Programme

From the Camera Obscura of the past to the computers of today, technology has pushed artists into the future kicking and screaming a familiarphrase... "Oh no, I'm out of a job".

In this age of accelerated technological change, these are the challenges for today's artists.

Veteran game maker and industry veteran Joseph Olin will share his perspective on the changes – within the worlds of interactive entertainment. Every point of screen-based distribution is undergoing a number of disruptions: Low price points, Freemium, Free-to-Play, shared-screens, and monetization are now active parts of game makers’ vocabularies. Olin hopes to provide enough a glimpse that those in attendance at AnimfxNZ will have a true understanding of the many opportunities that are just forming today.

Four years, three franchises and twenty-five million downloads later, Limbic Co-Founder and CEO Arash Keshmirian gives an inside look on the development of the studio. Attendees will learn valuable tips and tricks from the history of the studio's growth, as well as advice on avoiding common pitfalls. Arash will also cover evolving revenue models, managing an ongoing marketing calendar, integrating in-app purchases and other monetization strategies, establishing and fostering an active user community and other important steps developers can take to extend the life of their games.

In 2008, Team Fortress 2 was a highly successful retail product, with a development team in full control of its ongoing design and execution, and a community of players acting solely as consumers. By 2012, Team Fortress 2 had become a free-to-play, micro-transaction based game played by millions, where 90% of its ongoing content was being created directly by the players, not the developers. This talk will cover the evolution of Team Fortress 2’s community management from 2008 to 2012, focusing on its shift from a centralised development team to that of a stewardship role over the community’s output. We believe the creation of large scale systems to handle the inclusion of community work directly into products marks a sea change in the relationship between developers and customers, and one that’s broadly applicable to a many kinds of entertainment products.

CEO of Triggerfish Animation, Stuart Forrest, tells the story of how an 8-seater animation studio from Cape Town scaled up to 80 seats and produced a full length animated feature film that is outperforming some of the big studio animated features as it gets released theatrically worldwide. He will cover the broad strokes of story development, sales, funding, casting, production, post-production, legal, merchandising, and distributor care.

Participants are encouraged to wear fire retardant clothing and submit any hypersensitive disorders of their immune systems prior to the presentation. Jeffrey will discuss the Moneyball approach and how this has been used to good effect at AGP. Get in behind the scenes as Jeffrey explores AGP’s pipeline of properties and how they were built.

A Behind-the-Scenes look at finding new inspiration and ideas for this upcoming feature.

Why would anyone move from one of the most hardcore franchises to something undoubtedly mainstream and casual? I'm going to tell you why I think it's not that big of a deal. There are a lot of obvious differences and reasons, like working with shorter development cycles and entering a fully digital and disruptive business, but that's not what I'm preaching. I believe great game creators can deliver great games irrespective of platform, and then there's this thing going on called convergence.

John will talk about his belief that without a strong central theme, stories are empty vessels. The question is how do you identify your theme, and how do you bind it to your narrative.

Get Social with Serato Oceania Room, Te Papa

How to develop a critical eye with applications for production and studio management.

One part of this workshop is about approaching intellectual property development by creating something NEW that also contains an element of familiarity. The end goal being — mass appeal. We’ll focus on seeing opportunity in the marketplace, identifying your competition, and being NEW in a way that is still accepted and understood by broadcasters, retailers and your audience.

We will also focus on being aware that, as a creative, you are always “pitching” someone your concepts. It might be your boss, a co-worker, an entire creative team, a potential partner, broadcaster, retailer, you name it. We will discuss why pitching is important and why/how to take it seriously.

In both Animation and live action FX we are often presented with unique challenges and asked to come up with something new. But where do we go find these ideas and how do we implement and manage them? And, are they relevant? We will explore ideas on looking outside of our regular avenues for inspiration as well as finding different ways to both manage the process and enjoy it along the way.

