Editor

fmx/05: 10th International Conference on Animation, Effects, Realtime, and Content
April 27th to April 30th , 2005 / Stuttgart, Haus der Wirtschaft


A wealth of interesting contributions: one month before the event, you'd have to use a magnifying lens to find open slots in the agenda. In time for fmx's 10 th birthday, the crème de la crème of the animation and effects industry will be converging on Stuttgart for the most important forum for animation, visual effects and digital content in German-speaking countries. This event has earned international recognition - and has become the number one recruiting event in Germany, thanks to an active focus on the promotion of young talents. Approximately 2,000 visitors per day are expected - from artists, technical directors and vfx supervisors to post-production and production companies, animators and media companies. Of course, students and entry-level artists also come in droves.

Who ever has visited fmx in the past knows: each of the individual sections offer a comprehensive program, and fmx/05 intends to do its 10 th anniversary more than justice! Alone the keynote from the fmx/essentials series is reason enough to attend: Richard Chuang, co-founder of the 25 year-long pioneer Pacific Data Images (now PDI/Dreamworks) invites you to "A Unique Perspective on 25 Years of Animation". Listen to the first-hand account of the epoch that revolutionized animation.

fmx/conference in the central König-Karl auditorium offers the most top-level cast of speakers you could imagine, representing the most renowned animation and post-production facilities in the world, including this year's Oscar winners in the category animation (Pixar, "The Incredibles") and visual effects ("Spiderman 2"):

• John Kahrs, Pixar Animation Studios - "Animating: The Walt Disney Pictures Presentation of a Pixar Animation Studios Film, The Incredibles"

• Peter Nofz, Sony Pictures Imageworks -"Facial Animation in "Spiderman 2"

• Keynote Eric Roth, Managing Director of the Visual Effects Society -"The Globalization of Visual Effects - Pre- and Post-Titanic"

• Yoshiki Sakurai, Production I.G. - "Ghost in the Shell 2 - Innocence"

• Ramon Rivero, Head of Motion Capturing "Lord of the Rings", SAE -"Motion Capture for Gollum"


Numerous talks deal with this year's thematic focus "workflow", including

• Joshua Kolden, Crack Creative - "Pre-visualizing The Day After Tomorrow"

• Animal Logic - "Set Supervision for House of Flying Daggers"

• Malcolm Humphreys, Rising Sun Productions -"The Digital Sets of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow"

• Rene Limberger, Sony Pictures Imageworks - "2½ D Matte Painting - Aviator and Polar Express"

• Thomas Zauner & Stephan Trojansky, Scanline -"Saving the Earth from Martians - The Visual Effects of Traumschiff Surprise Periode 1"

Another important focus of this year's fmx is production, as CGI has proven to make spectacular imagery not only possible - but affordable. The series Digital Production , created in close cooperation with the FFA, brings some of Germany's most renowned experts to the stage:

• Franz Kraus, Arri - "What's New About Digital Production?"

• Manfred Büttner, tvt. postproduction gmbh - "Why Digital Effects? Examples from International Co-Productions"

• Wolfgang Oppenrieder, ProSieben SAT.1 - "TV Movie meets SFX"

• Bernd Schulze, Pictorion das werk - "Digital Intermediate Workflows"


The lectures will be accompanied by Case Studies :

• Karsten Aurich, Sabotage Films, & Matthias Schellenberg (Camera) - "The Edukators"

• Norbert Preuss, Fanes Film - "About the Looking for and the Finding of Love, Blood Wedding and more"

• Tom Fährmann (Camera), & Bernd Schulze, Pictorion das werk - "Interplay of Camera, Effects and Post-Production in "The Miracle of Bern"

• Sascha Schwingel, Teamworx, & Stephan Trojanski, Scanline - "Fire and Flood Simulations in the Pre-Production for Die Sturmflut and Dresden - Der Brand"


Parallel to production, Film Financing plays an important role at fmx/05. This series has been designed in cooperation with Prof. Arthur Hofer:

• Keynote Prof. Dr. Mathias Schwarz, Kanzlei Schwarz, Kelwing, Wicke & Westphal

• Andreas Thiesmayer & Josef Lautenschlager, Equity Pictures Medienfonds - "Fonds Financing / Private Equity"

• Michael Weber, Bavaria - "Sale Estimate"


The series fmx/essentials takes a look at exemplary and ground-breaking films. Beyond pure economic or technical issues, this series appraises artistic, social and content-based aspects of film. This year's thought-provoking guests include:

• David Sproxton, Aardman Animations - "How Do Production Techniques Influence Content?"

• Mike Milne, Framestore CFC - "How Do Budgets Influence Workflow"

Also, fmx/games focus on an absolute hot-spot of animation production. Games have not only become a major industry, they've also become a driving force behind technical developments - realtime applications par excellence! They are also coming into their own as an aesthetic form - often availing themselves of cinematic principals worthy of the big screen.


