Spot Agile Mobile Robot
WPP

Spot works at the intersection of movement and technology. His research includes LiDAR, autonomous movement and perfecting his bourrées.

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Elijah Allan-Blitz Director

Elijah Allan-Blitz is an Emmy award-winning Director. He was the first VR Director for Time magazine with an experience about the holocaust created as a companion piece to the Ken Burns documentary, Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War.

He has since partnered with Van Jones to create The Messy Truth VR Experience. A virtual reality series starring Marvel actors designed as a curriculum for empathy.

Elijah has also directed VR experiences for Aloe Blacc, PBS, Laird Hamilton, HBO, and Michael Pollan.

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Pam Allison Head of Consumer Strategy and Partnerships
5G Labs

Pam Allison is currently the Head of Consumer Strategy and Partnerships for the 5G Labs. In this role, she manages a team that works with sports, entertainment, music, education, gaming, and esports partners to develop capabilities and experiences with commercial opportunities that leverage and are enhanced by 5G and Edge Compute.

Prior to her role at Verizon, Pam was the Executive Director of Innovation Strategy and Development at Warner Bros. Technology. She developed partnerships with leading technology companies to build proofs of concepts that explored how Warner Bros. can commercialize technologies in the future. Her key focus was on autonomous and connected cars, and 5G. In her role with 5G, she led the prioritization of the installation of 5G mmWave on the WB lot and developed and implemented 5G proofs of concept for production and consumption of content.

Prior to her role at Warner Bros., Pam served as the Director of Digital Products at the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), where she led the strategy and development of the new NHRA.com and managed the NHRA All Access OTT SVOD streaming service and mobile strategy for all mobile games, virtual reality experiences and events. Prior to the NHRA, she managed digital media and mobile business strategy and development at the Disney New Technology Strategy Group, DIRECTV, and Movielink. Her consulting clients have included Disney, the University of Southern California, Esri, a GIS software platform and location-aware data company, and others. She launched a startup called MeowWoofChirp, which was a social network for pets.

Pam holds bachelor’s degrees in Management Engineering from Claremont McKenna College and Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University, as well as a masters degree in Computer Science and an MBA from UCLA.

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Dani Bellar Pilukas Creativity &
Production Logistics

lives at the intersection of technology, creativity and production logistics. Working with companies such as Cirque du Soleil, Tait and Walt Disney Imagineering, she has been a strategic leader, mentor, and visionary in reworking the way technology feeds creativity for many clients at a global scale. Through strong technical management, executive communication and risk assessment skills, Dani had the opportunity to lead WDI into a new era of attractions. As an Imagineer, she was intimately involved in the creation and storytelling of immersive experiences such as Pandora - The World of Avatar, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction in Shanghai, China. In her most recent role as the Director of Physical Production with Lux Machina Consulting she is leading technical and creative teams to support Virtual Production and In Camera VFX LED Volume work across the globe.

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Nathalie Bergeron Industry Marketing Manager
of Media & Entertainment
Epic Games

Nathalie is an executive with over twenty years of experience in the software, hardware, digital media, gaming, and entertainment industries. As Industry Marketing Manager of M&E for Epic Games, she oversees the global M&E marketing strategy for Unreal Engine and related products across Film & TV, VFX, Virtual Production, Animation, Broadcast, and Live Events. She is based in Los Angeles.

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Daniel H. Birman Director and Producer
Daniel H. Birman Productions

Dan Birman is an award-winning documentary director and producer, and is the president of Daniel H. Birman Productions, Inc. based in Los Angeles.

Birman recently completed Saint Patrick’s Greatest Gift, a documentary for CuriosityStream based on Thomas Cahill’s New York Times Bestsellers book, How the Irish Saved Civilization. Just prior, he completed a feature documentary for Netflix titled Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story. This nearly two-decade groundbreaking project follows a 16-year-old girl who was arrested for murder in 2004, the deep social issues in Tennessee that led to her receiving a life sentence, the multigenerational abuse and violence in her family, and the ensuing years that led to her early release from prison in 2019. He also produced the first documentary on Cyntoia Brown, Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story for Independent Lens on PBS, which was integrated into curricula around the country.

Other notable projects include The Earliest Americans for CuriosityStream, as well as The Hunt for Dark Matter, and Conscious Capitalism. Perfecting Flight was an independent feature documentary about legendary aviator Bob Hoover, which was narrated by Harrison Ford. Chasing Speed (Velocity) was a documentary about Leslie Porterfield, the fastest woman in the world on a motorcycle. Europa: Mystery of the Ice Moon was a special for Science Channel about exploring a moon of Jupiter that might support life. Death of the Universe for Nat Geo’s Naked Science series explores new theories about how the universe will end. And Brace for Impact was an exclusive documentary about Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III’s successful emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River for joint broadcast on TLC & Discovery Channel.

Birman Productions was founded in 1999 with limited series projects for Discovery Health and Nickelodeon, and on Birman’s successful association with Lifetime Medical Television producing for nearly 50 hours of programs exploring new frontiers in medicine. The company specializes in premium factual content for broadcast, streaming and multiplatform clients, with a diverse team of creatives and a wide-ranging slate of documentaries and series concepts.

Birman also serves on the Board of Governors for the Television Academy representing the documentary peer group and is the Board’s appointee to the Executive Committee.

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Rod Bogart Virtual Production Tools Team
Epic Games

Rod Bogart is an imaging science technologist in the entertainment industry. He began his career in 1992 at Pacific Data Images, followed by ten years at Industrial Light & Magic. At ILM, Rod was instrumental in the design, implementation, and deployment of the industry standard OpenEXR image format, which is at the core of ACES (Academy Color Encoding System). He then spent nine years as the lead color scientist at Pixar, pioneering file-based workflows with Pixar's Image Mastering team and contributing to the design of the system which became the SMPTE IMF (Interoperable Master Format). Rod then worked at HBO for three years, researching next generation display and distribution techniques for high dynamic range content. Rod is currently a member of the Virtual Production Tools team at Epic Games, concentrating on color pipeline. Rod is a member of the Visual Effects branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and has participated in investigations for the Science and Technical Awards Committee for the past ten years. He is ACES vice-chair, and a member of SMPTE and VES. His initials are RGB.

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Will Cannady Technical Product Manager
Extended Reality
NVIDIA

William Cannady is a technical product manager with the NVIDIA enterprise XR team. He focuses on the technical aspects of XR products, working closely with partners and customers.

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JP Castel Vice President of Product
Evercast

JP Castel is an independent producer who studied filmmaking at UCLA and started his career at Paramount Studios working under legendary producer Robert Evans. He then went on to produce several independent projects including KRISHA, which premiered at SXSW and won both the John Cassavetes Independent Spirit award and the IFP Gotham award before it was acquired by A24. JP’s recent features include INIT!ATION, which premiered at SXSW and was acquired by Saban Media in 2021, and STALKER, which won Shriekfest’s best thriller feature in 2021 and was distributed by Vertical Entertainment. In 2020, JP joined Evercast as a technical producer and now explores the challenges of remote collaborations and what the future may look like as the Vice President of Product.

