2026 Festival Programme

10:00am – 1:00pm | Poole Gateway Building, Talbot Campus

Level: Intermediate

This masterclass will cover Grooming techniques in Houdini, exploring in depth the toolset and how to use it for creating high-end characters for production. Both artistic and technical aspects will be discussed, showing how to get the best of both manual and procedural approaches. From guides combing, to clumping, parting lines and noises, all essential topics will be explored in detail. Real examples from Framestore will also be used to illustrate techniques and discuss challenges involved around it.

10:00am – 1:00pm | Poole Gateway Building, Talbot Campus

Level: Beginner

2:00pm – 5:00pm | Poole Gateway Building, Talbot Campus

Level: Intermediate

Abe is an exceptional in implementing Houdini workflows at incredible speed. His technical strength in Houdini is particularly impressive, whether he is diving into simulations, Creature FX, or complex Crowd systems. 

As an R&D technical director, his is driving technical innovation across his studio,  through Python scripting automation & researching emerging tech such as machine learning. He has a real knack for identifying friction points in a pipeline and developing robust, scalable tools to solve them.

2:00pm – 5:00pm | Poole Gateway Building, Talbot Campus

Level: Intermediate

Moeen is a technical Houdini Educator and Trainer, and Visual Effects Artist from South Africa with over 10 years of experience in CGI and VFX. Hi is the creator of “Houdini Isn’t Scary”, “Houdini is HIP,” “Solaris is Sweet”, “The Ultimate Copernicus Guide”, and many other Houdini tutorials. Co-founder of Nine Between – a visual effects studio based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

10:00am – 5:00pm | Poole Gateway Building, Talbot Campus

Level: Beginner

Phil is a technical Houdini Educator and Senior Academic at Bournemouth University.  Over the past two decades working closely with Side FX he has spearheaded Houdini Education. He is very passionate about Houdini and using procedural methods/tools in VFX practice; an excellent artist who has always been creating extreme realities with a calm, strong, plausible method.

2:00pm – 5:00pm | Poole Gateway Building, Talbot Campus

Masterclass – Creating and optimising a destructible building pipeline for Games.

I have focused on a mix of proceduralism, shaders, pipeline development and optimisation on Total War since graduating from the NCCA in 2019.

We’ll cover how we manage the creation of hundreds of buildings using a kit piece workflow, as we do for Total War; what artists should and shouldn’t need to manage, and the challenges that arise with procedural optimisation, for use in maps where hundreds may be visible at once. We’ll also cover the ways in which we can manipulate our buildings and kit pieces, so that they can be destroyed for real-time game engine use, using a mixture of custom pipeline tools and Houdini.

Creative Assembly is a British video game developer based in Horsham, founded in 1987 by Tim Ansell. In its early years, the company worked on porting games to MS-DOS from Amiga and ZX Spectrum platforms, later working with Electronic Arts to produce a variety of games under the EA Sports brand. In 1999, the company had sufficient resources to attempt a new and original project, proceeding to develop the strategy computer game Shogun: Total War which was a critical and commercial hit, and is regarded as a benchmark strategy game.

7:00pm – 9:30pm | Patch, 2-12 Commercial Road, Bournemouth Square

Panel – Screening – Social

Dario Splendido is curating a public event as part of BFX 2026 at PATCH Bournemouth titled “Real-Time Horror & The Uncanny”. The programme will feature a curated screening of short works, followed by a moderated panel discussion, Q&A followed by Drinks for BFX participants and guests. Dario is a Lecturer of animation and gaming at Bournemouth University and an Unreal Authorized Instructor at Epic Games. His core competencies lie in crafting immersive digital experiences and fostering innovative game development education.

Level: Intermediate

Peter is a a texture build technical supervisor with over 25 years in the VFX industry. He has also co-founded the Meshmen Studio which trains digital artists to use new tools and techniques. He has worked in many blockbuster films such “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”,  “Godzilla: King of the Monsters”, “The Witcher” Netflix series, and many more. 

