fmx2015

The 20th anniversary edition of the FMX conference on animation, effects, games, and transmedia will host and highlight Weta Digital visual effects lumiunary Joe Letteri and key figures from Industrial Light and Magic and Pixar.

The theme of this year’s conference, taking place May 5-8 in Stuttgart, Germany, is “Immersion & Virtual Realities—The Future of Content Viewing & Producing”.

Letteri, the Academy Award- and BAFTA-winning vfx supervisor and director of Weta Digital, will be present to share insights about the company’s pioneering work on the Lord of the Rings and Avatar films, as well as more recent work on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

In its celebration of the 40th anniversary of Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), FMX will welcome chief creative officer and senior vfx supervisor John Knoll, Indiana Jones and Star Wars modelshop supervisor Lorne Peterson, and vfx supervisor Richard Bluff to discuss the history of the company across four decades.

To participate in a wide-ranging conversation about Pixar for the 20th anniversary of Toy Story, FMX will present supervising technical directors William Reeves and Eben Fiske Ostby, who worked on Pixar’s Luxo Jr. short in 1986 and were instrumental in the creation of Toy Story, along with Toy Story art director and For the Birds director Ralph Eggleston. The discussion will be hosted by Pixar senior researcher Christophe Hery.

FMX 2015 will also feature virtual reality pioneer Mark Bolas, in whose lab Oculus Rift was developed, vfx supervisor Jörn Grosshans (Game of Thrones), and presentations on Big Hero 6, Interstellar, and Pixar’s upcoming Finding Dory. For the full program and ticket info, visit the FMX website.