SPEAKERS

TALKS by_

Ted Hope (producer of over 60 films – 21 Grams, Adventureland, American Splendor)

Cyndi Stivers (founding editor of Time Out New York and managing editor of EW)

Brian Newman (former CEO Tribeca Film Institute and founder of Springboard Media)

Jeff Gomez (CEO of Starlight Runner)

Molly Crabapple (award-winning artist, author, and the founder of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School)

Bre Pettis (co-founder of NYC Resistor and co-founder of MakerBot)

Jason Bitner (co-founder Found Magazine and Cassette From My Ex)

Dan Rollman (co-founder of the Universal Record Database)

Lance Weiler (founder of the WorkBook Project, story architect of films, tv and games)

Michael Last and Theresa Loong (CEO and CCO of Intellitoys)

Jesse Von Doom (founder of CASH Music)

Brian McTear (founder Weathervane Music)

Anita Ondine and David Beard (CEO and CTA of Seize the Media)

Alex Johnson (co-founder of WBP LABS and co-creator RADAR)

Thomas Allen Harris (Through a Lens Darkly)

Chuck Wendig (game writer / designer and author of 80+ gaming books)

Noah Harlan (producer and mobile app developer)

PAST SPEAKERS

LA SPEAKERS

JESSE ALEXANDER
Jesse Alexander is a writer and producer of TV SERIES, MOVIES, VIDEO GAMES, COMIC BOOKS, and a gazillion other cross platform projects he has overcommitted to. He was a producer and writer on the ground breaking serialized dramas: HEROES, LOST, and ALIAS. When Jesse isn’t working on DAY ONE, his new miniseries for NBC, he shares his notes from the transmedia trenches on his blog: www.globalcouch.com and via twitter as: globalcouch. Or he plays Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Two on XBOX LIVE.

ELAN LEE
Considered among the foremost Alternate Reality Gamer creators in the world, Elan Lee believes that if you’re bored, you’re doing something wrong. A self-identified entertainment-addict, Elan has spent his career finding and sharing ways to extract adventure from the world around us. From surfing down the flooded streets of LA to broadcasting a radio drama over thousands of ringing payphones, Elan has pioneered breakthroughs in the area of entertainment and immersive gaming. Elan started his career at the Microsoft Game Studio where he was a Lead Designer for the X-Box launch portfolio. Next, he co-founded and served as the Vice President of 24 Entertainment (the company behind I Love Bees, The Vanishing Point, Nine Inch Nails: Year Zero, and The Dark Knight.) He was also the Co-Founder of EDOC Laundry, and most recently the Co-Founder and Chief Designer at Fourth Wall Studios.

LANCE WEILER
Lance Weiler is a critically acclaimed award winning writer / director. Recognized as a pioneer because of the way he makes and distributes his work – Wired magazine named him “One of twenty-five people helping to re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.” He has successfully self-distributed his films THE LAST BROADCAST and HEAD TRAUMA to over 20 countries while grossing over 5 million dollars in the process. He is the founder of the Workbook Project, the roving conference series DIY DAYS and a co-founder of From Here to Awesome. Lance is a partner in Seize the Media a social entertainment company that focuses on transmedia story architecture. www.textoflight.com

SCOTT MACAULAY
Scott Macaulay is the editor of Filmmaker Magazine and a producer with his partner Robin O’Hara in the New York-based production company Forensic Films. He is also the co-editor of Focus Features’ FilmInFocus website. Among his producing credits are RAISING VICTOR VARGAS, GUMMO, JULIEN DONKEY-BOY, the Sundance Grand-Prize winning WHAT HAPPENED WAS… and IDLEWILD. www.filmmakermagazine.com

DAN MIRVISH
Dan Mirvish is a filmmaker and author who just co-wrote with Eitan Gorlin the book “I Am Martin Eisenstadt: One Man’s (wildly inappropriate) Adventures with the Last Republicans.” Dan’s real estate musical film “Open House” (Weinstein Co.) literally rewrote the Oscar rules on original musicals. Dan was mentored by Robert Altman on his first film “Omaha (the movie)” afterwhich Dan co-founded the Slamdance Film Festival where he leads the annual Sled-Off and Hot Tub Party.

STEVE PETERS
Currently founding partner and Chief Experience Architect at No Mimes Media, Steve Peters has worked on some of the biggest and most successful transmedia experiences to date, including projects for feature films Watchmen and The Dark Knight. Formerly the Director of Experience Design for 42 Entertainment, Steve founded the Alternate Reality Gaming Network in 2002. His projects have won multiple awards, including Cannes Lions Grand Prix Awards, One Show Entertainment Awards, and Webby Awards.

JAN LIBBY
Jan Libby created the popular indie Alternate Reality Games – Sammeeeees & Wrath of Johnson. After Sammeeeees, she spent nearly a year working with LG15 Studios (on the Lonelygirl15 Series) as a Writer and Interactive Designer. Jan then partnered with Brian Clark & GMD for Book 3 of the Eldritch Errors. In between projects she works as a New Media/Interactive Consultant to Media Companies and Agencies. Although still busy wrapping up her present project with W & K and Levi’s on the GO IV Fortune, Jan can also be found sneaking down to her garage and creating sets and props for her next Indie storyworld 36nine.

JERRY PAFFENDORF
Jerry Paffendorf is an artist, futurist, entrepreneur, and swell guy caught up in the matrix of New De San Frooklyn Troit: the tri-coastal circuit of Detroit, San Francisco, and New York, with Detroit being his current primary residence. As an artist he’s worked on things like the Destroy Television project where a Second Life avatar lived in his kitchen cabinet while being controlled by other people and recording and posting its entire life online; as a futurist he’s worked on things like the Metaverse Roadmap project exploring convergences in video games, virtual worlds, maps, social networks and the world around us; as an entrepreneur he’s worked with The Electric Sheep Company and as co-founder and creative director of Wello Horld, a venture-funded startup with a wacky history doing cutting edge realtime social web stuff, and as a swell guy, well just ask around! Presently he’s putting the pieces together with a new project in Detroit called LOVELAND. Academically, he has a GED, a BFA in video and mixed-media from Montclair State University in New Jersey, and an MS in Studies of the Future from the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

JON REISS
Named one of “10 Digital Directors to Watch” by Daily Variety, Jon Reiss is a critically acclaimed filmmaker who has produced and directed three feature films most recently Bomb It (Tribeca 2007) about graffiti, street art and the battle over visual public space throughout the world. Based on his experience releasing Bomb It with a hybrid strategy and the classes he teaches at Cal Arts, Jon’s new bookThink Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution in the Digital Era is being published November 2009.

