Paramount, Nickelodeon Animation Chief Ramsey Naito to Receive VIEW Conference Visionary Award
President of Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation Ramsey Naito will be honored with the VIEW Visionary Award next month at the 2024 VIEW Conference in Turin, Italy. The conference will be held from Oct. 14-19, featuring an array of global professionals in the fields of animation, VFX, gaming and more for a week filled with talks, presentations, workshops and masterclasses.
“Words cannot express how excited I am to present the 2024 VIEW Visionary Award to Ramsey Naito,” says conference director Maria Elena Gutierrez. “Ramsey’s contribution to animation throughout her career has been immeasurable, and she truly deserves this accolade.” Previous recipients include Cartoon Saloon’s Nora Twomey, cinematographer Roger Deakins, pioneering visual effects supervisor Denis Muren and Pixar designer/director the late Ralph Eggleston.
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Naito has led Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation since 2021, overseeing all of the animation group’s operations from development through theatrical release, including last year’s hit films “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” and “Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie.” Future projects include “The Smurfs Movie,” which will premiere on Valentine’s Day, and “Aang: The Last Airbender” in 2026. Sequels to “TMNT” and “Paw Patrol” are also on the 2026 slate.
At Nickelodeon, Naito oversees animation content across all formats and platforms. She joined Nick in 2018, presiding over a renaissance at the studio and re-emphasizing its creator-driven culture. When her promotion to the Paramount post was announced in 2020, Naito told Variety, “When I started with [Nickelodeon] we focused on building content and we reinvigorated the culture to be creator-driven and creator-friendly and a place where artists could come and feel nurtured, where they could grow and that was inclusive and diverse across the board. It is a passion of mine to continue building that culture and making sure that the culture is inclusive and diverse.”
Before joining Nickelodeon and Paramount, Naito produced the DreamWorks Animation’s 2017 film “The Boss Baby,” which earned an Oscar nomination for animated feature. It also garnered a PGA nomination for outstanding producer of animated theatrical motion pictures that year for Naito.
Later this month, Paramount Animation and Hasbro Entertainment will release the highly anticipated “Transformers One,” directed by Josh Cooley, who also will be attending the conference and presenting a solo talk about the process of creating the Transformers’ origin story. He will also take part in a workshop about story called “Make Me Care,” discussing ways to tell a compelling tale.
Cooley worked for many years at Pixar Animation Studios, working his way up from story department intern to writing and directing, winning the Academy Award for his feature film directorial debut “Toy Story 4” in 2019. With “Transformers One,” which will be released on Sept. 18, Cooley and his team tell the story of Optimus Prime and Megatron before they because enemies. The voice cast includes Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne and Jon Hamm.
This is the VIEW Conference’s 25th year. Other speakers attending the event include the creative team behind DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot,” led by writer-director Chris Sanders, “Inside Out 2” director Kelsey Mann, “Ultraman: Rising” director Shannon Tindle and “ animation supervisor Rob Coleman, who worked with Cooley on “Transformers One” and who will lead a special presentation on the 25th anniversary of “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.”
The slate also includes speakers discussing VFX work in some of the biggest films and TV shows of the year, such as the sci-fi epic “Dune: Part Two,” Amazon Prime’s post-apocalyptic series “Fallout,” an adaptation of the hit videogame franchise, and Netflix’s mind-bending hit series “3 Body Problem.” “Dune” second unit VFX supervisor Patrick Heinen and Wylie Co. VFX founder-CEO Jake Maymudes will talk about their work on the sequel. Overall VFX supervisor Jay Worth will discuss “Fallout,” while overall VFX supervisor Stefen Fangmeier will share insights about “3 Body Problem.”
Other speakers include Industrial Light & Magic’s senior VP and chief creative officer Rob Bredow as well as Interdimensional VFX CEO Setareh Zargarpour and VFX supervisor Habib Zargarpour, who will discuss their anthology film series project “Tales From the Woods,” from Warner Bros.
Tickets are on sale and registration is open for the 2024 edition of the conference. More information is available at the conference website.
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