Workshops at the View Conference 2020

Workshops at the View Conference 2020

October 4, 2020 – The international VIEW Conference, Italy’s premiere event for Computer Graphics, Interactive & Immersive Media, Animation, Visual Effects, Games, Real-time Rendering, Virtual Production, AI, VR, AR, and Mixed Reality, brings top professionals from those fields to the beautiful baroque city of Torino, Italy for a week of talks, presentations, and workshops.

The 2020 VIEW Conference will take place from October 18 to 23 in Torino’s state-of-the-art OGR venue and virtually. “Because VIEW Conference will be online as well as onsite this year, we are taking advantage of the wonderful opportunity to include remarkable professionals from all over the globe,” says Conference Director Dr. Maria Elena Gutierrez. “VIEW 2020 will be amazing.”

VIEW Conference 2020 is made possible thanks to the support of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione CRT, Regione Piemonte, Città di Torino and the OGR.

VIEW Conference 2020 Confirmed Speakers are Ed Catmull, Dennis Muren, Joel Crawford, Nate Wragg, Rob Bredow, Tomm Moore, Phil Tippett, Peter Ramsey, Kris Pearn, Jorge R. Gutierrez, Kyle Balda, Tony Bancroft, Walt Dohrn, Jeremy Clapin, Sharon Calahan, Osnat Shurer and many more.

VIEW Conference 2020 Workshops

Drawing for Story – Kris Pearn, Director: The Willoughbys, Bron Animation and Netflix

A two hour interactive session with a live model. But this won’t be your typical life drawing workshop. We’ll create stories, incorporating a character into a set and imagining how our drawings are cameras, focusing on “quick sketch” (30 second, 1 minute, and 3 minute posing) we’ll challenge our drawings to build off of reality. What to exaggerate? What to expose? How much truth do you illustrate… to sell the lie? We will discuss compositional choices, how to make the most of the frame, how to trap the eye to SEE the story you’re trying to TELL. Participants are encouraged to share and discuss their work and if comfortable, engage in open critiques… after all… what is the point of a story without an audience?

Storyboarding: Welcome to the Sandbox – Kris Pearn, Director: The Willoughbys, Bron Animation and Netflix

Story is everywhere, but let’s be practical- storyboarding is a craft. It’s a job. But why do it? Why take this step when making a film or TV show? In this workshop we’ll focus on the idea that storyboarding is a tool designed to help the filmmaker organize and clarify their idea. It’s a chance to make mistakes, try things out, and learn. In three hours, we will take a very simple script and workshop how to evolve it into something bigger, more dynamic and fun. Our goal is to talk to an audience using scribbles. Completely interactive, we will create a safe place to “what if” and challenge the material and through play, discover how to respond, improve and take risks with storytelling. It’ll be fun, but also informative, and helpful for anybody who wants to be a filmmaker. Drawings will not be judged, so don’t feel you have to be an visual artist to attend. This workshop is about ideas and sharing those ideas using the medium of film.

2D Environment Design Concept Arts – Sébastien Hue, Concept Artist & Illustrator

6-hour workshop (10:30 – 18:00) on October 18, 2020 on site at OGR in Torino, Italy, with concept artist Sebastien Hue takes you from sketches – thumbnails – architectural design to an environment concept art in a post-nuclear abandoned town from the western desert. Workshop is 6 hours with 1 hour break for lunch and two 15-minute breaks. (Onsite only)

Digital Assets in Houdini: Node by Node to Destruction – Daniel Shutt, 3D Tutor, Escape Studios

In this 6 hour workshop students first learn how Houdini’s procedural workflow can be used to generate assets with controls designed to be re-usable and shared to other applications through Houdini Engine. Then in part two students will learn how to use their generated asset in a dynamic destruction scene.

Animating Comedy Characters – Tony Bancroft, Director, Animal Crackers

They say there is no way to analyze comedy without breaking it but in this 2-hour live online course, Disney animator Tony Bancroft will endeavor to do just that. Animating comedy characters is part of what makes cartoons popular the world over. Learn the tricks and tips in creating funny business from an instructor with years of comedy experience from creating characters such as Cogsworth, Iago Pumbaa and Kronk as well as directing the Disney’s OG Mulan and Netflix’s Animal Crackers.

Blender 2.9: The Free Production Studio for Indies – Helge Maus, Senior VFX Trainer, Owner pixeltrain 3d | vfx | animation

In this workshop, Helge Maus (pixeltrain) gives you and overview about the broad feature set of Blender 2.9, how the development cycles and infrastructure of this open source tool works and how Indies (but also pro studios) can start using this software in their pipeline.