In the Mari Texturing Masterclass “Snails from Space” Peter will guide participants to use Mari in order to texture a typical VFX type asset using production proven techniques, such as Mari Nodes, and Procedural Workflows. 

Level: Intermediate

This is a full-day masterclass, where Arran will teach you how to animate multiple actions in different styles. Be this realism, traditional cartoony and contemporary hybrid stylisation. Animating in Autodesk Maya, you will be taught the theory of each style and how they differ from each other. Guided with different workflows that help you improve your efficiency and focus on creativity. Tools such as Animbot and Studio Library will help you through these procedures. Poses will be pre-constructed ahead of the masterclass to allow time for focus on other fundamentals, such as anticipations, breakdowns, overshoots, and how they are applied in different styles. You will follow Arran and work alongside him whilst he animates live. Arran will take intervals to provide direct feedback to help you focus on areas that need improving most.

Level: Intermediate

Sian Warren is a Creature Modeler with over 8 years of experience, working for large VFX houses like ILM London, MPC Film character Lab and Trixter. She has worked on a broad range of species; alive, extinct and alien for films, advertising and tv production. To publications with The Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology; collaborating alongside Professor of Biology: Dr Stuart Sumida and The Museums of Natural History. Recent credits include: Monarch Season 2, The Dinosaurs and Mufasa: The Lion King. She is now working as a Freelance Snr Creature Artist at Taken Media Arts, Facts Dinosaurs, Exetinct and creating educational model tutorials with FXPHD and Maxon Zbrush.

Level: Intermediate

Kieran Belshaw has over 13 years of experience as a Concept Artist in the industry. Presently working on Season 2 of FX tv series Shōgun. He forged his path creating the worlds of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon for HBO as well as several feature films including 28 Years Later, Man From Uncle and Terminator: Dark Fate. Whether it’s designing a new Iron Throne or figuring out what a cave inhabited by dragons would look like, he continues to push and develop his technique as an Artist bringing fantastical worlds to life!

Level: Beginner – Free Entry

I’m a student at BU developing AI animation pipelines with my classmates. In the past, I ran an experimental arts venue in Berlin, and designed lighting for stage shows and nightclubs.

This is an intro to ComfyUI. We will set it up, test some fun workflows and discuss a couple of core concepts in AI generation. Workflows include varieties of image generation, video generation, upscaling, and vision-language tasks.

Blue Zoo is an animation studio creating creating multi-Emmy and BAFTA winning content. Founded in 2000 by BU University classmates studying animation, it organically grown to become one of the UK’s leading character animation production studios. Blue Zoo aims to produce joyfully compelling stories packed and full of character by creating beautiful animation.

Since our studio was born, we’ve always experimented and explored our way to success, not just for ourselves but for our entire industry, from founding AnimationUK to helping run many progressive industry initiatives.

Furthermore, our commitment to fostering a positive working environment is unwavering. We strive to create a space filled with talented, happy artists crafting content they are genuinely proud of, routinely achieving over 95% staff and client satisfaction scores.

Jon Mason is Founder and Managing Director of Jollywise, a multi-award-winning creative studio known for building playful, audience-first experiences for kids and family brands. With over 25 years’ experience, he has worked with leading global companies including Disney, BBC, PBS, Sesame Workshop and Marvel. As creator and Executive Producer of Stan & Gran, he has led the show from initial idea through to international broadcast, shaping its tone, storytelling and world. Inspired by his own childhood and a deep love of nature, Jon’s work focuses on creating meaningful, entertaining content that sparks curiosity, encourages exploration and connects generations.

Simone Giampaolo is a London-based Swiss director known for his passion for meaningful storytelling, emotional narratives, and humorous characters. He graduated with distinction from the BA (Hons) Computer Animation Art & Design program at the National Centre for Computer Animation in Bournemouth, UK, in 2013. Throughout his career, he’s written and directed over ten multi-award-winning original short films (including the Oscar®-shortlisted and BAFTA-nominated Only a Child), while working on a multitude of commissioned projects for clients such as Netflix, Paramount, Google, Warner Bros., Cartoon Network, Disney, LEGO, Nickelodeon, Marvel, Pokémon and BBC, collaborating with world-class studios like Jellyfish Pictures, Axis Studios, Nathan Love, Blue Zoo, Red Knuckles and Aardman.

