Brad Bird and Michael Giacchino to Join Speakers at View Conference in Italy
Writer-director-animator and voice actor Brad Bird, composer Michael Giacchino and Pixar filmmaker Ralph Eggleston have been added to the list of top showbiz industry pros giving keynote addresses at the 2019 View Conference in Turin, Italy in October.
It’s a reunion for the trio, who collaborated on Bird’s 2018 blockbuster “Incredibles 2,” with Giacchino writing the music and Eggleston handling production design.
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They join the already announced writer, director and executive producer of “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” Dean DeBlois, and Changhan (CH) Kim, CEO of PUBG Corporation, known for its online multiplayer game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, at the event.
“Year after year, View Conference has established its reputation as the event where the best and the brightest from the world’s digital industries convene to exchange experiences, discuss their work, and to enrich, teach and inspire us,” says conference director Dr. Maria Elena Gutierrez. “Increasingly, View is not just an event – it is an experience, a community.”
Maureen Fan, CEO and co-founder of Baobab Studios, whose VR short “Crow: The Legend” won Emmy and Annie Awards this year; physicist Daniel Zajfman, president of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel; and Janelle Croshaw Ralla, a VFX supervisor on the international blockbuster “Captain Marvel,” will also be speaking at the conference.
Other speakers include Eloi Champagne, technical director at Montreal’s NFB Animation Studio; Nikola Damjanov, lead game artist at Nordeus; Escape Studios Director Ian Palmer; and Wieke Schrakamp, research manager health & behavior at Amsterdam’s playful learning studio IJsfontein.
In addition to last year’s “Incredibles 2,” Bird is known for his animated feature films “The Iron Giant,” “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille,” as well as the live-action films “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” and “Tomorrowland.” He is currently writing a live-action musical for Sony Pictures which will include 20 minutes of animation and feature music by Giacchino.
Giacchino will perform a concert of his music in addition to his keynote address. His list of credits stretches across more than 130 films, TV series and video games. He won an Oscar for his score for Pixar’s “Up,” and has written music for such hits as “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” “Doctor Strange,” “Inside Out” and “Coco.” His work can be heard this year on the upcoming “Spider-Man: Far From Home.”
Besides his work on “Incredibles 2,” longtime Pixar filmmaker Eggleston was the production designer on Pixar hits “Inside Out,” “WALL-E” and “Finding Nemo,” was the art director on “The Incredibles” and “Toy Story,” and won an Oscar for his animated short “For the Birds.”
Since it began 12 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.
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