Event Schedule at Rainbow Conference
Tuesday, 29th August,
6:30pm-10:30pm
7PM-8PM | Keynote Presentations from DNEG Animation by Archie Donato & Anthony Kemp, "This is the Part Where You Run: Exploring the Look of Nimona"
8:10PM-9:10PM | Keynote Presentation from Framestore by Nathan McConnel - Animation Supervisor: How to create believable performances with digital characters - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3.
9:20PM-10:20PM | Keynote Presentation from AXIS Studios by Chloe Paton, “SCROOGE A CHRISTMAS CAROL - Working on Stylised Character FX at Axis Studios“
Exhibitors: Escape Studios, and more to be announced soon.
Drink&Draw invites you to take a seat among fellow artists and illustrators, in a setting brimming with vibrant energy and inspiration to ignite your imagination.
BFI Southbank, London
7PM-8PM | Keynote Presentation by Jahirul Amin from CAVE Academy “VFX: Taking Things Back to their Roots”
8:10PM-9:10PM | Keynote Presentation by Dimension: “Volumetric Video and the Potential of Crowd Generation in Film.” with Simon Windsor and Callum Macmillan
9:20PM-10:20PM - Keynote Presentation: “From Passion to Profit: The Journey of my Creative Entrepreneurship” by Boyan Georgiev, London ACM SIGGRAPH Chair, Lighting TD @ DNEG Animation, Photographer
8:30PM-9:30PM | Special workshop at the Exhibitors Area by J from CAVE Academy -Training Session: Shooting HDRIs for VFX. In this session, Jahirul Amin of CAVE Academy will walk you through the process of capturing a HDRI for the purposes of VFX. This will include an overview of the onset kit, shoot methodology, and testing the captured data.
Exhibitors: Bournemouth University, Escape Studios, Axis Studios, Chaos Group.
Wednesday, 30th August
6:30pm-10:30pm
BFI Southbank, London
7PM-8PM | Keynote Presentation from Chaos Group by Director of Chaos Labs Chris Nichols: “My History with Ray Tracing, Or: How I learned to stop waiting and love Vantage”.
8:10PM-9:10PM | Keynote Presentation from Industrial, Light & Magic by VFX Supervisor Scott Pritchard: “The VFX of Andor”.
9:20PM-10:20PM | Industry Panel Discussion - “Animating the Future: Assessing the UK Animation and Visual Effects Industry”- A State of the Industry Address, Simone Giampaolo - Animation Director | Emma Turner - Head of Film, Animation and Future Skill, ScreenSkills | Crosby Clyse - Head of Production, DNEG Animation | Tom Box - Co-founder, Blue Zoo
Exhibitors: Escape Studios, and more to be announced soon.
Bring Your Own Animation (BYOA) - attendees will have the opportunity to have industry professionals will provide feedback on their work.
Thursday, 31st August
6:30pm-10:30pm
BFI Southbank, London
General admission is now SOLD OUT! Member tickets are still available to book.
Please note that the presentation theatre has limited capacity and London ACM SIGGRAPH members will have priority to the talk!
Presentations at Rainbow Conference
Presenters at Rainbow Conference
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Archie Donato
Head of VFX, DNEG Animation
Presentation:
“This Is The Part Where You Run: Exploring the Look of Nimona”
READ BIO
Head of VFX, DNEG Animation
Prior to stepping into his new role as Head of VFX at DNEG Animation, Archie served as VFX Supervisor on Netflix series ‘Entergalactic’ and the highly-anticipated adaptation of best-selling graphic novel, ‘Nimona’. He brings a wealth of artistic and technical experience to the role, having crafted his career over 27 years at companies such as ILM, Technicolor, Rhythm and Hues and Digital Domain, including 17 years at DreamWorks Animation.
During his time at DreamWorks, Archie contributed to many of the studio’s biggest films, most notably as CG Lead on ‘Kung Fu Panda’, ‘Megamind’, ‘Monsters vs. Aliens’ and ‘Shrek Forever After’, before his promotion to Lighting Supervisor on ‘Rise of the Guardians’ and CG Supervisor for ‘Mr. Peabody & Sherman’.
After leaving DreamWorks, Archie turned his talents to the supervision of VFX for episodic content, including work on recent shows such as ‘Home Before Dark’ for Apple TV+, ‘Messiah’ for Netflix and ‘The Loudest Voice’ for Showtime.
Archie originally comes from a traditional film background. As a film school graduate he began his career working on camera crews for features, TV, commercials and music videos before becoming a visual effects artist in the late nineties. Following his first gig as a camera tracker on Roland Emmerich’s ‘Godzilla’, Archie went on to become a VFX artist, contributing to shows such as ‘Star Wars: Episode II’, ‘Stuart Little’, ‘Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines’ and ‘Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius’.