Join AWUK and a panel of industry experts as they share their lessons learned and tips to maintain confidence when navigating this ever-changing industry.

Let’s be honest – the VFX, animation and games industries can feel pretty unpredictable right now. If you’re not sure what your path looks like, you’re definitely not alone. That’s exactly why we’re bringing together a group of brilliant women working across VFX and animation to talk openly about their careers – the highs, the plot twists, and everything in between. This is a no-fluff, real-talk panel where you can hear how others have found their footing when things felt uncertain, and leave feeling more confident in your ability to navigate your own path forward.

VFX veteran, Debra, is the founder of Open Frame Coaching, helping creative professionals regain confidence in their career (and stop worrying about getting a boring job) – and empowering leaders to ditch the doubt and Lead With Ease. Debra brings 25+ years of industry experience to her coaching, progressing from Runner at Cinesite, to Senior Comp at Tippett, to Global Head of Compositing at DNEG, where she oversaw comp delivery of 100+ projects by hundreds of artists, including 3 Oscar winning films. She has been a craft judge for British Arrows and the Royal Television Society, is a subject specialist at National Film and TV School, is a proud parent of twins and an advocate for women in VFX as a Director of Animated Women UK and a WIA Mentor.

Harriet is a BAFTA nominated writer and freelance animator with over 18 years in the industry. Starting out animating film titles, she’s worked in advertising and kids tv, and now adds screenwriting to her list of credits. She is currently developing an animated series, recently optioned by Passion Pictures. Harriet is co-founder and co-host of Eat My Shorts, a short animation film night that champions independent animation and self-initiated passion projects.

Kat is a senior compositor with over ten years experience working across a wide variety of feature film and episodic productions. Kat’s day to day work varies from integrating CG creatures, creating seamless invisible vfx, through to compositing full CG environments. Kat’s recent projects include Amazon’s upcoming Jack Ryan: Ghost War, Young Sherlock, Daredevil: Born Again, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning and Fantastic Beasts.

Jane is a 2D and DFX Supervisor at Union Visual Effects. Jane has won the BAFTA for Best Film / Special Visual Effects for “Poor Things” along with other three memebers of  the Union Visual Effects team in 2025.

Eden Hawkes has worked across multiple large-scale 2D television productions as a Scene Prep Supervisor, specialising in Toon Boom Harmony workflows, scene build, pipeline organisation, and artist support. With experience leading teams, solving technical production challenges, and helping productions run smoothly behind the scenes, Eden is passionate about making animation pipelines feel more collaborative and accessible for artists. Alongside supervising work, she has recently expanded further into Harmony and Moho rigging and technical animation workflows, continuing to bridge the gap between creativity and production technology.

Jean-François Leroux is a DFX Supervisor at DNEG Animation and former Head of 2D, contributing to acclaimed features including Nimona, Under the Boardwalk, The Garfield Movie, and Ron’s Gone Wrong. With over 20 years in VFX, he has worked on award-winning films such as Inception, Interstellar, and Harry Potter, earning a 2019 VES nomination for Altered Carbon. 

© Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P, DNEG Animation

Baz is a British, working-class Director. His stop-motion films often explore socially conscious themes, captured with meticulous care to detail. In 2018, Baz co-founded independent Animation Studio ‘One6th’ alongside producer Ben Jackson. Since then, their work has earned nominations at The SHOTS Young Director of The year Awards and the British Animation Awards in addition to wins including a Kinsale Shark Award for best international animated short film. Their latest project, ‘Two Black Boys in Paradise’, is a collaboration with poet Dean Atta, which received early development support from actor, Ian McKellen, and was funded by The British Film Institute has won the BAFTA 2026 Short Animation award.

