Re-VIEW
It’s been a little while since my return from VIEW Conference, Italy’s premiere event relating to computer animation, visual effects, VR, AR and all things in-between, and I finally feel as though I am starting to organise and process the information gathered through the relentless schedule of lectures, masterclasses and workshops provided by industry legends and leading practitioners.
Jill Culton, Dean Deblios, Peter Ramsay, Brad Bird
The Officine Grandi Riparazioni (OGR) in Turin, an old railway works on the outskirts of the city, reclaimed, renovated and re-purposed, provided a venue on a scale to reflect the calibre of speakers booked for the event. Talks and workshops were presented in a few smaller spaces across the two halves of the building but most of my time was spent in the primary conference area, a massive room that used to house train repairs.
The conference programme did not disappoint, presenting a broad cross section of luminaries from various strands of the animated media industries. Jill Culton, Conrad Vernon, Sergio Pablos and Peter Ramsay provided insight into the production of their most recent films, Janelle Crawshaw Ralla, Guy Williams and Danny Dimian spoke about the VFX challenges met through Captain Marvel, Gemini Man and the Spiderverse, Pixar were present en-masse with Brad Bird, Ralph Eggleston, William Reeves and Dylan Sisson disseminating knowledge from their years of experience industry and with the company and Oscar winning score composer Michael Giacchino closed the opening day of the conference in great style with a concert presenting many of his famous film themes.
Michael Giacchino and Brad Bird photograph Orchestra Conductor
VIEW is not only about film though, speakers from all walks of the creative industries were present to share their experiences, knowledge and products, VR experiences from Baobab, National Film Board of Canada and Google provided an interesting distraction from sitting in a conference chair while the latest development from Media Molecule, the creators of Little Big Planet, presented a new future for user created content within their new title ‘Dreams’. Costume design, 360 video capture in space, existential slapstick and the philosophical question of ‘why is ‘why’ important?’ are just a few of the other topics discussed through lecture over the course of this busy week.
While I had a great and trouble-free experience at the conference, I was aware of some grumbles relating to the event organisation, in particular – programme amends. This is a huge conference with an inherently huge level of organisation and so, yes I am sure that there will be a few hiccups over the course of a week although, I can’t help but feel that most of the issues may have been avoided through a more developed channels in communication.
This was my first time in Turin and at VIEW Conference and I will make efforts to attend again. Turin is an amazing city, the people are friendly, the food is good, and it is host to this world class conference. For me, the only down point of this week was the persistent and torrential rain but, with a roof over my head and the distraction of interesting and engaging speakers I quickly forgot about having soggy feet.