Effects Practitioners Confirmed For AnimfxNZ

25 September 2006

World-leading Animation and Special Effects Practitioners Confirmed For AnimfxNZ

World-leading animation and special effects practitioners from Hollywood, Europe and New Zealand are confirmed for AnimfxNZ, the international animation and special effects symposium being held in Wellington on November 4-5.

AnimfxNZ is the first such symposium ever held in this country, and is jointly hosted by Positively Wellington Business (PWB) and the Visual Effects Society (VES) of Los Angeles. IBM New Zealand is the symposium’s premier sponsor.

“Our successes in film, TV and animation are attracting the attention of industry movers and shakers worldwide,” says PWB general manager creative business & technology Chris Lipscombe.

“Now they’re coming here to meet the people who make it happen, and share someof their own success stories.”

VES is the industry’s only organisation that represents the full breadth of visual effects practitioners in all areas of entertainment worldwide, from film television and commercials to music videos and gaming.

President of Warner Bros. Feature Animation Sander Schwartz is confirmed as a keynote speaker, as is Tim Johnson, the director of DreamWorks’ current animated comedy Over The Hedge and 1998’s groundbreaking Antz.

New Zealanders confirmed as speakers include the ‘godfather’ of New Zealand animation Euan Frizzell who has over 30 years of experience in the industry.

Mr Frizzell says he has “animated everything from cute fluffy pandas to slime dripping demons from hell”. He will be part of a Kiwi animators panel discussion titled Taking New Zealand to the world: how do we measure up?

A full programme list and registration details are now available at www.animfxnz.com.

VES Executive Director Eric Roth says AnimfxNZ gives the international animation and visual effects community a chance to learn from New Zealand’s experience.

“This will be an opportunity for Los Angeles and the rest of the world to see first hand all the cool things that New Zealand is up to,” said Mr Roth.

“New Zealand has made enormous strides in being able to tell powerful stories across all platforms, including film, TV, animation and video games.

“This symposium will offer attendees a mixture of awe inspiring, state of the art effects and down to earth, pragmatic ways of solving problems – we’ll meet the people who create the magic.

“We were thrilled to be invited by Positively Wellington Business to play a role in this exciting event.”

AnimfxNZ will include two days of lectures, screenings and workshops in Wellington on November 4-5.

AnimfxNZ is supported by Academy® Award winners Richard Taylor of Weta Workshop and Joe Letteri of Weta Digital.

ENDS

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