Archie joined DNEG Animation’s creative leadership team in 2020, moving to London from his native Los Angeles. He now brings his passion, his years of wide and varied experience, and his commitment to creating ground-breaking imagery to DNEG Animation’s talented team.
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Anthony Kemp
Digital Producer
Presentation:
“This Is The Part Where You Run: Exploring the Look of Nimona”
READ BIO
Anthony Kemp is the Digital Producer for 'Nimona'. He started his career over 12 years ago at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California. During Anthony's 8 years with Pixar, he contributed to two shorts and five features, including 'Inside Out' and 'Toy Story 4'. In 2019, Anthony moved to London to join DNEG Animation where he managed Animation on 'Ron's Gone Wrong'. His experience as a strategic problem-solver and dedication to bringing out the best in his teams made him the ideal captain for the 'Nimona' family.
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Kat Seale
Lead Animator | DNEG Animation
Presentation:
“This Is The Part Where You Run: Exploring the Look of Nimona”
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Jahirul Amin
CAVE Academy
Presentation:
VFX: Taking Things Back to their Roots
READ BIO
Before launching CAVE Academy, Jahirul worked as a VFX Trainer for the multi Oscar-winning VFX studio, DNEG London, published and co-authored a number of books for 3D Total, and created training content for 3D Total, 3D Artist and CG Circuit.
His role at DNEG included designing and delivering training on all stages of the DNEG VFX pipeline from onset data acquisition, to assets and shots, and creating and maintaining the in-house documentation covering pipeline, workflows and best practices.
In 2018, Jahirul launched CAVE Academy and since inception, they have released over 10 on-demand courses, and run numerous online, in-person and remote training courses for companies such as: Framestore, Rebellion, Union, BlueBolt, Clear Angle Studios, BBC Media (Tunisia), Lumine Studios (Indonesia), Bournemouth University, Filmakademie, NFTS and Creative Media Skills.
His ongoing relationship with industry has also allowed him to continue working directly on production projects. Currently, he is supporting Clear Angle Studios with their Asset team, Bentley/Paramex on their car configurator, and many other companies on pipeline design and workflow support.
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Chloe Paton
CFX Artist, AXIS Studios
Presentation:
SCROOGE A CHRISTMAS CAROL - Working on Stylised Character FX at Axis StudiosREAD BIO
CFX Artist, Chloe Paton, always knew they wanted to work in the creative industry after growing up with a love of film and TV. That obsession led them to study 3D Animation at university, where they discovered Axis through a work experience opportunity. Through various roles in the Studio, Chloe found a strong interest in the world of CFX, moving from Animation Support Artist, to Junior CFX Artist and finally to their current role as CFX Artist.
Chloe deals with cloth and hair on characters, taking what the Animation team does, and adding real world simulation to the shots. They have worked their CFX magic into a number of Axis Studio projects such as Magic the Gathering: Dawn of the Phyrexian Invasion cinematic trailer, League of Legends: Tales of Runeterra, and most recently Scrooge: A Christmas Carol.
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Scott Pritchard
VFX Supervisor, ILM
Presentation:
The VFX of Andor
Read BIO
Scott Pritchard was one of the first artists to join ILM's new London studio in 2014 for Avengers: Age of Ultron. Since then he has worked on a number of features including Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. In 2019, he joined the ILM TV department as Visual Effects Supervisor for Brave New World, before going on to supervise The Stand, The Pale Blue Eye, and the latest Star Wars Episodic series, Andor.
Originally from Dublin, Ireland, Scott holds a MA in Digital Effects from Bournemouth University, and a BSc in Industrial Design from Napier University, Edinburgh. He also studied Modelmaking at IADT Dublin, where he interned on his first feature Space Truckers, as part of the miniatures team. Scott has 19 years of VFX experience and prior to joining ILM, spent seven years at Double Negative, where in 2011 he received a VES award for his compositing work on Inception.
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Nathan McConnel
Animation Supervisor, Framestore
Presentation:
Guardians of the Galaxy 3.
READ BIO
Nathan McConnel began his animation career after receiving a BA in Fine Art and Psychology and a Masters in Computer Animation. Since then, he has worked throughout Europe and America in a variety of roles from general artist to compositor to animation supervisor, which has given him a unique 360 view of the VFX industry.
He became an Animation Supervisor in 2011, and has since worked on titles including the Oscar-nominated Doctor Strange (where his work bringing Strange’s cloak to life received great acclaim), Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Thor: Ragnarok, two instalments of the Fantastic Beasts franchise, Spider-Man: Far From Home and both the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
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Christopher Nichols
Director of Chaos Labs
Presentation:
Special announcement by Chaos
READ BIO
Christopher Nichols is the Director of Special Projects at Chaos Labs and is an expert on ray tracing and computer graphics. With over 25 years of experience in both VFX and Design, Chris has worked on such films as Maleficent, Oblivion and Tron: Legacy. He can also be heard regularly as the host of the long standing CG Garage podcast which attracts more than 20,000 listeners.
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Callum Macmillan
Co-Founder and CTO, Dimension
Presentation:
“Volumetric Video and the Potential of Crowd Generation in Film.”
READ BIO
Callum is one of the most experienced and passionate champions of volumetric video,
multi-camera and immersive technologies in the world. He created the first desktop
post-production processes for multi-cam content, which was used in ‘Ferment’ - an award
winning film shot entirely on multicam array. As one of the founders of Timeslice Films, he
also helped develop the groundbreaking prototype GoPro video array in 2011.
Filming all over the world, Callum’s credits span from camera array visual FX sequences for
feature films (including the bullet-time technique, as used in The Matrix) and commercials, to
pioneering volumetric AR, VR and virtual production projects that have raised the bar across
the industry.
Credits include Sony’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody (CTO), Disney’s Pinocchio (Virtual
Production Supervisor), Disney’s The Nutcracker The Four Realms - Immersive 360
Multicam VFX Sequence , Marvel’s Captain America Winter Soldier (Volumetric Capture)
Ridley Scott’s Virtual Vikings (Technical Director), Billboard Awards - Madonna (Technical
Director - capture) Live Broadcast AR for Sky Sports, The Open - (Technical Director -
capture) and more.
Credits:
I Wanna Dance With Somebody - CTO
Disney, Pinocchio - Virtual Production Supervisor
Disney, The Nutcracker The Four Realms - Immersive 360 Multicam VFX Sequence
Marvel, Captain America Winter Soldier - Volumetric Capture AR marketing activation
Ridley Scott Virtual Vikings - Technical Director (capture), VR Theme Park experience
Billboard Awards, Madonna - Technical Director (capture) Live Broadcast AR
Sky Sports, The Open - Technical Director (capture) Live Broadcast AR
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Simon Windsor
Co-Founder & Co-CEO Dimension
Presentation:
“Volumetric Video and the Potential of Crowd Generation in Film.”
READ BIO
Simon is an award-winning producer and creative, who has been at the forefront of
immersive and extended reality (XR) content, technology and storytelling for over 10 years.
Inspired by the idea of the Metaverse and a mixed reality future, in 2010 Simon was part of
the team that launched String, one of the very first mobile AR platforms. In 2014, he
co-founded pure-play immersive entertainment studio Hammerhead, and launched
volumetric filmmaking studio Dimension in 2017 - becoming the first Microsoft Mixed Reality
Capture studio partner. In 2020 the two companies merged as Dimension Studios and the
result is a new breed of rapidly growing XR and virtual production studios, operating
internationally.
Leading a slate of global productions across entertainment and sport, Simon’s recent credits
include “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”, Madonna at The Billboard Music Awards 2019,
Britannia VR, Sky Scope for Sky Sports at The Open, and Balenciaga: Afterworld. His work
has been featured at Sundance, Venice, Aesthetica and Cannes festivals.
Metaverse:
Co-founder and CEO of Dimension Studios, Simon is an award-winning producer and
creative who has been at the forefront of mixed reality content, technology and storytelling
for over 10 years. Inspired by the idea of the Metaverse, in 2010 Simon was part of the team
that launched String, one of the very first mobile AR platforms. In 2014, he co-founded
pure-play VR studio Hammerhead, and in 2017 launched Dimension building it into a 3D
real-time production studio of 100 artists, creating 3D virtual worlds, virtual humans, and next
generation virtual entertainment.
Leading a slate of global productions across entertainment, sport and fashion, recent credits
include Coldplay x BTS 'My Universe', Britannia VR, Disney’s Pinocchio, Sky Sports 'The
Hundred' avatars, and Balenciaga: Afterworld. Simon is also creator of Metashima, a web3
entertainment experience and virtual AI robot for the metaverse. His work has been featured
at Sundance, Venice, Aesthetica and Cannes festivals, and been enjoyed by hundreds of
millions of people.
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More to be confirmed soon!
Stay tuned.
