the Guardians. He recently spent six years as head of animation for L'Atelier Animation in Montreal, where they just finished the feature Fireheart. Ty is a CalArts Character Animation program graduate, where he was also the senior animation instructor for five consecutive years. He has taught masterclasses at places such as CalArts, CTNX Expo, DreamWorks Animation, SCAD, Pixel Quebec, NAD Center, University of Granada, RIOT Games, Effects Mtl, iAnimate.net. He is also a Master Teacher and National Panelist at YoungArts Foundation.
Joe Letteri – Five-time Academy Award winner and BAFTA Award winner
Wētā FX’s senior VFX supervisor on Avatar: The Way of Water, Letteri's pioneering work in visual effects has earned him five Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects - Avatar, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, King Kong, and Avatar: The Way of Water. He has a long-standing interest in creating compelling, realistic creatures, from the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park to Gollum, the Na'vi in Avatar, and Caesar from the Planet of the Apes franchise. He has developed industry standard techniques for creating photorealistic digital effects and has pushed the development of large-scale virtual production.
Mike Lasker – VES Award nominee
The VFX supervisor of Sony Pictures Imageworks’ Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse began his computer graphics career working on commercials for leading advertising agencies in New York City. He received a BFA in computer graphics from Syracuse University and has over two decades of experience working on live-action and animated features. His recent credits include the Oscar-nominated The Mitchells vs The Machines and the Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Lasker previously served as a computer graphics supervisor on Smurfs: The Lost Village, Cloudy With a Chance Of Meatballs, and Hotel Transylvania.
Stephane Ceretti – Academy Award nominee and BAFTA Award nominee
VFX supervisor of Marvel Studio’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3, Ceretti, began his professional career in the late 90s at Buf Compagnie in Paris. His feature credits as VFX supervisor include the Wachowskis' Matrix sequels, Oliver Stone’s Alexander, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Batman Begins, and The Prestige. He later joined MPC and Method Studios in London, where he met with Marvel Studios, working on films including Captain America: The First Avenger, X-Men: First Class, and Cloud Atlas. Following his work on Thor: The Dark World, Ceretti joined Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy as production VFX supervisor, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Achievement in Visual Effects.
John Gaeta – Academy Award and BAFTA Award winner
Inworld AI CCO, Gaeta is a legendary creator, designer, and inventor known for his Oscar-winning work on The Matrix trilogy. He has conceived and developed emergent content and experiences such as Bullet Time, Universal Capture (Volucap), Photo-Anime, HoloCinema, and Magicverse. He led creative innovation for companies including Lucasfilm/Disney, ILMxLAB, Microsoft/Float, and Magic Leap and was creative executive producer on Epic Games’ The Matrix Awakens, a UE5 Experience. In 2022, as co-executive producer in partnership with Kiri Hart, he began developing “Metropolis,” based on the landmark manga by Osamu Tezuka. The same year, Gaeta co-founded “mirrorworld” venture “LivingCities” with social platform pioneer Matt Miesnieks and Dennis Crowley of Foursquare. Most recently, he joined Inworld AI to pursue the development of state-of-the-art AI characters.
Bruno Coulais – Academy Award nominee and BAFTA Award nominee
The Award-winning French composer and musician - Coulais has created scores for over 100 films and television shows, including Coraline, Wendell & Wild, Wolfwalkers, and The Secret of Kells. After earning a degree in composition from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, Coulais began his career working on French television documentaries and films. Coulais is known for his work on the 2001 animated film Les Choristes, for which he received a César Award. Critically acclaimed, he has collaborated with notable directors, including Claude Nuridsany, Luc Jacquet, and Christophe Barratier. He has also composed music for theater productions and released several albums of his original music. In 2010, he received the prestigious Order of Arts and Letters from the French government for his contributions to the arts.
