ILM’s Dennis Muren to Give Keynote at VIEW Conference

By Terry Flores

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Oscar-winning visual effects veteran Dennis Muren, known for his groundbreaking work on films in the “Star Wars” franchise (including the original trilogy), “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Jurassic Park,” “The Abyss,” and “Terminator 2,” among others, will give a keynote talk at the VIEW Conference in Turin, Italy.

Muren, senior visual effects supervisor and creative director of Industrial Light & Magic, will discuss “Visual Effects: Defining That Critical, Elusive & Final 5%” at the October event that celebrates computer graphics, interactive and immersive storytelling, animation, visual effects, games, VR, AR, and mixed reality.

Muren’s talk will wrap up the conference on Oct. 26.

Muren joins a strong lineup of keynote speakers, including award-winning composer Hans Zimmer ; Paramount Animation president Mireille Soria; senior VP, executive creative director, and head of Rob Bredow; SideFX president and CEO Kim Davidson; Google Spotlight Stories creative director Jan Pinkava; Cornell University professor Don Greenberg; Magic Leap senior VP of creative strategy John Gaeta ; and Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon co-founder Nora Twomey, director of last year’s “The Breadwinner,” and one Variety’s 2017 Animators to Watch .

The conference runs from Oct. 22 to Oct. 26. The program also includes a number of workshops, master classes, and panels featuring a wide variety of VFX, animation, games, and VR professionals from around the world. Other confirmed speakers include Pacific Data Images co-founder Glenn Entis; Bill Watral, VFX supervisor for Pixar’s “Incredibles 2;” Jay Worth, VFX supervisor for HBO’s “ Westworld ;” and Jan-Bart Van Beek, Guerrilla Games’ studio art director; Laika storyboard artist Emanuela Cozzi; Roger Gould, creative director of the theme parks group at Pixar; and Phil Rynda, director of Netflix Kids and Family.