MARC HOROWITZ
Marc Horowitz graduated from Indiana University with degrees in Marketing and Microeconomics. Afterwards, he traveled overseas, shearing sheep and rejecting offers to start various carpet businesses in Morocco. After returning, he attended The San Francisco Art Institute. Marc has traveled the country having dinner with strangers for a year, he has signed his name on a map pf the US and then driven that route, he even traveled across the US entirely on Google Maps. It’s not all about travel though, Marc has drawn up some plans on how to turn a brick house and diesel truck into a helicopter, and will someday attempt this.

MICKI KRIMMEL
Micki Krimmel is the founder of NeighborGoods.net, a community where you can save and earn money by sharing stuff with your friends. You might have read about it recently in Oprah Magazine! Micki is known online as Mickipedia and has developed a following for her blog and videos at Mickipedia.com. She also plays roller derby with the LA Derby Dolls.

PHILADELPHIA SPEAKERS

DON ARGOTT
After graduating from the Art Institute of Philadelphia, director Don Argott opened Mini Mace Pro Pictures for commercial videos and short films.  He worked as DP for FOX Sports, ESPN, NBC and TLC/Discovery. Argott opened 9.14 Pictures with producer Sheena M. Joyce, and the company’s documentary ROCK SCHOOL was acquired by Newmarket/Picturehouse, then released worldwide theatrically in 2005. 9.14’s documentary TWO DAYS IN APRIL (about NFL Draft football players) was commissioned by Red Envelope Productions and is available on Netflix. Their current film, THE ART OF THE STEAL, chronicles the struggle to control the $30 billion dollar Barnes art collection. 9.14 is also developing their first narrative feature, RIDE SATAN RIDE. www.914pictures.com

IVAN ASKWITH
Ivan Askwith is Senior Strategist for Big Spaceship, a digital creative agency. Building upon his time with MIT’s Convergence Culture Consortium, Ivan specializes in developing campaigns that generate deep audience engagement with franchises and brands. He speaks frequently on transmedia, branding and audience engagement at academic and industry conferences.

DAVID BEARD
David Beard is the Chief Technology Architect of Seize The Media LLC. Prior to founding STM, David was the Director of Business Development for Wavelength Releasing LLC, a pioneering Digital Cinema company. He was also a co-founder and the Chief Technology Officer of BB1, a digital media services company in the residential broadband space. In addition, David has served as a technology and business development consultant for a variety of established media interests and technology start-ups. www.seizethemedia.com

SCOTT BEIBIN
Scott Beibin’s newest project is the multimedia narrative SCIENTISTS ARE THE NEW ROCKSTARS — a spoken word, video curation, and gadget show-and-tell that spans generations of scientific tinkerers, with an emphasis on sustainable technologies. Says Beibin, “A rockstar scientist is a person who researches and creates with regards to where things come from and go to with consideration for their environmental and social impact.”  Scott Beibin is also the director of the Lost Film Fest and co-founder of the Evil Twin Booking Agency. www.scientistsarethenewrockstars.com

VICKI CALLAHAN
Vicki Callahan is Associate Professor in the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and founder of the Conceptual Studies in Media Arts Production program.   She is the author of Zones of Anxiety: Movement, Musidora, and the Crime Serials of Louis Feuillade and editor for the forthcoming collection, Reclaiming the Archive: Feminism and Film History as well as the organizer of the feminism 3.0 website.  She also co-authors with Lina Srivastava, transmedia-activism.com, a resource site for the use of cross-media platforms in social change campaigns. Her interests in silent cinema, feminist theory, and digital media intersect around questions of disruptive technologies, new modes of writing, social justice, and alternative narrative forms. www.transmedia-activism.com

BRIAN CLARK
Brian is an experimental media producer and the Founder/CEO of 14-year-old media lab GMD Studios. In those years he’s worn such diverse hats as publisher of indie film news journal indieWIRE, content publisher, fan building consultant, advertising creative, and alternate reality game designer. Brian came to crossmedia production out of the D.I.Y and independent traditions in the music scene as producer. www.gmdstudios.com

GRETJEN CLAUSING
Gretjen Clausing has worked for 20 years as a media arts curator in Philadelphia and is a media activist committed to rethinking public media and securing citizen’s access to media since 1997. She recently became Executive Director of Philadelphia’s Public Access TV station, launching this fall. She was Program Director of Scribe Video Center, created Film at the Prince, and worked at International House and the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema.  She also serves on the boards of the National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC), the Leeway Foundation, and the Philadelphia Independent Film and Video Association (PIFVA).

ARIN CRUMLEY
Putting real life into film, podcasting to extend the narrative, captivating social network audiences, Google mapping the audience demand for a theatrical release and digitally distributing to millions of internet viewers around the world. The pioneering efforts of Arin Crumley haven’t gone un-noticed as Indiewire, MovieMaker, The Wall Street Journal, The Spirit Awards, The Sundance Channel, IFC TV, & many others have jumped into the echo chamber further demonstrating all that new media has to offer. www.arincrumley.com

GEOFF DiMASI
Geoff DiMasi heads up P’unk Avenue and co-founded of Independents Hall. He organizes the Junto, co-organizes Ignite Philly, and coordinates BarCamp Philly. He founded the Passyunk Square Civic Association in South Philadelphia and was an artist member and board member of Vox Populi gallery. He currently serves on the Marketing Committee for the Board of the Free Library of Philadelphia. A former Multimedia professor at the University of the Arts, he now serves as adjunct member of the faculty. www.punkave.com

ANA DOMB
Ana Domb Krauskopf is a journalist and film and music producer. Her work has always revolved around the creative industries. Currently, she is researcher and graduate student at the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT where she works with the Convergence Culture Consortium. In her native Costa Rica, she co-founded Cinergia, the first film production fund designed to stimulate media activity in Central America and Cuba. There, she also worked with the Papaya Music label where she co-produced the Papaya Fest, an eclectic large-scale Central American music festival. For the past two years her work has focused on alternative distribution and audience engagement. In 2007 she co-authored “If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead: Creating Value in a Spreadable Marketplace” with Dr. Henry Jenkins and Xiaochang Li. www.convergenceculture.org

ALLAN L. EDMUNDS
Allan L. Edmunds is a visual artist, arts administrator and educator who is internationally recognized for his achievements.  Mr. Edmunds is the founder and current president of Brandywine Workshop, which has sponsored a fine art printmaking workshop and archives for culturally diverse artists and students since 1972. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships, graduate of the Getty Museum Management Institute and is a Distinguished Alumni of the Tyler School of Art where he earned his Bachelors and Masters degrees. www.brandywineworkshop.com

