Conferences Saturday

The worlds of linear storytelling through film and interactive experiences in gaming continue to coalesce, giving rise to an entirely new ecosystem of formats that allow creative artists to weave their stories in myriad ways. A key outcome of this evolution is the deepening relationship between director and composer/sound designer, where early and close collaboration becomes the rule, rather than the exception. As the capabilities of hybrid-format storytelling continue to expand, so too does the challenge of implementing compelling, dynamic spatial audio to truly match the visual and narrative experience at every step. We will discuss how meeting this challenge has fostered our creation of unique tools and processes that break the rules, break new ground, and lead to further exciting discoveries.

Speaker: Richard Warp, composer, sound designer and audio technologist at Pollen Music Group

Richard Warp is a British composer, sound designer and audio technologist with Pollen Music Group. Based in London, his work in VR audio design, mixing and implementation has been featured in Emmy-award winning short films from Baobab Studios. He has also created immersive sound design and music for VR works by renowned contemporary artists Jeff Koons, Olafur Eliasson and Marina Abramovic. Richard is a regular speaker at industry conferences on immersive technologies, and is a pioneer and author in the field of brain-computer music interface (BCMI) applications.

Clients: Google Spotlight Stories, Gorillaz, Pearl (First VR project to receive an Oscar nomination)

A walkthrough on how VR is used in production on commercial projects at Nexus studios. From virtual production to specific animations, Michal Firkowski will talk about the advantages and weaknesses of those methods, the tools used and the potential of VR as a creation tool.

Speaker: Michal Firkowski, CG supervisor at Nexus Studios

With over ten years of experience in the animation industry, he’s been leading projects ranging from classic CG, VR stories, Interactive installations and 2D animation. He’s actively exploring the VR medium as a creative tool (modelling, animation, virtual cinematography) in a traditional 3D pipeline, but also exploring the medium itself for what it has to offer for storytelling and immersive experiences.

Clients: Google, Coca Cola, Nissan

The talk will explore the experience Virtual Age’s experience developing Gladius, a VR game set in ancient Rome. They will review hits and misses in their creation process as well as the elements that make developing VR games more complex than the traditional ones. At the end of the activity, they will offer a demonstration of the game.

Speaker: Carles Ballabriga, founder of VirtualAge

Passionate about technology and entrepreneur with 14 years of experience in the IT sector, Carles Ballabriga began his career in 2005 as a consultant at Everis. Between 2012 and 2017 he lived in the United States directing a technological transformation project for the Inter-American Development Bank, a new operations management platform used in 23 IDB locations and used daily by more than 2,500 users. He founded Virtual Age in 2017, a company specialized in the development of applications and services of virtual and augmented reality.

Conference on the journey through several projects, companies and peripherals that have marked the current path of the VR / MR within Sngular, with the support from Playstation Talents. In addition to talking about their experience in the development of the Playstation CoolpaintrVR game, they will go through all the opportunities that VR / AR offers to the market, the ones they are exploring and the obstacles that remain to be resolved.

Speaker: Antonio Sierra, VR/AR technical director at Sngular

Antonio Sierra is a technology enthusiast and entrepreneur. At 20 he founded his first company, “Green Planet Computing”, focused on the technological world of software and hardware. But it is in Sngular where he discovers what he really loves, by working for big brands and specializing in technologies not only concerning Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality but also image processing and facial recognition, machine learning and lately the development of applications on blockchain. He is currently the technical director of the VR / AR team at the Sngular offices in Sevilla and carries great weight in the development and project management part.

Produced in association with the Oscar-winning study of Digital Domain special effects and launched by SYFY, Eleven Eleven is inspired by interactive theater, with narrative techniques that allow users to see the action from different perspectives. This talk will go through the creation of this revolutionary project.

Speaker: Mehrad Noori, Director of Global Programming at NBCUniversal

Mehrad Noori is a creator and producer of immersive content for virtual and augmented reality. He is also Director of Global Programming at NBCUniversal’s international headquarters in London, where he acquires and produces scripted content for the company’s international portfolio of networks.  Noori most recently served as showrunner of the original VR/AR experience, Eleven Eleven, which world premiere was held at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival.