(Image source: Mat Clark ©)

In the final week of April this year FMX presented its 27th conference at Haus der Wirtschaft in Stuttgart Germany, and I was fortunate enough to be able to attend.

This was my first time at FMX, and it didn’t disappoint. With a host of speakers from across the VFX and animation industries, masterclasses, a marketplace, and a recruiting hub, my days were full, and my inspiration has been refuelled.

Highlights included:

• Nathan Fariss (Pixar) speaking about the worldbuilding of Lightyear and aiming to build a visual style setting it apart from other Pixar movies.
• Mark Edwards (Dreamworks) discussed the visual development of Puss In Boots: The Last Wish through the scene in which the audience is introduced to the Wolf character.
• Cary Phillips (ILM) and Tim Webber (Framestore) both shared fascinating stories about their illustrious careers in VFX and film making.
• Frank Petzold (VFX Supervisor) talked about the digital and the practical approaches towards developing the invisible effects of All Quiet on the Western Front.
• Robert Kondo (Tonko House) spoke candidly about setting up a studio and developing Oni: Thunder Gods Tale.
• Stuart Adcock (Weta FX) introduced us to Weta’s Anatomically Plausible Facial System (AFPS), an evolution of the Facial Action Coding system (FACS).

This is a just short list of some of the great speakers and content presented at the conference, further details and insight can be found on the FMX website.

The entire conference is situated in Haus der Wirtschaft, a magnificent exhibition centre built in the late 19th century housing 2 main rooms and an abundance of smaller event spaces. Queues regularly snaked through the corridors and offered impromptu networking opportunities, although on more than one occasion these lines got tangled in the old halls so it’s best to keep one eye on what’s happening.

The schedule is very well planned and managed, and with each presentation lasting an hour it is possible to fit a great deal into a single day. This year the festival was a hybrid presentation, with 3 days onsite and 1 day online – this worked very well for me, as after 3 days sitting, and listening, I was absolutely shattered. The online content is available until the end of May and includes the Video on Demand (VOD) sessions from the onsite programme, a great way to catch up on any missed content, alongside the new day 4 sessions.

Being held in the centre of a large city there is no shortage of places to pick up a bite to eat or a beverage, however several catering vans offering food and drink were conveniently set up outside the conference building, meaning that it wasn’t necessary to wander too far to fuel up for another round of talks.

FMX is an excellent conference, and I would recommend that anyone, in particular students, with a vested interest in visual effects or animation should try to attend. It is an opportunity to develop an understanding of current industry practice, to network, to help shape career aspirations, and find out how to break into these competitive industries.

I can’t wait to go again!

Tips for FMX: 

• Be prepared to queue
• Dress light and carry water as the rooms get very warm
• Use the VOD tag in the schedule to help plan which sessions you would like to see in person

The post FMX – Film & Media Exchange – 2023 Report appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

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.

The post Re-VIEW appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

VIEW International Computer Graphics Conference is gearing up to present some of the most relevant and respected practitioners from across the CG industries in their 20^th year programme.

Between 21^st and 25^th October Turin will again play host Italy’s premiere event for Computer Graphics, Interactive and Immersive Storytelling, Animation, Visual Effects, Games, VR, AR and Mixed Reality, where leading professionals will present talks, presentations and workshops and where industry will be hoping to recruit new talent.

Over the course of the week, confirmed speakers including Brad Bird (Incredibles, Ratatouille, Incredibles 2), Peter Ramsey (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), Dean DeBlois (How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden Kingdom) and, most recently announced, Jill Culton, writer and director of Dreamworks Animation and Pearl Studios upcoming animated feature “Abominable”, will join many other big hitters from film, game and animation industries to make their Keynote presentations.

Talks sessions will introduce a more technical perspective towards current and future practice within VFX, Games and Animation. With the programme presenting speakers from Weta, Pixar, Google VR and Pixomondo, discussion will consider The Visual Effects of Marvel Studios, The Evolution of the Toy Story World, Digital Performance and Animating Daenerys’ Dragons.

Finally, practical Masterclasses are set to include technical sessions ranging from Digital Makeup to Procedural Material Creation and Dinosaur Locomotion alongside a more theoretical consideration of Storytelling, Acting for Animation, Public Speaking and Existential Slapstick.

With a full programme, this year’s conference looks set to be an interesting, entertaining, informative and no doubt very tiring week for anyone who holds an interest in computer generated imagery, storytelling and animation, I for one can’t wait!

Information for all presentations and accreditation is available on the VIEW Conference website: viewconference.it

The post VIEW Conference 2019: Schedule & Speakers Announced appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

Marona’s Fantastic Tale is the first animated feature from the award winning Romanian director Anca Damian since her 2011 film ‘Crulic – The Path to Beyond’. The story presents a reflective journey through the life of a dying dog, her relationships with her various owners and their own relationships with the world and the people around them.