Introduction to Houdini FX Fundamentals – Helge Maus, Senior VFX Trainer, Owner pixeltrain 3d | vfx | animation

Helge Maus (pixeltrain) teaches you how to work with Houdini FX as a generalist „One Man Band Studio”. Beside of the use of Houdini FX as a full-flesh 3D application for Modeling, Shading & Lighting, Animation and Rendering he teaches you the first steps in using the amazing VFX Tools like Particles, Pyro FX & Fluids.

Animating a Spider in Motion – Alex Williams, Head of Animation – Escape Studios

Learn the secrets of creature locomotion in this workshop with animator Alex Williams. No prior software experience is required. We’ll take you from zero to hero, showing you the basics of animation with Autodesk Maya. We’ll show you how to animate a spider in motion, using industry-standard techniques to break down apparently complex motion into a series of simple steps.

Story, Character, and Emotion – Kyle Balda, Director, Minions: The Rise of Gru

What is it that makes us care what happens to the characters? How can this investment be amplified and cultivated? Once we have a vested interest in our characters, how do we turn up the heat and put pressure on them so the audience will want to see what they do next? Join Minions director, Kyle Balda, for this two hour seminar where we will explore ways of telling stories through use of character and emotion and breaking down some of the fundamentals in acting and staging that support these themes.

Animated Cinematography – Erik Smitt, Director of Creative production, Skydance Animation

Together we’ll take a sequence from storyboards through the camera and lighting process in a virtual environment. We’ll cover storytelling and tonal decisions that help the audience connect to the narrative, as well as practicalities that come from working on a film in a holistic and collaborative method.

Art of Storytelling – Scratching the Surface – Nikola Damjanov, Lead Game Artist, Nordeus

Let’s explore several methods of making detailed procedural materials and using them to quickly build complex looking scenes. We will use simple objects and focus on surfacing to push the presentation beyond textures and into storytelling.

Story Workshop: Pitching Your Best – Cinzia Angelini, Director, Cinesite Feature Animation

No matter who you are, or how many years experience you have, pitching a story can be challenging. If you’re interested in improving your pitching skills, this workshop is a great platform for exploring, discussing and learning together. In this session, you’ll be sharing one another’s sequences, and honing your pitching skills while learning from each other. Please be prepared to pitch one or more sequences you’ve boarded.

Alternative Pipeline for Animation – Marino Guarnieri, Director, 2D VFX Supervisor, Winner EFA Best Animated Movie & David di Donatello Award

Well-tested software and optimized workflow allow operators to move from one production to another, but what is the current state of independent productions? We will analyze a standard industrial PIPELINE step by step, comparing each step with an Open Source alternative to the most used softwares up to workflows that use experimental tools, such as Tablets and Apps.

How is a Cartoon Born? – Marino Guarnieri, Director, 2D VFX Supervisor, Winner EFA Best Animated Movie & David di Donatello Award

The animation movies we have all known since childhood, accompany us in the phase of life in which we learn to express ourselves with drawings even before writing. An overview of the work behind the scenes of animation products, from the development of the idea to the creation of the actual animations, with a look at the professions and roles of artists and technicians.

Sculpting in VR: All About Forms – Giovanni Nakpil, Art Director, 3D & Immersive, Adobe

Strong forms and readability are two of the most important elements in sculpting. In the one hour we have, I will show how to use Medium’s powerful tools for form-building and demonstrate how to achieve a clean and readable sculpture. I will also touch on the advantages of working in VR for art and production as well as talk about how it all fits in today’s current pipeline.

Creating Paper Puppets For Animation – Megan Brain, Paper Sculpture Designer, Walt Disney Imagineering “World of Color” Water Show

In this Master Class at View Conference 2020 Megan will be sharing her experience of being hired to create paper sculptures for a night time show in Disney’s California Adventure park. She interpreted more than 30 characters from five iconic Disney films into paper sculptures. After the paper puppets were created, they were then made into digital assets and animated in the After Effects program by project partner Todd Hemker. The animation created was projected on to huge 200 ft tall (61M) water screens during various parts of the “The World of Color” nighttime program in the Paradise Lagoon.

Understanding The Limitations Of Substance Designer – Alex Beddows, 3D Learning Content Manager, Artstation

I have been knee-deep in Designer for the past couple of years, making a variety of materials for AAA and personal development. These 2 things need clarifying, if you look at some of the huge names in the material art community and see the 100% Designer materials on their ArtStation, this leads to young artists observing and creating a ton of materials that look cool but have 0 utility in production, In this talk, I delve into the differences and how leveraging other software will level up your Material quality!