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Rick Champagne Global Media & Entertainment Industry Strategy and Marketing, NVIDIA

Rick Champagne leads Global Media & Entertainment Industry Strategy and Marketing for NVIDIA. Rick works closely with customers and industry partners in the film, television, broadcast, and advertising industries to promote the advancement and adoption new technologies. With a long history of managing products such as the Autodesk 3ds Max and Maya Entertainment Creation Suites, Softimage, Mudbox, and Painter, Rick has been in the service of artists and technologists for over two decades. He maintains close ties to industry as a member of the Visual Effects Society, HPA, and Royal Television Society. He also serves on the Board of Governors of the Advance Imaging Society and as a committee member of the Academy Software Foundation.

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Stephen Chandler Infrastructure Architect
Co-Founder
Catalyst VP

With 15+ years of experience as a VFX artist and supervisor, Steve is a developer of pipeline and infrastructure solutions for creative studios. His experience spans films, commercial media, political campaigns, 3D animation, and live events for clients like Turner and Adobe, including MAX and SUMMIT. His expertise in setting up on-site workflows around server technologies comes from producing content & managing teams of remote artists around the world. Most recently, Steve deployed a virtual production stage infrastructure for NHK Japan, as well as partnering with Drexel University and Colorspace Labs for a recent virtual production showcase.

In his consulting, Steve brings this experience to overhauling the workflows, pipeline and infrastructure of creative businesses. With creative collaboration requiring high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity on a global scale, his approach to converging studios’ operations into centralized in-house servers leverages modern technologies like containers and VMs. Tailoring these solutions specifically to creative workflow needs, he helps bring out the best in artists & creators by obfuscating powerful technology behind intuitive, user-friendly tools.

Steve is the co-founder of Catalyst, along with partner Ian Fursa. Catalyst is a turn-key platform for Virtual Production that removes the technical barrier-to-entry of getting up and running with the Unreal Engine toolset.

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Vonn Christenson Co-founder
Chief Executive Officer
ZeroNox

Vonn Christenson is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at ZeroNox, and is primarily responsible for leading day-to-day company operations and key strategic initiatives. He is passionate about clean technology innovation across all markets, and is committed to building ongoing relationships with the Media and Entertainment sector to help it reach its sustainability goals. He is leading ZeroNox to be a key contributor to developing world-class green energy technology from renewable microgrids to electric off-road vehicles and equipment across the globe.

Vonn is also an experienced attorney and partner at the Christenson Law Firm, LLP, having been selected by Super Lawyers to be a Southern California Rising Star for 2012-2013, and he was named a Northern California Rising Star for 2015-2019. Vonn holds a B.S. in Mathematics, magna cum laude, from Brigham Young University, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

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Jacqueline Cooper Co-Founder of CG Pro
& Head of Community
and Placement

Jackie’s work as a VFX artist and supervisor is widely recognized in the industry, recently becoming an Epic Fellow. She contributed to many top grossing films such as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II, Tron and Jurassic World. Her extensive roster of credits include film, music videos, live events, and commercials. Within CG Pro, as a co-founder, she is deeply involved in curriculum development, community building, and assisting students in finding rewarding positions that take advantage of their newly acquired skills.

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Edward Dawson-Taylor CG Pro Co-Founder
Head of School

Edward has deep hands-on experience in the CG world. He has worked for ILM, Disney, and Digital Domain on blockbuster films – Jurassic World, The Lion King, and Jungle Book. Widely recognized as a cutting-edge technologist, he has led teams of developers in architecting and enhancing VFX related software. As co-founder of CG Pro, he creates and teaches dynamic courses focused on Unreal Engine, VFX tools and the emerging world of Virtual Production.

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Karen Dufilho Executive Producer
Content Partnerships
Epic Games

Karen Dufilho is an Academy and Emmy award-winning producer, executive, and gatherer of creatives and innovators. Bringing together renowned talent from both entertainment and technology, Dufilho’s work at Pixar, Google, and most recently Epic Games ranges from traditional to experimental story-telling. Dufilho is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences where she serves on the Shorts and Feature Animation Branch Executive Committee.

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Paul Fleschner Producer

Producers Adam Maier and Paul Fleschner enjoy working together to make impactful content. This often includes the use of innovative workflows and new technologies, such as the virtual production workflow used on Super Giant Robot Brothers! Prior to joining forces with Reel FX Originals to produce the Netflix series Super Giant Robot Brothers! Fleschner and Maier worked together at Fox VFX Lab on Call of the Wild, then began collaborating on final pixel content using Epic’s Unreal Engine. Maier’s production credits include Call of The Wild, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and Welcome to Marwen. Fleschner worked on the virtual production strategy team at Industrial Light and Magic following the acquisition of Fox VFX Lab by Disney. Looking forward, Fleschner and Maier plan to continue producing great content together.

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Barbara Ford Grant President
NEP Prysm Stages

Barbara Ford Grant is President, NEP Prysm Stages, a business of NEP Virtual Studios. She is responsible for growing NEP’s global network of permanent virtual production facilities, stage partnerships and client relationships in Film and TV, and for building solutions with her team to empower artists and storytelling.

Barbara has contributed to media and entertainment for nearly 30 years across both creative and technical aspects of film production. Her experience includes emerging technologies, large-scale production operations, research and development, visual effects, animation and enterprise level management.

Before joining NEP, Barbara was Chief Technology Officer at arts and entertainment company Meow Wolf overseeing the company’s mixed-reality platform and IT divisions. Before Meow Wolf, she served as SVP, Digital Production Services at HBO overseeing studio production and post-production operations and growth, and next-gen technologies. Prior to that, she worked at entertainment companies Digital Domain, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and DreamWorks Animation, where she enabled new digital human animation and rendering, digital story and post production workflows, and simulations technologies. Her credits include groundbreaking Film and TV productions Game of Thrones, Maleficent, Alice in Wonderland and the Shrek franchise.

Barbara has been active throughout her career in recognizing and mentoring current and new talent. She is a member of both the Television Academy and the Motion Picture Academy, currently serving as Chair of the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee, is a member of the Technology Committee of the Visual Effects Society, and recently worked as a strategy consultant to MovieLabs, a non-profit R&D joint venture providing universities, corporations, start-ups and others technical guidance and funding for innovative technologies in the distribution and use of motion pictures.

She studied Art History and Photography at the University of New Mexico and currently lives in Los Angeles with her family.

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Ian Fursa Virtual Production Supervisor
Founder of VP Toolkit
Co-founder of Catalyst

Ian Fursa has 10+ years production experience from running his own production company to working on films and commercials as a director of photography. Now with 2+ Years of on set virtual production experience and having worked on countless productions as Vp supervisor and ICVFX Supervisor with companies such as Apple TV, Netflix, Disney, NHK Japan, Vu, and many more.

Developer and CEO of the internationally used Vp Toolkit Unreal Engine Plugin and educational workflow series, Ian is now a high profile educator in the virtual production community. He has worked with educational institutions around the world with a single goal of bringing more availability to these tools while advancing the technology.

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Lauren Giannetti Vice President of Business Development
BrandStar Studios

Lauren Giannetti is the Vice President of Business Development at BrandStar Studios in Deerfield Beach, Florida. She leads the efforts to foster new growth initiatives, business opportunities and partnerships that drive revenue – working collaboratively across teams with creative, marketing, production, and finance. She focuses largely on opportunities that utilize their expertise in virtual, XR and MR production and the technology investments that enable it. She is also instrumental in expanding the company’s virtual production footprint and value proposition with the launch of their newest LED panel and service offering, STAR Volumes – seen here as the LED panel technology used for the live demo and mainstage of the Microsoft Production Summit.

Lauren spent the previous 14 years developing brand integrated programming for BrandStar Originals, most recently as EVP of Branded Entertainment & Sponsorship. In this role, she worked in stride with brand partners and sponsors to create and produce compelling content that connects people to brands to do life better. Highlights include the launch of the health and wellness TV series, Mission Makeover, “Broadway Balances America,” in partnership with Broadway Across America and Broadway.com, as well as Live Life Forward, the first national impact-based TV series and platform devoted to inspiring social good and change through purpose driven content.

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Phil Galler Principal and Founder
Lux Machina

As a principal and founder at Lux Machina Consulting and CTO of NEP Virtual Studios, Phil Galler strives to push the boundaries of technology and design in the entertainment industry. Focusing on in-camera visual effects, real-time mixed reality and the future of film making and live broadcast, he has been fortunate enough to find himself at the crossroads of technological innovation and creativity.

Before starting Lux Machina Consulting, Phil worked as a programmer and project manager for one of the largest entertainment technology vendors in the world, handling design and execution of some of the most preeminent shows in the entertainment industry.

Passionate about developing new tools that span high-end media servers, automated lighting, LED, and projection, Phil works across a wide variety of entertainment formats to tackle complex, large-scale entertainment projects and finds ways to empower Lux Machina’s clients with versatile design options, new technology, and unique solutions.

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Erick Geisler Director / Producer
Creative Director
To Whom It May Concern...

Erick Geisler is a Two-Time Emmy Winning, five times nominated Director, Producer and Creative Director of To Whom It May Concern, an LA based production company, and ViPro Studios, a North Hollywood virtual production facility. Starting early as a child actor, Erick is a forty year veteran of the film and television industry, with 25 years experience in post production, animation and visual effects.

Erick has created and produced thousands of hours of award winning content for networks and streaming platforms, including Netflix, ESPN, Hulu, HBO, A&E, FOX, ABC, MTV, Discovery, and more. With his work on dozens of feature films and hundreds of television shows he knows all the problems that productions can run into and more importantly, how to work with directors, producers and show creatives to solve them. The Guardians of Justice, Erick’s latest series is now streaming on Netflix.

A partial list of his credits can be found on IMDb by clicking here.

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Rick Grandy Principal Solutions Architect
MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT
NVIDIA

At NVIDIA, Rick focuses on graphics and machine learning for the media & entertainment industry. He brings together the latest in production technology and advanced research to help our customers build the solutions necessary to perform magic on the screen or miracles on the stage. Rick has nearly three decades’ experience in visual effects and animation with Industrial Light and Magic, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Digital Domain, MPC, Dreamworks, PXO, Bad Robot, and others.

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Nick Greer Senior Solutions Architect at HP
HP Teradici

With 19 years of engineering experience, Nick started his career as a Storage Architect in 2004 working for Compellent Technologies. At Compellent he designed and sold block level Data Lifecycle Management SAN technology throughout Europe, Australia and Asia.

His next venture was working for channel partners, selling mainly next generation technology at VeriStor and iVision. After working in the channel, Nick helped develop and sell the Atlantis ILIO VDI solution from Atlantis Technology.

Just before joining Teradici as an Architect in 2020, Nick worked for Pivot 3 Technology which was a Hyper Converged storage company focused on Video Surveillance performance.

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Christina Heller CEO
Metastage

Christina is the CEO of Metastage. Since its founding in 2018, Metastage has completed over 200 volcap productions with major brands and award winning projects, including two Emmy nominations. Metastage is the first North American partner for the Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture tech. Prior to leading Metastage, Christina was the CEO of VR Playhouse, an immersive content company with immersive projects featured at SXSW, Sundance, and Festival de Cannes. She is a recipient of the Advanced Imaging Society’s Distinguished Leadership in Technology Award and was named in the Huffington Post as one of 5 women changing the virtual reality scene. Her writing and research on volumetric video has been published in the textbook, Handbook of Research on the Global Impacts and Roles of Immersive Media (2019), and What is Augmented Reality? Everything You Wanted to Know Featuring Exclusive Interviews with Leaders of the AR Industry (2019).

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Joseph Incandela Professor of Physics and Vice Chancellor
UC Santa Barbara

Vice Chancellor Incandela has been professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara since 2001 and was appointed Vice Chancellor for Research in 2016. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and is an experimental particle physicist known for development of particle detectors and their application to searches for new particles at high energy particle colliders. Prior to joining UCSB, Dr. Incandela was a scientist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory where he played a lead role in the discovery of the top quark. For the past two decades, he has been involved with the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, initially leading the construction of a large part of the tracking system for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Experiment. In early 2011, he was the first American elected to lead the CMS experiment, made up of more than 2,000 scientists from 39 countries. The following year, on July 4, 2012, he announced the discovery of the highly-sought Higgs boson, validating a 50-year-old theory about the nature of the universe. Dr. Incandela is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the 2013 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics as well as the 2013 European Physical Society High Energy Physics Prize.

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Greg Jones Director of Global Business Development, XR and CloudXR Product Manager
NVIDIA

Greg Jones is the director of global business development for XR and product manager of CloudXR at NVIDIA. He focuses on partnerships and projects that use NVIDIA’s professional XR products to bring the benefits of real-time, immersive rendering to enterprise environments. Before coming to NVIDIA, Greg was the associate director of a 200-person academic research institute focused on scientific computing, image analysis, computer graphics and data visualization at the University of Utah.

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Connie Kennedy Los Angeles
Lab Director
Epic Games

A veteran film and TV producer, Connie has consistently been at the forefront of emerging technologies to facilitate both physical and virtual production. She is currently the Director of the Los Angeles Lab at Epic Games, where she is responsible for education and industry adoption of Unreal Engine in film and television, working with top studios to leverage real-time video game engines in innovative ways on projects such as “The Mandalorian” and “Westworld.” She previously co-founded Profile Studios, a pioneer in the area of virtual production with credits including “Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens” and “Avengers: Endgame.” Through Profile she also served as virtual production producer for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s VR experience “Carne y Arena,” which was awarded a Special Achievement Oscar.

Connie is most excited about the on-set collaboration afforded by game engines and high-end LED walls, which can bring the magic of VFX directly to the cast and crew while filming.

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Josh Kerekes Head of Virtual Production
Pixomondo

Josh Kerekes is the Head of Virtual Production at Pixomondo. He facilitates the design and construction of PXO’s Virtual Production stages, including two in Toronto and two in Vancouver. He also leads the direction of virtual production innovation, working with technology partners and developing bespoke solutions to keep PXO ahead of the curve while maintaining the company’s status as the pre-eminent leader of Virtual Production.

In addition to leading PXO’s Virtual Production division, Josh is also a Virtual Production supervisor. He oversaw PXO’s VP work on Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 and the upcoming Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, shot on PXO’s main Toronto stage. He is currently supervising the forthcoming Netflix series Avatar: The Last Airbender, in production on PXO’s main Vancouver stage, which is also the largest LED Volume stage in the world.