ZAK FORSMAN
Zak Forsman is an award-winning filmmaker known for eliciting highly authentic performances within beautiful compositions. His work has been praised as “brilliant” by AICN, “jaw-droppingly gorgeous” by Twitch and “very accomplished…amazing” by Filmmaker Magazine. Recently, he wrote and directed “HEART OF NOW” and “ELOQUENT GRAFFITI” – two features in post and production respectively. He received top honors at the FROM HERE TO AWESOME discovery festival and is editor of NEW BREED for The Workbook Project. www.sabipictures.com

DAN GOLDMAN
Dan Goldman is the creator of the Eisner-nominated web-to-print comic SHOOTING WAR as well as a founding member of the webcomics collective ACT-I-VATE. His recent nonfiction graphic novel 08: A GRAPHIC DIARY OF THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL is archived in the New York Historical Society’s permanent collection.  Also a frequent speaker on both digital comic processes and online distribution, his new series RED LIGHT PROPERTIES will premiere online this summer. www.dangoldman.net

NOAH HARLAN
Noah Harlan is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, producer and co-founder of 2.1 Films, a boutique film & media company. His features have premiered at Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Rome. He is a former Sundance Institute Producing Fellow and CineMart Producer’s Lab member. His producing work has included numerous branded content projects for television and the web. He currently is focussing on transmedia story telling and mobile application development through a new venture, Two Bulls. www.twopointonefilms.com

ALEX JOHNSON
Alex Johnson is co-founder of WBP Labs (the experiment lab/agency/think-tank arm of the Workbook Project).  Previously she worked as an Experience Planner at interactive agency Deep Focus (clients included New Line, Universal & Vitamin Water), as head of interactive at Sally Potter’s production company (during which time she also worked with Endemol & Channel 4) and has consulted for Filmmaker Magazine, IFP, Massify, and Lance Hammer/Ballast.  She also directed the first season of RADAR, a mini-doc series and WBP Lab’s first project. www.alexjohnsononline.com

LEAH KAUFFMAN
Leah Kauffman is probably most recognized for her writing/singing in three popular viral videos: “My Box in a Box,” “I Got a Crush on Obama” and “I Like a Boy” featuring MIMS.  Leah was included in Philly Magazine’s ‘76 People to Watch’, was # 66 on Blender’s Hot List, and MSN named her as one of 11 Most Influential Women in the world.  Leah now runs Phrequency.com, a local site dedicated to the Philly scene. www.phrequency.com

SCOTT KIRSNER
Scott Kirsner is a journalist who writes about innovation, with a special focus on the ways that new technologies are changing the entertainment industry. His most recent book is Fans, Friends & Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age. Scott writes regularly for Variety and The Boston Globe, and edits the blog CinemaTech. His earlier books include Inventing the Movies, a technological history of Hollywood. www.cinematech.blogspot.com

SCOTT MACAULAY
Scott Macaulay is the editor of Filmmaker Magazine and a producer with his partner Robin O’Hara in the New York-based production company Forensic Films. He is also the co-editor of Focus Features’ FilmInFocus website. Among his producing credits are RAISING VICTOR VARGAS, GUMMO, JULIEN DONKEY-BOY, the Sundance Grand-Prize winning WHAT HAPPENED WAS… and IDLEWILD. www.filmmakermagazine.com

EUGENE MARTIN
Eugene Martin has been making feature films since 1991.  His films include EDGE CITY, DIARY OF A CITY PRIEST, and THE OTHER AMERICA. Martin is directing a doc feature about the Anderson Monarchs Soccer Club, the only all girls African-American team in the US, executive produced by The Green Film Company in NYC. www.theotheramericamovie.com

BRIAN McTEAR
Brian McTear launched Weathervane Music in 2009, a non-profit dedicated to improving the state of music in our society and the career potential of independent musicians. He is a musician, producer, recording engineer and owner of Miner Street Recordings. In the 12 years that McTear has worked in Philadelphia, he’s produced over 100 records and helped revitalize the local indie music community.  McTear writes and sings in the band Bitter bitter weeks, and plays guitar with The Novenas. www.weathervanemusic.org

MIKE MONELLO
Mike started out as a DIY indie-filmmaker, and in 1998 created THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT with four other film school friends. This integrated, interactive experience drew a huge community of loyal fans around the film’s mythology, resulting in a pop-culture phenomenon with over $240 million in worldwide box-office. Mike co-founded Campfire to create narrative experiences for major brands including Verizon, HBO, Audi, HP, Pontiac, USA Network and Warner Brothers. www.campfirenyc.com

BRIAN NEWMAN
Brian Newman is president & CEO of the Tribeca Film Institute, leading innovative programs in support of filmmakers, youth and the public. Brian conceived and launched the Reframe project of TFI, a unique initiative digitizing thousands of films for DVD, streaming, and video on demand. He speaks regularly on new media, audience development and the future of the web, and contributes irregularly to a blog on these subjects at Springboardmedia. www.reframecollection.org

ANITA ONDINE
Anita worked as an intellectual property and technology lawyer prior to joining Lehman Brothers as Senior Legal Counsel and later moved into an executive role as Senior Vice President. Anita has written a book and numerous articles and spoken internationally on themes related to the intersection of technology, law, and business. Anita is CEO of Seize the Media and is also a writer/producer through her company Touch Light Media, which is focused on themes of technology, the environment, and women’s stories. www.seizethemedia.com

NINA PALEY
Nina Paley is the creator of the animated musical feature film Sita Sings the Blues, which has screened in over 150 film festivals and won over 30 international awards including the Annecy Grand Crystal, The IFFLA Grand Jury Prize, and a Gotham Award. Her adventures in our broken copyright system led her to Copyleft her film, and join QuestionCopyright.org as Artist-in-Residence. She teaches at Parsons School of Design and is a 2006 Guggenheim Fellow. www.sitasingstheblues.com

TOM QUINN
Tom Quinn’s debut feature, THE NEW YEAR PARADE, was selected for the IFP Narrative Rough Cut Labs, won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative at Slamdance, and was a Gotham Award nominee for “Best Film Not Playing in a Theater Near You.”  Tom was listed in the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in Filmmaker Magazine and “Ten Young Writer-Directors to Watch” by MovieMaker Magazine. He was the first American filmmaker accepted to the Toronto International Film Festival Talent Lab and is completing his MFA at Temple University. www.thenewyearparade.com

ESTHER ROBINSON
Esther Robinson is the founder of ArtHome, a nonprofit that helps artists build assets and equity through financial literacy, home-ownership, self-sufficiency and the responsible use of credit. Robinson is also an award-winning filmmaker and producer.  Her critically acclaimed directorial debut A WALK INTO THE SEA: DANNY WILLIAMS AND THE WARHOL FACTORY took top prizes at the Berlin, Tribeca and Chicago film festivals; is currently in international theatrical release and available on The Sundance Channel/Netflix/iTunes. www.arthomeonline.org