Harriet is a BAFTA nominated writer and freelance animator with over 18 years in the industry. Starting out animating film titles, she’s worked in advertising and kids tv, and now adds screenwriting to her list of credits. She is currently developing an animated series, recently optioned by Passion Pictures. Harriet is co-founder and co-host of Eat My Shorts, a short animation film night that champions independent animation and self-initiated passion projects.

Tom Box is a Co-Founder of Blue Zoo an animation studio creating creating multi-Emmy and BAFTA winning content.

© One6th, Two Black Boys in Paradise

Sam Swidzinski is the founder of Schologists, a UK company using art and game technology to build psychological therapies that actually work for young people. He leads Pebble Academy, a gamified therapy simulation for schools. The art in it isn’t decoration. It contributed directly to the clinical work. He’s interested in what happens when artists, designers, clinicians and therapists stop working in separate rooms, and what games, animation and interactive design start to look like once you take seriously the idea that they can change how someone thinks, feels and behaves.

What if the environments you design could help someone manage anxiety, rebuild confidence after failure, or learn to read a room socially? This isn’t a hypothetical. It’s already happening. The role of the creative professional is quietly expanding beyond entertainment into the heart of psychological therapy. As digital interventions become more immersive and personal, the quality of the art stops being a nice to have. It becomes the thing that makes therapy work. Drawing on Pebble Academy, a gamified therapy simulation built for schools, this talk gets into three places where artistic skill becomes genuinely clinical. Building environments that feel real enough for the skills practised inside them to transfer to the outside world. Capturing the emotional texture that makes a simulation land rather than fall flat. And why engagement isn’t a bonus feature, it’s the mechanism through which change actually happens. We’ll also look at where this is heading. Adaptive game worlds. AI driven experiences that respond to the individual. What it means for artists and therapists to become genuine collaborators. If you work in games, animation, or interactive design, this talk will change how you think about what your skills are for.

Speed Pitching is an interactive One-2-One Animation/Film/Games – Pitch Coaching – session organised by Natalie Adams and supported by Simone Giampaolo, and Jon Mason.

One needs to apply in order to take part, to do so please fill in the Speed Pitching Application Form.

The One-2-One Speed Pitching interactive sessions will be followed by the Art of Pitching Panel.

Natalie Adams has over 25 years’ senior management experience in IP development, TV production, international distribution, financing and new business development in Kids & Family animation and live action drama. She is currently SVP Business Development for Triggerfish Animation and Executive Producer for Tiger Aspect Kids & Family, overseeing the original series Stan & Gran for Milkshake! and Nickelodeon UK. Natalie spent over seven years at Jellyfish Pictures (2018-2025), initially to oversee its newly established Original Kids’ Content Division before earning promotion to Managing Director – Animation & Originals, and latterly as Managing Director of Originals. Prior to that, she spent almost six years at Platinum Films as Head of Global Strategy. Her animation credits include DogMan (DreamWorks), Wolf King (Netflix Series), The Twits (Netflix Features), Matt Hatter Chronicles (ITV) and Everything’s Rosie (CBeebies).

Join us as we walk through the creative process of bringing KPOP into the screen.

Jacky Priddle is a Co-Producer at Sony Pictures Imageworks. She most recently worked on the Academy Award®-winning global phenomenon KPOP DEMON HUNTERS for Sony Pictures Animation and Netflix. Previously,  Jacky served as digital producer on THE SEA BEAST, VIVO, SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME, SMALLFOOT, and SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING, and as a co-producer on THE SPIDER WITHIN: A SPIDER-VERSE STORY (short). Prior to Imageworks, she was a television series development producer at Rovio (Angry Birds) in Espoo, Finland, and a producer at Anima Boutique Oy in Helsinki, Finland.

Jacky spent nearly 15 years at Aardman Animations, where her credits include producer on SO YOU WANT TO BE A PIRATE, production manager on Peter Lord’s PIRATES IN AN ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTISTS, marketing production manager on SHAUN THE SHEEP THE MOVIE, assistant producer on CHICKEN RUN, producer on ANGRY KID TV special (winner of the British Animation Award), producer on the ANGRY KID animated series. She also produced numerous commercials and short films.

