The Visual Effects Society (VES), the industry’s global professional honorary society, has announced Dean Devlin, acclaimed writer-producer-director and president of Electric Entertainment, as Keynote Speaker at its 7th annual Summit, Visualization to Virtualization: Storytelling Expands. The interactive forum on Saturday, 17 October will bring together top creatives, executives, thought leaders and visionaries from diverse disciplines to explore the dynamic evolution of visual imagery and illustrate new pathways to creativity and problem solving in a TED Talks-like atmosphere.
Devlin is founder and president of Electric Entertainment and has forged a storied career as a wildly successful screenwriter, producer and director. His first produced screenplay was Universal Soldier, which was a worldwide hit. He reached prominence as a writer/producer working with Roland Emmerich with whom he teamed after appearing in Emmerich’s film Moon 44. Together they co-wrote and produced Stargate, which became the first movie to have its own website (run by Devlin himself).
A true multi-hyphenate, he has served as writer, producer and director for the hit TV shows Leverage and The Librarians and wrote 200+ episodes of Stargate SG-1. He is the director, as well as writer/producer of the forthcoming action sci-fi film Geostorm starring Gerard Butler and is in development with Emmerich on the hotly anticipated sequel to Independence Day – Independence Day: Resurgence.
There will also be a panel of experts representing key areas of the ecosystem that are driving the medium – content, technology, venture capital and academia – describe what’s happening in VR in their arena today, and their thoughts on what VR may look like in 2020 in a session titled Virtual Reality: 20/20 on 2020.
The VES Summit will also feature a special panel discussion exploring the expansion of the TV landscape into a range of platforms, opening up the possibilities for new forms of creative storytelling – from live gaming entertainment to non-time-constrained series to short-form social video.
And finally there will be innovators and industry leaders moderating the VES Summit interactive discussions. Roundtable discussions – among others to be announced – will include: Immersive Experiences, Postvis, TV VFX Case Study, Augmented Reality, Drone-Based Image Capture, Games Futures, Games Storytelling, Shooting and Budgeting VFX for VR, Military Visualization and VFX, New Content Channels, New Opportunities VFX R&D to Content Production, Commercials VFX and more.
The 2015 VES Summit takes place on Saturday, 17 October at the W Hotel in Hollywood, located at 6250 Hollywood Blvd.