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Michael Koperwas Supervisor, Creative
Development & Visual Design
ILMxLAB

With an extensive 22-year background at Industrial Light & Magic, Michael Koperwas is currently focusing on the future of storytelling as a Supervisor, Creative Development & Visual Design for ILMxLAB, Lucasfilm’s immersive entertainment studio. As a creative and technical lead for numerous internal projects, Michael led the initial prototyping group when ILMxLAB was first formed in June 2015, working on concepts for World of WarCraft’s Skies over Azeroth and Jakku Spy for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He most recently served as Visual Director on Avengers: Damage Control, ILMxLAB’s location-based virtual reality experience made in collaboration with Marvel Studios.

Michael led the team for ILMxLAB's initial mixed reality tests, such as the immersive Holocinema installation that debuted at Sundance in 2016. He was also the Associate VFX Supervisor on CARNE y ARENA, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning VR installation created by ILMxLAB and Legendary Entertainment. Michael currently drives the company’s ongoing strategic collaboration with Magic Leap in his role as Mixed Reality Supervisor.

During his many years at Industrial Light & Magic, Michael was involved in many aspects of visual effects, but focused his efforts towards engaging performances from digital characters. With a passion for anatomical sculpture and an appreciation for the subtleties of acting, he supervised the creation of digital characters on such notable movies as TMNT, The Avengers, Rango, War of the Worlds, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones. He and his team developed a custom facial animation system, for which they received a Technical Academy Award in 2017. He has also written and directed a short film entitled Alone.

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Andrea Kott President
BrandStar Studios

Andrea is the President of BrandStar Studios and leads the Creative and Production teams that are responsible for over 1,000 shoots a year. She plays a critical role in scaling the business and mentoring the artists that she leads. Andrea has spent the last 14 years of her career at BrandStar and has a diverse level of experience in production. She has passion for learning new forms of production and along with BrandStars Founder she has been at the forefront of testing and implementing Virtual Production into BrandStars traditional workflows. BrandStar has invested millions of dollars in the most advanced LED Technology for their own stage as well as powering multiple studios across the country including Universities and mentoring students in the gaming and film schools to teach them the future of production.

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Michael Krulik Product Marketing
and Video Product Evangelist
Avid

For over 25 years, Michael has worked with the Film, Television and Broadcast industries and has devoted most of his career to working with manufacturers of cutting-edge technology and evangelizing their tools. He works with the American Cinema Editors and has moderated several panels with top TV and Film editors at ACE's EditFest, as well as presenting technologies at NAB, IBC, SuperMeet, SMPTE, DCS, LACPUG, HPA and other trade shows, seminars and industry events.

And he not only works with editors, but he has even played one on TV; as the editor of the late Sydney Pollack in an episode of the hit TV show, Entourage.

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Daisy Leak Executive Producer
Magnopus

A seasoned producer, Daisy Leak keeps on pushing boundaries to shape immersive experiences of the future. She brings more than 13 years’ experience to her role as Executive Producer at Magnopus, working on Emmy-nominated MISSION: ISS and the multi-award-winning Expo Dubai Xplorer for Expo 2020.

Before joining Magnopus, Daisy spent eight years as a producer at The Walt Disney Company, working on social games and interactive—from initial idea through to launch and live ops. She loves working with technology and entertainment teams to solve problems that push augmented, virtual and mixed reality experiences to a whole new level.

Prior to her career in production, Daisy was a successful TV and film actress with appearances in Cloverfield (2008) and Criminal Minds (2011), and worked as a stand up comedian at the Improv Hollywood.

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Rob Legato VFX Supervisor, Director
President
KTM Productions

Robert Legato is a multi-award-winning visual effects supervisor, second unit director, and cinematographer. Rob earned his first Academy Award for Best Visual Effects on "Titanic." He work can be seen in "Apollo 13," “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” “The Aviator,” and “Hugo” — the latter garnered him his second Academy Award. Rob later developed the Virtual Camera Pipeline used to make the groundbreaking “Avatar.” Rob earned his third Academy Award for "The Jungle Book." More recently, Rob was the VFX supervisor on “The Lion King.” Over the course of his career, he's collaborated with filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Michael Bay, Jon Favreau, and Ron Howard.

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Cynthia Littleton Co-Editor-in-Chief
Variety

Cynthia Littleton is Co-Editor-in-Chief at Variety. She has covered the television beat for the past 25 years. She began her career at United Press International, followed by stints at Broadcasting & Cable magazine, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter, where she rose to Editor before rejoining Variety in 2007. At Variety she has also served as Business Editor.

Cynthia is the author of TV on Strike: Why Hollywood Went to War Over the Internet (Syracuse University Press, 2013), the definitive account of the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike and the impact of the disruptive digital advancements that fueled the labor strife. She is also the co-author with Susanne Daniels of Season Finale: The Unexpected Rise and Fall of the WB Network and UPN (HarperCollins, 2007) as well as “What I Told My Daughter: Lessons From Leaders on Raising the Next Generation of Empowered Women,” co-authored with Nina Tassler (Simon & Schuster, 2016).

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Jess Loren Chief Executive Officer
To Whom It May Concern...

Jess Loren is an achieved executive producer and entrepreneur with two successful exits of her founded companies before the age of 30. She is an internationally published author and Chief Executive Officer/founding partner of the production company, To Whom It May Concern and ViPro Studios, a North Hollywood virtual production facility. Loren, is also an international keynote speaker having studied how the brain reacts to imagery. With 15+ years of leadership, production, creative development, and experiential marketing experience, Loren has been at the forefront of business’ digital and visual migration, utilizing production.

Loren is also a showrunner experienced in bringing productions to life while meeting demanding targets for scheduling, budgeting and content management. She has managed projects for some of the largest brands in the world including Netflix, Hulu, Lifetime, A&E, Crackle, and Chicken Soup For The Soul on the production side and Microsoft, Nvidia, Absolut, Cabela’s, Chivas, Corona, GE, Green & Black’s, Kahlua, Kmart, Malibu, Modelo, Navistar, Negra Modelo, Tic Tac, Jameson and USG on the experiential side. She is a focused and results- oriented leader with proven skills in overall production, visual effects production and experiential activations.

A partial list of his credits can be found on IMDb by clicking here.

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Ian Main Distinguished Technologist
HP

Ian’s passion is facilitating the media and entertainment industry virtualize complex graphics workloads in the cloud. He has spent the past 15 years supporting customer requirements analysis, PCoIP design considerations including performance aspects alongside several years in developing UX evaluation tools while experimenting with popular remote display technologies. More recently, he has also become involved mapping hybrid work related zero trust security mandates to remote desktop product initiatives. Ian is a longstanding IEEE Member, holds several patents and is an active member of the NVIDIA Grid Community Advisors (NGCA).

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Barbara Marshall Global M&E Industry Strategy
Z by HP - HP Inc.

Barbara has spent more than 25 years in the media & entertainment industry with organizations such as the BBC, Autodesk, Epic Games and now HP Inc. She has led marketing and PR teams both in-house and agency-side, consulted for several start-ups and was also technology editor with Broadcast Magazine in the UK. She has a strong commercial and analytical background, having started her career as a commodity analyst/trader and holds a BSc in Agricultural Economics from University of London.

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Jorge Martinez Sales & Operations Director Latin America
stYp

Jorge Martinez leads the sales & operations at stYpe for Latin America mainly and also for some projects on the USA East Coast and Spain.

His background as an Electronics Engineer has taken him to work in the Live Events and Broadcast Industry for the last 24 years.

From Live TV stations as TV Azteca in Mexico to cable channels as HBO Latin America Group leading Engineering and Operations teams, this experience led him to join the technology side with Vizrt for 9 years, leading sales and operations for Mexico, Central America, The Caribbean and also moved to Atlanta to work with the Central and South US Regions, where he led several projects for Virtual Studios, Media Asset Management, Sports Analysis, Studio Automation and CGI graphics workflows for News and Sports.

Jorge joined stYpe in early 2021 to expand the Virtual Production world with its precise camera and object tracking systems and also with the rendering solutions developed for Unreal Engine called StypeLand, Green Killer and Stype XR, boosting the Film, Ads and TV industries to help content creators and producers to create new worlds with the precise tracking and rendering that are currently required.

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Tupac Martir Founder
Satore Studio

Tupac Martir is an Artist and Founder of Satore Studio. He’s a multimedia artist whose work spans the fields of technology, lighting, projection and video, sound design, music, and composition, as well as choreography and costumes. Vogue has described him as ‘the visual designer and creative director behind some of the most important events in the world.

He has provided production design, visuals and lighting direction for the likes of Elton John, Beyoncé, Danny Boyle, the Coachella Music & Arts Festival and Serpentine Gallery, Wallpaper* Magazine called him “The Light Magician.

Tupac is renowned within the fashion industry and has worked on ground-breaking shows for Alexander McQueen, Moschino, Alexander Wang, and Thomas Tait, among others.

More recently, Tupac has Directed and produced the award-winning performative reality piece "Cosmos Within Us”, debuted “Unique” a multi-reality music experience, he is the Artist in Residence at the Champalimaud Foundation, as well as being appointed as a trustee for the National Dance Company Wales.

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John McVay Head of Teradici
Strategic Alliances
HP

As Head of Teradici Strategic Alliances at HP, John McVay leads strategic partnerships in developing joint solutions for remote collaboration and productivity in Media & Entertainment and other industries. Prior to joining Teradici, Mr. McVay was Director of Alliances for Cloud & HPC Solutions at Dell EMC, and has extensive experience in product and business development roles at Teradici, Dell and HP in enterprise and hybrid infrastructure and technology. John works remote from his home in Seattle, Washington, and looks forward to being back on location with customers and partners around the world.

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David Morin Industry Relations, Epic Games
Executive Director, Academy Software Foundation

David is Director, Industry Relations at Epic Games, where he works with the industry and the Unreal Engine team to develop open standards and the use of open source software, in virtual production and everywhere Unreal Engine is used. He also serves as the Executive Director of the Academy Software Foundation, a non-profit created by the motion picture industry to develop the use of open source software in all media. David is also chairman of the Joint Technology Committee on Virtual Production, and a past co-chair of the Joint Technology Subcommittee on Previsualization. He has a degree in computer science from Laval University, and has participated in the development of motion capture and 3D software since “Jurassic Park” at companies such as Softimage, Microsoft, Avid Technology, Autodesk, and Epic Games.

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Jeff Morrison Engineer and Technologist
BrandStar Studios

Jeff Morrison brings 25 years of diversified production experience to the virtual studio environment, with a focus on the latest in augmented reality tools. Currently, Jeff is working with Unreal Engine, Mark Roberts Motion Control (Bolt and Model Movers), Virtual Motion Platforms, Camera Tracking and LED Volumes. He spends his time ensuring complex systems work together reliably in the production space.

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Janet Muswell SVP of Visual Effects
HBO

Janet Muswell serves on the boards and committees of VES, the Television Academy, PGA and AIS. Janet is passionate about educating the next diverse generation of visual effects professionals, she is also the proud recipient of title of VES Fellow.

Janet is a classically trained bassoonist (yes, the bassoon!) and her love of music led her to the fun world of music video editing and visual effects in the UK. She moved to the states to pursue the expanding digital world as a compositor, which quickly led to VFX supervising and producing. Janet has supervised and produced VFX, CGI and Animation for theatrical features, IMAX, series, commercials and Stereoscopic Special Venues. On the management side she has overseen and managed VFX companies both large and small.

Her curiosity for new technology has taken her around the globe working on innovative projects. She recently headed up the Global VFX group for Netflix and is now the SVP of VFX for HBO when she is able to immerse herself in the exciting and revolutionary world of Virtual Production.

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Perry Nightingale SVP for Creative AI
WPP

Perry Nightingale is the SVP for Creative AI, working in the office of the CTO managing groundbreaking research and furthering WPP’s market-leading combination of creativity and advanced data science. Perry is a passionate software engineer, currently specialising in artificial intelligence and virtual production, but is also a leading figure in the traditional communication industry - sitting on innovation juries for Cannes and D&AD, identified by Creativity magazine in the US as one of the pioneers in the new industry genre of Creative Technologists and listed in AdAges's annual 50 most influential people in media. He works with WPP creative agencies around the world on groundbreaking new campaigns and advises major clients on digital disruption and brand-led innovation, winning many awards for his work, as well as lecturing regularly on topics such as ethics & AI for the University of Oxford. As a self-taught developer Perry runs education programs encouraging young people from diverse and non-traditional backgrounds to learn to code and take up creative skills.

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Sheri Nimtz Enterprise XR Global
Partnership Manager
NVIDIA

Sheri Nimtz is a part of NVIDIA’s Enterprise XR team, focusing specifically on managing global partnerships, including the many developers creating XR applications. Sheri has been in the technology industry for 30 years and with NVIDIA for just over 20 years in partner management and marketing roles. Before NVIDIA, Sheri started her career at Silicon Graphics and also worked for a number of graphic card companies including startup Dynamic Pictures, Intense 3D and 3Dlabs. She has worked with companies across industries but believes XR brings unique opportunities to the enterprise space.

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Gabriel Paiva Speaker and Instructor
CG Pro

Gabriel is a guest speaker and instructor at CG Pro. More than twenty years in the VFX industry, Gabriel spent the last 6 years developing workflows with open source software like Blender and Unreal Engine, integrating affordable pipelines to work and collaborate in a free yet powerful environment.

He became a Certified Unreal Engine Instructor and since then has been working with Epic in the Virtual Production Fellowship. As a Technical Artist, Teaching Assistant, Mentor and Instructor he is now fully committed to gathering and sharing everything he knows about Unreal Engine.

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Jimmy Parker-Barratt Strategy Director
Microsoft's Worldwide
Media & Entertainment

Jimmy Parker-Barratt is a Strategy Director working within Microsoft's worldwide M&E industry team and is the lead for Microsoft's M&E sustainability offerings.

Jimmy, originally from the UK, forged his career within the media industry in London before eventually moving to Los Angeles where he and his family now reside. His background and area of expertise are in strategy and consulting within the M&E enterprise space. Jimmy's tenure at Microsoft spans Europe and the US having joined in 2017 before which time he worked for both IBM and Accenture.

