PICTURE THIS 24: “Small Hacks, Big Wins”
The National Film School of Denmark and Nordisk Film Fonden are happy to present the 8th edition of PICTURE THIS, and are proud to move into The Royal Danish Library for this year’s one-day course, 'Small Hacks, Big Wins', exploring, as always, the intersection of storytelling, technology, and visions for the present and future of filmmaking.
This is the year of drastic disruptions. The ripples of the Hollywood strikes, and foreshadowing of strikes in Europe, halted productions, bankruptcies of studios big and small, the tsunami of content, a halted streaming business, challenges in selling and releasing independent productions have all contributed to the industry’s feeling of a global polycrisis. Add of course AI which is stepping out of its baby steps and being increasingly used across the whole industry value chain from audio, to image generation, and post, and virtual production.
Yet in this new and turbulent state of the world, where small, fast and lean is the new normal instead of slow and lavish, industry innovators and forerunners seem to become more resilient and influential than before. 2024 is a year where everyone, including some of the world’s most known studios and Virtual Production powerhouses are searching for novel, cost-effective, and out of the box hacks to make small scale work even better than yesterday’s big productions. This new world we are stepping into is a world of collaboration, experimentation and new ways to make small hacks into big wins. The 2024 edition of PICTURE THIS, taking place on 24 September at the National Library, is thus appropriately titled “Small Hacks, Big Wins” focusing on the state of the industry and its solutions, especially in AI and virtual productions, at the time of global polycrisis.
The one-day event presents 12 world-leading speakers, case studies and conversations and will present what’s hot in virtual production for smaller countries and producers, how to build, manage and operate VP effectively on a small, European scale, what are the key applications and workflows for all industry positions including above and below the line, how is AI being implemented by writers, directors, and production companies, what are the legal and ethical guidelines of making artificial work in small countries and independent film, and how to set up an animation and VFX studio that will gain more than 2 million followers in a handful of months. Specifically, the conference will feature breakdowns of the latest European hit features and TV shows to demonstrate how the latest technologies have become the indispensable toolkit for the industry’s movers and shakers and what are the latest small hacks for creative and financial wins.
PICTURE THIS_24 is excited to announce its first slate of speakers. The conference will be kicked off by one of the world’s most foremost virtual production visionary Christina Lee Storm, whose career has spanned productions for Hong Kong legend Johnnie To to independent film powerhouse Bron Studios, Dreamworks Animation, and last but not least overseeing Netflix’s transition to virtual production. Christina Caspers Röhmer from Germany’s VFX powerhouse Trixter and Nils Pauwels from Amsterdam based VP studio Ready Set Studios will return to Copenhagen under the banner of Institute of Immersive Media, an organization advancing virtual production and innovation in filmmaking, giving the participants first-hand knowledge on how to build, manage, and successfully implement VP and the latest production tech for European indie films and TV series.
One of Hollywood’s leading young voices and hottest tutors of AI-driven directing, Dave Clark, will give a hands-on look at how AI tools can power directors from anything from short form to feature films and commercial work, while Anna Giralt Gris and Jorge Cabballero from Barcelona based Artefacto films, also an Open Docs partner for Runway, will demonstrate how the latest AI tools should be implemented for the success of feature and documentary filmmakers in a small studio. AI should be all about ethical applications, hence the conference is proud to welcome in person Anna Bulkah, one of the top global experts of AI ethics for the film industry from the legendary synthetic voice pioneer Respeecher whose recent use cases include Cannes competition hit “Emilia Perez'' and the latest biopic of Edith Piaf.
Other speakers include Volya Paulovich from London-based Pentopix developing an easy-to-use solution to turn film scripts into virtual production sets for previsualization and set design, and Kate Armstrong Smith from Othelia, developing AI-based tools, and culturally sensitive language models for screenwriters to visualize their ideas and take their screenplays to the next level. Special case studies of the latest VP cases from the region and Europe will be moderated by Denmark’s VFX supervisor par excellence Mikael Windelin A prominent case will be by Danish director Fenar Ahmad ( Darkland I, Valhalla, Darkland II) who works creatively with AI on a new film project.
The 2024 edition is curated by Sten Saluveer, Head of Cannes Next at Marche Du Film - Festival de Cannes, and CEO at Storytek Innovation Studio.
The full lineup of PICTURE THIS_24 including case studies will be revealed in August 2024.
We would like to thank our collaborators and benefactors:
Nordisk Film Isbjørnefond, FAF, Danske Dramatikere, PRD, Instruktørsammenslutningen, Danske Scenografer, Creative Europe, The Danish Film Institute
Who should attend?
Professionals in the audiovisual sector. Directors, scriptwriters, producers, Production designers, Post production professionals, Creative technologists, VFX people, film funds, scholars and students.
