Tim Burton’s "Alice in Wonderland" is an epic 3D fantasy adventure. The idea of making a film in 3D was, for Burton, one of the main reasons he was drawn to directing "Alice in Wonderland" in the first place. “It gives you that kind of ‘out there’ feeling that was a very crucial element to the film,” he said. While the film was envisioned as a 3D stereo production almost from the start, the film was made in 2D and converted to 3D stereo. With more experience in 3D stereoscopic production than any other company to date, Sony Pictures Imageworks and stereographer Corey Turner dimensionalized close to 2000 visual effects and animation shots. Senior Visual Effects Supervisor Ken Ralston, animation director Dave Schaub and production schedule pending, stereograghers Corey Turner or Rob Engle will present an in-depth look at the making of "Alice in Wonderland" in 3D.

Ken Ralston serves as the creative leader at Sony Pictures Imageworks. His five Academy Awards® plus two additional Oscar® nominations attest to the respect Ralston has earned from peers and audiences alike for his unique insights into dramatic development and unparalleled mastery of visual effects technology. Often his input transcends traditional job titles, leading to his colleagues tagging him simply as visual effects guru. Ralston most recently served as the senior visual effects supervisor on director Tim Burton’s film, “Alice in Wonderland, for Disney. In this capacity he oversaw the extensive imagery and animation being produced at Imageworks. Ralston worked with senior visual effects supervisor Jerome Chen and director Robert Zemeckis on "Beowulf" and prior to that on "The Polar Express".

Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc. is the Academy Award® winning, state-of-the-art visual effects and animation unit of Sony Pictures Digital Productions. The Imageworks production environment supports live-action visual effects and character animation, all-CG animation, and Imageworks 3D stereoscopic. Imageworks’ most recently completed projects include “Alice in Wonderland”, "Cats and Dogs 2", " 2012", "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", "G-Force", "Watchmen", "Valkyrie", "Body of Lies", "Eagle Eye", "Hancock", "Speed Racer", "Beowulf", and "I am Legend". The company is currently in production on "The Green Lantern", "Zookeeper", Aardman Animations "Arthur Christmas", Sony Pictures Animations "Hotel Transylvania", and the live-action/animation "Smurfs", in association with Columbia Pictures.

…”in the real world” means: NOT in a computer generated world and NOT in an ideal world… "The Eye 3D", a documentary about the strongest earthbound telescope to date, was shot in the middle of Chile’s Atacama Desert, a day’s journey from any human settlement, on a tight schedule, with real humans, real cameras and real glitches. The good news is: it can be done!

Niko Vialkowitsch is director and producer of "The Eye 3D".He has been 3D-enthusiast since his childhood and holds a university degree in psychology. He is filmmaker for the German Public Television Network since 1993 and founded parallax raumprojektion in 2004

parallax raumprojektion has produced several 3D shorts for well known institutions, such as the Center for Arts and Media Karlsruhe (ZKM), the Kunsthaus Zurich, or the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). "The Eye 3D", parallax’ first 3D cinema project, was successfully released to German theatres in October 2009 as an official Special Project of the UNESCO year of Astronomy. It was the first feature length 3D documentary produced in Germany.

3D filming offers a variety of creative tools. Josef Kluger will have a close look on the potential of 3D from the directors point of view and will focus on the creative potential of 3D to enhance the way of storytelling. What are the expanded possibilities and what are the limitations? How can the manipulation of depth change the emotional impact? These aspects will be analyzed on the basis of realized 3D films.

Josef Kluger is director of international film projects for theme parks, science centers and world expos and uses all kind of special format production technologies such as 3D, multiscreen formats, 360° and motion ride techniques.

KUK Filmproduktion GmbH developed a high quality workflow for 3D film production. It has produced the most important German 3D films of the last years, e.g. a 3D film about the 24h race at the Nuerburgring. KUK Film is partner in the 3D4You and Muscade research projects, funded by the EU and in the German research project Prime funded by the German Ministry of Economics & Technology.

After the huge success of 3D computer graphic animated films, the stereoscopic technology is more and more used in live action. Diversification of stereoscopic (3D) tools for shooting, FX and post-production open the field to a variety of editorial approaches. Through two stereoscopic shooting experiences, "Gilles de Ray", a historical documentary, and "PINA", a feature film directed by Wim Wenders, we will study how 3D production workflow can be adapted to specific artistic needs.

