By Lawrence Jordan

8:45 Introductions from the Organizers: Ken Goldberg, Tiffany Shlain, Lance Weiler, Scott Kirsner

9:00 AM John Batter, Co-President of Production, DreamWorks Animation SKG; former Group Studio General Manager, Electronic Arts – The Future of Animation, 3-D Cinema, and Games

John presented Dreamworks perspective on the future of 3-D. He described “Digital 3-D” as the next big jump in 3-D production and exhibition. Showed a clip from Kung Fu Panda that was recreated from the ground up using this new workflow. Pretty amazing looking stuff. Stated that all future DW animation productions will be in 3-D. Also demoed the same clip on a 46″ plasma television. Batter next showed a clip from upcoming film “Monster’s vs. Aliens” DW’s first major 3-D release coming March 27th. This clip was also impressive, particularly the fact that Steven Colbert voices the character of the president of the United States.

10:00 AM – 10:45 AM
The Future of Visual Effects and Pre-Visualization

John Gaeta, Visual Effects Designer, Speed Racer and the Matrix trilogy
John Knoll, Visual Effects Supervisor, Industrial Light & Magic
Euisung Lee, Halon Entertainment
Phil Tippett, Founder, Tippett Studio
Barbara Robertson, Journalist, CGSociety, Computer Graphics World, Digital Production (Moderator)

Taped John Knoll and some of Phil Tippett’s discussion of new tools and techniques being developed for VFX. If I can get clearance I’ll post them asap.

11:00 AM – 11:30 AM

New Forms of Storytelling

Michael Ferris Gibson, Director, 24 Hours on Craigslist & Producer, Truth in Numbers: The Wikipedia Story
Gregg Spiridellis, CEO Guy, JibJab Media
Evan Spiridellis, Head Art Guy, JibJab Media

The brothers Spiridellis, creators of JibJab, talked about building their content company and it’s explained a bit about its exponential growth. They also mentioned using taking thier content and spreading it across different products. Michael Gibson Talked about his film “Truth in Numbers: The Wikipedia Story” an example of collaborative filmmaking (he aggregated a crew and raised 60K online) after running out of money he created a trailer with what he had and was able to raise financing to finish. I taped both these speakers and will hopefully get clearance.

12:00 Just too much good stuff and and I’m finding it tough to write AND shoot. Will recap later this evening.