The Digital Hollywood Experience

The Digital Hollywood Experience

Thursday, May 25th, 2017

2:30 PM - 3:30 PM,  - The VR-AR Immersive Track

Session I: Ahmanson Hall

The Future of Entertainment: VR Story Architects and Experience Designers

Celine Tricart, Stereoscopic 3D and Virtual Reality, founder, Lucid Dreams Productions, Moderator

Jenn Duong, Director of Virtual Reality 1215creative

Najeeb Khuda, founder & CEO Endless Media

Alex Pearce, VR Producer, Jaunt Studios

Dylan Roberts, war zone VR filmmaker, Freelance Society

Thomas Wallner, Founder / CEO, Deep, Inc.

Celine Tricart is a filmmaker who is particularly interested in storytelling for stereoscopic cinema and Virtual Reality. Celine has received many awards around the world, including a selection at the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival, the Austin Film Festival and a Creative Award from the Advanced Imaging Society. Her company Lucid Dreams Productions focuses on new technologies including Stereoscopic 3D and Virtual Reality. Her first VR film, “Marriage Equality” was shot in 2015 using the new Nokia Ozo VR camera. Since then, Celine was the director of photography of many high-end VR contents including “360 VR tour of the Shinola factory with Luke Wilson” which won a Creative Awards for Best VR Branded Content and “Under the Canopy”, a VR

documentary of the Amazon rainforest which premiered at Sundance 2017. Celine’s third book, “VR Filmmaking” will be published by Taylor&Francis at the end of 2017.

Jenn Duong, Director of Virtual Reality 1215creative: Jenn is the Director of Virtual Reality at 1215creative, a creative agency and production company based in Los Angeles. She oversees all things VR ranging from creative/ideation to production to post production and distribution strategies. In 2016, she co-founded SH//FT an organization that supports equality, diversity, and inclusion in future technologies. She was recently named #22 in Onalytic’s 100 Top Individual VR Influencers 2016. She has worked on a range of projects as a Director of VR for Vice's Beyond the Frame: Chasing the Dream to Director of Bank's VR Music Experience. In addition to working at 1215creative, Jenn is a mentor at the Upload Collective. Outside of VR, she is always ready to talk about Game of Thrones, House of Cards, and Taylor Swift.

Najeeb Khuda, founder & CEO Endless Media: An award winning producer with an extensive background in VR and traditional film at Lionsgate, Sony Pictures and 20th Century Fox. Najeeb is the Founder and CEO of Endless Media and it’s VR division Endless VR. At Endless VR Najeeb is building an innovative slate of narrative driven projects to help push the boundaries of storytelling in the VR medium.

Alex Pearce, VR Producer, Jaunt Studios: Alex Pearce is a VR director and producer. Pearce has a Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Motion Pictures and Television from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. After graduating, Alex started his own company, creating 360 video experiences from all around the world. In 2016 Pearce became a full-time producer at Jaunt. He directed and produced the Every Kid in a Park VR Experience, in association with the White House and First Lady Michelle Obama. He is currently producing more projects at Jaunt's Santa Monica office, and helping create VR curriculum at the Academy of Art University.

Dylan Roberts, war zone VR filmmaker, Freelance Society: Dylan Roberts is a proud Texan, born in Dallas and growing up in Austin, he became a die hard Dallas Cowboys fan and first learned filmmaking at Austin Film Society. He graduated from the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville) in 2012, having majored in broadcast journalism. At the age of 18, Dylan began travelling internationally as a journalist, filmmaker, and VR Producer. Through media, Dylan has been able to travel all over the world to countries including Iraq, Lebanon, Paraguay, Uganda, Gaza, Somalia and more. From these experiences, Dylan joined forces with Christian Stephen, to establish Freelance Society in 2013. Together, they worked to expose stories primarily in complex countries, such as Vicar of Baghdad. A documentary featuring an Anglican priest working inside the red zone of Baghdad Iraq, while under ISIS threat. Dylan is the CEO for Freelance Society and manages multiple international projects and production teams simultaneously.

Thomas Wallner, Founder / CEO, Deep, Inc.: Thomas Wallner is a producer, writer, and director working in film and interactive media. In addition to producing innovative cross-media properties for television, he has written and directed eight award-winning feature documentaries that have been broadcast in more than 30 countries. His last two features The Guantanamo Trap and Before the Final Curtain Falls both won the Special Jury Prize at Hot Docs. Thomas Wallner is a rare example of a creative filmmaker who is truly at home in the interactive media world. Over the past ten years Thomas has consistently applied his award winning vision as a storyteller to push the limits of interactive narrative. A leading figure in the creation of participatory narratives he brought the underground genre of Alternate Reality Gaming into the Television mainstream, culminating in the Emmy Award winning genre-benders Fallen and Regenesis. In 2007 Thomas Wallner pushed the boundaries of nonlinear story telling even further by developing the story concept for Late Fragment, Canada’s first interactive feature drama produced by the National Film Board and the Canadian Film Centre. Currently Thomas and his team at DEEP are focussing on developing the language for cinematic storytelling in VR. To meet this exciting aesthetic and technical challenge, DEEP is developing LIQUID CINEMA, a software platform and toolset that allows filmmakers, producers and broadcasters to create and distribute story based 360 and VR content across the web, mobile and VR devices. The narrative innovations built into LIQUID CINEMA build on  insights gained on numerous groundbreaking VR productions such as Polar Sea 360°, an extensive multi-platform project that includes a 360 video iOS and Android app and the world’s first long-form 360° video documentary to compliment the 10-part ARTE/TVO series for The Polar Sea. Thomas is a recipient of numerous honours including two Emmy Awards with a total of five nominations, three Geminis, a Rose d’Or, two SXSW Interactive Awards, two Webbys and two CNMA’s. Additional credits include interactive adaptations of the CBS/CTV police drama Flashpoint, the CTV Space / SyFy Network drama Sanctuary, TVO’s Empire of the Word and the M.I. High Game for BBC while ongoing distribution of Total Drama Island – Totally Interactive! (Teletoon, Cartoon Network) now includes over ten million registered players.