Peter Ramsey, who won an Oscar this year for co-directing the hit animated film “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” has joined the long list of high-level speakers for the 2019 View Conference, which runs from Oct. 21-25 in Turin, Italy.
“I’m delighted to announce that Peter Ramsey, who is the first African American director to win an Academy Award for best animated feature, will speak at View 2019,” said conference director Maria Elena Gutierrez. “Also among our great speakers this year is Siobhan Reddy, a powerful woman in the games industry, and Sergio Pablos, who is creating a 2D animated feature in Madrid for Netflix. We’ll see Image Engine’s dragons in ‘Game of Thrones,’ Spencer Cook’s animation in ‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters,’ Todd Sue’s art direction for ‘Apex Legends,’ and Sebastien Hue’s concept art. And we’re bringing back four of our most interesting speakers with new, exciting material to share: Midwinter Entertainment’s Josh Holmes, ILM’s Rob Bredow, tech pioneer Tom Wujec and Escape Studios’ Alex Williams. I love the quality and diversity in this year’s program.”
Ramsey directed “Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse” for Sony Pictures Animation alongside Bob Persichetti and Rodney Rothman. In addition to the Oscar for best animated film, “Spider-Man” won 62 other awards, including a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award. Ramsey also directed DreamWorks Animation’s “Rise of the Guardians,” was storyboard artist on a number of animated and live-action films and has credits as a second unit director and illustrator.
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Image Engine visual effects supervisor Thomas Schelesny and animation supervisor Jason Snyman will talk to View attendees about how they created Daenerys’ dragons for the final season of HBO’s epic series “Game of Thrones.”
Spencer Cook was the senior animation supervisor for this year’s titan mash-up “Godzilla: King of the Monsters.” Cook is currently animation director at Double Negative. Before that, he was animation supervisor at Framestore, where he supervised teams that worked on “Alien Covenant” and “Beauty and the Beast.”
Sergio Pablos, who was an executive producer and writer for Illumination’s “Despicable Me,” is in post-production on his animated feature “Klaus” for Netflix. “Klaus” is a holiday comedy about a postman and a reclusive toymaker that Netflix is planning a Christmastime release, in time for an Oscar-qualifying run. Pablos has worked as a writer, character designer or animator on such films as “Smallfoot,” “Rio,” “Treasure Planet,” “Tarzan,” “Hercules” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
Rob Bredow, SVP, executive creative director and head of ILM, is returning to View to share more storytelling insights into the “Star Wars” universe, highlighting the innovative visual effects Industrial Light & Magic has created over the last 40 years. Bredow, who was visual effects supervisor on last year’s “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” will be signing copies of his book, “Making Solo: A Star Wars Story.”
Siobhan Reddy is the co-founder and studio director of U.K.-based Media Molecule and was named one of Fortune Magazine’s 10 Powerful Women in Gaming in 2014.
Also from the gaming world is Josh Holmes, co-founder and CEO of Midwinter Entertainment, which is developing the multiplayer survival shooter “Scavengers.” Holmes is formerly the studio head and creative director on the “Halo” game franchise for 343 Industries and a former game designer at Electronic Arts, where he created the franchises “NBA Street” and “DefJam.”
Todd Hue is a video game artist who was most recently art director for Respawn’s “Apex Legends.” Over his career, he’s worked on some of the world’s most popular video games, including “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” and “Modern Warfare 2,” “Tony Hawk’s ProSkater: Underground,” “Titanfall” and “Titanfall 2.”
Other recently announced speakers include concept artist Sebastien Hue, Alex Williams, head of animation at Escape Studios, and Autodesk fellow Tom Wujec, who has led several TED talks on creative problem-solving and works with business teams via “Wicked Problem Solving” to create inventive and successful products, services and solutions.
They join previously announced keynote speakers directors Brad Bird and Dean DeBlois, composer Michael Giacchino, Pixar filmmaker Ralph Eggleston, PUBG Corporations Changhan “CH” Kim, Baobab Studio’s Maureen Fan and renowned scientist Daniel Zajfman, president of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and many more.
Since it began 20 years ago, View, which stands for Virtual Interactive Emerging World, has continually attracted a who’s-who of luminaries in visual effects, animation, gaming, virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality to the weeklong conference to give talks, participate in panels, network and hold master classes.
The View Conference will be held at Officine Grandi Riparazioni the week of Oct. 21-25. Registration is now open on its website.