François Garnier, CG pioneer since the mid eighties, has been exploring all the creative sides of the digital media. Film Director for Ex Machina from 1995, he designed and directed large formats and stereoscopic films for international shows, theme parks and events. In 2000 he co-founded AmaK, a studio specialized in stereoscopic film, and 3D real-time interactive installations. He is currently 3D Supervisor on the feature film "PINA" directed by Wim Wenders.

AmaK Studio designs and produces films, digital installations, and interactive projects, for theme parks, art and science museums, and international events. AmaK Studios is an European leader for stereoscopic films (Rides, 3D Imax theaters), specializing in large immersive films, and 3D real-time interactive installations. Contact: F.garnier@AmaK.fr

Jayme Wilkinson, Stereoscopic Supervisor at Blue Sky Studios, will discuss the strategies, challenges, and solutions he and his team brought to Blue Sky’s first ever stereoscopic 3D film effort, "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs".

Jayme Wilkinson has long had a passion for film and technology, having studied fine art at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Computer Science at the University of Akron, and Cinematography at Ohio State University Cranston Csuri Group (CCG). In his twenty-plus-year career, Jayme has worked at various postproduction companies, as an industrial designer for Telxon Corporation designing portable computer equipment- the precursor to today's personal digital assistants (PDAs), at Alias|Wavefront where he started using Autodesk® Maya® software while in its earliest stages, until finally landing in the animation world at Walt Disney Animation Studios where he contributed to "Lilo and Stitch", "Brother Bear", and "My Peoples" as CGI lead/Technical Coordinator. He continued his career in CG animation at Electronic Arts/Tiburon where he worked as CGI Supervisor/Technical Art Director on such projects as "Nascar" 2005 and "Nascar" 2006, "Madden" 2006, and the "Superman" titles.
In 2006, Jayme joined the talented team of artists at Blue Sky Studios where he worked as Technical Supervisor on their feature animation projects "Ice Age 2: The Meltdown", and "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears A Who". Jayme then supervised the stereoscopic 3D effort on "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs", Blue Sky’s first stereoscopic 3D film. Currently he is working as Stereographer / Stereoscopic Supervisor on Blue Sky Studios’ upcoming film "Rio", which will be released summer 2011.

How do visual storytelling tools like color, lighting, lens choice and 3D combine to heighten the emotional impact of Pixar's stories? Using examples from "Up", "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2", Bob Whitehill will explore the techniques used and their powerful effect on the films.

Bob Whitehill began his career at Pixar Animation Studios in April 2004. Brought on as a Layout Artist on the Golden Globe® winning "Cars", he continued in this role on Pixar’s animated short film "Lifted", and the Academy Award©-winning feature "WALL•E". Whitehill served as Layout Supervisor for Mater and Ghostlight and three Cars Toons, Rescue Squad Mater, El Materdor and Mater the Greater. Currently, Whitehill is working as Stereoscopic Supervisor on the 3D production of Disney•Pixar’s upcoming feature film "Toy Story 3". He was also the Stereographic Supervisor on Up and oversaw the 3D conversion of the original "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2".

Pixar Animation Studios, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is an Academy Award®-winning film studio with world-renowned technical, creative and production capabilities in the art of computer animation. Creator of some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time, including "Toy Story", "Finding Nemo", "The Incredibles", "Cars", "Ratatouille", "WALL•E" and most recently, "Up". The Northern California studio has won 21 Academy Awards® and its ten films have grossed more than $5 billion at the worldwide box office to date. The next film release from Disney•Pixar is "Toy Story 3".

Stereoscape is co-producing "Moomins and the Comet Chase", which is used as a case example. The technical implementation of this multinational project and how depth script was utilised to guide 2D to 3D conversion work. Description of the challenges and how they were resolved.

With a background from telecommunications before entering 3D film production, Mr. Luostarinen has extensive experience in managing small companies and helping them to grow. He pursues to combine solid project management principles with artistic creativity to produce most memorable viewing experiences.

Stereoscape is one of the leading stereoscopic 3D production companies in Scandinavia. We are the stereoscopic producer of the first Nordic stereoscopic feature film “Moomins & the Comet Chase”. Our services include production services, 2D to 3D conversions and consulting.