This year's fmx also takes a look at the booming industry of Mobile Entertainment . Experts include:

• David Patch, Maxis - "Sims 2"

• Sven Liebich, Phenomic Game Development - "Spellforce II - Work in Progress"

• Victor Antonov, Valve - "Halflife 2"

• Stefan Jenzowsky, Siemens Communications - "The Media-Psychology of Mobile Games"

• Gerrit Wahle, UFA Film & TV Produktion GmbH - "Mobile & Fiction"

• Mathias Huttmann, T-Mobile International - "Is There Anything Else Besides Ring Tones? Games and Movies Via Cell Phone"

A series of lectures also takes place in cooperation with the German branch of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). The focus of this section is game programming and sound tracks.


fmx/technologies reports from the front line of research and development. This section is all about new trends and technologies. Such as:

• Stephan Trojansky & Danielle Plantec, Scanline - "Hunting a Megalodon Without Getting Wet - Research & Development on Hydro-Fluid Dynamics"

• Eric Enderton, Nvidia - "Film Rendering on GPUs"

• Takashi Fukumoto - "Motion Capture for Game Cinematics"

• Rene Limberger, Sony Pictures Imageworks - "Color & Lighting on The Polar Express"

At the fore of this section are the scientists presenting the series "Visualization in Industry and Economy - Trends in Visualization, Simulation and Virtual Reality" . This section has been created in cooperation with the MFG Medien- und Filmgesellschaft Baden Württemberg. Lectures include:

• Keynote Prof. Dr. Andreas Schilling, Universität Tübingen - "Trends in Visualization, Simulation and Virtual Reality"

• Andreas Fischer, DaimlerChrysler - Automobile Visualization and Experiences with Mental Ray"

• Dr. Erwin Keefer - "Kelten Digital - VR-Technology and Rapid Prototyping for Analysis and Exhibition purposes"

• Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Meinzer & Team - "Visualization Techniques in the Medical Industry"

And the list goes on: a series of workshops in fmx/forum present in-depth and useful tips and experiences arising from current trends and technologies. And there's lots of ground to cover after the associated event NAB. The audience can choose from numerous workshops, hands-on training sessions and company suites, getting the newest of the new directly from experienced artists and industry developers - including Autodesk Media & Entertainment, Adobe Systems and Avid Technology. Thanks to support from Hewlett-Packard, you can learn "Hands-On with HP" - an arena of workstations inviting you to browse new software offerings at your own pace and according to your own interests. The plethora of workshop themes include 3D, compositing, content management, HD, digital film and digital lab.

The workshop series kicks off with one a special highlight - a panel of experts discussing the general developments in CGI development and the friendly competition involved in games and film animation:

• "Let's go Surfing now...Big Wave Riding in the Production Pipeline". With Daniel E. Wexler, Digital Film Team, NVIDIA; Alexander & Hector Fernandez, Streamline Studios; Joshua Kolden, Crack Creative; Torsten Reil, Natural Motion; Patrick Palmer, Iridas;.Laura Dohrmann, NVIDIA.


The fmx/forum seminars also dig down into useful practicalities from industry experts:

• Ed Hooks, Actor and Animation Trainer - "Acting for Animators"

• Jeanine Breaker, Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design, London - "Life Drawing for Animators"

• Sacha Bertram, idagrove entertainment - "VFX Producing"

• SAGASNET, European Network for Professional Developers of Content for Interactive Digital Media, "Developing Interactive Narrative Content" - www.sagasnet.de

Registration and prices can be found under www.fmx.de


Another central function of fmx is the promotion of young talents. fmx/talents therefore offers a series of events custom-tailored for students and entry-level professionals. Diverse recruiting opportunities and the project-exchange European Talents get you a hand-shake away from relevant companies. Numerous talent scouts and investors are heading towards Stuttgart - fmx can look back on 10 years of reputation as a talent pool! Its reputation is considerable: nearly half of the projects presented within the framework of the European Talents Pitching have gone on to completion, supported by a jury which combines the expertise of insiders with the curiosity of new opportunities and encounters.

Last but not least, the Eyes & Ears Junior-Showcase presents projects from newcomers in the areas of media design, art, television, film, internet and sound design, scenography, promotion-producing and media marketing. This impressive talent showcase has been organized by the Association of Design, Promotion and Marketing of Audiovisual Media in Europe. www.eeofe.org

With its section Realtime , fmx/05 places its finger on the pulse of the avant-garde in animation. Machinimas, demos, cut-scenes and flash films will be presented and discussed. In addition to workshops and lectures, we invite you to screenings - and the Realtime Film Festival . The best contributions on the above-mentioned categories compete for the Realtime Award. The winners can expect valuable prizes from the partner companies Avid, HP, Macromedia and NVidia. Following the awards on April 28, you can join the celebration of the Realtime Party at the Club Ciné Colibri. Top act of the evening is Agentur Pfadfinderei from Berlin, recently selected best German agency by the readers of De:Bug. Pfadfinderei and their DJ-Crew Modeselektor lay out a breath-taking mix of realtime visuals, flash animations and electronic music.

But before we get side-tracked... the Realtime Sessions include industry accounts from renowned members of this young scene, including:

• Ekkehard Brüggemann, DigitaleKultur e.V. - "Code, Visual Drugs and Rock'n'Roll"

• Lassi Tasajärvi (author), Helsinki with a talk about demos

• Dierk Ohlerich, Farbrausch - "Programmed Films - Code becomes (a) Movement"

• Matt Hullum, Rooster Teeth Productions, on the Machinima cult comedy "Red versus Blue"

The flashconference® will also be of great interest to visitors: the oldest and largest German event for use of Macromedia's Flash format will be hosted by fmx for the second time. One of the highlights: Sebastian Locker and Alexander Kähler (Pictorion das Werk) present a Making-Of to the video clip "Enjoy the Silence - Remix 2004" by Depeche Mode.

Another very important fmx partner is the leading German production journal DIGITAL PRODUCTION. They present once again the ANIMAGO AWARDS, the largest and most important competition for digital content amongst German-speaking countries. The best work in the categories still, animation, compositing, games and interactive (including DVD design) will be highlighted. The evening of the awards (April 29) is traditionally accompanied by crowded masses in the König-Karl-Halle, as the animago AWARDS winners guarantee an opulent visual foray through the digital creations of the last year - and a panoramic overview of the entire scene. After all, the awards highlight ambitious hobbyists, students and professionals alike. More information under www.animago.de.

Also in cooperation with the Journal Digital Production , we are pleased to announce another trade exhibition DCC/EXPO.