There’s a lot to like about this film from the colourful, almost pre-school art style backgrounds to the well observed and equally colourful characters that play through the narrative, Marona manages to stand out as the star. Sure, each of her owners have their appeal: Manole the struggling acrobat, Istvan the builder with his sick mother and his selfish wife, and Salonge the little girl who lives with her mother and her grandfather; each character playing as a short story pit-stop in the life of the eponymous dog.

Marona’s character development over the course of her story is very nicely regarded, from excitable and curious puppy to sensible adult, her thoughts and observations are cleverly articulated in a tone representative of her maturity with specs of cynicism creeping in with age but never overwhelming the love that a dog feels for it’s owner.

The story unfurls at a steady pace, never feeling as though it is dragging its heels to stretch the film to feature length or as though the director has attempted to crowbar too much into the 92 minute run time. Anca Damian and her team of animators have made a film that is full of heart, with interesting characters and a dog with a wonderfully dry sense of humour that will surely appeal to viewers of all ages.

I am left with only one question after watching this… why does everyone in the film describe Marona as being brown and white when she is black and white?

The post Marona’s Fantastic Tale Review appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.

I’ve been lucky enough, through my job as senior lecturer on the animation degree course at Leeds Arts University, to have been able to attend Annecy International Animation Festival for the past few years and I feel that I am now in a position to offer an objective perspective on the longest running animation festival in the world.

I probably shouldn’t start with a conclusion but, for those of you who don’t want to read a spectators ramblings about the festival, the gist of this writing will point towards the fact that if you have any vested interest in animation, whether as a viewer, a hobbyist, a student, a professional or an educator then this is the festival for you… please read on if you’d like to know why.

Since the early 1960’s Annecy has set a blueprint for what an animation festival should be and over the decades the event has grown to take over the whole town for a full week. Each year there is a theme with this year’s spotlight being aimed towards Japanese animation, the unofficial theme however, was rain….. and plenty of it! Despite the deluge over the first couple of days the mood was not dampened, auditoriums were filled, and the atmosphere was infectiously convivial. It serves as a reminder that the weather in the mountains can be very changeable so it is always wise to have an umbrella at hand, when it’s not raining you can use it as a parasol!

This year the festival programme presented films comprising of the usual excellent and diverse range of animation styles, genres and narratives presented over several sites across the town, including a giant inflatable screen at the lakeside. Masterclasses and work in progress presentations offered insight into process and potential futures articulated by industry leaders, legends and practitioners on the bleeding edge. Bookended by the Bonlieu theatre and the Imperial Palace, some of the sites can seem quite far out of the way but, with regular services providing transport links between theatres it is easy enough to get around should you need to.

The festival also hosts Mifa, the international Animation & Film Market, where industry sets up camp for the week to pitch, present, demonstrate and recruit. If you are a student your accreditation will give you a day pass for Mifa where it is possible to organise portfolio meetings and reviews with representatives from almost any animation company in the world. If you’re not a student or don’t want to sell or recruit and are not looking for a job then you can probably give Mifa a miss, and save money on the cost of your accreditation, but the market is a must for anyone who has a product or skill set to sell.

Annecy has the air of a music festival rather than an industry focused event and you will meet people ranging from students to industry leaders, all with a common interest in animation and quite often beer! Socialising, or networking as employers prefer to call it, is a major part of the festival and there are plenty of eateries and drinking establishments that you are likely to find yourself inhabiting until the early hours doing just that alongside other pass holders. (N.B. consumption of alcohol isn’t mandatory).

As I mentioned earlier, Annecy Animation Festival has been growing at a steady rate over the past few decades, even over the last few years I have noticed a rise in the number of passholders and I wonder if the event has finally reached critical mass. With accreditation numbers exceeding 11,000 this year and there being tickets available to the non-accredited public for many of the events, pretty much everything was ‘sold out’ and queuing for spare seats prior to screenings was at an all-time high. The online booking system, always a bit of a bun fight, crashed as soon as ticketing went live, leaving many pass holders frustrated at not having a chance to book their first-choice screenings and having to settle for whatever was left when access to ticketing was finally recovered. I am certain that the festival organisers are aware of the issues encountered this year and hopefully provision will be made to ensure a smoother experience for all accredited pass holders in future.

This said, I had an excellent time in Annecy this year. Even the students from my university who were camping through the apocalyptic rain storms had a great time and I believe that this is because Annecy Animation Festival is so much more than the sum of its screenings, it is about the people who attend and the atmosphere generated by 11000+ people with a passion for animation.

I don’t think that it is possible to overstate the importance of this festival on the animation calendar or how important it is for students to experience it, especially with the huge discount they receive which includes that day at Mifa. But I do hope that attendance numbers don’t rise too much more in the coming years for fear that it will burn itself out.

Tips for Annecy:

• Book your accommodation as early as possible
• Pack your umbrella as well as your sun cream
• Practice making and throwing paper planes
• Get used to queuing
• Pace yourself (more than 3 screenings a day is really hard work!)

The post Annecy 2019: Festival Reflection appeared first on Skwigly Animation Magazine.