Trixter will answer the “W” questions: Why What When Where
It is the evolution of filmmaking: silent movies got a voice, black and white got color and flat images get depth: the 3rd dimension. Today, an increasing number of films get produced in stereo 3D and inevitably, stereoscopic features will become tomorrow's standard. Theaters are replacing their 35mm with digital 3D projectors and the home entertainment is following closely. But 3D movies are not only visually three dimensional, the new technique opens up new ways of storytelling. During the last years Trixter developed an intelligent production pipeline to convert 2D material into 3D. As part of their VFX work, they where looking for ways to get the costs down in handling VFX for stereoscopic feature films, while focusing on creative flexibility and new possibilities of storytelling. Trixter is already in production of full-length feature film conversions.

Michael Coldewey (CEO)started his film career assisting Wolfgang Urchs' "Peter in Magicland". He lectured animation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and at the Fachhochschule Augsburg. He directed the animated features "The Fearless Four" (Warner Bros.) and Kevin Eastman’s "Heavy Metal 2000" (Columbia Tristar). Michael founded Trixter in 1998 and produced the TV series "Lilly The Witch" and co-produced "Dragon Hunters" (Universum Film). He went on to produce the first Walt Disney live action movie "Lilly The Witch", and is currently in postproduction of the sequel. In 2008 Michael won the Bavarian TV Award, the German TV Award, and got nominated for the German Film Award for Best Family Entertainment in 2009. Michael served as President of the German Animation Association.

Georg Wieland (VFX Producer) is an engineer in the field of media technology and has worked as a 3D artist on international feature films for several years. He has been working as a visual effects producer since 2006, completing his profile with a Master of Business Administration. He is dedicated at Trixter for stereoscopic projects and international feature films such as "Ninja Assassin" and "Percy Jackson".

ImageMovers Digital is a digital animation studio providing cinematic stereoscopic entertainment to audiences around the world. A virtual production environment provided us with the opportunity to develop a stereoscopic workflow that both accelerated the stereo process and redefined the stereoscopic experience as a narrative device. Stereo 3D production is inherently resource-intensive and known experience sufficiently informs this conclusion: Expenditure balloons as the stereo work is put off until the later parts of the production pipeline. Although some costs are unavoidable, the greatest expense results from an approach that offloads discovery of problems that are revealed late in the production. To encourage discovery and revision comparison, we developed methodologies that both encouraged a comfortable audience experience and redefined the approach to stereo 3D production.

Anthony Shafer joined ImageMovers Digital shortly after it formed in 2007 to design and implement the real-time camera acquisition system, camera data-flow pipeline, and stereoscopic3D production workflow at IMD. He worked extensively on the stereoscopic design and implementation of the film "Disney’s A Christmas Carol", and is currently in production on IMD’s upcoming features. An alumnus of Industrial Light & Magic, Shafer most recently served as a sequence supervisor on such films as "Transformers", "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest" and the "Star Wars" prequels. As ILM’s Stereoscopic Lead for Tim Burton’s "Nightmare Before Christmas" 2D-to-3D conversion re-release, he designed and wrote a proprietary application that was critical to finishing the show. Topics from this experience are the basis of his chapter on Stereoscopic 2D-to-3D Conversion for the upcoming industry publication "The VES Handbook of Visual Effects".

In February 2007, The Walt Disney Studios joined forces with Academy Award-winning director Robert Zemeckis and his ImageMovers partners/producers Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey to form ImageMovers Digital. Academy Award-winning artist, production designer and author Doug Chiang joined to lead the new state of the art studio, devoted exclusively to the production of performance capture projects.

Prime Focus has completed a ground breaking 2D to stereo 3D conversion on "Clash of the Titans". In this presentation you will see examples of the work, get an overview of the process and learn how to best prepare for 2D to stereo 3D conversions for feature film, commercials and broadcast projects.

Martin Hobbs has worked on a host of VFX heavy movies such as "Kingdom of Heaven", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "Harry Potter", "Cats and Dogs", "Sunshine", "The Wolfman" and "Mission Impossible" to name just a few. He has a wealth of VFX facility experience having been a Director of The Moving Picture Company, and held VFX Producer roles at both Mill Film and Cinesite. Most recently he has been charged with setting up a view-D facility for Prime Focus in London.

