On Friday, the four-day 22nd FMX edition came to an end with a screening of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2”. Prior to this, Framestore, Trixter, Weta Digital and Animal Logic offered more than two hours of insight into their VFX work for the latest Marvel blockbuster.
In the upcoming issue of DP, Fuat Yüksel from Trixter – who presented his work on the film to a packed room in Mannheim at FMX during the lunch break on Thursday – will explain how Destruction FX for part 2 of “Guardians of the Galaxy” with Houdini came about.
Visitors – as far as the eye can see
FMX 2017 brought together a total of 307 speakers and 4,000 attendees – surpassing last year’s attendance record. With guests from 61 countries – almost 40 per cent of all visitors came from abroad, including China and Indonesia – FMX was also more international than ever before. Under the motto “Beyond the Screen”, FMX offered students (32.5%) and professionals (67.5%) from the entire spectrum of digital visual arts – from analogue illustrators to experts in dome projections – a platform to discuss the synergies of their fields of work.
The fact that FMX was sold out for the first time naturally led to lectures being filled to capacity and sometimes to long faces among FMX visitors when a lecture was closed due to overcrowding. The motto was: whoever joins the queue early wins.
The FMX played at the Haus der Wirtschaft, the Gloria 2 cinema and the Caligari cinema in Ludwigsburg. The Carl Zeiss Planetarium in Stuttgart also hosted FMX for the first time, creating new forms of immersion.
Beyond the Screen
The event series “Automotive Industries meet Real-time” was the centrepiece of this year’s thematic focus “Beyond the Screen.” The main focus was on the synergies between the automotive and digital entertainment industries, for example with the pioneering “BlackBird” project and the “Jaguar VR Experience”, which aims to revolutionise virtual sales experiences. In keeping with the FMX motto, there were numerous VR experiences to experience, such as Rewind’s “Ghost in the Shell” and “BBC Home: A VR Spacewalk” (more on this in an interview with Rewind founder Solomon Rogers in a future issue of DP) as well as the VR game“Robo Recall” by Epic Games.
Film & speaker highlights
Of course, the two presentations by Photoshop inventor and ILM legend John Knoll on “Rogue One” and the two-hour special “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets”, three months before the official cinema release, were something special for many visitors. And how much heart and soul Dneg put into the work on the dark gothic thriller “A Cure for Wellness” was also hugely impressive. The creation of the weightless pool water effects for “Passengers”, created by MPC, were an effect never before seen in a feature film.
Recruiting area
In addition to his conference presentations, FMX once again offered networking and job opportunities at the Recruiting Hub, which was also much busier than in previous years. Up-and-coming artists were able to introduce themselves to Framestore, Illumination Mac Guff, Animal Logic, MPC, Pixomondo, Mackevision, Sunday Digital (see also “A career goal without studying” in this issue of DP) and Rise FX (more on the new Rise location in Munich in the next issue of DP). It also allowed visitors to get to know and try out products and services live at the Marketplace, in masterclasses, company suites and workshops. The School Campus rounded off the broad programme as a meeting platform for schools, alumni and prospective students.
FMX 2018 Preview
FMX Conference Chair and Film Academy Director Prof Andreas Hykade is already making plans for FMX 2018 – for example, he wants to further strengthen the aforementioned connection between traditional and future media formats. Make a note in your diary: FMX 2018 will take place from 24 to 27 April 2018.
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