Hollywood Haul of Fame: 11 Oscar Winners Speak at GTC on Filmmaking’s Future

by Rick Champagne

Eleven Academy Award winners, with more than a dozen Oscars among them, will share their insights on the latest technologies used to create stunning, realistic visuals in films, at next month’s GTC.

These industry pioneers include visual effects visionaries who’ve been recognized for their outstanding achievements by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — among them some NVIDIANs.

Attendees of GTC, which takes place April 12-16, will learn how visual effects have evolved over time and how NVIDIA technology is driving the future of graphics.

 Register for GTC today for free to hear from the technologists behind the groundbreaking tools and techniques that will propel filmmaking into the next era. 

Shaping the Future of Storytelling

NVIDIA has been behind some of the most captivating and immersive visuals ever shown on the silver screen. Indeed, every film nominated for a special-effects award over the past 12 years used our technology.

Studios worldwide are using GPU-accelerated workflows and RTX-accelerated ray tracing to develop new ways to blend traditional cinematography with photorealistic CG environments. Now, virtual productions are on the rise and more artists and technologists are turning to NVIDIA to help them complete projects faster than before.

At GTC, learn how leading Hollywood filmmakers and studios are using the latest tools and techniques to create award-winning visuals:

  • Legendary visual effects supervisor Rob Legato has won three Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects for films Titanic, Hugo and Jungle Book. Learn from one of the greatest and hear how the latest breakthroughs are paving the way for new film production pipelines.
  • John Knoll, the executive creative director at ILM and Oscar winner for his work in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, will join a panel with other industry pioneers, including two-time Oscar winner and Pixar co-founder Alvy Ray Smith, to discuss the last 30 years in computer graphics and where technology will take filmmaking next.
  • Two-time Oscar winner Doug Roble and Matthias Wittmann, from Digital Domain, will talk about the challenges in creating autonomous digital humans, and share how to replicate a person’s voice, expressions, mannerisms, and general behavior.
  • Recent SciTech Oscar winner Glenn Derry, who coined the term “virtual production,” will discuss the evolution of virtual production and share how technologies like NVIDIA RTX are enabling real-time cinematic visuals to be shot in-camera or live on-set.
  • In a GTC executive panel, Oscar winner Kim Libreri joins luminary filmmakers and technologists Greig Fraser, Amy Hennig and Richard Kerris to talk about how real-time technologies are enabling new opportunities for artists and filmmakers.
  • Scientific and Engineering Award winner Luca Fascione, senior head of technology and research at Weta Digital, will discuss PhysLight, a toolset that brings photometric units and physical parameters such as light temperature to creative pipelines.

Transforming the Industry with NVIDIA Omniverse

The need for real-time collaboration and high-quality visuals has never been greater, and NVIDIA Omniverse makes it easy for artists, designers, technologists and other creative professionals to accelerate workflows for productions — from asset review and approval to live on-set collaboration.

With the 3D simulation platform, creative teams can deliver real-time results by creating, iterating and collaborating on the same assets while using a variety of industry-standard applications. GTC attendees can dive deeper into Omniverse through sessions presented by some of NVIDIA’s own Academy Award winners: 

  • Dirk Van Gelder, director of software development, will provide an introduction to Universal Scene Description, the open-source software used within Omniverse. Van Gelder, who won a Technical Achievement Award in 2017, will include a hands-on demo for creating assets through USD.
  • Michael Kass, a distinguished engineer, will join a panel to discuss USD and its benefits to digital creators. Kass won a Technical Achievement Award in 2005 for his work on computer-generated techniques used to create realistic cloth simulations.
  • Ken Museth, senior director of simulation technology, will dive into physics-based simulations in Omniverse and provide an overview of NanoVDB. Museth won a Technical Achievement Award for developing OpenVDB, the industry-standard library for sparse dynamic volumes.
  • Michael Kowalski, senior software engineer, will discuss using Blender and USD in production pipelines. Kowalski, who won a Technical Achievement Award in 2008 for developing a system of fluid dynamic tools, will co-present with Tangent Animation.

Register now and hear from these award-winning filmmakers and technologists to learn about the future of graphics in media and entertainment. And don’t miss the keynote address on April 12 by NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang.