Vanja Vikalo LINNCH is a multidisciplinary artist residing in Belgrade. Calling himself primarily an illustrator and an animator, Linnch creates characters and settings with surprising internal logic, playing with different visual forms. A unique entirety of his expression comes through each project he’s working on, both personal and commercial. Clients include UNICEF, Coca-Cola, Samsung, Vice, Tuborg, Vip Mobile and many more. Linnch’s work doesn’t stray from commentary and activism, they’re bold and they have a commanding presence, usually communicating with the audience through humor and skepticism. Talk will be revolving around career defining projects and stories behind them, but also his path from illustrator and muralist to animator/animation director.

After graduating from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts and Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, Adriana got an MA degree in Documentary film. This marked the beginning of her career in creative industries where she worked on film and TV projects, theater and film festivals. She also got a chance to be engaged in Public Administration through the Serbian Ministry of Culture and Information. Along with her activity in the practical domain, she expresses a strong interest in research and theoretical work related to the field of cultural studies and creative entrepreneurship, copyrights and the digitization of cultural heritage.
Her career in gaming started 5 years ago when she intuitively ended up in the most complex interdisciplinary field she could ever have imagined. She entered the industry handling business and marketing side of Mad Head Games independent projects. 2 years later she got back to her primary occupation by becoming the company’s Creative Content Manager and Producer working on various mediums – videos, game trailers, print, digital and live performances of different kinds. Self-taught in many ways.
Panel

Mirko Stojkovic is Head of Dramaturgy Department and founder of the Interactive Arts Laboratory at Faculty of Dramatic Arts, with years of professional experience as copywriter, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker and game designer. A member of Serbian Screenwriter Association, SRN (Screenwriting research network) and IETM (International network for contemporary performing arts).

Pavle Dinulovic studied sound recording and design at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. He works as a sound designer and music composer in the fields of video games, film, radio, and various forms of sound design in live space. He was awarded the Gold Medal PQ 2015 for Provoking a Dialogue and co-authored the winning experience titled “Stroganj” at the first hyper-reality hackathon in the world. He has won the “Neda Depolo” prize for a creative contribution to radiophonic expression, awarded by Radio Belgrade 2, two years in a row (2013 and 2014). He works as an Assistant Professor at the FDA.

Shane is an electronic music composer and sound designer creating audio content for short films and games. His commercial audio work appears on campaigns for multinational firms such as Red Bull, SuperCell, Riot, and many more. Shane is an accomplished recording artist with music released on labels such as Trapez, Ministry of Sound, Kompakt, Sinewave NYC, and he has more than a decade of live performance experience on the underground techno scenes in Tokyo and Belgrade. Shane is currently based in Belgrade, Serbia as Freelance Audio Director for the award-winning Demagog Studio.

3D artist based in Sabac. I started my career in mobile gaming industry. Few years ago, I joined in Ubisoft Belgrade as Level/Environment Artist. Worked on several AAA titles such as Ghost Recon Breakpoint and some unanaunced project. My passion is creating assets for video games especially weapons. I was lucky enough to work on that position and I have been hooked since than. Also I am learning photogrammetry and continuously willing to fill my knowledge with latest and greatest stuff that are incoming.

Laurence is passionate about connecting creators with technology. He has 20 years of experience in the Computer Animation and VFX industry, and is currently the CG supervisor at Folks VFX in Toronto, Canada. Laurence spent nine years at Autodesk working on Maya product team and is a college professor of Visual Effects and Animation at Centennial College, where he has developed courses and enjoyed teaching for over a decade.

Eric Bourque is a Director of Engineering in Autodesk’s Entertainment Creation Products group, working on Arnold, Bifrost and Maya. He has a Ph.D. in computer science from McGill University, and has been actively involved in Autodesk’s commitment to open source. He leads the CG Spotlight event series in Montreal, co-presented by Montreal ACM SIGGRAPH and Autodesk, where local studios and universities meet quarterly to present their latest results. In his spare time, Eric likes to race motorcycles and dive in underwater caves.

Michael B. Nielsen is a principal engineer in the Bifrost FX team at Autodesk. Prior to joining Autodesk he worked as assistant professor at University of Aarhus in Denmark, and as a researcher at Weta Digital in New Zealand where he received screen credits on Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Tintin – Secret of the Unicorn and The Hobbit. He received his PhD in computer science from University of Aarhus.