Roundtable Discussions

The Future of Virtual Production
Moderator: Vince Baertsoen — Group CG Director, The Mill

Group VR: A Multi-Modal Approach
Moderator: D’nardo Colucci — President and Co-Founder of The Elumenati, LLC

Cloud Based Computing/Workflows: What’s the Latest
Moderator: Kevin Baillie — Conductor Technologies and Atomic Fiction

Beautiful and Believable Cities for Film, TV, and Gaming
Moderator: Dominik Tarolli — Esri, Director, Global Business Development 3D Geodesign

Digital Humans: Bridging the Uncanny Valley
Moderator: Darren Hendler — Director Digital Human Group, Digital Domain

Where Does A.I. Fit in the Media & Entertainment Pipeline?
Moderator: Vincent Brisebois — Senior Technical Marketing Manager at NVIDIA

The “No Limits” World of Visual Effects in Television
Moderator: David Altenau — FuseFX CEO

High-end Visual Effects for Animation
Moderator: John Mariella — Senior Production Consultant – SideFX

Mixing Practical and Digital FX
Moderator: Todd Masters — President/Founder/Chief Monster Maker – MASTERSFX

Producing VFX in Korea and China: The Process & Challenges
Moderator: Karin Joy — VFX Producer

VFX Supervision: The Challenges / Passing along Hard-Won Solutions
Moderator: Scott Farrar, ASC — Visual Effects Supervisor / Second Unit Director – ILM

So You Have a Screenplay: What Do You Do Next?
Moderator: Christopher Lockhart — Story Editor at WME

Game Engines: The Future of Real Time Rendering & Computer Graphics
Moderator: Marc Petit — General Manager, Unreal Enterprise (Epic Games)

The Age of Imagination

Evan Atherton – Sr. Research Engineer, Office of the CTO – Autodesk

Evan received his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been with Autodesk ever since. He currently serves as a Senior Research Engineer for the Office of the CTO, tasked with exploring five to one hundred years into the future to identify technologies, trends, and stories that may impact the way things will be designed and made. Evan’s current work occurs at the intersection of advanced robotics, digital fabrication, and storytelling. (read more)

Evolution in Entertainment: VR, Cinema, and Beyond

Jason Brenek – President, IMAX Home Entertainment

Jason Brenek joined IMAX Corporation in February 2015 as President, IMAX Home Entertainment where he oversees a series of global initiatives designed collectively to translate elements of The IMAX Experience® to the home setting, including the IMAX Private Theatres, an over-the-top movie service for delivering IMAX-enhanced Hollywood films into homes, and IMAX technology licensing into premium consumer electronics. He also oversees virtual reality content acquisitions and curation for the new IMAX location-based VR centers. (read more)

Creating for Virtual, Augmented & Mixed Realities

Nonny de la Peña – Founder / CEO, Emblematic Group

Nonny de la Peña is the founder and CEO of Emblematic Group, a leader in creating immersive virtual, mixed and augmented reality. One of the most influential pioneers in VR, Nonny created walk around virtual reality with the first-ever VR documentary Hunger in Los Angeles at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. (read more)

Will the Future Look More Like Star Trek or Harry Potter?

Gavin Miller – Head of Adobe Research & VP, Creative Intelligence Lab

Dr. Gavin Miller is the Head of Adobe Research and the Vice President of the Creative Intelligence Lab. As the Vice President of the Creative Intelligence Lab, Dr. Gavin Miller aims to create a world-class research organization by attracting and retaining some of the best talent breaking grounds on innovative research across the creative fields. The Creative Intelligence Lab’s research is focused on computer graphics, computer vision, imaging, media intelligence and NLP, as well as explorations of new creativity media, such as VR, AR, AI and robots, to invent the creative landscape of tomorrow. The Creative Intelligence Lab publishes novel technical papers at major technical conferences, and contributes a significant number of features to Photoshop and other desktop and mobile creative products produced by Adobe. (read more)

When Hackers Attack: How Can Hollywood Fight Back?

Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam – CEO, SSP Blue

Hemanshu “Hemu” Nigam has worked inside the largest prosecuting agencies, software companies, media and entertainment giants, and most influential trade associations in the world. Hemu served as the Chief Security Officer (CSO) of News Corporation and Fox Interactive Media’s digital properties, as CSO of MySpace, and as a security executive in Microsoft. He was also the Vice President of Worldwide Internet Enforcement at the Motion Picture Association of America. He began his career as Los Angeles County prosecutor specializing in sex crimes and child abuse before serving as a federal prosecutor against online crimes against children and computer crimes in the US DOJ. (read more)

Transforming Cinema Beyond 24 fps

Douglas Trumbull, VES – Visionary Filmmaker, Innovator and Entrepreneur

Visionary filmmaker, innovator and entrepreneur, Douglas Trumbull has enjoyed a long and prestigious technological and creative career in filmmaking and entertainment technologies. Following his breakthrough pioneering work as one of four photographic effects supervisors on 2001: A Space Odyssey, his name rapidly became synonymous with some of the greatest effects work of its era on titles such as The Andromeda Strain, Close Encounters Of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Blade Runner. (read more)