Unpacking View Conference’s Extensive 2022 Program
One the most important annual events on the animation industry calendar, Italy’s View Conference runs October 16-21 this year and features a high-profile guest list of invitees that are likely thrilled to be heading back to Turin.
View Conference always boasts one of the festival season’s most packed lineups and impressive guest lists, and this year is no different. Because there are only so many hours in a day, we went through the 2022 conference program and picked out a handful of can’t-miss events.
The Future of Animation
This feels like the “big one” among this year’s View Conference panels thanks to a roster of influential voices who are defining the current landscape of theatrical feature animation. The assemble filmmakers will discuss the state of the artform across film and tv, and where it may be headed in the future as technology continues to change the way audiences consume content.
Opting to stick exclusively with creative talent for this panel, it features a lineup of film and series animation directors including Domee Shi (Turning Red), Joel Crawford (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish), Pierre Perifel (The Bad Guys), Shannon Tindle (Ultraman), and Rob Minkoff (The Lion King).
The Future of Storytelling: Living in the Future
If the Future of Animation panel is this year’s big one, then the Future of Storytelling panel isn’t far behind. The incredible talk will feature many of the most important executives working today in big budget studio animation. Their discussion will focus on the future of storytelling as it applies to animation.
Joining the talk will be filmmaker Peter Ramsey; Marc Petit, vp and gm of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine; Rob Bredow, chief creative officer at ILM; Ramsey Naito, president of animation at Nickelodeon, Paramount; Kristine Belson, president of Sony Pictures Animation; Steve May, chief technology officer and supervising technical director at Pixar; James Knight, global director of media and entertainment at AMD; and Faik Karaoglu, executive vp of branded business at Wacom.
Strange World and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
These are arguably the biggest animated features still scheduled to hit theaters before the end of the year, and everyone wants to know more about them. Disney Animation Studios producer Roy Conli will provide the latest updates on the studio’s sci-fi feature Strange World, while Georgina Hayns, puppet supervisor for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, will discuss her involvement in shaping the look of Netflix’s highly anticipated stop-motion feature as part of her master class on puppet design.
Digital Worlds Becoming Real: Virtual Production Panel
At this sure-to-be-enlightening panel, industry experts on the latest innovations in virtual production will meet to educate attendees on the latest developments in volumetric capture, LED Color Science, and ILM’s Stagecraft techniques, among other topics. Speakers include Rob Bredow; He Sun, vfx supervisor at Milk VFX; Paul Debevec, Netflix director of research; Christina Heller, CEO of Metastage; and Roslyn Aronowitz, senior producer for virtual animation at ILM.
Artist + AI | Artist vs AI
Few topics move the needle in the online discourse surrounding illustration and animation the way that AI has since programs like Dall-E and Midjourney have become accessible and easy to use. Despite the programs’ ease of use, however, few technologies making such a sizable impact on the industry are less understood. Major questions loom around the future of AI, rights management, artists credits, and the dynamic between human artists and their AI counterparts.
Creative technologist Scott Eaton will host a broad account, and critique, of the current state of artificial intelligence by looking at the past, present, and future of the technology through the perspective of an artist. He will provide an easy-to-understand explanation on how the systems learn and are trained as well as the opportunities they can open up for artists.
Dreamworks 2022 Features
Shifting away from the house style that defined many of its films over the years, Dreamworks two 2022 animated features marked a stylistic departure for the studio. Both The Bad Guys and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish will be the subject of panels at this year’s Conference, with Batt Baer, vfx supervisor on The Bad Guys, and Mark Edwards, vfx supervisor on Puss in Boots, discussing the work being done on the studio’s biggest titles.
Painting a Universe: Exploring the Look of Entergalactic
Netflix has been taking risks in the animation space that other studios have shied away from in recent years, regarding style as well as format. Among the many examples of outside-the-box production at Netflix is the upcoming television event Entergalactic from Kid Cudi and executive producer Kenya Barris, directed by Fletcher Moules.
The artistic team at DNEG, who handled animation for the special, will explain how they landed on the project’s stylized look by “bending the rules of the cg animation pipeline.” They will discuss topics including shader development, animation performance, and compositing, among others, to establish an aesthetic that feels
