The VR Smile | VFX and DesignFest
The Virtual Reality Smile. After this weekend, my brain is exploding with new thoughts about the power of VR. The potential is HUGE.
Just a quick doodle today, because I really wanted to talk about the incredible weekend that I've had! Beginning with DesignFest in Clonmel on Friday, and continuing with Saturday and Sunday spent in the Google building in Dublin for the VFX Summit; I've had an astonishingly inspiring, insightful, and thought provoking weekend.
I didn't take any decent photos at DesignFest... I did help out though, so here's a t-shirt... It'll have to do. :)
DesignFest is a new festival which was launched by my college, Limerick School of Art and Design, this year. The organizers put a LOT of work in, and there were some incredible speakers and events taking place all around Clonmel. It was amazing to see so many incredible people and projects from the games and animation industries, but the highlight for me was definitely listening to Patrick O'Callaghan's discussion on storyboarding. Inspiring, energetic, and motivating; Patrick really made working in the industry sound like fun!
Jim Morris, the president of Pixar, discussing the technological advances that Pixar has made.
On Saturday morning, I hopped on a bus to Dublin with a few other students from LSAD and headed straight for The Foundry. Google were hosting VFX, an incredible event which brought some of the most talented minds in the VFX, film, games, and animation industries to Ireland from all over the world. I left that building at the end of each day with an entirely new outlook, a sea of new thoughts and ideas, and an ever greater respect and admiration for the amazing people who are working in these industries. Entertaining, awe-inspiring, and hugely motivating; I really couldn't ask for a better way to spend the weekend. Highlights included the screening of Pixar's The Good Dinosaur, listening to Jim Morris discuss the history and development of VFX in relation to his own experiences and the films that Pixar has produced, hearing about the progress and potential of Virtual Reality, and Graham Gallagher talking about his transition from traditional 2D animation to the world of 3D.
Overall, I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to listen to so many incredibly creative and innovative people in the past few days! So thank you to everyone who worked hard to make DesignFest and VFX happen, to those who encouraged me to attend those events, and to everyone I spoke with afterwards (because you've all put up with my rambling thoughts and opinions about everything)!