Prime Focus is a global Visual Entertainment Services group that provides creative and technical services to the film, broadcast, commercials, gaming, internet and media industries. The group offers a genuine end-to-end solution, from pre-production to final delivery, including previsualisation, visual effects, video and audio post-production, digital intermediate, digital asset management and distribution. It has state-of-the-art facilities throughout the key markets of North America, the UK and India.

According to the U-DECIDE Initiative, 93% of traditional 2D gamers want game developers to support stereoscopic 3D (S-3D) gaming. At CES 2010, nearly every leading display manufacturer committed to producing 3D capable HDTVs, monitors, and notebook computers. Game developers are now pressured to capture this market, and artists need to separate 3D branding from quality control. What do S-3D gamers really look for in their titles? What qualifies as being "3D Ready"? How are games rated and reviewed effectively?

Answering these questions is Neil Schneider, Executive Director of The S-3D Gaming Alliance (s3dga.com). Non-profit and non-proprietary, some of S3DGA's top members include Blitz Games Studios, DDD, iZ3D, LG Electronics, Real D, and more.

Neil is also the President & CEO of Meant to be Seen (mtbs3D.com). Founded as an advocacy group for S-3D gaming in 2007, MTBS is the leading S-3D gaming community with millions of hits per month, and is considered the foremost authority group on what S-3D gamers want. Neil Schneider has been featured in Gameinformer, Joystiq, Gamesinudustry.biz, Wired, and more. In addition to giving an industry overview, Neil will discuss the process they go through to test and review games in stereoscopic 3D.

With ‘Avatar’ the movie breaking all box office records and 3DTVs starting to appear, it’s clear that people have an appetite for new digital 3D. This talk discusses why Blitz created the 3DTV game ‘Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao’ and the challenges it presented. It also explains how things have changed and why now is a great time to add 3DTV support to your console game, looking at what works well in 3D and what doesn’t.

Andrew Oliver is co-founder and co-owner of Blitz Games Studios and took on the role of CTO when he and his twin brother Philip started the company in 1990, after 10 years of writing many popular games for the UK games market. He is now responsible for all aspects of the company's cutting edge technology and game development direction as well as ensuring that the company's reputation for high quality standards and prompt delivery is maintained.

Blitz Games Studios is one of the most stable and respected development studios in the world. Currently boasting 5 distinct divisions, the company has come a long way from its roots as a well-known developer of 'family games'. Today, the different Blitz divisions are working on mature titles, serious games, downloadable games and games technology. In addition to our diversified portfolio of interests, we are also heavily involved in working with education and government for the long-term benefit of the UK games development industry.

Let's dive in the 3rd dimension in this talk presenting a comprehensive technical and aesthetic overview of stereoscopy in computer graphics for technical artists and developers. After a complete introduction to stereoscopy technology and the considerations and various challenges to address, we will then explore deeper the new artistic space of effects and creativity offered by 3D stereo. Hopefully, the take away of this session should be a solid understanding of stereoscopy techniques and aesthetic concepts to achieve outstanding 3D stereo experiences.

Sam is a member of the Content & Technology Engineer group at NVIDIA, who spends his energy and creativity pushing pixels and teaching high-end, real-time computer graphics to Games, DCC, and CAD developers. Before that, he was enjoying the sun of Toulouse in France working in the virtual reality industry on extravagant visual simulations, navigation systems, showrooms and museum applications.

NVIDIA is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU.

Already known for its stunning visuals, Crytek has added a new dimension to its cutting-edge graphics toolkit, CryENGINE3, with stereoscopic rendering. This enables new ways of creating virtual worlds that the player feels completely immersed in the action of the game. Attending this talk will give you some idea of how Crytek is working and playing with this new technology.

An award-winning Machinima maker and professional mathematician, Jens Schöbel, works as Technical Designer at Crytek. He received his M.Sc. in Mathematics in 2008 from the University of Heidelberg. He was responsible for the stereoscopic 3D visualization of fluid dynamics and streamline simulations at the Visualization and Numerical Geometry Group of the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing.

Crytek GmbH is one of the world’s leading independent development studios for interactive entertainment. It is dedicated to creating high-quality video games for the PC and next-generation consoles, powered by their cutting-edge 3D-Game-Technology, CryENGINE®.