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF
Winner of the first Neil Postman award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, Douglas Rushkoff is an author, teacher, and documentarian who focuses on the ways people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other’s values. His books include Cyberia, Media Virus, Coercion, and most recently, Life Inc. He made the Frontline documentaries Merchants of Cool and The Persuaders. He teaches media studies at the New School University, is technology columnist for The Daily Beast, and lectures globally. www.rushkoff.com

MARK SCHONEVELD
Mark Schoneveld is obsessed with music. He maintains a popular music blog, yvynyl.tumblr.com where he muses on the intersection of new media, DIY bands and the possibilities of instant, ‘free’, global publication of art. He’s also heavily involved in the online video space, managing the community of commercial filmmakers at Poptent.net
www.yvynyl.tumblr.com

KEVIN K. SHAH
Kevin K. Shah is an artist and interdependent filmmaker at Sabi Pictures, and explorer of character journeys through a highly collaborative and improvisational process. His most recent film is WHITE KNUCKLES. He champions technology to make nano-budget art films sustainable. Next projects: A HAPPY MEDIUM: AN AMERICAN SOLDIER RETURNS HOME, and an online social theater and distribution company called CINEFIST. He very strongly believes in the power of cinema as art. www.sabipictures.com

LINA SRIVASTAVA
Lina Srivastava focuses on strategy, innovation and media engagement for social change. She writes the site Strategy for Social Change Initiatives, and co-authors the sites Modeling Global Change and transmedia-activism.com .  The former Executive Director of Kids with Cameras, and the past Interim Executive Director of the Association of Video and Filmmakers, she’s provided strategic support to the Resist Network, and films such as BORN INTO BROTHELS and THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK. Trained as an attorney at NYU Law, Lina is based in NYC. www.linasrivastava.com

JOHN HENRY THOMPSON
In the 1980’s, John Henry Thompson began exploring the creative uses of the then rare desktop computer. He created interactive art using laser discs, video digitizers, and Macintosh Plus computer. His exploration lead him to build software for the creative professional at  Lucas Film, Macromedia (now Adobe), and teach at NYU/ITP graduate program in new media. He now creates custom iPhone applications and practices yoga.

JOHN THREAT
John Threat is a writer/director who works on a wide array of entertainment projects: TV, web series, mobile, web and ARG’s.  He has appeared on the cover of magazines like Wired and TV shows like 60 Minutes for his inventive ideas and chaotic adventures. John has a previous life as an international computer hacker, information warfare consultant and NYC bicycle messenger. www.thecabal.com

JESSE VON DOOM
Jesse von Doom is the Executive Director of CASH Music, a nonprofit dedicated to building open tools and services to aid artists in finding their own road to sustainability. His background lies in art, design, and web technology. Along with his wife, a dog, and one-and-a-half daughters he lives on a small island in Narragansett Bay. www.cashmusic.org

HUNTER WEEKS
Hunter Weeks directed and produced 10 MPH and 10 YARDS: FANTASY FOOTBALL. Currently, he’s directing RIDE THE DIVIDE, a film about a 2700-mile mountain bike race from in the Rocky Mountains. He’s brought major partners on board to help fund and promote the films, including such companies as CBS Sports, Quiznos, YouTube, Crocs, SmartWool, Fender, and Chipotle. www.ridethedividemovie.com

LANCE WEILER
Lance Weiler is a critically acclaimed award winning writer / director. Recognized as a pioneer because of the way he makes and distributes his work – Wired magazine named him “One of twenty-five people helping to re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.” He has successfully self-distributed his films The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma to over 20 countries while grossing over 5 million dollars in the process. He is the founder of the Workbook Project, the roving conference series DIY DAYS and a co-founder of From Here to Awesome. Lance is a partner in Seize the Media a social entertainment company that focuses on cross-media story architecture. www.textoflight.com

CHUCK WENDIG
Chuck is a 30-something freelance penmonkey. At present, he’s contributed to, or developed, over 80 books for White Wolf Game Studios. He’s had a handful of short stories published. He’s written a couple screenplays. He’s thinking about branching out into menus, pamphlets, or witty doormats. Give him a wide berth, as he might be drunk and untrustworthy. He currently lives in the wilds of Pennsyltucky with a wonderful wife and two very stupid dogs. www.jet-pack.net

SASKIA WILSON BROWN
With an MFA from London’s Central Saint Martins College, Saskia started her media career as a freelance music video and commercial production designer for the likes of Master P. Saskia was festival director for Los Angeles’ Silver Lake Film Festival, and currently works at Current TV as the head of filmmaker outreach, leading projects for short documentary formats globally. She advocates for filmmakers, programs for festivals, and recently launched the roving screening series Cinema Speakeasy. www.current.com

ZEKE ZELKER
Zeke Zelker, the award winning filmmaker, blends art and commerce in all that he does. His latest film InSearchOf is not only creating buzz about the content of the story line but also for his business techniques.  Always creating new revenue streams by blending traditional distribution outlets, adapting others to suit his film’s needs, and pioneering some of his own Zeke has been forging a pathway to profitability. He is currently developing on a transmedia project that will begin unraveling 2010. www.insearchofmovie.com

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SAN FRANCISCO SPEAKERS

Tiffany Shlain – Honored by Newsweek as one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century,” Tiffany Shlain is an award-winning filmmaker, founder of The Webby Awards and co-founder of International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Her films include “The Tribe” and “Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness,” and have been selected at over 100 festivals including Sundance and Tribeca and received over 20 awards. Her last film was the # 1 most downloaded film on iTunes. Her team at The Moxie Institute has been singled out by The New York Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Sundance for their cutting-edge work using documentaries and internet distribution in unique ways to engage audiences. Tiffany lectures worldwide on the Internet and her filmmaking. She is the director of The Moxie Institute, an organization that creates film, books and theater experiences around social issues using emerging technologies. She is working on a new feature documentary, Connected and a performance documentary for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts that premieres in October as part of the art triennial Bay Area Now. Tiffany is an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow. www.tiffanyshlain.com

Jason Harris is the president / executive producer of Mekanism an award-winning provider of multi-platform content production and digital marketing services across the advertising, entertainment and media communities. In other words, we make a lot of funny, strange stuff that is hard to explain in a concise opening sentence. The studio houses some of the industry’s top film, animation and interactive content creators, and we sprinkle our love of good storytelling on commercials, websites and viral campaigns to inspire measurable brand loyalty. As President and Executive Producer, Jason Harris’s core focus is on creating and producing branded entertainment campaigns, as well as fostering Mekanism’s position as the premiere storyteller for emerging media. A complete body of Mekanism’s work can be seen at www.mekanism.com.

