BFX Festival 2019 Day 2 & 3 Round-Up

RealtimeUK’s Art Director Stuart Bayley discussed taking concepts to comp for their cinematic trailer - Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming. Next, Saddington Baynes’s James Digby Jones covered R&D in and creative development in VFX and animation for the advertising industry, all while Aimated Women UK held a panel on Keyframes for Success.

The day ended for the TV, commercials and science track with a Spider Man Into The Spider Verse screening and fascinating Q&A!

Meanwhile over in the Purbeck Lounge, the games day kicked off with Creative Assembly’s Simon Payne providing an insight into his dual career in VFX and games.

Media Molecule’s Art Director Kareem Ettouney discussed the studio’s creative game Dreams, while EA Criterion’s Christian Bense talked about the art and level design challenges of Battlefield V: Firestorm and Playground Games on lighting in games.

Unity’s Benjamin Radcliffe finished off with a look at how real-time is changing content for film.

The last day of talks at the BFX Festival focused on animation, with Blue Zoo’s Helen Arnsten and Laura Annis beginning the day providing top advice for developing, producing and creating animated TV series from scratch. Sony Pictures Imageworks’s Joshua Beveridge gave a fascinating behind-the-scenes look of the ground-breaking Spider Man: Into The Spider Verse, while Laika’s Michael Cordova talked all things stop motion and animation.

Jude Brownbill from Pixar, meanwhile, talked about her animation process and career across films like Inside Out and Incredibles 2. The final talk of the festival shone a spotlight on environments at Disney, with Larry Wu and Todd Scopio taking the reins.

That wasn't all though, Thursday finished with the BFX Competition Awards Evening, which celebrates the work of this year’s teams! We were delighting to present the Best VFX award to Team Strawberry Pandemic.

Congrats to all the teams, and congrats to BFX for yet another successful festival!