VFXRio Live: A Biography of Pixel
Date: 3:00 pm (Brasilia time) Sunday, February 7
Keynote: Alvy Ray Smith presents pixel as the organizing principle of all images, from paintings in Caves to Toy Story

Sunday 7th February
14:40 Introduction
15:00 Alvy Ray Smith on VFXRio Live
3:30 Fireside Chat with Alvy Ray Smith introduced by Lucia Modesto
*Time in Brasilia - Federal District, Brazil

Alvy Ray Smith worked at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (Parc), from where Steve Jobs bought the computer system that made Mac famous. For a long time he was one of the souls of Lucasfilm, where in the early 1980's he formed the Technology Division responsible for creating digital animations. Above all Alvy Ray Smith, born in 1943, was the founder of Pixar together with Edwin Catmull and John Lasseter in 1986.

The third online edition of VFXRio Live will be presented by Lucia Modesto, one of the great names in Brazilian technology, currently Supervisor of Visual Effects Production at TV Globo.

Alvy Ray Smith is going to talk about his book Pixel's Biography. In the book, Alvy Ray Smith argues that pixel is the organizing principle of most modern media and presents some simple but profound ideas that unify the dazzling varieties of digital imaging. He tells how pixel development begins with Fourier waves, continues through Turing machines, and ends with the first digital films from Pixar, DreamWorks, and Blue Sky. The book addresses his subject from various angles and talks about art, technology, entertainment and business. After the presentation Alvy will talk to Lucia Modesto and answer questions from the audience. The Supervisor of Visual Effects Production at TV Globo was Project Manager and Technical Director at two animation film companies, PDI and DreamWorks Animation (California, USA) where she worked on 13 films and 3 short animations. She led a highly technical and artistic team in multiple projects, including the Academy of Motion Pictures award winning film, Shrek.

VFXRio Live brings the greatest national and international specialists in the production of visual effects for cinema and TV, games and new technologies. The program includes lectures and workshops with supervisors, directors and artists who participate in the creation of visual effects and immersive media. VFXRio is sponsored by Globo with the support of Foundry and Intel and is associated to ACM SIGGRAPH.