Chris Metzler – After graduating from USC with a degree in business and cinema, Chris’ film career has taken him from the depths of agency work, to coordinating post-production for awful American movies seen late at night in Belgium. His film directing and producing work has resulted in frequent partnerships with Jeff Springer, where together they’ve criss-crossed the country with the aid of caffeinated beverages and made their way in the Nashville country and Christian music video industries, before finally forsaking their souls to commercial LA rock n’ roll. These misadventures eventually culminated in their winning a Billboard Magazine Music Video Award. Chris recently finished traveling the film festival and theatrical circuit promoting his John Waters’ narrated documentary, PLAGUES & PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA, which premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival and later won both the HBO Producer’s Award and the Robert Altman Award, before being broadcast on the PBS documentary series “Truly, CA” and debuting nationally on the Sundance Channel. He is a recipient of the Bay Area Video Coalition’s AEA Award and has previously received funding support from the Pacific Pioneer Fund and the Fleishhacker Fund. Chris now finds himself pursuing docs featuring gay truck drivers, Australian opal miners, and the Black punk band Fishbone.

Jeff Springer was born in an abandoned town in the California desert, raised in Hawaii, and educated at USC Film School. After living for a winter in Russia, he returned to Los Angeles and began directing music videos and shorts, as well as editing for Fox, the WB, UPN, Lucasfilm, Capitol, and Geffen Records. Burned out and hungover on WWF and bad R&B, he fled to San Francisco to start work on the feature documentary PLAGUES & PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA with co-director Chris Metzler. After weeks in the desert and a couple of burnt cameras, the film went on to win 35 awards for Best Documentary and premiered on the Sundance Channel. Meanwhile, Springer was going “undercover” investigating the East German Wild West in Berlin and following the Ska-Funk-Rock band Fishbone around Europe. Now finally, after all that unexpected funkadelic excitement, he suddenly finds himself very content, in a little editing studio overlooking San Francisco.

Sara Pollack is the Global Product Marketing Manager of Film & Animation at YouTube. She is responsible for building and executing YouTube’s business strategy for film across the Marketing, Product, Business Development, PR, Sales and Editorial teams, in order to ensure that YouTube remains at the cutting-edge of digital entertainment. Prior to joining YouTube, Sara was a Production Executive at Big Beach, an independent film production and finance company, where she worked on both feature and documentary films, including Little Miss Sunshine, Everything is Illuminated and Sherrybaby. Before Big Beach, Sara worked at Miramax Films, directly reporting to the President of Production during the studio’s release of such award-winning films as Finding Neverland, The Aviator and Cold Mountain. Sara received her B.A. in English Literature from Brown University.

Mark Rotblat leads the Business Development efforts at TubeMogul, with a focus on communications and marketing activities surrounding customer acquisition, product launches, and industry analysis. He previously worked in Marketing and Business Development at Healthline.com where he developed partnerships for the company’s content and tools. Prior to Healthline, Mark was a management consultant for Stockamp & Associates where he advised multi-billion dollar healthcare organizations on IT implementations for operational improvement and financial reporting. Mark holds an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and a BS from Duke University.

Scilla Andreen is an award winning producer, Emmy nominated costume designer and CEO and co-founder of IndieFlix.com. She is a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a popular film festival panelist and tireless champion of independent film. Scilla and producing partner, Carlo Scandiuzzi created IndieFlix, an independent film distribution and discovery site founded on the principles of community, promotion, syndication and transparency to help independent filmmakers monetize their work. www.indieflix.com

Slava Rubin co-founded IndieGoGo to help independent filmmakers overcome their fundraising challenges. Focused on bringing Filmocracy to the people, Slava frequently speaks at conferences and writes on the disruptive technologies impacting the media industry; from finance to distribution. Recent speaking engagements include Sundance, SXSW, Slamdance, and IFP Filmmaker, Making Media Now & >Play Conferences. Slava also serves as an Advisor to the IFP Film Market and Film Labs. Prior to IndieGoGo, Slava was a strategy consultant working on projects from start-up go-to-market strategies to corporate execution plans. He offers expertise in audience building, marketing, and DIWO (Do-It-With-Others). Beyond his passion for film, Slava started Music Against Myeloma, an annual charity event raising funds and awareness to fight this rare form of cancer.

Tom Hicks is a co-founder of Caachi, an Internet company that sells and markets independent films as DVD-resolution downloads and high-resolution streaming video. Tom began his career in Silicon Valley and eventually worked overseas doing mainly legal and business transactions. He escaped the business world to follow his passion for film and technology and started Caachi with Charles Choi to address the bane of independent filmmakers: marketing and distributing films. Tom believes the Internet, with its access to a global audience and the ease of marketing online, will revolutionize the independent film world. Tom can be reached at tom.hicks@caachi.com.

Caveh Zahedi is an independent autobiographical writer/director whose feature, I Am A Sex Addict, won the 2005 Gotham Award for “Best Film Not Playing At A Theater Near You.” The film was subsequently picked up for distribution by IFC Films,. His previous feature, In The Bathtub of the World, aired on the IFC Channel. His second feature, I Don’t Hate Las Vegas Anymore, won the Critics’ Prize at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 1994. His first feature, A Little Stiff, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1991. He is currently in pre-production on a metaphysical thriller set in Rome.

Skot Leach is a graduate of the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where he studied video and motion picture. While attending the Academy Skot began exploring alternate means of distributing and telling stories online. Skot’s interest in internet technology and social media led him to the mobile industry where he has spent the last several years building community driven mobile products. Simultaneous to this role Skot is a screenwriter. Skot’s primary passion lies in finding new ways to tell stories. Skot is currently bridging his experience and interests in a project called Lost Zombies. Lost Zombies is a community generated zombie documentary. Members of Lost Zombies are able contribute content to www.lostzombies.com which Skot and his partners intend to compile into a feature length mock documentary.

Alex Afterman is the co-founder and Vice President of Heretic Films, a San Francisco based independent DVD/VOD/Digital label founded in 2003. As label head Alex is responsible for managing everything from acquisition of new titles for distribution, co-ordinating the creation of key art, authoring, production and replication of the DVDs, logistics, and marketing and publicity, including determining advertising budget, co-op purchases and handling all media relations. Prior to founding Heretic Films Alex spent several years working as a Product Manager and Account Manager for various new media companies including internet content syndication company iSyndicate and web based real estate portal LoopNet. In addition to his responsibilities for Heretic Films Alex also co-produced the documentary ‘24 Hours on Craigslist’, which had a successful theatrical run before being released on DVD through Heretic Films.

