Digital Storytelling - the Narrative Power of Visual Effects, April 2008 

Digital Storytelling in 2008 was the biggest event yet with a full house for the two day seminar and one day workshop on digital compositing led by digital artist BRIAN CONNOR of ILM.

The first day kicked off with JIM THACKER and MARK RAMSHAW from 3D World magazine opening the seminar and taking the audience through the history of visual effects with “The story of effects, and their effect on story”.

Author and filmmaker DR. SHILO McCLEAN then amazed the audience with an intense two hour visual presentation titled “Digital Storytelling: A framework for the narrative”.

After lunch the VFX and production team behind the very popular Norwegian comedy feature film ‘Long Flat Balls 2″ presented “How to make Hollywood effects for paperclips and finger strings”, before digital compositor BRYAN JONES from Framestore took us through “Compositing Narrative Driven Effects on the ‘Golden Compass’”.

The first day ended with MARTIN GANT, the jury forperson for the Best visual effects Awards 2006 - 2o07 presented the productions nominated for awards. Then the day closed with the Awards Dinner and presentaion of the Awards at Gamle Logen.

Day two kicked off with professor in Production Design at Lillehammer University College, MOIRA TAIT setting the stage for production designer KEVIN PHIPPS, who gave the audience a visual treatment of “Nutcracker - the Untold Story”.

After lunch production designer JOEL COLLINS and vfx art director DAN MAY discussed how they were “Bridging the gap between the Art deptartment and Visual Effects”.

The Scandinavian VFX Omelette featured “Digital set work for the Norwegian short film ‘Passport’”, presented by director AMUND LIE and TORGEIR SANDERS of Gimpville, followed up with “VFX work on the horror movie ‘Backwoods’” show by MORTEN MOEN of Storms Studios, and closing with the “Digital creature work on ‘The Kautokeino Rebellion’” presented by producer CLAES DIETMAN and vfx supervisor STAFFAN LINDER from Fido.

A panel discussion moderated by co-founder KIM BAUMANN LARSEN, included panelists Claes Dietmann, Espen Horn, producer and managing director KRISTIN HELLEBUST from Storm Studios and flame artist AKSEL JERMSTAD from the Chimney Pot.

The grand finale was the presentation of “Integration techniques used on ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 3’ and ‘Transformers’” by BRIAN CONNER. digital artist from Industrial Light + Magic.

Digital Fiction - Innovation in Film, April 2007

Digital Fiction - Innovative Filmmaking was the follow-up to Digital Sets and Environments in Film with once again nearly 200 film professionals and film students in attendance.

Visual Effects designer ERIC HANSON (US) returned , and together with Senior Technical Director GREG DOWNING (‘Spiderman 3’, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’) gave an introduction to the conference.

Oscar winner for best visual effects, ROBERT LEGATO talked about the collaboration with directors on set for visual effects. Mr. Legato has worked on visually stunning films such as ‘Titanic‘ and ‘Apollo 13‘. His most recent credits include ‘The Good Shepherd‘ and ‘The Departed’ with celebrated director Martin Scorcese.

CG Supervisor FRAZER CHURCHILL from Double Negative in London discussed his work on the “invisible effects” for the Oscar nominated ‘Children of Men’.

Art Director for Digital Sets TINO SCHAEDLER has helped define a new role in film production and shared his experience from movies such as ‘V for Vendetta‘ and ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix‘.

Cinematographer KJELL VASSDAL and VFX veteran MARTIN GANT presented their pioneering visual effects work on ‘Sofie´s World’ from 1998, as well as their recent VFX work on the successful children´s films ‘Chasing the Kidney Stone’ and ‘Trigger’.

VFX supervisor MORTEN MOEN and digital compositor OTTO THORBJORNSEN from Storm Studio presented the VFX work on the film ‘Radiopirates’.

Production designer and compositor, NIKOLAI LOCKERTSEN and CTO ATLE KROGSTAD BERG gave a presentation on their visual effects work for the football comedy, ‘Long Flat Balls’.

Norwegian VFX supervisors ØYSTEIN LARSEN and RUNE SPAANS from Toxic presented their visual effects work on the ‘The Bothersome Man’, a Norwegian film which reaped a number of national and international awards, including the Pris Acid in Cannes.

Digital Sets and Environments in Film, April 2006

The first seminar in this series was held at Filmens Hus in Oslo on April 18, 2006.

Keynote speaker and production designer ALEX MCDOWELL (US) from Los Angeles presented his innovative use of new technologies in production design on films such as ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, ‘The Terminal’ and ‘Minority Report.

Co-founder of the seminar series and visual effects designer ERIC HANSON gave an introduction to digital sets and environments using his work on films such as ‘The Fifth Element’ and ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ as well as his recent giga pixel panoramic photography work.

CG Supervisor DAYNE COWAN from Double Negative in London presented work on the digital ‘Gotham City’ of ‘Batman Begins’.

Norwegian VFX artists TORGEIR BUSCH and AKSEL JERMSTAD from Chimneypot presented the digital set work from the award winning Swedish sci-fi film ‘Storm”.

ERIC HANSON held a workshop for a dozen Norwegian VFX artists on design of digital sets and environments employing conventional set extension from live action footage, nodal pan from a panoramic still image and camera projection from a single still image, using Oslo- and US-based photographic reference material.
Image credit (1): Kevin Phipps presents his work on the Nutcracker. Photo: Kim Baumann Larsen
Image credit (2): Angela Amoroso opens the second seminar. Photo: Kim Baumann Larsen
Image credit (3): Panel with (from left) Eric Hanson, Aksel Jermstad, Alex McDowell and Dayne Cowan. Photo: Kim Baumann Larsen