Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 6, 2014. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Final spurt. Preparations are in full swing, the animago trophies are already being polished – next week the animago AWARD & CONFERENCE 2014 opens its doors in the Metropolis Halle in Potsdam-Babelsberg.
From 16 to 17 October, visitors can expect a strong conference programme: this year we will be welcoming The Moving Picture Company, Framestore, The Mill, Pixar, Industrial, Light & Magic, Rise, Pixomondo, Arri and Ubisoft, among others.
The speakers will provide a look behind the scenes of the 2014 TV and cinema year with making-ofs. Here are a few highlights from this year’s CONFERENCE programme:
Framestore: VFX work with Sandra Bullock and Audrey Hepburn
Mike McGee talks about the technical realisation of the effects in the Oscar-nominated film “Gravity” with Sandra Bullock and about a commercial for “Galaxy Chocolate” – with a CG Audrey Hepburn. McGee is co-founder of the London studio Framestore. With over 25 years of professional experience, he is an industry veteran who can act as both a live-action director and VFX supervisor. McGee has directed commercials for some of the UK’s best known brands. He also has experience in VFX films such as BBC’s “Dinosaurs – In the Realm of the Giants” and “Your Highness”.
Animating better characters with Pixar
Pixar veteran Scott Clark as a guest at the animago CONFERENCE! Clark joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1996 – as the first intern in the Animation Department. Shortly after graduating with a degree in illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design that same year, he became a permanent employee – and has since experienced the technical development of the industry at first hand. In addition to his work at Pixar, Clark has been a lecturer in computer animation at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco for almost ten years. He also studied acting at the American Conservatory Theatre – a highly recommended subject for animation artists. Clark’s lecture is also entitled: “Step Away From the Computer! and Other Advice on Creating Great Character Animation.”
Arri: VFX for “Sapphire Blue”
Speaker Jürgen Schopper is Professor of Film & Animation at the renowned Georg-Simon-Ohm University of Applied Sciences in Nuremberg. He acted as Creative Director at Arri Film & TV Services for “Saphirblau” and was also responsible for the VFX for the filming of the second part of the “Edelstein” trilogy by young adult author Kerstin Gier, which consists of the books “Ruby Red”, “Sapphire Blue” and “Emerald Green”.
The Munich post-production team visually realised the time travel and fantasy theme, just like in the first part. In the second part, the gargoyle demon “Xemerius” was added as a CG character.
M.A.R.K.13 presents the new “Maya the Bee”
The new edition of the 70s cartoon series “Maya the Bee” has been running in cinemas as a 3D animated film since 11 September. The bee had to cover a huge distance for her appearance, as the film was made as an Australian-German co-production. Sydney-based Flying Bark Productions were responsible for the animation, set dressing and the resolution of the story. In Stuttgart, M.A.R.K.13 took care of the look. At the animago, Head of Animation Holger Weiss and CG Supervisor Tino Nettling from M.A.R.K.13 report on the production.
MPC: Making-of “X-Men”
Speaker Tony Micilotta worked as R&D Lead on “X-Men: Future is Past” and faced the technical challenges of the “Sentinels”. In the latest instalment of the “X-Men” series, the mutants have to face highly developed robots in the future. The so-called Sentinels are on the verge of destroying the film heroes. As they can adapt to the powers of each mutant and use them against them, they are invincible. The X-Men’s last resort is to solve the problem in the past.
Eleven studios worked on a total of 1,311 VFX shots for the blockbuster. As the lead studio, The Moving Picture Company was responsible for 372 shots and took care of the heart of the film: the Sentinels, for whom most of the development work was done.
Mackevision: Making-of “Game of Thrones”
Jörn Großhans from the Mackevision studio, which founded a VFX department in 2013, presents the work on the effects for the fourth season of “Game of Thrones” (GoT). Together with other studios involved, the Stuttgart-based company was honoured with an Emmy Award for its work on GoT. VFX supervisor Jörn Großhans (formerly Pixomondo) has already won an Emmy for the third season and now heads a team of over 40 people together with VFX producer Katharina Keßler. For the fourth season, Mackevision took on a total of 72 VFX shots over a period of 6 months. The team’s work focussed on crowd scenes, CGI ships including water simulation and the generation of digital environments.
Rise: Invisible effects for “The Book Thief”
The novel “The Book Thief”, published in 2OO5, is about nine-year-old Liesel, who lives during the Nazi era. Rise | Visual Effects was responsible for the elaborate visual effects, which were not allowed to be obvious to cinema-goers. One focus of the work was capturing the sets with LIDAR scanners and then processing the huge amounts of data. animago consultant Florian Gellinger acted as production VFX supervisor on set for this project. Jonathan Weber led the 27-strong team as in-house supervisor together with Kerstin Kensy as VFX producer.
ILM: VFX for Lucy, Transformers and Pacific Rim
Speaker Florian Witzel works as a director, designer and CG artist at Industrial Light & Magic in San Francisco. He specialises in the simulation of fluid dynamics and the rendering of water, fire and other natural phenomena that find their way onto the big screen. In his animago lecture, he will report on the use of procedural animation in three major blockbusters that were shown in 2013 and 2014: Michael Bay’s fourth robot battle “Transformers: Age of Doom”, Guillermo del Toro’s “Pacific Rim” and Luc Besson’s “Lucy”.
The Mill: Character in advertising films
Speaker Jorge Montiel Meurer works as Head of Animation at The Mill in London. In this role, he supervised a commercial with a CG squirrel for the Irish beer brand Smithwick’s. The photorealistic animal brews the perfect pint with precision and craftsmanship. In his animago presentation, Meurer will report on the integration of CG characters in advertising films and the processes required for this, using international work by The Mill as an example. For example, the Thai music legend Rewat was brought back to life for the Johnny Walker campaign “Change The Game”. This project, commissioned by BBH China, included facial performance capture and a perfect replica of the late musician. Or for the margarine brand Fruit d’Or, the task was to create a photorealistic CG bird called “Hugo”.
Johnny Walker campaign
Fruit D’Or – Bird
And these are just some of the points on this year’s programme. The conference will be accompanied by a free trade exhibition. There will also be a recruiting/network area this year, where you can get in touch with experts from (inter)national studios and present yourself and your work.
You can download the conference programme here.
All information about the animago can be found here.
Picture: Ulf Büschleb