Bryan Kennedy is a web developer from San Francisco who started the Mobile Movie in 2005. Tired of the high ticket prices and bland experience of the cineplex, and hungering for a challenge, he wired up his projector, a DVD player, and an FM transmitter in his car and started holding drive-ins in Berkeley. The MobMov has since grown to over 200 chapters and 8,000 members across the globe. Today, MobMov shows in San Francisco draw 100-150 people and are held monthly throughout the city. Bryan graduated from UC Berkeley in 2004 and currently works for a startup called Xobni in downtown SF.

Jerry Paffendorf is a futurist and creative director working on metaverse projects — the emerging mixed-reality internet combining features of the social web, video games, virtual worlds, and maps. You may or may not remember him from such hits as the Acceleration Studies Foundation and the Electric Sheep Company. He’s a co-founder of the shtill shtealth shtartup Wello Horld and spends his time between Brooklyn, NY (Silicon Ghetto) and San Francisco (Silicon Valley).

Lance Weiler is a critically acclaimed award winning writer / director. Recognized as a pioneer because of the way he makes and distributes his work – Millimeter magazine called Lance a “tech iconoclast” and Wired magazine named him “One of twenty-five people helping to re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.” He has successfully self distributed his films The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma to over 20 countries while grossing over 5 million dollars in the process. Always interested in experimenting with new ways to tell stories and reach audiences, Lance developed a cinema ARG (alternate realty game) around “Head Trauma.” The cinematic ARG is a mashup of movies, music, theatrics and gaming. Over 2.5 million people experienced elements of the game across theaters, mobile drive-ins, mobile phones and online. Lance is also the founder of the Workbook Project a “social open source” project for filmmakers. The Workbook Project’s goal is to help filmmakers understand the changing landscape of funding, production, promotion, and distribution in a digital age. He is the co-founder of From Here to Awesome and DIY DAYS. In addition he is a partner in Seize the Media a social entertainment company that focuses on cross-media story architecture.

M dot Strange is a mixed media animator from San Jose, Ca. He recently singlehandedly completed an 88 minute animated film entitled “We are the Strange” which made its world premiere in January of this year at the Sundance Film Festival. A reviewer that saw the film M dot made in his bedroom with 9 PC’s over the course of 3 years said “it looked like something Hollywood would make for 70 million” He has recently been featured in the NY Times, ABC World News , Wired.com and his youtube videos have been viewed over a million times.

Arin Crumley – The Wall Street Journal lists Arin among the top 20 new media moguls, and applauds the co-creation of the popular independent film and online video series, Four Eyed Monsters. In late 2002, Arin met his future co-director and collaborator, Susan Buice, beginning a relationship that evolved into the creation of Four Eyed Monsters. The project has become a cult phenomenon. To date, the video podcast has received over two million views, theaters across the nation have booked the film due to its online fan-base, the film was nominated for two Spirit Awards and in June 2007 became the first feature film to be posted in it’s entirety to YouTube. Now with all of this online exposure the film has been licensed to IFC TV to air April 25th and be released on exclusively in Borders across the US April 29th 2008. Now 27-year-old Arin Crumley is busy promoting the DVD release as well as the 5 new final episodes of the online component to Four Eyed Monsters and is in pre-production on several new projects in the works for 2009. Also in development is a brand new film festival he co-founded called From Here to Awesome designed to demonstrate a new distribution model available to all filmmakers that have internet connections.

Brian Chirls is a filmmaker and technologist in New York. He has worked on the film Four Eyed Monsters as Manager of Distribution and Marketing and consulted on the distribution of John Sayles’s latest film, Honeydripper. Brian continues to develop and write about ways for independent artists to create and distribute their work. Brian has also produced and directed a number of short films, video blogs and a bit of machinima. Before becoming a filmmaker, Brian built financial software and worked in construction management on subway stations and highways. He graduated from the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Blair Erickson is Creative Director at an interactive agency named Millions of Us creating experiences for clients like Warner Bros, Scion, Coca-Cola, and Nike in virtual worlds and social communities. Rcently Blair finished writing and directing an alternate reality live-action thriller for Fox’s “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” developed interactive worlds inside Playstation Home and created a virtual experience for National Geographic inside Google’s new virtual world Lively. In 2007 he launched an Innovation Grant Program for virtual inventors sponsored by Electrolux, brought CNN’s I-Report program to Second Life and won the LACP Spotlight award for a first-of-its-kind campaign bringing a WWE wrestler invasion into Gaia Online. Before his stint at Millions of Us, Blair worked in film and television production both for new and traditional media. He’s created several popular videos on YouTube, as well as writing and producing for the SciFi Channel, Discovery Channel, E! Entertainment Television, and the TV Guide Network.

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LA SPEAKERS
Arin Crumley – The Wall Street Journal lists Arin among the top 20 new media moguls, and applauds the co-creation of the popular independent film and online video series, Four Eyed Monsters. In late 2002, Arin met his future co-director and collaborator, Susan Buice, beginning a relationship that evolved into the creation of Four Eyed Monsters. The project has become a cult phenomenon. To date, the video podcast has received over two million views, theaters across the nation have booked the film due to its online fan-base, the film was nominated for two Spirit Awards and in June 2007 became the first feature film to be posted in it’s entirety to YouTube. Now with all of this online exposure the film has been licensed to IFC TV to air April 25th and be released on exclusively in Borders across the US April 29th 2008. Now 27-year-old Arin Crumley is busy promoting the DVD release as well as the 5 new final episodes of the online component to Four Eyed Monsters and is in pre-production on several new projects in the works for 2009. Also in development is a brand new film festival he co-founded called From Here to Awesome designed to demonstrate a new distribution model available to all filmmakers that have internet connections.

Robert Greenwald is a producer, director and political activist. Greenwald is the founder and president of Brave New Films, a new media company that uses moving images to educate, influence, and empower viewers to take action around issues that matter. Under Greenwald’s direction, BNF has produced a series of short viral videos, including the Fox Attacks and Real McCain campaigns. In total, BNF’s short videos have been viewed over 23 million times in the past year and a half, inspired hundreds of thousands of people to sign petitions and forced pressing issues into the mainstream media. Greenwald is also the director/producer of several documentaries: “Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers http://iraqforsale.org” (2006), an expose of what happens when corporations go to war; as well as “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price http://www.walmartmovie.com ” (2005), detailing the retail giant’s assault on families and American values; and “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism http://www.outfoxed.org ” (2004), about the right-wing opinion factory known as Fox “News.” Millions of viewers have seen these films via grassroots “house parties” and independent online DVD sales, a groundbreaking method of alternative distribution. Greenwald also executive produced a trilogy of political documentaries: “Unprecedented: The 2000 Election http://www.unprecedented.org/UnprecedentedFirstPage.html ” (2002); “Uncovered: The War on Iraq http://www.truthuncovered.com ” (2003), which he also directed; and “Unconstitutional http://pipdocs.org/order_films/unconstitutional ” (2004).