Mark Ulano – Academy Award winner
Since 1976, Ulano has worked recording sound for films including Titanic, which garnered him an Academy Award for Sound Mixing and the Cinema Audio Society Award for Best Sound Mixing for a Feature Film. He has multiple AMPAS, CAS, and BAFTA nominations, most recently his 3rd and 4th Oscar nominations for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Ad Astra. Other credits include The Hateful Eight; Super 8; The Tourist; Inglorious Basterds; Rocky Balboa; Django Unchained; Kill Bill Vols. I & 2; Jackie Brown; Iron Man; Spy Kids; and Stuart Little, as well as over 150 film and television projects. Ulano has collaborated with Quentin Tarantino for 28 years - his most recent work will be heard this October in Martin Scorsese’s new film, Killers of The Flower Moon.
Andreas Deja – Annie Award winner
Disney animator and creator/director of Mushka, Deja is a 30-year industry veteran who was mentored by Eric Larson, one of Disney's renowned “Nine Old Men,” Deja’s work on the ground-breaking Who Framed Roger Rabbit? led him to become a Disney go-to lead animator and creator of some of the most memorable Disney villains, including the development of iconic characters Jafar (Aladdin), Scar (The Lion King), Gaston (Beauty and the Beast), and King Triton (The Little Mermaid).
Paul Debevec – Academy Award winner
Netflix director of research, creative algorithms, and technology Debevec oversees R&D for visual effects and virtual production with computer vision, graphics, and machine learning. In 2002, his Light Stage 3 system surrounded actors with LEDs displaying images of virtual sets and environments for lighting-accurate compositing. Techniques from his work are used to create key visual effects sequences in The Matrix, Spider-Man 2, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Avatar, Gravity, and Blade Runner 2049. His techniques for HDR imaging, image-based lighting, and photoreal digital actors have been recognized with two Academy Awards and the SMPTE Progress Medal. Debevec is a Governor of the Visual Effects branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Visual Effects Society, and an Adjunct Research Professor at the University of Southern California Computer Science.
Hal Hickel – Academy Award and BAFTA Award winner
Industrial Light & Magic animation supervisor of The Mandalorian, Hikel began his career as a clay animator and motion-control operator at Will Vinton Studios after studying film graphics at CalArts. He joined Industrial Light & Magic in 1996 as an animator on The Lost World: Jurassic Park before graduating to lead animator on Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace and animation supervisor on Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence. He has since worked on multiple award-winning films, including Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Pacific Rim, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Hickel served as production animation supervisor on all three seasons of The Mandalorian and consulting animation supervisor on The Book of Boba Fett.
Dylan Sisson
Creative pioneer behind Pixar’s award-winning RenderMan software, Sisson is a digital artist with 29 years of experience in VFX and animation. He began his career animating commercials and creating RPGs for the Sony PlayStation. After his independent animation won Best Computer Animated Short at the Animar Festival 1999, Sisson joined Pixar Animation Studios, where he is engaged in developing and evangelizing Pixar’s RenderMan. Dylan is the creator and designer of the RenderMan Walking Teapot, the most outrageous swag on the planet. In addition to his role at Pixar, he is an active artist exploring emerging media in VR, AI, and 3D printing.
Eloi Champagne
National Film Board of Canada technical director in Montreal, Champagne, specializes in VR/AR, animation, interactivity, filmmaking, visual effects, and S3D. A jack-of-all-trades in the field of storytelling innovation, Champagne’s work is situated at the crossroads of art and technology.
Nikola Damjanov
Nordeus lead game artist Damjanov began his higher education as an engineer before pivoting to interactive media, architectural and product visualization, graphics, and web design. In addition to his role as lead game artist at Nordeus, he is also involved in recruiting, in-house training, and lecturing, often representing the company as a regular conference speaker.
Jan-Bart van Beek – BAFTA Award winner
Guerrilla Games studio director van Beek oversees art and animation quality of all projects at Guerrilla Games. As a photography student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague, he turned to computer graphics software to enhance his work. After graduation, van Beek applied his knowledge as a CG artist in advertising before joining Guerrilla Games as lead artist on Killzone and art director on Killzone 2. He was originator and art director of the BAFTA Award-winning Horizon Zero Dawn.
