Breakout Sessions

Track 1: Virtual Production
Track 2: LMT/EIDR/Smart/Data
Track 3: MEDCA/IT
 

Breakout Track 1: Virtual Production

 
11:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Virtual Production: Under The Hood
For the past few years, virtual production has been a very popular term and it has dominated the majority of content production conversations, thanks to the successes of Avatar, The Jungle Book, The Lion King, The Mandalorian, and many others. What we have realized is that only few studios and companies do know how to utilize existing technologies and/or build tools and pipelines to improve and expand the use of virtual production techniques. The use of game engines is the main cause of this, as studios must learn how to integrate engines like Unreal and Unity into existing pipelines. Most recently, we see an expansion in the use of game engines for virtual production beyond just pre-vis, scouting, and mocap into a larger more central role.  This session gathers technologists, virtual production experts and thought leaders who have been at the forefront of innovation in the Media and Entertainment industry. We will discuss virtual production pipelines, tool creation, real-time remote access and collaboration, cloud, and more.
Moderator: Sinan Al-Rubaye, Chief Experience Officer, ICVR
Panelists:
Mariana Acuña Acosta, Chief Product Officer, Glassbox Technologies
Ihar Heneralau, Chief Executive Officer, ICVR
Ryan L’Italien, Director of Solutions, Perforce Software
 
12:05 – 12:35 p.m.
Storytelling Reimagined: Animation
Traditionally, artists spent tremendous amounts of time sketching and painting scenes frame by frame, and iterations on each step of the process caused inefficiencies and increased costs to animation productions. That started to change with the rise of CGI and technologies such as motion capture and real-time game engines. This conversation features experts and virtual production pioneers who have been at the forefront of this technological revolution. We will discuss real-time game engines, their readiness, and impact on the animation industry, and more.
Moderator: Sinan Al-Rubaye, Chief Experience Officer, ICVR
Panelists:
Adam Maier, Producer, Reel FX
Brian Pohl, M&E Technical Program Manager, Epic Games
Chris Swiatek, Chief of Product, ICVR
 

Track 2: LMT/EIDR/Smart/Data

 
11:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Driving Data Standards in Media & Entertainment
The importance of accurate metadata across every part of the chain (pre-, production, post-, distribution and archive) is driving a different conversation about how to standardize the assets that make up our daily workflows. Mix this strategy with a healthy assortment of emerging technology and it screams, “STANDARDS!” More importantly, how can we make rapid progress to address the workflow issues we are seeing every day. Join this session to learn from leaders pioneering ways to gather stakeholders and innovators to (literally) get us all on the same page.
Moderator: Mary Yurkovic, Director, Smart Content Council
Panelists:
Hollie Choi, Executive Director, EIDR
Yonah Levenson, Executive Director, Ad-ID and Co-Chair, LMT Working Group
Meg Morrissey, Co-Chair, LMT Working Group
 
12:05 – 12:35 p.m.
Integrating the Data Journey throughout your Company
One upside from the global pandemic is that many M&E companies took the time to seriously address their data structure and strategy. This panel discussion gathers experts to discuss how to take some of the high-level conversation and match it to the field-specific strategy that will achieve the overall objectives of the data journey. Whether driving efficiencies internally, connecting to your customer on a data-integration level to unlocking secrets of your customer engagement strategy, this session will give perspective on our common industry challenges.
Moderator: Mary Yurkovic, Director, Smart Content
Panelists:
Hollie Choi, Executive Director, EIDR
Nona Janssen Walls, Senior Principal, Slalom Consulting
Allan McLennan, Head of M&E North America, Atos
 

Track 3: MEDCA/IT

 
11:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.
MEDCA: A New Foundation for Data-Centric Workflows
90% of today’s M&E workflows are based on data-centric processes while the entertainment industry is mostly built on legacy platforms which were integrated out of necessity, rather than a structured engineered approach. Smart stages and remote connectivity require industry standard build outs for interoperability and the long term evolution of the production process. MEDCA’s mission is to provide continuing education, information, and best practices to develop a good foundation for the explosive growth in M&E data centers that we’ll see coming out of COVID. Join this session to learn why the “homegrown” approach is starting to show signs of weakness whereas big tech companies grew up within this space and have implemented telecom and data industry standards within their organization from their inception.
Moderator: Eric Rigney, Vice President, MEDCA
Panelists:
Lisa Griffin, Executive Director, MEDCA
Sean Tajkowski, Technical Director, MEDCA
 
12:05 – 12:35 p.m.
Designing our Industry’s Future: Accepted vs. Acceptable
What does our industry need to adopt for us to achieve the dream of thousands of productions running in parallel around the world? This panel of subject matter experts gather to discuss the use cases and examples that support the MEDCA mission of educating the Media & Entertainment industry about building your physical infrastructure on a proper foundation.
Moderators: Eric Rigney, Vice President, MEDCA and Sean Tajkowski, Technical Director, MEDCA
Panelists:
Ryan Guardino, Vice President, Home Entertainment Mastering Technical Operations, Pixelogic
Mike Hastings, Technical Account Executive, Data Center Integration, IES Communications
Ramy Katrib, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Film Tree
John Schmidt, Global Data Center Solutions, Commscope