Educational workshops and masterclasses announced for VIEW Conference 2023

This year’s program features a stunning variety of in-person workshops and masterclasses. A VIEW Conference workshop is more than just a chance to learn – it is an opportunity to get hands-on with an award-winning master of their craft, exploring the creative process in unparalleled depth and detail.

In addition, VIEW Conference offers an extraordinary array of educational sessions, including portfolio reviews, interactive “Ask-Me-Anything” sessions with experienced industry leaders, and even mock interviews.

An English speaking event, VIEW Conference 2023 is taking place from October 15-20 in the beautiful baroque city of Torino, Italy. Attending the event in person guarantees an unrivaled opportunity for people to soak up the atmosphere and meet their heroes and mentors. Meanwhile, full online access enables a global audience to enjoy the conference via exclusive livestream. 

“A Masterclass Conversation about Art and Star Wars”

• · With Doug Chiang, Vice President and Executive Creator at Lucasfilm
• · Duration: 60 minutes

An informal masterclass conversation about film design in which Doug Chiang discusses his early career, his work in the film industry, and what it’s like to work on Star Wars. The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and participate in the discussion. With over 25 years of Star Wars design expertise, Chiang oversees designs for the  Star Wars franchise including films, theme parks, games, and new media. He was Lucasfilm’s principal designer for “ Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge" and other Disney World Resort attractions. He served as production designer on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,  The Mandalorian,  The Book of Boba Fett,  Obi-Wan Kenobi,  Ahsoka, and more.

“Art Direction, Visual Development and Stylization”

• · With Almu Redondo, Production Designer at Cartoon Saloon
• · Duration: 6 hours

Dive into concept art, style-frames, and art direction, focusing on unraveling the power of images in storytelling. Almu Redondo will share her professional path, methods, and ideas that will help the attendees push their creative approaches and the strength visuals can give to our story, mixing theory, a practical presentation with case studies, demos and work reviews in interactive sessions with Q&A. Throughout the six hours, Redondo will guide the participants through the process of researching the visual look of a project with practical demonstrations, mood board and ideas map, and creating thumbnails, sketches, and final images. Redondo will prepare five stories so participants can choose from them and develop a style and a style-frame of it, or they can bring their own.

“Character Animation Workshop”

• · With Andreas Deja, legendary Disney Animator and Creator/Director of Mushka

A character drawing workshop where Andreas Deja will showcase characters he has drawn throughout his Disney career and his new Mushka characters, to teach and tell stories about his 30-year Disney career. From his early days being mentored by Eric Larson, one of Disney's renowned “Nine Old Men,” to working on the ground-breaking Who Framed Roger Rabbit? to becoming one of Disney's go-to lead animators, creating some of the most memorable Disney villains. Highlights will include development of such iconic characters as Jafar ( Aladdin), Scar ( The Lion King), Gaston ( Beauty and the Beast) and King Triton ( The Little Mermaid).

“The Animation of Nimona”

• · With Ted Ty, Global Head of Character Animation at DNEG Animation
• · Duration: 3 hours

A detailed and entertaining look at the planning, philosophy and execution of the animation performances of Netflix’s hit animated feature Nimona, on which Ted Ty served as Animation Director. With over 30 years of experience in the industry, Ty brings a deep understanding of both 2D and 3D animation to his role at DNEG Animation. As a creative leader, he understands the importance of creating a supportive environment giving artists the opportunity to grow in their craft and fulfill their utmost potential. Ty began his animation career at Walt Disney Animation, working on the original The Lion King and Pocahontas. Other feature animation credits include Kung Fu Panda,  Shrek Forever After,  Puss in Boots,  How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Rise of the Guardians.

“Rome Wasn't Built in a Day, But This Game Level Was!”

• · With Nikola Damjanov, Lead Game Artist at Nordeus
• · Duration: 6 hours

Join Nikola Damjanov for a 6-hour workshop where we will procedurally create a game level. The goal of the workshop is to utilize modern world-building tools to quickly create a playable game level and then iterate over design and quality. With this rapid prototyping mindset we will go through procedurally modeling, animating and populating our slice of the world. In the end, we will have the power to generate infinite variations of our creation. Tools used: Houdini, Unity Game Engine.

“Dynamic Figure Drawing”

• · With Scott Eaton, Artist, Designer, Creative Technologist
• · Duration: 2 hours

In this two-hour workshop, Scott Eaton leads us through exercises to sharpen our figure drawing skills. Starting with drawing fundamentals and building up to dynamic poses, he explains the construction of the body and the essential anatomy necessary to understand and draw dynamic figures. The workshop references Eaton’s online photo repository https://www.bodiesinmotion.photo/ for poses. No drawing experience is necessary, just a willingness to experiment. Bring your sketchbooks and be ready to draw. Eaton’s work explores the boundaries of figurative representation by combining traditional mediums (drawing, sculpture, photography and animation) with machine learning, data, and computer graphics. His art and designs have been featured in Wired Magazine, GQ, Vogue, Vanity Fair, the New York Times, and his clients include Pixar, Industrial Light & Magic, Disney, Sony, Blizzard, Valve, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Meta AI, Nvidia and others.

“Death of the Polygon?”

• · With Martin Nebelong, Digital Artist
• · Duration: 2 hours

In this two hour workshop, Martin Nebelong shares his experience of using 3D tools that are free from the shackles of the polygon. He demonstrates how he uses Dreams, a piece of creative software based on SDFs (Signed Distance Fields). With Dreams, Nebelong creates expansive mountain ranges and distant space stations without touching a mouse, keyboard or tablet. Using only his two hands and two glowing wands – 6DOF controllers outside of VR … all at at speeds he says are impossible to achieve with more traditional workflows. A bold claim! The SDF technology is slowly making its way to Blender and crops up in experimental 3D tools like Unbound.io and Womp.3d. During the workshop, Nebelong shares practical examples of client work made in Dreams, as well as personal work.