Michael Coldewey – German Academy Award winner and German TV Award winner
Professor of Concept Art, Drawing & Design at the Media Design University of Applied Sciences in Munich, Coldewey’s career started in an animation studio in Munich before teaching animation at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. In 1995, he founded Munich Animation Film with Eberhard Junkersdorf and directed The Fearless Four animated feature. In 1998, he founded Trixter and started his IPs, including Lilly the Witch and the French co-production Dragonhunters. His feature credits include The Avengers, Iron Man 2 & 3, Captain America films, Cloud Atlas, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2, and Captain Marvel. Coldewey is a member of the European and German Academy of Motion Pictures and the Visual Effects Society.
Andreas Maaninka – VES Award nominee
Originally from Sweden, the VFX supervisor began his career in the early 2000s at Pinewood Studios in London. Since then, Maaninka has lived and worked in New Zealand and Japan and now resides in Canada. He has been exploring AI art workflows in production, specifically in visual development and integration into other aspects of production. Maaninka’s feature credits include Oscar-winning films Avatar, The Golden Compass, and Blade Runner 2049.
Alwyn Hunt
Hunt works as Head of Education, Partnerships within 3D&I division at Adobe and is also The Rookies co-founder - a community for non-professional digital artists. He is a 20+ year veteran of the visual effects industry, having worked as a character texture artist for studios worldwide including Sony Imageworks; MPC; DNEG; Animal Logic; RSP; and Wētā FX. His main film credits include Harry Potter, Watchmen, The Wolfman, Alice in Wonderland, John Carter, The Hobbit 1 & 2, Game of Thrones, Logan, Thor: Ragnarok, and Tomb Raider.
Nebelong is a renowned Danish artist and professional in the digital art industry with a career spanning two decades, contributing to the field with a blend of traditional and digital techniques. Hi career started with traditional illustration, and he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in digital at the Danish design school. Nebelong applied his digital design skills as a freelance artist for LEGO, where he produced various digital paintings for the company using Photoshop.
Over the last six years, his focus has been 3D design, partly influenced by his experience with Virtual Reality (VR) using an Oculus Rift headset. Major industry publications, including 3D Artist, 3D World, and ImagineFX have recognized his expertise in 3D art. Nebelong has worked with many clients, including Sony and Media Molecule, Luma Labs, Adobe, Meta, Yahoo, Runway, Oculus, and Rovio. His work includes contributions to the feature film A Winter's Journey, starring John Malkovich.
Almu Redondo – Annie Award nominee
The Cartoon Saloon production designer Redondo is a multidisciplinary art director, production designer, and designer whose work ranges from animated and VFX feature films/TV series to illustration and games. Her latest work includes art direction for Star Wars, Cartoon Saloon’s Visions short, cinematics on League of Legends, and Tales of Runeterra at Axis for Riot Games. Other Cartoon Saloon credits in visual development and color scripting artis include Wolfwalkers, My Father's Dragon, and production designer Cartoon Saloon and Mamoru Hosoda collaboration Belle, which garnered an Annie Award Nomination for Best Production Design for Feature.
Richard Kerris
Vice president, DevRel/Omniverse, IGM M&E at NVIDIA, Kerris is the industry general manager for media and entertainment. His career has spanned Apple, Lucasfilm, and Amazon/AWS, with experience combining driving marketing and product development, focusing on bringing new ideas to life. At Apple, he directed developer relations and managed Final Cut Pro, Logic, and Aperture. At Lucasfilm, he served as CTO, managing research and development, IT, and information services. Kerris has given keynote addresses at GTC, Asia Broadcast, and China Joy Expo and delivered multiple Apple Worldwide Developers Conference presentations. He currently serves on the Bay Area Board of the Visual Effects Society and is an active member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.
Apollonia Hartmann
VFX producer at Accenture Song Content (formerly Mackevision), Hartman earned a master's degree in media economics before joining Mackevision as a bid producer in the sales department. She moved to the VFX department and has worked as a VFX producer since spring 2020. Since then, she has produced TV series such as Stranger Things Season 4, Lost in Space Season 3, Foundation Season 1, and Shadow & Bone Season 2, for which the Accenture Song VFX team received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Special Visual Effects. Apollonia is also a member of WIA.
Visit the VIEW 2023 website for more information.
Source: VIEW 2023
Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.
