The Oscar-winning VFX supervisor and a team from Pro Machina will discuss their miniature work on the Excelsior retro rocketship; Emmy winner Alex Woo will present his upcoming 3DCG feature, ‘In Your Dreams,’ that hits Netflix November 14; conference runs October 12-17 in Turin, Italy.
VIEW Conference has just announced that 2X Academy Award-winning VFX supervisor Ian Hunter and the leadership team from Pro Machina will attend in person to talk about their practical effects work on Marvel Studios’ latest hit superhero movie, The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
The Pro Machina team used traditional modelmaking skills to craft a 4m-long miniature of the “Excelsior” spacecraft that features prominently in the film. Ian Hunter, along with Pro Machina co-founders Camille Balsamo-Gillis and Reid Collums, will present the creation of this retro rocketship.
In a separate solo presentation, Hunter will share his experiences as a miniature effects specialist not only on The Fantastic Four: First Steps, but also the recent sci-fi horror hit, Alien: Romulus and Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending space epic Interstellar, for which Hunter won his first Academy Award.
VIEW Conference 2025 also welcomes Daytime Emmy Award-winning Alex Woo, founder and CEO of the independent animation studio Kuku Studios, and director of the upcoming Netflix 3DCG animated feature, In Your Dreams. An experienced filmmaker whose credits include Pixar’s Ratatouille, WALL•E and Finding Dory, Woo won a Student Academy Award for his animated short film Rex Steele: Nazi Smasher. In Your Dreams follows the adventures of Stevie (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) and her little brother Elliot (Elias Janssen) as they journey into the wildly absurd landscape of their own dreams to ask the Sandman to grant them the perfect family.
Also speaking at VIEW Conference 2025 is Tracy McCreary, Emmy Award-nominated managing director and partner of the independent London-based VFX studio BlueBolt. The studio’s recent projects include Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, and five seasons of The Last Kingdom, of which the latter two earned BATFA Award nominations. Before taking the reins at BlueBolt, McCreary worked on movies including Iron Man 2 and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
“In this age of digital VFX and AI, people remain fascinated by traditional practical effects techniques,” says Conference Director Dr. Maria Elena Gutierrez. “That is why I am thrilled that Ian Hunter and the Pro Machina team are attending VIEW Conference 2025 here in beautiful Turin. I am equally excited to welcome Alex Woo and Tracy McCreary, two extraordinary talents who are sure to wow our international audience with their spellbinding stories.”
Tickets are now available from the VIEW Conference website:
https://www.viewconference.it/pages/registration
About VIEW Conference
An English language event, VIEW Conference 2025 takes place from October 12-17, 2025, in the beautiful baroque city of Turin, Italy. It brings together industry professionals, thought leaders, students, and enthusiasts not only to celebrate the latest achievements in Animation, VFX and Games, but also to share their visions of the future. The conference’s vibrant and inclusive atmosphere is designed to enlighten and inspire, with an extensive live program that embraces cutting-edge thinking on such diverse topics as Storytelling, Virtual Production, Computer Graphics, Interactive & Immersive Media, VR/AR/Mixed Reality and the Metaverse, Artificial Intelligence, Real-Time Rendering and much more!
Registration is now open.
Source: VIEW 2025
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