Marshall Herskovitz is a writer, producer, and director in Los Angeles who has won many awards for his work in television and films. Born in Philadelphia, he attended Brandeis University, then moved to Los Angeles in 1975, where he attended the American Film Institute and met his longtime creative partner Edward Zwick. In the years since he helped create such series as “thirtysomething”, “My So-Called Life”, and “Once and Again”. Among the films he has produced are “Legends of the Fall”, “Traffic”, “I Am Sam”, “The Last Samurai”, and “Blood Diamond”. He also directed “Jack the Bear” and “Dangerous Beauty”. In 2007 Herskovitz migrated to the Internet with “quarterlife”, the ground-breaking online series and social network dedicated to artistic, activist twentysomethings. Less than a year after launch, the fast-growing website – www.quarterlife.com – has become an international destination with members in 60 countries, and the series has become the third most successful scripted program in Internet history. Herskovitz is a longtime environmentalist, having served on the board of several organizations dedicated to preserving America’s precious natural resources. He is also a founding member of the 1Sky campaign. He is currently serving as President of the Producers Guild of America.

Alex Johnson spent two years freelancing within the commercial & music video world (including Radical Media, RHB, Partizan) in London before joining Sally Potter’s production company Adventure Pictures where she headed up online outreach & New Media initiatives. Alongside low budget feature film promotion, and cross-media project development for Endemol, Channel 4 & the ENO, she conceived The Spark Project, a Social Learning web application. She then joined interactive marketing agency Deep Focus in LA as an Experience Planner (clients included New Line, Universal, HBO, Random House, Vitamin Water, Havaianas, Sundance channel & The N) guiding thinking on audience insight, branding and strategic approach across creative, publicity & media departments. Alex is currently a freelance Digital Strategist in NYC. Most recently she worked with Seize The Media on Myspace/Hammer project ‘Beyond The Rave’ an online film release/social game; and is consulting for the IFP, guiding the organization’s rebrand and interactive re-launch. Alex is also a writer and director and is in post on a short film, working on a feature script, developing several online projects and writing a webisode case study series for the Workbook Project. She can be reached via her website alexjohnsononline.com

Micki Krimmel is the founder of Sugar Packet, Inc. – a tiny company with a big mission – to fundamentally change our relationship with material items. Micki is well known in the “Web 2.0″ space for her work in online community development and her popular website and video show at www.Mickipedia.com. As a social media consultant, Micki helps technology startups and media companies build sustainable communities for authentic conversation and engaged participation. Previously, Micki worked as Director of Community for Revver.com. She also built and managed the interactive department at Participant Productions, a media company founded with the express mission to engage audiences in movements for social change. While at Participant, Micki created the company’s first online activist community and led the interactive media efforts for An Inconvenient Truth as well as Participant’s other award-winning films.

M dot Strange is a mixed media animator from San Jose, Ca. He recently singlehandedly completed an 88 minute animated film entitled “We are the Strange” which made its world premiere in January of this year at the Sundance Film Festival. A reviewer that saw the film M dot made in his bedroom with 9 PC’s over the course of 3 years said “it looked like something Hollywood would make for 70 million” He has recently been featured in the NY Times, ABC World News , Wired.com and his youtube videos have been viewed over a million times.

Tommy Pallotta produced A SCANNER DARKLY (2006) which is based on the novel by Philip K. Dick, directed by Richard Linklater and starring Keanu Reeves. He helmed an interactive project based on Jonathan Lethem’s novel AMNESIA MOON (2004) for Microsoft’s Research and Development team. He also directed the first machinima music video IN THE WAITING LINE (2003) and the rotoscoped MTV “Breakthrough Video” DESTINY (2002), both for the band ZERO 7. He first connected Richard Linklater with animation by producing the feature film WAKING LIFE (2001). He has also produced several short animated films including SNACK AND DRINK (2000), which resides as part of a permanent collection in the New York Museum of Modern Art.

Mark Stolaroff is an LA-based independent producer and the founder of No Budget Film School, (www.NoBudgetFilmSchool.com) a unique series of classes specifically designed for the no-budget filmmaker. Stolaroff was formerly a principal at Next Wave Films, a company of the Independent Film Channel that gave finishing funds to exceptional, low-budget films. Included in Next Wave’s 13 films were the first features of directors Chris Nolan, Joe Carnahan, and Amir Bar-Lev; the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Sound & Fury”; and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner “Southern Comfort.” Stolaroff is currently in pre-production on his third project with award-winning writer/director Henry Barrial. Stolaroff was a producer on Barrial’s first feature, “Some Body,” which was in Dramatic Competition at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival; and Stolaroff produced Barrial’s last film, “True Love,” a Sundance Screenwriters Lab Project currently playing festivals. “Pig” is shooting in August on an appropriately tiny budget.

Ondi Timoner is a critically-acclaimed and internationally-recognized talent, having received a Grammy nomination for her long-form music video for the band Fastball, and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for her documentary, DIG!, a film she financed, produced, directed, and edited. JOIN US, her latest feature documentary tells a compelling story about mind control in the United States (www.joinusthemovie.com.) JOIN US follows four families as they come to realize that they have been members of a cult and check into the only accredited live-in cult treatment facility in the world to be deprogrammed. Timoner is currently in post-production on WE LIVE IN PUBLIC which traces the internet’s effect social interaction by following the story and predictions of dot.com pioneer/millionaire Josh Harris. On the narrative end, Interloper and Timoner are developing to produce/direct I Think I Killed a Sorority Girl, about gangs and sororities in South Central Los Angeles, and The Perfect Moment, about the life of Robert Mapplethorpe.

Hunter Weeks directed and produced 10 MPH and 10 Yards: Fantasy Football. Currently, he’s directing a film about a 2700-mile mountain bike race from Canada through the USA in the Rocky Mountains. He’s led efforts to bring major partners on board to help fund and promote the films, including such companies as CBS Sports, YouTube, Crocs, SmartWool, and Chipotle. He’s also the author of the 10 MPH DIY Manual, which discusses unique PR, Marketing, and distribution insights on how to distribute indie films both digitally and conventionally without a major distributor. Known for his strong eye for composition, Hunter has a passion for photography and world travel. He’s been published in numerous periodicals, including FHM, Maxim, Boston Globe, CNET, Sync Magazine, Hemispheres, and Intersection Magazine. Hunter currently lives in Denver, Colorado, where he splits his time between the mountains, film projects, and photography.