Using "Adventures in Zambezia" and "Khumba" (Triggerfish's second feature film) as a case study. Stuart Forrest will give a workshop covering how a small studio can rise to the top of the marketplace by embracing its roots and remaining authentic, without ignoring the strong demands of global film economy.

Pleasures and problems in Animation Story development - with reference to various projects I've been involved with including "Happy Feet", "Guardians of Ga'Hoole", and the upcoming "Walking With Dinosaurs".

Closing Panel Discussion with John Collee and Stuart Forrest

Sponsored by Pukeko Pictures, Chapman Tripp & Grow Wellington for Animation workshop attendees

AnimfxNZ party with PikPok @ Betty’s, 32 Blair St

With a proven track record of leading several teams with exceptional moral and success, I'm sharing my personal approach to leadership and navigating an agile environment with highly volatile creative teams. It's by no means a silver bullet, but at least it's working for me.

This talk will use Limbic Software as a core case study for understanding and overcoming the technical and operational challenges that come with rapid growth. Learn how Limbic continues to evolve from an installed user base of zero players to over 25 million after shipping three original game franchises for iOS (TowerMadness, Nuts! and Zombie Gunship). Dealing with scale is one of the toughest challenges for any business. Attending this talk is a great chance to learn from the successes and failures of a high profile independent app developer.

How to develop a critical eye with applications for production and studio management.

Based on more than 25 years of game business experience and his graduate class at the University of Southern California. Joseph Olin will present attendees with a solid foundation of process and practices to create and manage a team’s interactive project in a small studio environment. Topics covered will be: product iteration, design and design documentation, production budgeting (time and costs), studio formation, funding, and pitching your project.

At Valve we consider playtesting a key component of the development process, and one directly responsible for the success of our franchises. This talk will start with how to fit playtesting into your core development cycle, and then go into specific implementation details, many of which need to be present to ensure you’re getting the full value out of your playtests. We’ll cover a variety of specific examples from Half-Life 2 to illustrate ways in which playtesting can be used to improve both your product and your development team.

Question & answer session

Daytime activities ends – refreshen up time

AnimfxNZ party with PikPok @ Betty’s, 32 Blair St

Registration:
The Weta Digital Presentation will be held at Roxy Cinema in Miramar

Welcome and Introduction

Effects animation used to be a catch-all category of work that could mean any non-character animation but it has evolved into a field that focuses mostly on creating destruction and natural phenomena. New technologies and tools have led to an unprecedented level of realism that relies heavily on simulations that can often start as more "technically correct" than "aesthetically correct." The challenge today is leveraging these advanced tools in a way that gives the artists enough control to create the desired look with enough flexibility to iterate efficiently. In this talk, Brandon will give a general background on Weta’s approach and focus on a particular scene from "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" that used combination of effects, lighting and compositing tools to create dust in a stampede of horses that could be adjusted and iterated quickly.

Sometimes the problem-solving part of visual effects gets lost in the conversation. Most of the focus is on the technical achievement or the artistic success; rarely on what it’s like to struggle with a particularly difficult issue. Weta Digital VFX Supervisor Wayne Stables will tell a few of these stories going as far back as Frighteners all the way up through Avatar and The Adventures of Tintin to what he is working on today.

Weta Digital was responsible for creating nearly all of the digital creatures on Prometheus. This talk focuses on Weta's creature development with a specific focus on animation. As well as the various Engineers featured in the film, the Trilobite and the Deacon this talk will include a presentation of the entire cut of the digital version of the mutated Fifield monster.

This talk features a look inside Weta Digital's animation process in bringing The Avengers to life. From research and analysis into the art of superheroes, to the motion capture and keyframe workflow, Aaron Gilman will discuss the creative thought process involved in constructing numerous hero shots for one of the biggest blockbusters of 2012.

David Prescott, DreamWorks VFX supervisor, will introduce this screening.

This very special private screening will be complimentary to attendees registered for the Weta Digital Presentation.

Please note: as this is an exclusive premiere all mobile devices will need to be handed in prior to entry into the cinema.