The most awaited event for the AVGC industry commenced today with a huge response from students, professionals and industry’s big names. GAFX 2018 saw a traditional beginning with lightning of the lamp by the ABAI management team.
With sessions and workshops around the entire campus of The Lalit Ashok, Bengaluru, the enthusiasts managed to grasp as much knowledge as possible. Nickelodeon VP of CG productions, Dean Hoff kicked off the conference with interesting insights about the animation sector. Mentioning the hard work and long time taken behind the creation of animated films, he said, “Animation is a long process because we select only one or two great contents from the 20 pilots we have received. It takes 55 weeks to create an hour long animated film and hence a season of around 26 episodes take about 18 months.”
Feeling proud about the Indian animation industry he mentioned, “India has been the country where Nickelodeon has done production constantly for 12 years,” and motivated the students present at the do by asking all to accept the coming change as with it comes new opportunities.
Biren Ghose had a question answer session with Hoff wherein the audience got to know all they wanted to quench their curiosity.
With applauds, the crowd welcomed the second speaker for the day, VES annual award winner Rashabh Bhutani. He showcased few advertisements showing the detailed VFX work done for creating a single advertisement.
The audience were all ears but it was noon already and the hall got vacant but, only for lunch.
There was more in store after lunch with Netflix and DreamWorks’ international animation talent consultant, Shelly Page showcasing animated shorts that made the audience completely awestruck and conducted her Eye Candy Show.
A plethora of short films which amazed the crowd included Petite Faim, Burn Out, Swim, Lifting Mr. Burden, Parfum Fraise, Shark in the park, Archivist, Mechanique among others.
The next in the queue of amazing session was The Mill’s creative director Adam Grint. His session saw jaw dropping VFX work in advertisements of Nike. “I am blown away by the talent here,” Grint said complementing the Indian talent. He explained the process of VFX, talking about the initial concept, abstract crowd design and final rendering. Grint further added, “Only the storytellers that work arm in arm with the technologists make the good work.”
The sessions for the day concluded with Vaibhav Studio founder Vaibhav Kumaresh sharing the exclusive showreel of his 100-minute long animated film, Return of the Jungle’s first part, The Blue Jackal.
The B2B session was quite inspiring and interactive with sellers and buyers bonding over their discussions.
With almost 2000 plus attending the event, day one saw a remarkable content display. More such great sessions are anticipated to be seen tomorrow Stay tuned for the upcoming sessions this weekend. We will keep you updated!