2020 VIEW Conference Sets Its First Speakers
By Terry Flores
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Computer science experts Paul Debevec and Donald Greenberg are the first two keynote speakers locked in for October’s 2020 VIEW Conference in Turin, Italy.
Debevec is a senior scientist at Google VR and an an adjunct research professor of computer science at USC, working within the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Visual Effects Society, and has served on the executive committee and as vice president of SIGGRAPH.
Greenberg is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Computer Graphics at Cornell University, where he teaches computer graphics courses, computer-aided design, computer animation and technology strategy.
VIEW Conference, 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. Last year’s speakers included director Brad Bird, composer Michael Giacchino and PUBG Corporation CEO CH Kim, producer of the online multiplayer battle Royale game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
“We are honored that these two brilliant pioneering researchers will bring their inspiring visions to VIEW,” says Conference director Dr. Maria Elena Gutierrez. “They have opened the minds of so many people to new ways of looking at the world. They are the perfect speakers to highlight the October VIEW Conference in a revitalized Italy.”
Plans for the conference Oct. 18-23 are proceeding despite the worldwide coronavirus crisis that has hit Italy particularly hard. “All over the world, we are hit very hard by COVID-19, and especially hard here in northern Italy. Many people are suffering deeply because of this terrible pandemic and our hearts go out to all of them,” Gutierrez says. “As we try to adjust to our new reality of social distancing and distance learning and working from home, we are relying heavily on digital communication, and we are undoubtedly being transformed by our daily use of technology. But we should remember all those for which neither distancing nor technology are available. We hope to be able to address some of these questions this coming October during VIEW Conference 2020. We are hopeful that by the end of this summer this will all be behind us and that we will be able to get together and celebrate creativity and life in general during VIEW Conference.”
Registration for the conference, which will be held at the Officine Grandi Riparazioni, has opened on its website .
Submissions are also being excepted for VIEW’s two short film competitions, The View Award for short animated films and the ItalianMix Award for short Italian films.
Entries for the View Award must be 2D or 3D animated films of 30 minutes or less created after Jan. 1, 2019. An international jury from the roster of conference speakers will judge the competition, which features a prize of 2,000 euros.
ItalianMix entries can be animated, experimental or documentaries created after Jan. 1, 2019, of 30 minutes or less. The top prize is a Wacom tablet.
Entries can be made at Festhome until the Sept. 15 deadline.