Jimmy's career has been underpinned by a passion for customer experience, and more specifically in supporting M&E organizations in understanding the needs of their customers. More recently Jimmy has led Microsoft's M&E sustainability strategy and has focused on how technology can support the industry to drive towards a sustainable and carbon natural future.

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Peter Phok Executive Producer

Peter Phok is an award-winning film producer with fifteen years of experience on several films, multiple being with writer/director Ti West including IN A VALLEY OF VIOLENCE, THE SACRAMENT, THE INNKEEPERS, and THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL.

Most recently, Phok served as an executive producer on X, West's latest feature with A24 Films, and is also working on the film's upcoming prequel PEARL. He also produced DEAR ZOE, the young adult novel adaptation starring Sadie Sink, Theo Rossi, Jessica Capshaw, and Justin Bartha, which screened at this year's Cannes Film Market.

Previously, Phok executive produced David Marmor's 1BR, Ana Asensio's MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND, and Shudder's DEADWAX series from writer/director Graham Reznick. Phok has also produced cinematic interactive video games exclusive to Sony PlayStation 4 & PSVR, including HIDDEN AGENDA, THE INPATIENT, and UNTIL DAWN (winner of BAFTA '16 Games Awards for Best Original Property) with Supermassive Games U.K.

Phok began his career at Glass Eye Pix, Larry Fessenden's filmmaker-driven, genre-focused production company. He produced over a dozen horror thrillers, including Jim Mickle's STAKE LAND, Dan Berk & Bobby Olsen's THE STAKELANDER, and Glenn McQuaid's I SELL THE DEAD.

Phok has received the P.G.A. mark on multiple films and is a proud member of the Producers Guild of America, I.F.P., and Film Independent. Phok earned a B.F.A. in Film from School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is the President and Owner of Phok Productions, a commercial production company based in Los Angeles and New York.

Peter is currently serving as executive producer on Jenn Wexler's upcoming 1970s supernatural horror film THE SACRIFICE GAME starring Mena Massoud, Olivia Scott Welch, and Gus Kenworthy.

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Joanna Popper Metaverse
Executive

Joanna Popper is an award-winning Hollywood and Silicon Valley media executive with a track record of launching cutting edge content and technology to drive revenue, audience engagement and brand love. She recently ran HP’s XR initiatives for Go-To-Market. Prior she was EVP of Media & Marketing at Singularity University and VP Marketing at NBCUniversal. Joanna is Executive Producer on the award-winning “Breonna’s Garden” and “Finding Pandora X” XR content experiences. Joanna was selected as “50 Women Can Change the World in Media and Entertainment”, “Top 50 Original Thinkers in VR”, “Top Women in Media: Game Changers”, “Top Women in Media: Industry Leaders”, “Digital It List”, “101 Women Leading the VR Industry” and is on the Coalition for the Women in XR Fund.

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Jerome Prescod Senior Program Manager Content Security
Disney

Jerome Prescod is a 2020 Engineering Emmy winner for his team efforts in remote workflow solutions. Born in the tropical island of Trinidad and Tobag, Jerome found a passion for technology at a young age and made his way to Los Angeles having now worked in IT for nearly 20 years. Currently a team member of Disney's renowned Content Security Team within Studio Technology; Jerome’s focus is in both the post-production workflows, cybersecurity and content, with a desire to work with creatives.

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Steve Read Vice President
& Head of Studio
Versatile Media Ltd.

Steve Read has been in the film, TV and the Visual Effects industry since 1997. He has an intimate and deep understanding of both the creative and technical workflows required to produce projects for a modern film and TV market.

In 2020 Read headed the opening of the Vancouver-based headquarters for Versatile Media Ltd. with the core focus of adopting and driving a fully integrated virtual production pipeline. Steve is also heading the development of IP and co-produced projects under the Versatile Media banner along with developing the service objectives with the Versatile Performance, Visualization and LED stages.

In 2008 he co-founded One Animation, which became one of Singapore's leading animation studios developing fully CGI TV series for the kids market. Before that, Steve worked on various live-action and fully animated feature films including Happy Feet with Animal Logic in Australia where he led the rigging team on one of its first projects incorporating motion capture for animation. Earlier in his career, Steve spent several years with Softimage, the Montreal-based software company that developed 2D and 3D animation software.

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Jesse Redniss CEO & Co-Founder
Qonsent

Redniss is an Emmy Nominated Media, Data & Technology executive with 20+ years of Multi Screen brand building, innovative product development, marketing, data strategy and privacy expertise with both prominent and startup companies. Fostering a collaborative approach to redefining the future of entertainment and direct to consumer engagement, Redniss has a keen ability to traverse various enterprise divisions and fuse teams and cultures together to work toward common goals and outcomes. He is the current CEO and Founder of QONSENT, a Consumer first platform for enabling dynamic user consent in the first party data world.

From 2016 until February of 2021 while at WarnerMedia, Redniss had executive oversight to a variety of essential functions including innovation and data strategy. A core part of his role had been the development of WarnerMedia’s Innovation Lab, a future-forward incubator that melds core competencies in areas spanning the “Internet of Things,” data strategy, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and virtual and mixed reality. To support ongoing growth of the innovation operation, Redniss also oversaw the WarnerMedia Investments portfolio, leading the company’s asset allocation within the startup community.

A key component of WarnerMedia’s long term strategy focused on consumer data and the governance of the company’s first party data and new data partnerships. Redniss lead the enterprise wide data strategy and data privacy strategy working alongside company-wide brands and partners to optimize user experience, privacy best practices and strategic utilization of company and consumer data. Prior to joining WarnerMedia, Redniss was at BRAVE Ventures, a strategic advisory and investment firm he co-founded. Following his time working at BRAVE where he consulted for several years with media and tech companies, Turner acquired the company in 2016 and he joined TBS and TNT as chief innovation officer. Redniss and his former business partner have since re-started BRAVE Ventures and are currently seeking new investment and incubation opportunities while also managing it’s portfolio of investments.

Earlier in his career, Redniss was the chief strategy officer at Spredfast (acquired by Vista Equity Partners.) He also spent much of his career at NBCUniversal’s USA Network as SVP of Digital managing technology innovations, monetization strategies and digital content development. Redniss is a three-time Creative Arts Emmy Award-nominee, Multichannel News “Forty Under 40” (2009), TV of Tomorrow “Individual Leadership” award recipient (2013).

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Spencer Reynolds Stage Supervisor
Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture Studios

Spencer joined the Microsoft Mixed Reality Capture team in 2013 and supervises the flagship Microsoft stage in San Francisco. He and team are passionate about highest-quality volumetric video solutions for all content creators and collaborating closely with our partner stages globally. Prior to joining Microsoft, Spencer worked at Industrial Light + Magic for almost 8 years developing VFX, virtual production, and performance-capture technologies workflows for feature film and games.