Lance Weiler is a critically acclaimed award winning writer / director. Recognized as a pioneer because of the way he makes and distributes his work – Millimeter magazine called Lance a “tech iconoclast” and Wired magazine named him “One of twenty-five people helping to re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.” He has successfully self distributed his films The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma to over 20 countries while grossing over 5 million dollars in the process. Always interested in experimenting with new ways to tell stories and reach audiences, Lance developed a cinema ARG (alternate realty game) around “Head Trauma.” The cinematic ARG is a mashup of movies, music, theatrics and gaming. Over 2.5 million people experienced elements of the game across theaters, mobile drive-ins, mobile phones and online. Lance is also the founder of the Workbook Project a “social open source” project for filmmakers. The Workbook Project’s goal is to help filmmakers understand the changing landscape of funding, production, promotion, and distribution in a digital age. He is the co-founder of From Here to Awesome and DIY DAYS. In addition he is a partner in Seize the Media a social entertainment company that focuses on cross-media story architecture.

Saskia Wilson-Brown was raised between California and France, obtained her Bachelor’s at UC Berkeley, and her Masters at Central Saint Martin’s College in London. Starting her media career in the art department for music videos and commercials – working with such luminaries as Dayton & Faris, Madonna, Marilyn Manson – she quickly moved into production design for the likes of hip-hop don Master P. Eventually moving on to become co-director of the Silver Lake Film Festival, Saskia honed her chops by creating a new media arm to the festival, dubbed MP4Fest. Aimed at showcasing emerging online content ranging in style from Machinima to viral videos, MP4Fest was one of the first large-scale digital media exhibition programs of its kind in LA. Her focus in her directorial capacity at SLFF was in implementing a multi-arts, community-driven approach to film exhibition, and placing a strong programming emphasis on local, documentary, and music films. Since leaving SLFF, Saskia has maintained her ties to the film festival world, serving as programmer, film juror, board member, advisor and/or panelist for festivals and organizations such as Slamdance, Gen Art, IFP, the Queer Lounge, MixFest LA, and more. Saskia currently works at Emmy-Award winning Current TV as the head of filmmaker Outreach for VC2 (viewer-created content) and CJ (collective journalism), where she spearheads projects designed to gain new short format documentary content for the network from international filmmakers, while initiating content partnerships on a global scale.

Femke Wolting is co-founder and head of Submarine, an Amsterdam based production studio that develops and produces documentaries and cross media programs for broadcasters and media companies. Since its formation in January 2000, Submarine has produced documentaries for directors such as Rob Smits and Alexander Oey, created an extensive game for renowned director Peter Greenaway and released a variety of interactive productions by international new media artists. From 1994 to 2002 Femke Wolting was the initiator and programmer of Exploding Cinema – part of the International Film Festival Rotterdam – which explored the future of media, and featured exhibitions, conferences and filmprograms. Between 1995-2000 she worked at the Dutch national public broadcasting network VPRO as staff member of the digital department and from 1998 as editor for VPRO?s documentary series Laat op de Avond na een korte wandeling and De Nieuwe Wereld. Since 1999 Femke Wolting has directed documentaries such as It?s The End Of TV As We Know It, a two-hour television documentary and web documentary about the future of television, the cross media documentary Sneakers about the rise and rise of the sportsshoe and Viktor & Rolf: Because We Are Worth It, which followed a year in the lives of avant-garde fashion designers Viktor & Rolf.

Video Presentations by

Auidence Building Tools
Brian Chirls is a filmmaker and technologist in New York. He has worked on the film Four Eyed Monsters as Manager of Distribution and Marketing and consulted on the distribution of John Sayles’s latest film, Honeydripper. Brian continues to develop and write about ways for independent artists to create and distribute their work. Brian has also produced and directed a number of short films, video blogs and a bit of machinima. Before becoming a filmmaker, Brian built financial software and worked in construction management on subway stations and highways. He graduated from the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of the Craft of Cross-Media
Christy Dena is a cross-media specialist who consults with filmmakers, novelists, gamers and TV makers on the strategies and design of cross-media projects. Christy runs two popular blogs: www.Cross-MediaEntertainment.com and co-edits www.WriterResponseTheory.org. She will be launching a podcast in July at www.UniverseCreation101.com and has her bio information at www.christydena.com

Remixing Cinema
Brett Gaylor’s new documentary, Basement Tapes, examines the fascinating debate over copyright and intellectual property in the 21st-Century, a subject matter that encompasses musicians like the sample-heavy Girl Talk and thinkers like Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig. But what may be the most interesting subject of Gaylor’s film is the making of Basement Tapes itself. Gaylor’s “Open Source Cinema” project allows anyone to remix or re-edit his footage, upload their own, and generally opens up filmmaking in much the same way that the open-source software movement opened up programming.

A Swarm of Angels
Matt Hanson is a film futurist; a writer and filmmaker described as an “International film visionary” by Screen International magazine. His current project — A Swarm of Angels (www.aswarmofangels.com) — is an ambitious Cinema 2.0 endeavour to fund, film, and distribute, a feature film using the Internet, all-digital technologies, and a global community of members. Previously he founded the massively influential onedotzero digital film festival in 1996 at the dawn of digital filmmaking, which he directed until 2002. The writer of a series of digital-age cinema books including The End of Celluloid, and Reinventing Music Video, he lives in Brighton, England.

Conversation with Mark Pellington
Mark Pellington is internationally recognized as one of the world’s Premiere music video directors having made videos for U2, Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, the Foo Fighters and Public Enemy. Pellington’s feature film debut, Going All the Way, bowed at the Sundance Film Festival and was released by Gramercy Pictures. Pellington helmeed his second feature film, Arlington Road, starring Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins. Screen Gems released the controversial political thriller in the summer of 1999. The Mothman Prophecies, arrived in the winter of 2002. A cerebral, paranormal thriller, Mothman starred Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Alan Bates and Debra Messing. Also in ‘02, Mark wrote and directed The Place We Call Earth, a 40 minute narrative. The summer of ‘07 saw the commencement of Pellington’s fourth feature Henry Poole is Here. An uplifting story about hope and faith the film stars Luke Wilson, Rahda Mitchell, and Academy Award Nominee Adriana Barraza. The film was financed by Lakeshore Entertainment and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. It was aquired by Overture Films and will be released in the Summer of ‘08.

Wreck A Movie
Timo Vuorensola is a filmmaker from Finland, whose goal is to bring filmmaking and Internet closer together. His first film, Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, was created through the aid of a vast Internet community, and after it’s release on the Internet in 2005 has received over 8 million downloads to date. Timo is right now working on a collaborative film production platform on the Internet called Wreck A Movie, as well as with his second feature film Iron Sky, a story about Nazis returning back to Earth from their hideout on the Far Side of the Moon.