Thursday, November 14th, 2019

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Session I: Herscher Hall, 2nd Floor, Room 202

Innovating in VR-AR-Immersive Production - The Amazing Journey of Imagination, Gear and Innovation

Ryan Moore, CEO, Experience 360°

Daniel Kenyon, Founder/CEO, Furious M

Lucas Kappaz, Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer, VR Americas

Eve Weston, CEO & Creator of Realities, EXELAUNO

Julia Zuzanna Sokolowska, co-founder, Hazard VR

BJ Schwartz, co-founder, Vanishing Point Media

Larry Rosenthal, President, Creative Director, CubeVR, Moderator

Eve Weston believes in storytelling as a force for positive change. She is writer/director of the first immersive 360/VR sitcom, with actors from FX’s Legion and YouTube’s Emmy-nominated Epic Rap Battles of History. Her VR art has shown at galleries in LA and NYC and at Disney Concert Hall as a prelude to LA Phil’s Yoko Ono Tribute Concert. She’s professor of VR filmmaking at Emerson College LA. Her speaking engagements as a VR storytelling expert include the National Conference of Science Writers’ in Washington, DC, Samsung’s Harman University, Stanford’s Brown Institute of Media Innovation, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences of Emmy’s fame, and Silicon Valley’s Augmented

World Expo. Weston is writer of the Austin Film Festival-lauded feature Miss Princeton and honed her comedic abilities writing jokes on Will & Grace and Better Off Ted. She’s since written television episodes for ABC’s Better With You, Disney XD’s Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja, and Disney's Wizards of Waverly Place, where she also wrote and choreographed the song "Funky Hat Dance," which became a YouTube sensation with more than a million views and girls internationally uploading videos of themselves and their best friend doing the dance. Weston developed a musical web series for AwesomenessTV and wrote the multi-cam pilot The Fast Track for ABC Family. Weston is also an award-winning journalist, having written about VR for Ms. Magazine and The New York Post. She is a team player, working well with others whether it’s in the pool playing water polo or on stage doing improv. She earned her MFA in screenwriting from USC and her BA in classics cum laude from Princeton. Weston is also a Goldman Sachs alumna, honored to have had both a deal written up in The Wall Street Journal and a joke praised in The New York Times.

Lucas Kappaz is Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer at VR Americas. He has over 15 years of experience in the media industry and during his tenure at MundoFox – just before starting VR Americas – he served SVP Digital Strategy and Content Distribution leading cutting-edge strategies to create digital native, and original experience for their audience. At VR Americas, Lucas is in charge of business development and revenue among many other things we all do as start-up co-founders. His passion for the intersection between business and technology has led him to explore the many grounds in which XR will impact our lives in the near future. Mr. Kappaz holds a Master of Business Administration from the Yale University and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Universidad de Los Andes He and his wife Rosa live in Santa Monica, California, with their two children.

Ryan Moore is the CEO of Experience 360°, a Los Angeles based Virtual Reality Experience Design Studio operating since 2015. Combined with his Experience 360° team, they have created next-generation 360° experiences for such brands as GoPro, Toyota, Jack in the Box, Visit California, Warner Brothers, Dell, ABC, Food Network, BET, and Fuse Media. Before that, Ryan’s passion for telling human-centric stories allowed him to travel globally, producing award winning documentaries on subjects such as the Organic food industry, human trafficking, domestic violence, and Atheism. Ryan currently resides in North Hollywood, California. Please see: http://experience360.tv/

Julia Zuzanna Sokolowska is a media and VR composer. She’s a co-founder of Hazard VR - startup that focuses on immersive soundtrack creation and implementation with the use of ambisonics. She’s also a founder of LA’s music production hub Hollywood Arrangers. Her VR work includes commercial projects for 3D Sound Labs VR as well as VR division of Riot games. Julia has composed and arranged music for Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Empire, Troll Hunters, The Whistle and music giants including Rod Stewart, David Foster, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, El Debarge, India Arie, Judith Hill and others. She’s a winner of KOMEDA International Award for music composition and ASMAC Big Band music awards.

Daniel Kenyon, Founder/CEO, Furious M: As founder and CEO of Furious M, Daniel Kenyon leads a team of innovative new talent and industry veterans harnessing technology to revolutionize creative impact and commercial success in transmedia entertainment. With over 25 years experience in executive management, award winning product and business development, Daniel has a history of developing as well as bringing to market winning solutions for the media, entertainment and communications industries. As VP at Automated Media Processing Solutions, Daniel spearheaded go-to-market for a global video management and delivery solution. As Industry Director for Media & Entertainment at Oracle, he initiated several strategic directives including the multi-billion dollar industry portfolio targeting media & entertainment and communications. As VP of Communications Industry Strategy and VP CRM Industry Strategy at PeopleSoft, he directed development and release of the award winning CRM for Communications, initiated strategic acquisitions and partnerships including IBM, valued at over $1Billion. Daniel was Product Evangelist for Vantive and co-founder and VP at SBI, Inc. Daniel holds a Bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley.

BJ Schwartz, co-founder, Vanishing Point Media: BJ is a VR pioneer, writer, comedian, award winning filmmaker, and Stanford trained attorney. Along with his writing, directing and producing partner Annie Lukowski, BJ founded Vanishing Point Media -- a cinematic VR Production Company -- in 2013. VPM's clients include New Deal Studios, Banana Republic, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, ABC, Stan Lee (and his POW! Entertainment), and many more. BJ has also garnered awards, notoriety and praise as both a traditional filmmaker and writer – from his highly successful film "Wolves in the Woods” (Telluride Film Festival) to his comedy writing for his satire site Citizen Schwartz. He is also a successful standup comedian performing throughout the LA area. Currently, BJ is teaching a course in Cinematic VR creation at UCLA as part of the university's extension program.

Larry Rosenthal, President, Creative Director, CubeVR: LarryR/Cube3 has over two decades of experience as a leader in the  area of virtual worlds , transmedia IP creation, Virtual Reality content, Virtual IP Law, social games, online 3D, human machine interface, Augmented Reality and networked communities for both entertainment and corporate media uses. Over the years LarryR/Cube3 has worked with over hundreds of 2D /3D software tools makers or services in all matters of finding customers and creating products and services and then forming communities and ecosystems around them. LarryR/Cube3 has spoken at industry events for over two decades. Highlights included self created seminars at Apple Computers NYC Siggraphs for many years, Macworlds, and Digital Hollywood Panels as well as local east and west coast tech/design shows/meetings and conferences. Work and projects of LarryR/Cube3 have been written about in both print and online in periodicals such as WIRED, NEW MEDIA, Macworld, and UploadVR. He founded the early VR Groups for developers and designers. The NYVRMLSIG, the SFWEB3D.