Tuesday, October 21st

3:50 PM - 5:00 PM

Track IV: Poolside Tent I

The Hollywood Producer - The Real Deal - Projects, Strategies - The Creative Community Looks at the Future

Damon Berger, CEO, Co-Founder, What's Trending

Scott Ehrlich, CEO Agility Studios

Rafi Mamalian, EVP, Collective Digital Studios

Melissa Schneider, Senior Vice President of Creative Development and Production, New Form Digital Studios

David Tochterman, President, Versatility Media, Moderator

 Stage 9, the digital studio for The Walt Disney Co., where he was the head of creative development. While at Stage 9, he assembled the first-ever digital development slate at TWDC, while supervising all aspects of storytelling from pitch to delivery of finished show, while working with brands to monetize the content.

 

Melissa Schneider is a Producer and Creative Executive with an extensive background in both digital and traditional media. She is currently the Senior Vice President of Creative Development and Production at New Form Digital Studios, founded by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Before joining New Form, she was part of the creative development team at the Collective Digital Studios, and previously oversaw production for the launch of YouTube Nation for DreamWorks Animation. Before that, she was the Executive Producer and Showrunner of My Damn Channel Live, the first daily live comedy series on the internet, hosted by Grace Helbig. Additionally  she's produced dozens of original series for TeenNick, MSN, Vuguru, XBOX, and numerous other top-tier brands. She is an alum of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. She currently resides in Los Angeles.

 

Scott Ehrlich, CEO Agility Studios: Scott Ehrlich has more than a decade of top-tier television and Internet management experience, serving in the senior management teams at Real Networks, Rivals.com and News Digital Media (Newscorp/Fox). In these positions, Scott has managed staffs of more than 200 employees, and annual budgets in excess of $40 million. He has negotiated landmark deals with major media entities in news (CNN, ABC News, The Weather Channel, CNET, WSJ.com), sports (NBA, NFL, NASCAR, MLB, PGA Tour, FOX Sports) and entertainment (E! Entertainment, CBS (Big Brother and Survivor), iFilm, Starz On Demand, Playboy) for the carriage, distribution and packaging rights to their content over IP, at various times managing relationships with four of the largest media companies in the world (Viacom, Disney, AOL Time Warner and News Corporation.)

 

David Tochterman, President, Versatility Media: David is an experienced senior entertainment media executive, with a proven record of driving revenue growth and launching successful media properties on both digital and traditional media platforms. David is President of Versatility Media, a management/consulting company which provides strategic representation of media companies and content creators. Clients include Pemberley Digital, producers of the Emmy Award winning online series and transmedia phenomenon The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Other clients include Sway Group, a large scale female influencer network, the award winning YouTube channel Whats Trending and PBS Digital Studios. In 2010 David launched Innovative Artists Digital Media, one of the first dedicated talent agency online entertainment divisions. In addition to representing award winning content creators, David focused on content strategy, company formation and financing, multiplatform exploitation of intellectual property and packaging premium and branded content across all platforms. He also specialized in crossover content and set up several digital projects with television networks and studios. Prior to joining Innovative, David became one of the first crossover digital media pioneers when he was recruited to launch the groundbreaking video website CHANNELBLAST, which featured live interactive branded content and was featured in Forbes and the NY Times. He was a consultant for DECA and the IPG Emerging Media Lab, and was Executive Producer of the first live action comedy to move from online to television, the cult hit Adult Swim series Fat Guy Stuck In Internet. Earlier, as Senior Vice President of the television powerhouse Carsey Werner Company, David played an integral role in the development and production of successful hit shows including THAT 70S SHOW, 3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN, and was an Executive Producer of GRACE UNDER FIRE. He also was Executive Vice President for the launch of Will Smith's production company Overbrook Entertainment and led its television division. David has been a speaker at media conferences including SXSW, NATPE, IMedia, Streaming Media West, BBTVCon and Digital Hollywood. He is a member of the ATAS Interactive Peer Group, and the advisory board for the IMedia Video Summit.

 

 

Day Two - SuperSession Day

Damon Berger, CEO, What's Trending': From the biggest studios to Silicon Valley startups to blue chip brands, Damon Berger has helped some of the most influential companies in the world navigate the digital space.Before co-founding Disrupt/Group, Damon led Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation as Director of Digital Marketing, where he set and executed the overall digital campaign strategies for theatrical domestic releases, including media spending, social media, content, and new technology partnerships. Webby Award Honoree for his work on the Avatar campaign (see Mashable's article "How Social Media and the Web Helped Avatar Make $1 Billion"), his other titles included Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The A-Team, Predators, Vampires Suck, Machete, and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.Damon Berger was also the head programming and business development for Revision3, Internet Television. During his tenure at Revision3, Damon helped to double the network's audience size from 3.5 to nearly 7 million monthly video views, while securing over 40 strategic business and distribution partnerships for the company. In 2007, Damonalso helped to launch