Virtual Cinematography Using Unity & Expozure Virtual Film Tools – Habib Zargarpour, Head of Film Development, Unity Technologies

How to setup and shoot a scene in under 2 hours with Unity and Expozure Virtual Film Tools.

Using VR for Story Development and Pre-Production – Eloi Champagne, Technical Director – National Film Board of Canada, VR

A simple introduction on how to use different VR applications to facilitate the story development process and the pre-production of various types of animated films and XR projects.

Right Ideas: How to Find Them – Francesco Filippi, Red Hands – Studio Mistral

There are different approaches to writing: we can think drawing, we can start from a theme, or from a character who struggles for an aim. We can write alone or in team. Ideas can rain down into our heads, or we can unearth them. How? Asking ourselves the right questions. And when we will have found a lot of ideas, how can we recognize the right one? The idea we love, is it really the necessary one? And necessary for who? For what?

Liar Liar: Acting for Animation – Theodore Ty, Head of Character Animation, L’Atelier Animation

A fun, in-depth study on the behaviour of honesty and deceit in animation and live action acting.

VFX Editing – Hugo Guerra, Director & VFX Supervisor, Director and VFX Supervisor, Founder of Hugo’s Desk

Are you planning to make a short film? Getting ready to supervise a big TV show? Are you an editor or a VFX Supervisor? Join me for a session where we go deep into the world of editing, round-tripping, conforming, EDL, XML, color spaces and delivering to clients. I will share many relevant insights and tricks learned by building a VFX editorial and conforming pipeline at The Mill London. In this session, we will open Nuke Studio, FCPX, Premiere, and DaVinci. Brought to you by BenQ.

Ted’s Demo Reel ReVIEW – Theodore Ty, Head of Character Animation, L’Atelier Animation

A demo reel review for tips on making your reel stand out in the crowd! This will involve animation critique, reel structure and presentation

The Narrative Power of Film – Glen McIntosh, Supervising Animator, Storyboard Artist, Conceptual Designer, Paleo-artist

My lecture will encompass the rules of dynamic narrative film. With specific examples from master filmmakers, I will be discussing when to bend the rules and when to break them. Frame composition, editing, cinematography, sound, music, animation and performances all work as a symphony to not only entertain and inspire but convey meaning to the audiences. My class will reveal these aspects and techniques that are either unseen or imperceptible but all speak to the power of film and storytelling.

Nuke Workshop – Hugo Guerra, Director & VFX Supervisor, Director and VFX Supervisor, Founder of Hugo’s Desk

How do you make a good VFX shot become outstanding? What can we do to make that final 10% that “makes or breaks” a shot? In this session Director and VFX Supervisor Hugo Guerra will share some advance tips & tricks for Commercials and Games Cinematics using Foundry Nuke. We will talk about grading for CG, finishing shots, advance AOV color correction, 2.5D solutions and much more. This session will be all about growing your knowledge to have the core-skills to become an outstanding compositor and VFX artist. The techniques learned in this session can also be used in After Effects, Photoshop, Fusion or Flame.

Directing Animation – Simone Giampaolo, Freelance Director (Aardman Animations/Jellyfish Pictures)

Animation Director Simone Giampaolo will be happy to share some insight into his personal career path in the industry, from animation student (at Bournemouth Uni) to director of some of the biggest animation studios in the UK (Aardman, Jellyfish Pictures, Blue-Zoo). Following this, Simone will illustrate his approach to tackle shots and sequences, from script to final animation passing through storyboards and acting.

Concept to Animation: 3D Pipeline & High Precision Creativity in VR – Rafi Nizam, Creative Consultant & Media Executive, Rafianimates

Masterpiece Studio dramatically reduces the technical barriers to creating CG art, for artists of any discipline. Creative Consultant & Media Executive, Rafi Nizam, walks you through why Masterpiece Studio is essential to his process of originating IP, developing entertainment franchises and pitching content ideas.

Texturing with Substance Painter – Laurens Corijn, Technical Artist, 3D & Immersive, Adobe

Substance Painter has become a staple texturing tools for artists across 3D industries thanks to its easy, intuitive workflow. When teaching the software I’ve noticed there are often still aspects of Painter that users, even experienced ones, are not aware of. In this workshop, we’ll run through a project highlighting optimal ways to approach your texturing, as well as diving into some lesser known, but fun and interesting advanced features of Substance Painter.