© 2025 Netflix

Lucie was the Executive Producer for “400 Boys”, she has worked as Managing Director and Head of Games for Passion Pictures, past roles include working as Producer for Maverik Games, and the Mill. Idris was a 3D Artist for the animated short. He is passionate about 3D with experience in Short Films and Commercials.  He worked on modelling, texture and shading taking assets from concept to production.

During his 7 years at PASSION, Idris has worked across layout, modelling, texture, shading and lighting, developing a versatile skillset that allows him to seamlessly fit into any team. As a self-taught artist he isn’t afraid to bend the rules to meet the Director’s vision. Idris has worked on productions for Netflix, Riot Games, Epic Games and multiple other high profile commercial campaigns.

Pinpoint FX, and VeloraVFX are companies set up by recent BU-NCCA alumni, they talk about their experiences getting through the first year as a commercial company.

It follows the One-2-One Animation/Film/Games interactive Speed Pitching Coaching event, with the panellists providing advice on best practice. 

Natalie Adams has over 25 years’ senior management experience in IP development, TV production, international distribution, financing and new business development in Kids & Family animation and live action drama. She is currently SVP Business Development for Triggerfish Animation and Executive Producer for Tiger Aspect Kids & Family, overseeing the original series Stan & Gran for Milkshake! and Nickelodeon UK. Natalie spent over seven years at Jellyfish Pictures (2018-2025), initially to oversee its newly established Original Kids’ Content Division before earning promotion to Managing Director – Animation & Originals, and latterly as Managing Director of Originals. Prior to that, she spent almost six years at Platinum Films as Head of Global Strategy. Her animation credits include DogMan (DreamWorks), Wolf King (Netflix Series), The Twits (Netflix Features), Matt Hatter Chronicles (ITV) and Everything’s Rosie (CBeebies).

Brenda Ximena Roldán Romero is a Senior 3D Character Animator across feature animation and high-end VFX. Throughout her career, she has contributed to projects for studios including DNEG, Framestore, Jellyfish Pictures, Axis Studios, MPC, Blue Zoo Animation Studio, Cahoots Studios and currently is part of the team at Triggerfish. With credits including Dog Man, Eyes of Wakanda, and The Wheel of Time Season 3. Alongside her animation career, Brenda is also Co-Founder and Co-Director of CG101, helping develop international industry events, partnerships, and educational initiatives within the animation and VFX community.

Ethan Francis is a CG Artist working in the VFX commercial industry. He started his career at ILM as a runner and began his first role as a modeller working on Antman & Wasp Quantumania. He is now working for Black Kite Studios creating commercials for a wide range of brands.

This is a discussion focused on strengthening the creative economy across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and the wider South West region. The session explores how universities, industry, local government, and cultural organizations can work together to support creative businesses, develop talent pipelines, and promote growth in areas such as computer animation, visual effects, digital media, and creative technology. It also highlights the role of institutions like National Centre for Computer Animation in driving innovation, skills development, and regional economic growth.

Join Framestore’s Head of Lighting and Rendering Technology Josh Bainbridge and Head of Software Nathan Walster, as they chart the course of the studio’s layered shading system. From the initial architecture to receiving an Academy Sci-Tech Award, the BU and NCCA alumni trace the engineering and collaborative milestones that redefined Framestore’s approach to realistic surfaces, and explore how the relationship between artists and technology is shifting – and what that means for the industry’s next chapter.

Josh Bainbridge leads Framestore’s the teams developing software architecture for computer graphics and VFX on feature films and episodic productions. He specialises in technology management, AI/ML, production rendering, light transport algorithms, and image processing. A 2026 Academy Award recipient for Technical Achievement, Josh is Chairman of the Technical Steering Committee for the Academy Software Foundation’s OpenQMC project and an Industry Advisory Board Member at WMG, University of Warwick. He holds an MSc in Computer Animation and Visual Effects from Bournemouth University and a BA in Animation and Visual Effects from Falmouth University.