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David Ethan Sanders Director, Cinematographer and Producer
DSP LLC

David Ethan Sanders is a cinematographer and producer based out of Los Angeles. After growing up in the mountains of northern New Mexico, David pursued his film degree at UCSC followed shortly by an MFA from Art Center College of Design where he received early recognition for his thesis film "Microgravity" from VFX luminary Douglas Trumbull. As cinematographer, David has lensed narrative features and commercials throughout the world in markets that include China, Thailand, Taiwan, Dubai, Israel, Mexico, Holland, and Sweden. Most recently, he was recognized for his work on the Palestinian / Israeli short film "Tzeva Adom The Color Red" when the film received a Telly Gold Award. As a producer, David has overseen a wide range of broadcast commercial and digital marketing advertisements including nationally televised commercials for AT&T, Alpine Electronics, Toyota, and State Farm Insurance. David also served as a producer for the Effie award-winning original film series "Away We Happened" for AT&T.

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Jason Schugardt VFX Supervisor
NVIDIA

Jason Schugardt is a multi-disciplined veteran of Visual Effects with over 25 years in the industry.

Jason’s experience as a VFX Supervisor includes such films as the Academy Award winning The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Jason’s film credits also include contributing VFX roles on Jon Turtletaub’s National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Peter Jackson’s King Kong, The Polar Express for Robert Zemeckis, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, as well as Minority Report for Steven Spielberg, among others.

The hunger for exploring cutting edge technology led him supervise 360 and real-time VR projects that include Justin Timberlake’s Immersive Montana Experience at MoPOP in Seattle, WA, VES Award nominated Goosebumps VR experience, and Shoah Foundation’s multiple award-winning The Last Goodbye.

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Lori H. Schwartz CEO and Founder
StoryTech

LORI H. SCHWARTZ is a true technology catalyst (‘Tech Cat’). As a leading advisor and speaker in marketing and tech innovation, Lori collaborates with executives of multiple brands, tech, and content companies to ensure their understanding of emerging content models.

Los Angeles-based, Lori is a CNN Technology contributor.

Lori’s StoryTech initiative facilitates communication between storytellers and technology companies. Their trends, briefings, curation, and tour products have become well known globally through the work @CES, @NAB, @NATPE, and @IBC. She is proud to be the Chief Curator behind LA’s newest event celebrating Storytelling and Technology, The Infinity Festival.

Previously Lori was a Governor for the Television Academy’s Interactive Media Peer Group, driving thought leadership for the future of interactive media. She was Chief Technology Catalyst for McCann Worldgroup, North America where she drove tech and content innovation and was the key principle to launching the highly regarded IPGLAB where she facilitated emerging media upfronts for Microsoft, Intel, General Motors, Nestlé, and Sony.

An active spokesperson, Lori launched Digital Hollywood’s ‘Women’s Entertainment and Technology Mentor Program’ and is a recipient of the Lucy Hood Digerati Award for her contributions to the Television Academy.

Website: Story Tech

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Sally Slade Co-Founder and CTO
Voltaku

Sally Slade is Co-Founder and CTO of Voltaku, a real-time animation studio in Los Angeles, CA. There, she oversees virtual production workflows and creates software solutions for users who function across embodied mobile, VR, and desktop spaces. She was well prepared for this role by her work as Senior Technical Designer at Magnopus, an award winning XR studio best known for its work creating the Virtual Production system used by Disney's The Lion King, as well as her earlier VFX career where she designed tools and workflows for artists as Lead Technical Director.

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Joel Sloss Sr. Program Manager
for Media Security
Microsoft

Joel Sloss is the Sr. Program Manager for Media Security at Microsoft Azure.

Occasionally speaking at events or writing articles and whitepapers, Joel works in the Microsoft Azure industry team and typically focuses on security for content production workflows. This has included working with artists, producers, studios, standards groups, vendors, and others to help protect creative assets when doing post-production in the cloud.

He has been on the CDSA Board of Directors since 2017, holds a couple of certifications, advised on cloud infrastructure for Bobbleheads: The Movie, serves on the Infinity Festival executive committee, and is sometimes known as “that guy playing triangle in the 2020 Disney Holiday Singalong” on ABC.

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Damien Stolarz CPO
Evercast

Damien Stolarz is a technology executive, inventor, and author. He has led the development of numerous cutting-edge, award-winning technologies in mobile apps, video streaming, smartphone accessories, peer-to-peer networking, and in-vehicle systems. As an IP professional, Damien has created successful 8- and 9- figure licensing campaigns and performed due diligence on over half a billion dollars of patent transactions. Damien has authored numerous technical books and articles on digital video and emerging technology. He holds a dozen patents in the areas of security, AR/VR, interactive television, mobile device integration, and artificial intelligence. Damien received a BS in Computer Science/Engineering from UCLA and is a registered patent agent (USPTO #67646).

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Kat Sullivan Senior Director
of Interaction Design
WPP

Kat Sullivan is the Senior Director of Interaction Design at WPP. After earning her Bachelors in Computer Science and Dance at Skidmore College, she worked as a software engineer and free lanced with various dance companies in the Boston area. At New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), she developed her artistic practice around creative coding, live performance, machine learning, motion capture, and other emerging technologies. She has presented works at Lincoln Center, National Sawdust, Pioneer Works, SXSW, 14th Street Y, and the Liberty Science Center, and was selected for residencies by Yale, Ponderosa Dance, New Inc, and Pioneer Works. Before her current position at WPP, she was teaching at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering and Tisch School of Arts.

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Chris Taylor Director for ME-ISAC
Director of Security
Skydance Media

Chris Taylor is the head of security for Skydance Media, a multi-media studio producing live-action features and tv shows, animated features, and video games.

He is also the founder and head of the Media and Entertainment industry’s Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ME-ISAC)(https://www.meisac.org), an intelligence fusion center that enables collaboration and information sharing between media and entertainment companies in order to help those companies raise their security posture and better defend against risks and threats facing the entire industry.

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Corey Tedrow Film and Television
Production

Corey Tedrow has over 35 years of experience in film and television production. She began her career editing 16mm film and working on documentary productions for WGBH. She has been working directly with Avid products for 30 years, as an Editor, Instructor and Solutions Specialist. She has worked with a wide range of Post and Broadcast clients, showing them the latest technologies from Avid and advising them on post-production workflows.

In addition to her Avid experience, she has worked as a designer in both interactive and print mediums. She holds a degree in Film Studies and managed to avoid touching a computer until after she graduated.

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Ray Thompson Senior Director of Partner
and Industry Marketing
Avid Technology

Ray Thompson is the Senior Director of Partner and Industry Marketing for Avid Technology. Ray has spend 30 Years in the media industry in a variety of roles including Business Development, Sales, and Product Management/Marketing Experience focused on post production, Sports, Media (broadcast and film), and e-Sports. Some career highlights include the development of IP live streaming platform strategy, a key driver in the transformation of start-up software company from video editing focus for sports to content licensing and management/distribution of college sports assets via the web to college sports fans, has executed release of high-performance graphics chip, landing large-scale bid as primary provider of Graphics Processor for Microsoft’s Xbox 360… Ray has developed strategies that have helped penetrate the media/entertainment space for Fortune 500 technology company, developing ISV echo-system creating solutions based approach to selling. Ray is a co-Author of patent for assigning game data to universal time clock on traditional and IP based streams for the purposes of automated creation of highlights across user specified sample of games (video), creation of edits for purpose of recruiting and scouting, and for reporting based on game statistics with drill down to video capability and involved in the development of 3D real time motion capture application able to measure athletes down to the sub-micron level, leveraging game relationship with EA sports to develop simple UI and incorporating real NFL and College playbooks and behavior into Madden game engine for the purposes of high school, College, and Pro athlete development, pre-hab and rehab. Ray is married with 3 kids and enjoys running and going to concerts.