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![Boyan (Bobby) Georgiev]()
Boyan (Bobby) Georgiev
Chair | London ACM SIGGRAPH, Lighting TD | DNEG Animation
Presentation:
From Passion to Profit: The Journey of my Creative Entrepreneurship
Read BIO
Boyan or Bobby, is a Lighting Artist and Realtime TD at DNEG Animation based in London. He graduated from the University of Hertfordshire in 2017. Over the years, he has worked on a variety of shows, ranging from visual effects to TV and now feature animation. Some notable projects he has contributed to include The Lion King, Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal, Ron's Gone Wrong, as well films such as Nimona and Garfield.
In addition to my work in animation, he is also the Chair of the London ACM SIGGRAPH, an independent volunteer-led organization that hosts events in London for the industry. These events include talks, mentorship programs, presentations, and conferences that aim to foster connections and learning within the CG industry in London.
Aside from his animation work, Bobby is also an independent photographer and filmmaker. Photography is a creative inspiration for him both personally and professionally, and Bobby finds it to be a source of relaxation. Filmmaking is another passion of his, enjoying telling stories through his unique perspective and lens.
Exhibitors at Rainbow Conference
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Bournemouth University
Framestore will have a recruitment booth on days 2 of the Rainbow Conference. Come and talk to their university admissions representatives and learn more about the courses they offer.
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Escape Studios
Escape Studios will have a recruitment booth on all days of the Rainbow Conference. Come and talk to their team and learn more about their specialised courses.
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More to be confirmed soon!
Stay tuned.
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![Axis Studios]()
Axis Studios
Axis studios will have a recruitment booth on day 2 of the Rainbow Conference. Come and talk to the team to learn more about their work.
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Twelve Noon Films
Twelve Noon Films is a boutique video production company based in flat-as-a-pancake Suffolk. We’re passionate about stories and helping our clients to tell theirs in the best possible way.
Read More
But it’s more than that; because we have a solid background in marketing and communications, we know what you need from your video content and how hard it is to get budget signed off for “just a video.” Which is why our whole ‘thing’ is making video work as hard as it possibly can for you.
https://twelvenoonfilms.com/
Rainbow Conference is generously sponsored by:
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Chaos Group
GOLD Sponsor
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Foundry
Bronze Sponsor
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Axis Studios
Supporting Sponsor
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Autodesk
GOLD Sponsor
Rainbow Conference is the London based post SIGGRAPH wrap-up conference which brings the most exciting projects, studios and talent together. Like all our other events, Rainbow Conference is organised as an easily accessible evening event and in order to encourage the diversity of our attendees, all of our events are free.
We will host three keynote presentations per evening with one or more speakers, a showfloor full of studio recruitment booths and tech demonstrations from various hardware companies. This year we are planning to include a potential program during the day for Universities, which would include workshops and masterclasses for students. The last day of Rainbow Conference then ends with a panel discussion involving some of the most successful industry professionals. With this unique event we can deliver an exciting conference for the VFX, Animation and Games industry and bring together the London CG industry.
What is RAINBOW CONFERENCE?
Key Features
Free for all! We are a non-profit charity and we strongly believe in the free sharing of knowledge and ideas. We provide industry professionals and students with an opportunity to network and collaborate by providing a suitable and inspiring space to do so.
High Attendance: Our previous conference Tech Talks in 2018 took place across three days at BAFTA with a total attendee count of almost 1,000 industry professionals, students and outside interested parties.
Top Studio Talent: Over the course of the three days we featured nine talks, ranging from an award winning short-film premiere, making-of presentations on some of the years biggest films and a round table discussion of studio executives on a topic of high interest.
The Venue: BFI Southbank is the number one venue for film and television in the UK. With over 50 years of unrivalled experience in presenting and celebrating the art of the moving image. Located in the heart of London’s Southbank, BFI Southbank offers state-of-the-art cinema projection, unrivalled technical presentation and a range of catering spaces.
Multiple Sponsor Opportunities: There would be many ways for you to stand out to all parties exposed to Rainbow Conference 2023 throughout the event period.. We have outlined the ways that we could help provide this throughout this proposal dependent on your contributions.
A look back at previous conferences
Filming generously provided by our friends at Twelve Noon Films
Insightful talks from industry leaders
Rainbow Conference features talks by industry leaders working in VFX, Animation and Film. Just take a look of some of the interviews we have recorded from previous iterations of Rainbow Conference.
From big studios to independent production houses
We focus on the big studios as well as the independent creatives that drive and inspire our industry. From Dneg to Blue Zoo all around to independent directors and producers. Hear from the UK’s most inspiring creatives.
Members can sign up for the conference early and get to support our work.
Students can sign-up for a discounted membership and access exclusive content and guaranteed entry to our events
Professionals can sign-up for a membership and access special content and guaranteed entry to our events.