Nathan is Head of Software at Framestore, where he leads R&D teams pushing the boundaries of VFX technology. Having been with the studio since 2006, his background spans both technology and production. He previously served as Head of Rendering, leading the creation of the proprietary ‘Freak’ renderer, and has held key roles on major films like Gravity, as well as acting as CG Supervisor on Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok. His technical contributions have earned him the title of BAFTA Brit to Watch and a 2026 Academy Sci-Tech Award for his work on Layered Shading Systems.

Andy Lomas will be provide an account of working with biologically inspired rules to create experimental visuals for Max Cooper’s concert at the Royal Albert Hall.  Andy Lomas is a computational artist, mathematician and Emmy award winning supervisor of computer generated effects. His art work explores how complex sculptural forms can be created emergently by simulating growth processes. Inspired by the work of Alan Turing, D’Arcy Thompson and Ernst Haeckel, it exists at the boundary between art and science. He is currently based in London, developing his art practice as well as working as a Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London.

© 2026 Andy Lomas

Ed is an experienced FX Supervisor and project leader with over 10 years of managing complex projects across North America, Europe and Asia.  He is the recepient of Annie and VES awards for his work on Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age.

From vast mountain landscapes and sweeping grasslands to detailed snow interaction and frozen tundras, Edward takes you behind the scenes of crafting over five hours of cutting-edge FX. He’ll break down the challenges, technical strategies, and creative problem-solving needed to achieve both visual excellence and scientific accuracy in this award winning AppleTV series.

Mark Flanagan has spent his career at the intersection of creativity, technology, and education—circling the globe in pursuit of meaningful storytelling and community building. Originally trained as an architect in Dublin, Mark pivoted into 3D art and animation at Ballyfermot College before launching his career in the UK games industry. His journey has since taken him through leading roles at Codemasters, DNEG, ILM, Pixar’s RenderMan Group, Epic Games, Netflix, and Animal Logic. Now based in Melbourne, Mark is the Education Manager at CDW Studios, where he shapes curriculum and champions emerging talent in animation, VFX, and games. He also serves as Chair of the Melbourne SIGGRAPH Chapter and is an active Access:VFX advocate, working to make the creative tech industries more inclusive and accessible.

AI is one of the hottest topics in Games/VFX/Animation right now.
In this talk we will focus on it’s current and potential use within games.
It’s not just generative art… it’s code, design, assistance, planning, testing…
Will it empower or destroy?

Join ACCESS:VFX and Simon Devereux chairing a panel of industry experts as they share their experiences and advice on how to succeed in the VFX industry.

Simon, with over 18 years of experience in the creative industry and a background as a freelance illustrator, Simon has held key roles in talent development and learning across visual effects, games, television, and commercial radio. As the current head of the Framestore Talent Development Team, he is also the Founder and Director of ACCESS: VFX, a global industry movement uniting over 75 leading studios, industry bodies, and educational institutions in visual effects and animation. ACCESS: VFX champions inclusion, diversity, awareness, and opportunity through its four pillars: Inspiration, Education, Mentoring, and Recruitment.

Join BAFTA-nominated games veteran Mike Hawkyard as he reveals Touchdown Poker – the debut title from his new studio, Ace High Sports. With over 25 years in the industry, 19 No.1 Apps on the iOS App Store, games played over three billion times worldwide, and two successful studio exits behind him, Mike knows what it takes to build games people love.

In this session, Mike shares the story behind Ace High Sports and its mission to create a new genre of sports-led card games. He’ll walk you through Touchdown Poker, a game that blends the strategy of Texas Hold’em with the thrill of American football, and show you exactly where development stands today. Then things get competitive: people in the audience will play live on stage, with prizes up for grabs. Come ready to bluff, blitz and win.

