News

Computers in Entertainment (CiE), ACM's online-only magazine for technology applications in the entertainment industry, is about to undergo a transformation. ACM is in discussions with CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) Press to join editorial resources and make CiE the go-to hub for this thriving field—everything from practical applications, business strategies, scholarly research, and interviews with some of the industry's leading lights.

Newton Lee has served as the Editor-in-Chief of CiE since its debut in 2003. Newton's notion of weaving a website for practical and fun entertainment information with theoretical, scholarly, peer-reviewed research papers served as an online-only journal has opened up new avenues for ACM to explore. With Newton's blessing, we are now looking to take what he has built and reimagine it for an even greater audience making greater use of social, video, blog and podcast media platforms.

The ACM Publications Board is seeking nominations for Editor-in-Chief of Computers in Entertainment. We anticipate the site will be sectioned into topics such as Games; Art + Music; TV + Movies; Society + Education; as well as the journal component.

While we expect volunteer editors to be responsible for all these key sections, it will require an Editor-in-Chief with the vision and the industry expertise (and reach) to oversee the entire magazine and help find ways to best weave all the components together into one cohesive unit. This volunteer position would require a three-year commitment, with an option to serve one more three-year term.

We have always felt that SIGGRAPH was a natural fit for CiE. If you have any suggestions for a new EiC, please send them to Diane Crawford, ACM Deputy Director/Magazine Development.

One of the initiatives in the "Grow and Develop an Active CG Community and Idea Marketplace" in the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee's strategic proposal is to create a moderated Graphic listserv where you as a computer graphics professional can learn about graphics-related jobs, meetings, software, news, journals, and conferences.  Please sign up and contribute your job ads and other announcements to the email list so that this email list becomes a useful resource for our community.

To sign up, go to http://listserv.siggraph.org/ and click on the GRAPHICS-WORLDWIDE link and subscribe.  You can subscribe to specific topics and specify whether you want direct emails or a digest.

Moderators of the listserv are:

• Alec Jacobson; Assistant Professor, Canada Research Chair in Geometry Processing; Dynamic Graphics Project, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
• Eakta Jain; Assistant Professor; CISE, University of Florida
• Wojciech Jarosz; Assistant Professor; Department of Computer Science, Dartmouth College

Visual Effects Society Names Director/Producer/Writer Ava DuVernay

A Keynote Speaker at 2017 VES Summit

Los Angeles (SEPTEMBER 6, 2017) – Today, the Visual Effects Society (VES), the industry’s global professional honorary society, announced acclaimed director/producer/writer Ava DuVernay as a Keynote Speaker at its 9th annual Summit, “Inspiring Change: Building on 20 Years of VES Innovation.” The interactive forum on Saturday, October 28th celebrates the Society’s milestone 20th Anniversary and will bring together top creatives, executives, thought leaders and visionaries from diverse disciplines to explore the dynamic evolution of visual imagery and the VFX industry landscape in a TED Talks-like atmosphere. 

Keynote Speaker: Ava DuVernay. Nominated for the Academy Award and eight Emmy Awards, winner of the BAFTA for Best Documentary and The Peabody Award, Ava DuVernay's 13TH is one of the most critically-acclaimed films of 2016. In 2015, DuVernay directed the historical drama Selma, which garnered four Golden Globe nominations and two Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Her current directorial work includes the award-winning dramatic television series Queen Sugar; and the upcoming Disney feature film A Wrinkle in Time.

DuVernay previously wrote, produced and directed the dramatic feature, Middle of Nowhere, which earned her the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Best Director Award. In 2010, she wrote, financed, produced and directed her first narrative feature, I Will Follow. The family drama was hailed by critic Roger Ebert as "one of the best films I've seen about the loss of a loved one." DuVernay made her directorial debut with the critically acclaimed 2008 hip hop documentary, This Is The Life and has directed several network documentaries, includingVenus Vs. for ESPN. She has directed significant short form work including August 28: A Day in the Life of a People, commissioned by The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, as well as acclaimed fashion and beauty films for Prada and Apple.

‎In 2017, DuVernay was named one of Fortune Magazine's 50 Greatest World Leaders and TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People.‎  She also distributes and amplifies the work of people of color and women directors through her film collective ARRAY, named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies.

The VES Summit will host a stellar roster of experts and provocateurs.  As previously announced, these include:

• Keynote Speaker Syd Mead, acclaimed visual futurist and conceptual artist
• President of IMAX Home Entertainment Jason Brenek on Evolution in Entertainment: VR, Cinema and Beyond
• CEO of SSP Blue Hemanshu Nigam on When Hackers Attack: How Can Hollywood Fight Back?
• Head of Adobe Research Gavin Miller on Will the Future Look More Like Harry Potter or Star Trek?
• Senior Research Engineer at Autodesk Evan Atherton on The Age of Imagination
• Founder/CEO of the Emblematic Group Nonny de la Peña on Creating for Virtual, Augmented & Mixed Realities.  

Additional speakers and roundtable moderators will be announced soon.

