Thursday, May 23rd, 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

BJ Schwartz, co-founder, Vanishing Point Media

Mark Murphy, President, Voyager Media  &  Partner, Space Media Ventures

Julia Zuzanna Sokolowska, co-founder, Hazard VR

Larry Rosenthal, President, Creative Director, CubeVR, Moderator

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.

Mark Murphy, President, Voyager Media  &  Partner, Space Media Ventures: Mark is a founding partner in Space Media Ventures, LLC, Voyager Media Company and FutureTechLive! (@San Diego Comic-Con, SXSW, Wondercon and NY Comic Con). He comes from the story side, having started in the theater: writing, designing and directing for the Tony Award-winning McCarter Theater on the campus of Princeton University. He then shifted into storyboards, working heavily in commercials before moving into animation. After developing projects at Cartoon Network and Disney Channel, Mark moved on to producing/ co-directing and helping nurture a ground-breaking collaboration between NBC, The International Olympics Council and Xinhua Finance Media (one of China’s largest Media Companies), the result of which was “Ring Force Five” an animated movie & broadcast series created for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Mark has consulted on larger technical projects, having completed production strategy (motion and strobing issues) in 2011 on what became the largest projected animated experience in history (a 300’ x 60’ parabolic screen) for the China Mobile Pavilion at the World Trade Show in Singapore. As a producer and writer Mark has worked in both live action and animation, in the feature world (with Lionsgate, The Walt Disney Company, Pixar and Universal), in television (with Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and Disney Jr, Ryan Seacrest Productions, BBC America and TNT) and in the gaming world (POW Entertainment, Kuma and EA). The first feature he co-wrote, “The Ghastly Love of Johnny X” (co-written and directed by his pal, Paul Bunnell) continues to live a vibrant life in cult cinema (especially around Halloween). Currently he is the Creative Director and partner in “Space Odyssey”, a multi-platform game collaboration with Neil deGrasse Tyson, designed to engage kids of all ages in space and exploration. A series of “Space Odyssey” VR missions will be announced shortly.

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.