Ace High Sports is a Bournemouth-based game studio on a mission to create a new genre of sports-led card games. Founded by a team with over 25 years of games industry experience – including 19 number-one apps on the iOS App Store, games played over three billion times and two successful studio exits – the studio combines deep industry know-how with a fresh creative vision. Backed by the British Business Bank’s South West Investment Fund and the UK Games Content Fund, Ace High Sports is building a distinctive, scalable portfolio of titles that blend the strategic depth of classic card games with the energy and excitement of sport. Its debut title, Touchdown Poker, fuses Texas Hold’em with American football, letting players bluff and blitz their way to a winning score.

Join Rick Leary, Realtime Supervisor at beloFX, for a breakdown of the realtime previs pipeline behind the studio’s Academy Award-nominated work on The Lost Bus.

Joining the production in its earliest stages, beloFX developed a real-time-first workflow centred around Unreal Engine as a shared system for previs, virtual scouting and production decision-making. At the heart of the process was a large-scale “digital twin” of Northern California, reconstructing a large area of terrain using LiDAR elevation data and aerial imagery. Rick will explore how the team used this workflow to plan camera work, traffic systems and complex wildfire sequences in real time, while maintaining flexibility as production conditions evolved. The session will also cover the “Ember Cam” workflow, autonomous traffic tools, and how the previs data carried through into final production..

Will has over 15 years’ experience in VFX and recently joined One of Us as Environments Supervisor on Hamnet. Will began his career at DNEG in London where he spent close to 12 years moving up the ranks from Environment TD and Matte Painter, to CG Environment Generalist Supervisor. Credits over his tenure at DNEG include multi award-winning titles such as Interstellar, Dune: Part One, Tenet and Chernobyl as well as fan favourites like Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Justice League and The Matrix Resurrections. In 2022, Will joined Misc as Environment Supervisor on The Critic and The Creator, followed by a stint at Milk Visual Effects. Prior to joining One of Us, Will spent time at NVIZ, beloFX and Light Visual Effects as a Visual Effects Supervisor on Netflix’s Eric.

© 2025 One Of Us

Aneta is an energetic, experienced, and perspicacious researcher and lecturer, currently exploring the tensions between practitioners’ experiences of realism and formalism in animatronic-led virtual production. She is a highly experienced educator with a demonstrated history of working in the higher education sector, and she is  adept at Media Theory, Research Methods, and Creative Technologies. As an awarded Art Director and Virtual Production practitioner, mentored by Mark Herbert (Warp Films). Aneta is able to bring knowledge, integrity and understanding of the subject to provide a high standard of research practice, teaching and industry experience.

Mel is a VFX Supervisor at MyWorld, and creative consultant of sorts, focusing on bringing solutions to a multitude of industries using as many disciplines as necessary. More than that, Mel is an avid CGI Generalist, and designer, with a love for storytelling, and animation. Building on the existing creative strength in the West of England region, MyWorld is exploring the future of creative technology innovation by pioneering new ideas, products and processes. Creating the opportunity for businesses to access pre-market research, world class facilities, funding, tools and training.

Florian’s mission is to shape the future of media, entertainment, marketing and communication at the intersection of technology, storytelling and sustainability. He is recognised by Forbes as a 30 Under 30 honouree, Florian applies his background in Mechatronics Engineering and Business Management, to head global strategic partnerships. He creates strong synergies between, major tech companies and creatives, bringing advanced VP stages, real-time tools, robotics, and the latest technologies to studios, broadcasters and agencies.

VFX supervisor, Max Dennison, will discuss how Cinesite helped to create Oscar and BAFTA nominated visual effects for Paul Greengrass’ 2025 film about the US’s deadliest forest fire. From the epic, roiling smoke columns and gusting winds fanning immense CG forests, to the environmental challenges of augmenting New Mexico locations to match the town of Paradise in northern CA, these were all designed to add to the film’s impending sense of drama and tension. Achieved using a skilful combination of research and development, complex FX simulations, curated lighting, challenging tracking and sophisticated compositing, in this session, Max will offer a behind-the-scenes look at the creative and technical challenges of crafting such large-scale environmental visual effects.