The 2017 VES Summit takes place on Saturday, October 28th at the Sofitel Hotel Beverly Hills, located at 8555 Beverly Blvd. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit https://www.visualeffectssociety.com/news-events/summit. 

Sponsors include Rotomaker and Houdini.  Media partners include Animation Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, SHOOT Online, Variety and The Wrap.

VIEW Conference 2017 Announces Final Program

Registration Now Open for the October 23-27 Symposium in Turin, Italy

Award Entry deadline: September 15.

 www.viewconference.it

With more than 50 speakers confirmed for the 18th annual confab, Italy’s largest digital media conference promises to offer inspiring and practical content to artists, animators, game developers, storytellers, content creators and other students and professionals who work with computer graphics.

Six visual effects Oscar winners, two Academy Sci-Tech award winners, animated feature film directors, virtual reality pioneers, computer graphics researchers, game developers, photographers, writers, and studio executives will converge in Turin, Italy from October 23-27. 

“One of the special reasons to attend VIEW is that our speakers like to stay for the entire week and attend talks given by the other speakers, so our attendees have many opportunities to interact with them,” says Conference Director Dr. Maria Elena Gutierrez. “Another reason is that I think VIEW might be the only conference at which, in addition to talks, animated film directors and Oscar-winning artists offer small, interactive workshops and master classes.”

All told, VIEW boasts 15 master classes and workshops this year including those from Director Mark Osborne (The Little Prince) and Director Kris Pearn (The Willoughbys)who will offer storytelling and storyboarding tips. Character Artist Jason Bickerstaff (Pixar Animation Studios) and Animation Supervisor Hal Hickel (Industrial Light & Magic) who will delve into the mysteries of character animation; and, Professor Dr. Donald Greenberg (Cornell University) who will lead workshop attendees on an interactive exploration of virtual reality technology and techniques.

Also unique to VIEW is the game developers bootcampand accelerator program during which selected start-ups receive mentoring from industry experts and equity partners leading to the opportunity to pitch their projects to potential investors.

“VIEW brings together the world’s best and brightest minds across multiple disciplines, in a uniquely intimate and collaborative place where creatives can incubate and celebrate,” says Dr. Gutierrez. “I’m as proud as ever of VIEW 2017. I hope you can join the VIEW family in beautiful Torino.”

You can view the final program online at: 

http://www.viewconference.it

In this changing world, ACM SIGGRAPH requires a new and bolder vision. In response to this need, the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee (EC) commissioned a diverse cross-discipline team to develop an overarching five year strategic initiative to ensure our organization and community remain relevant and continues to be recognized as the premier global organization for computer graphics and interactive techniques. The five year vision our strategy team brought forward is "Enabling everyone to tell their stories." As ACM SIGGRAPH is much more than the annual conference, the EC wants this vision to be the guiding light behind a number of tangible benefits that are relevant and tangible to our members throughout the entire year.

During the Keynote Session at SIGGRAPH 2017, our outgoing President, Jeff Jortner, outlined the strategy teams’ vision as centering on five specific areas of focus:

• Establish a 21st-century digital presence
• Grow and develop an active CG community and idea marketplace
• Enable and welcome new technologies and vertical markets
• Streamline our organization
• Develop a strategic marketing plan

A cutting-edge 21st-century digital presence would enable the organization to better focus on education and professional development for its membership year-round, leveraging the many grassroots efforts present in the community and exploring the upcoming digital platforms that will inform and mobilize our community.

One of the many initiatives under the area defined as "grow and develop an active CG community and idea marketplace" is for the organization to create a moderated worldwide graphics listserv where computer graphics researchers and practitioners can learn about graphics-related conferences, exhibitions, submission deadlines, open positions, and news. This listserv has been created. To sign up, please visit http://listserv.siggraph.org/, click on the GRAPHICS-WORLDWIDE link and subscribe. This group is actively working with ACM on creating an ACM SIGGRAPH Proceedings of the ACM (PACM) for the specialized conferences which have stringent review processes comparable to those of journals. In the past, conference-centric publishing put the graphics research community at a disadvantage compared to other scientific disciplines because the significant work produced has not been recognized as such. ACM SIGGRAPH Specialized Conferences have demonstrated high quality and high impact on the field, and PACM will help recognition as such.

The new technologies program is creating a "Talk and a Coffee" program for the first session of each day at SIGGRAPH to provide an opportunity to hear expert researchers and practitioners from adjacent fields as well as graphics. The hope is that these talks will inspire us to think about new problems with applications that go beyond the traditional definition of graphics.

Streamlining the organization has been an active project for the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee for the last year, and has resulted in a set of suggested bylaw changes which after approval by ACM will be presented to the membership in a special election in January. The aim is to get members to engage, participate or contribute, and become part of an elite organization who supports and helps throughout ones career. One way will be to limit the amount of volunteer hours needed to be president of the organization, and to increase the number of volunteers by highlighting opportunities to participate that only require between 40 and 80 hours per year.

More information will be coming out in the coming months as the initial team continues to meet and solidify metrics and plans of action. More information will be coming on these ideas as well as the marketing initiative in the coming months as the team continues to meet and solidify metrics and plans of action.