'Abominable' Helmer Jill Culton Joins Italy's View VFX and Animation Confab Lineup

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AUGUST 30, 2019 9:22am PT by Carolyn Giardina 'Abominable' Helmer Jill Culton Joins Italy's View VFX and Animation Confab Lineup

Gabe Ginsberg/WireImage Jill Culton IN THIS STORY

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Speakers including Brad Bird, Dean DeBlois and Michael Giacchino were previously announced.

Jill Culton, writer and director on Dreamworks Animation and Pearl Studio's upcoming animated feature Abominable, has joined a lineup of high-proﬁle speakers for this year's View Conference, the VFX and animation confab slated for Oct. 21-25 in Turin, Italy.  Previously announced speakers include directors Brad Bird  (Incredibles 2), Peter Ramsey (Spider-Man: Into the Spider- CinemaCon SIGGRAPH SMPTE AFCI VGelrosbea),l Diereactn oDryeBlois (How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World) and Conrad Vernon (The Addams Family), as well as composer Michael Giacchino (Up).

The Yeti-themed Abominable is scheduled to premiere next month at the Toronto International Film Festival and opens Sept. 27. Culton was previously the writer and director for Open Season, development story supervisor for Monsters, Inc. and a character designer and story artist for Toy Story 2.

Newly announced View speakers also include Guy Williams, Weta’s VFX supervisor for Gemini Man; Sidney Kombo- Kintombo, Weta’s animation supervisor for Avengers: Endgame; and Pixomondo’s Sven Martin, VFX supervisor on Game of Thrones.

READ MORE Annecy: DreamWorks Unveils First Footage From 'Abominable,' 'Trolls World Tour'

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AUGUST 30, 2019 6:00am PT by THR Staﬀ 'The Lion King' VFX Team Offers In-Depth Discussion of Virtual Production in THR's 'Behind the Screen'

Courtesy of Disney

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"I don't consider it an animated movie," says VFX supervisor Rob  Legato who, with his team,  address this debate while CinemaCon SIGGRAPH SMPTE AFCI Global Directory detailing how 'The Lion King' was made and how virtual production continues to evolve.

A new episode of The Hollywood Reporter's Behind the Screen does a deep dive into the making of Jon Favreau's The Lion King and tackles the question as to whether it should be considered an animated movie.

The Disney production involved an innovative virtual production process with elements including virtual reality, a real-time game engine and live-action production techniques to craft a photo-real CG retelling of Disney's 1994 animated classic. Explaining the process, its potential impact on movie-making and how development is continuing are VFX supervisor Rob Legato; VFX supervisor Adam Valdez of VFX house MPC, a Technicolor company; and virtual production supervisor Ben Grossmann, co- founder of Magnopus.

The team also addressed the much-discussed topic of whether the movie should be described as animation. "I don't consider it an animated movie," says Legato. "The term 'animation' has a connotation that is different from what we are trying to achieve. It is a controversial discussion. We set out to make a live-action film. It looks like live-action. It's responding to the intuitive nature of filmmakers."

He concludes, "That's not really animation in the classic sense."

There was plenty of experimentation during production. "Jon and Rob and [cinematographer Caleb Deschanel] would form an aerial team, and Jon would be the helicopter pilot ﬂying around in VR," Grossmann recalls, explaining that at one point they even took a D-Box chair (a motion seat used for 4D cinema), gave it controls and put it into the virtual production system. "You could sit on the chair and feel like ﬂying a helicopter."

Looking ahead, Grossmann believes the next step could involve "putting the audience into the movie."

Legato earned Oscars for James Cameron’s Titanic, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo and Favreau’s The Jungle Book. Valdez also  won an Oscar for The Jungle Book. Grossmann won an  Oscar alongside Legato on Hugo. CinemaCon SIGGRAPH SMPTE AFCI Global Directory Hosted by THR tech editor Carolyn Giardina, Behind the Screen features interviews with directors, cinematographers, editors and other artists behind the making of motion pictures and series.

Hear it all below on Behind the Screen — and be sure to subscribe to the podcast to never miss an exciting episode.

Behind The Screen | EP39 Robert Legato, Adam Valdez & Ben Gros

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THE LION KING

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