© 2025 Cinesite

Going from working on personal projects and programming in uni, the shift to working in enormous teams in a very formalised environment can be a bit of a shock. Freedoms and hacks are replaced with standards and code reviews, and the double-edged sword of responsibility cuts both ways. What can you expect to find? What will you find unexpected? This talk can help prepare you for the oft-dramatic, oft-mundane realities of coding in games.

Howard is a games programmer who’s worked on a broad range of games & areas during my 5+ years working in the industry. Starting as a self-taught coder, to a graduate from BU, to an industry professional who’s worked on obscure indie projects and the biggest names in AAA games development. He loves games and loves programming, and despite all of its trials and troubles, there’s no place he would rather work than in the games industry.

Electric Square provides world-class game development services for the biggest and best partners in the industry with studios based in the UK and Malta. Driven by a collaborative culture that constantly pushes the boundaries of what it means to be state-of-the-art, we’re experts in AAA Character Action console co-development, full development, and VR.

Jintao Sun is an artist and researcher working at the intersection of generative media, craft, and visual culture. She holds a BA in Craft Art and an MFA in Art and Design from Tsinghua University. Her practice explores how AI and computational systems reinterpret traditional material processes into new forms of digital imagery and moving image. 

Yuqing Liu is a filmmaker and PhD candidate at the University of Hong Kong, affiliated with the eXtended Humanities VR + AR Research Lab. She holds a BA in Chinese Literature, a BFA in Art Theory, and an MA in Theory of Literature and Art from Peking University. Her work focuses on film, virtual reality, and immersive media, with an interest in affect and embodied experience. 

Jacob Adler is a pianist, composer, educator, and filmmaker. His film Total Pixel Space won the Grand Prix at the 2025 Runway AI Film Festival in NY and LA.

Reza Yousefzadeh Tabasi is an academic and art director specialising in computer animation at Bournemouth University, UK. He completed his PhD at the University of Brighton in 2011, where his research explored the potential of animation as a medium for engaging with social realities.

VFX Supervisor, Matt Fletcher, delves into ETC, and why working in commercials is badass!

I’m a seasoned 3D Generalist/VFX supervisor/Lead Artist with experience leading a multidisciplinary teams of artists across a broad range of high-end visual projects including commercials and episodic tv VFX. Houdini is my primary work horse for FX, Look Development, Toolset Development, modelling and pretty much everything related to 3D in VFX What really drives me is the intersection of creativity and problem solving — finding smart, scale-able solutions while staying true to the creative intent. Less clicking and typing for all!

Electric Theatre Collective (ETC) is home to some of the industry’s most formidable artists: collaborators of legendary directors, agencies and brands worldwide. Our passion for craft has seen us bring ambitious projects to life across commercials, music videos, TV and film. We’re proud claimants of numerous accolades, recently adding a D&AD black pencil, four VES honours, and several Company of the Year awards to our collection.

Most people don’t know what real-time VFX entails, so let’s change that! We will cover everything from what real-time VFX is, the process of making them, and what makes a good VFX artist in the games industry. At the end of this talk, you’ll know how, and hopefully be excited to start creating VFX!

John Behrens is a Senior VFX Artist who loves bringing game worlds to life. Over the past 8 years, he’s had the pleasure of crafting effects for AAA titles like Star Wars Outlaws, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and Sea of Thieves, working across the full VFX pipeline—from early concept collaboration to asset creation, particle systems, shaders, and t implementation using tools like EmberGen, Blender, Maya, and Engine-based proprietary systems like Unreal Engine’s Blueprint.

John thrives on the variety that VFX offers, whether it’s a subtle environmental effect like falling leaves, a character-driven effect for combat, or a dramatic game-changing spectacle for a memorable story beat. Every project presents new challenges and opportunities to make gameplay more immersive and visually striking. Beyond creating effects, John enjoys helping others do the same. He mentors junior artists, develops and refines workflows, shares his knowledge with students and emerging artists, and actively shares tips with the growing community. He loves working proactively, solving problems, improving pipelines, and most importantly- continuing to learn and grow alongside every project.