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Nikola Todorovic Co-founder and CEO
Wonder Dynamics

Filmmaker, VFX supervisor, and entrepreneur, Nikola specialized in VFX projects that required software and tech alteration to existing solutions on the market.

In 2016, Nikola co-founded Wonder Dynamics alongside actor-producer Tye Sheridan (Ready Player One, X-Men, Mud). Focused on the future of filmmaking, Wonder Dynamics' mission is to revolutionize the production and post-production process by leveraging state-of-the-art AI. They are striving to democratize the use of high-end CGI and VFX which will pave the way for the next generation of filmmakers. That mission attracted some of the most influential individuals in the film and tech industry.

The startup is backed by Epic Games, Samsung, Horizons, Founders Fund and has a heavyweight advisory board that includes Joshua Baer, Rhea Films’ Terry Dougas, UC Berkeley assistant professor Angjoo Kanazawa, Avengers: Endgame co-director Joe Russo, director, producer, and screenwriter Steven Spielberg, Head of AI at MIT, Antonio Torralba and Film Finances president Gregory Trattner.

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Onyi Udeh Co-Founder & CEO
Pipeline

Onyi Udeh is a Los Angeles-based founder focused on using technology to help creatives tell their own stories through animation. He currently runs the largest animation community, Animation Club, in the world with 23k members; while building the first dedicated talent marketplace for animation services called Pipeline.

Onyi's past experiences includes working for companies like Walt Disney Studios, Buzzfeed, and Apple. He also ran his own boutique animation studio, Kolanut Productions, which focused on telling stories rooted in African folklore.

He studied Art History and Photography at the University of New Mexico and currently lives in Los Angeles with her family.

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Jason Waskey Principal Creative Director
Mixed Reality Capture Studios

Jason is an award-winning creative director who has been at Microsoft for over twenty years. He spent the first half of his career as the Studio Art Director for the Microsoft Games Studios group responsible for multiple PC and Xbox titles including the Flight Simulator franchise.

In the second half of his career, Jason has spent his time focused on the innovation and incubation of emerging technologies focused on presence, ranging from puppeteering avatars, to volumetric capture, and now Holoportation. He has worked in Mixed Reality for Microsoft since the development of HoloLens 1.0.

An avid painter, Jason spends his off hours in front of an easel both in and out-of-doors, mired in oil paint.

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A.J. Wedding Co-Founder
Orbital Studios

A.J. Wedding is the Co-Founder of Orbital Studios, a full-service virtual production company with studios in Los Angeles and Chicago. He served as VP Supervisor for Season 5 of Snowfall on FX and is currently doing the same for Sony’s Justified: City Primeval. Orbital Studios is known for pushing the boundaries of virtual production while working with producers to incorporate the tools at various levels.

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Katie Wells Physical and
Digital Film

Katie Wells brings over 25 years of experience managing every aspect of physical and digital film projects to her work in the emerging virtual production market.

She has been a producer or Executive Producer for many noteworthy commercial production companies, for directors including Ridley Scott, Joe Pytka, and Michael Bay.

On the digital side, she served as Head of Commercial Production for Digital Domain, Executive Producer of VFX/Post Facility 525 STUDIOS, Managing Director of CREO VFX, and Executive Producer of Montreal-based VFX boutique The FX CARTEL. She was the Executive Producer of visualization studio PROOF and Global Executive Producer for BUF Paris/Montreal.

Along the way, Katie has been a studio-side VFX producer and consultant for most of the major studios and a Producer on independent films such as RIDDICK with Vin Diesel and JESUS HENRY Christ with Julia Roberts.

Katie Wells currently brings that cross-disciplinary experience to her role as Executive Producer for Versatile Media, serving the company's Virtual Production clients and managing the development of television and feature productions and co-productions.

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Stephen Wilcox Camera VFX
director

Stephen Wilcox is currently an in camera VFX director based in Tokyo, Japan. He has been working with Unreal Engine now for 4 years with a focus in LED virtual production for the largest Japanese TV and film productions, live events for international DJs and real-time motion capture and character design. Previous to doing virtual events he worked in the music industry creating video and photo content for artists. This year he will be launching a virtual fashion collection and is looking forward to seeing new developments in Unreal Engine 5.

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Erik “Wolfie” Wolford Cinematographer

Wolfie is a cinematographer who specializes in Beauty lighting, commercials, features, and Unreal Engine virtual lighting.

Wolfie’s latest projects as cinematographer include:

“Mr Spam gets a new Hat” produced by David Prescott (DNEG), directed by academy award winning William Joyce. All lighting done in Unreal engine. Redbull’s Plane Swap - cinematographer for the LED Volume with host portion- including lighting the virtual sets in Unreal and lighting and shooting the practical sets. Riot Games: “Porter Robinson” - Cinematographer for the lighting of the Unreal Engine sets and lighting and shooting the live action portion, on a LED Volume set. Miley Cyrus Music video- Cinematographer.

Wolfie came up through the lighting department ranks in the 1990’s, lighting features, music videos and commercials with such legendary directors like Spike Jonze, Michel Gaundry, Francis Lawrence, Mc G, and even several rap videos for the infamous Death Row Records. Wolfie has spent time in the lighting department on big budget features such as Shane Black’s Iron Man 3, JJ Abrams Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (Wolfie was brought in to do specialized miniature set lighting).

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Veronica Yip Product Manager & Product Marketing Extended Reality
NVIDIA

Veronica Yip is part of the NVIDIA enterprise XR team, focusing specifically on product management for CloudXR, and driving marketing strategy for the XR team.

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Dean Zimmerman Award-Winning Editor

Dean Zimmerman is the Award-winning editor of over 50 feature films and television episodes.

Currently, Dean is currently editing a Netflix limited mini series “All the light We Can Not See” following the 4th Season of STRANGER THINGS, for which he was nominated for his 3rd Emmy after being nominated for Season 3 and winning the Emmy Award for the pilot episode in 2014, multiple HPA Awards, and for which he has also been nominated for an American Cinema Editors “Eddie” award.

Dean's most recent feature collaborations include the time travel action-drama THE ADAM PROJECT starring Ryan Reynolds, who also starred in Zimmerman’s work on the action comedy FREE GUY for Disney/20th, starring Reynolds, alongside Jodie Comer, Taika Waititi, Joe Keery and Lil Rel Howery.

Zimmerman’s collaboration with Producer/Director Shawn Levy dates back nearly 20 years and a dozen films, films that have cumulatively grossed several Billion dollars at the worldwide box-office. These collaborations include the:

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM franchise, DATE NIGHT, REAL STEEL, THE INTERNSHIP and THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU. Other Zimmerman credits include RUSH HOUR 3, JUMPER, GULLIVER”S TRAVELS, as well as additional editing on WHY HIM? and the upcoming 2021 Netflix series SHADOW and BONE, based on the bestselling YA fantasy book series.

Dean grew up in the entertainment industry, having apprenticed and worked alongside his father, the legendary editor Don Zimmerman. Dean became a member of the American Cinema Editors, A.C.E, in 2016 and is a member of the Television Academy.

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