FDMX played a crucial role in getting leading lights in the Games and Film communities together to discuss key issues at BAFTA in Piccadilly, London.

Anglia Ruskin University's FDMX Co-ordinator Saint John Walker designed a day of thematic discussions around the notion of Convergence. 'The C Word: convergence games and film.' The day also featured presentations from top speakers such as Adam Valdez, Animation Director & Visual Effects Supervisor at MPC, whose credits include: Narnia, Prince Caspian (2008) The Golden Compass (2005) and The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The fellowship of the Ring (2001).

Another key film speaker was Andy Lomas, Head of Computer Graphics at Framestore CFC. His credits include 'The Matrix: Reloaded', 'The Matrix: Revolutions', 'Over the Hedge', 'Lost in Space'. Most recently he has been working on Framestore's first fully CG animated feature film: 'The Tale of Despereaux'.

Dave Vickery, (CG supervisor, Double Negative) gave a fascinating run down on CGI Lighting in The Dark Knight (2008). Double Negative was the lead facility for The Dark Knight, delivering 370 final shots, of which 170 were at high resolution IMAX. Before that he worked on the CG for Cloverfield (2008). He was partnered with Rick Leary, Head of 3D, who also explained some of the 3D challenges, and how they worked with the director, Chris Nolan. Rick was 3D supervisor for Double Negative on Stardust (2007) and CG supervisor on Flyboys (2006) amongst many others.

On the Games side, the pioneering Cambridge based company Geomerics gave a demonstration of their new games lighting software, with a fascinating talk by Ivan Pedersen, (Lead Artist) who explained how they had got inspiration and direction from some of cinema's top lighting cameramen. He was joined by Jules Davis, CTO of Geomerics for an in-depth audience discussion.

Another highlight was Neil Thompson, Studio Art Director for Sony's Liverpool Studio, Evolution Studio and Bigbig Studio playing the stunning game Motorstorm live on the big screen from a PS3. Neil was Art Director on the 'Formula 1' franchise culminating in the hugely successful PS3 launch title, 'F1 Championship Edition'. He explained how Sony used cutting edge High Dynamic Range Imaging techniques in Motorstorm.

Mark Anthony, Sony's R&D Senior Technical Artist, gave us background on where Sony were going in terms of research and development. Mark has been in the game industry for over 18 years using his obsession with games to help create art for various projects and platforms. As you might imagine, Sony R&D are technical experts on topics relating to any of the PlayStation platforms, supplying the raw technical materials that game developers need to create games.

To deliver this event, FDMX teamed up with Pixel Lab and Zero One London's innovative training and skills development lab for the audio visual and interactive digital media industries.