Christy Dena is a Universe Creator and Transmodiologist. She is an industry strategist, mentor, transmedia writer and designer and PhD researcher. She has provided advice and presentations on multi-platform storytelling to the Australia Council for the Arts, Film Australia, Center for Screen Business, AFTRS, ABC, dLux Media Arts and the ACT Filmmakers Network. Christy presents regularly on Alternate Reality Game creation to a variety of organizations, practitioners and corporations such as Nokia in Finland. She co-wrote the International Game Developers Association Alternate Reality Game Whitepaper and manages an ARG Researcher & Educator listserv. She currently advises to clients including the Australian Literature Board and film production houses such as Killer Bald Men and Instinct Entertainment. She is part of the Sense Worldwide Network, a company that provides contextual research and concept development services to Blue Chip and Fortune 500 clients. Her PhD, at the University of Sydney, investigates narrative in the age of cross-media production. She recently gave a keynote at the First International Conference on Cross-Media Interaction Design in Sweden.

Christy runs two popular blogs: www.Cross-MediaEntertainment.com and co-edits www.WriterResponseTheory.org. She will be launching a podcast in July at www.UniverseCreation101.com and has her bio information at www.christydena.com.

Rene Antunes is a friendly Canadian living in Ottawa, Ontario. For the past 10 years, he has worked as Creative Director for Sparkart in California, designing for the music, film and television industries in the US. He is currently working on his first film through his production company, Northern Army.

www.sparkart.com
www.northernarmy.com

M dot Strange is a mixed media animator from San Jose, Ca. He recently singlehandedly completed an 88 minute animated film entitled “We are the Strange” which made its world premiere in January of this year at the Sundance Film Festival. A reviewer that saw the film M dot made in his bedroom with 9 PC’s over the course of 3 years said “it looked like something Hollywood would make for 70 million” He has recently been featured in the NY Times, ABC World News , Wired.com and his youtube videos have been viewed over a million times.

Find out more about M dot Strange and his work
www.wearethestrange.com

Matt Hanson is a film futurist; a writer and filmmaker described as an “International film visionary” by Screen International magazine. His current project — A Swarm of Angels (www.aswarmofangels.com) — is an ambitious Cinema 2.0 endeavour to fund, film, and distribute, a feature film using the Internet, all-digital technologies, and a global community of members. Previously he founded the massively influential onedotzero digital film festival in 1996 at the dawn of digital filmmaking, which he directed until 2002. The writer of a series of digital-age cinema books including The End of Celluloid, and Reinventing Music Video, he lives in Brighton, England.

Scott Kirsner - For almost ten years now, I’ve been writing about innovation in publications like the New York Times, Wired, Variety, Fast Company, the Boston Globe, The Hollywood Reporter, Salon.com, and Newsweek. I’m still doing that - but I’m also working on a book about how new technologies have changed (and are changing) Hollywood.

I helped start (and continue to help run) three conferences: Future Forward, the Nantucket Conference on Entrepreneurship & Innovation, and Convergence: The Life Sciences Leaders Forum. I also often speak and moderate at other people’s conferences, and serve as a commentator on TV and radio. For more on Scott visit www.cinematech.blogspot.com

Tom Quinn grew up in Bucks County, PA, where he directed his first feature, Lusting for Dust Words, several shorts, and freelanced as a camera assistant. His film, Via Bicycles, was a 2006 Eastman Scholars finalist and received a Motion Picture Association Award. His current feature film, The New Year Parade, was one of ten projects selected for the 2007 IFP Narrative Rough Cut Labs. He is currently working toward his MFA at Temple University.

Arin Crumley at the age of 16, long before digital was a viable means of filmmaking, he began messing around with his first low-res digital video equipment. Now, Wallstreet Journal lists Arin among the top 20 new media moguls. Not only is he shooting all his work in digital, but he has become his own distributor, and launched an online media channel, featuring his video podcast.

In 2003, Arin and his longtime co-director/collaborator, Susan Buice, began their multi-media project: Four Eyed Monsters (their feature film, video podcast, and all their other work is associates with this title). Since then, the film has become a cult phenomenon. It played in over 20 film festivals, was nominated for 2 Independent Spirit Awards, screened theatrically in major cities across the nation, and garnered critical acclaim across the board - all the while, managed and distributed by its own creators.

Meanwhile, the whole concept of video podcasts and online media was just coming of age. Arin saw the potential and produced his own Four Eyed Monsters episodic series. At this point, in 2005, high-end filmmaking online was relatively unheard of. On its release, everyone from New York Times to Myspace lauded its innovation and noted its success with online audiences. Despite its technological novelty, the podcast stands alone as a uncommon cinematic achievement of sophistication and insight. To date, the podcast has generated a following of roughly 2 million views. At age 26, Arin Crumley travels often, giving speeches on the changing media landscape. Surely with many more distinctive achievements to offer, Arin is a talent to watch, listen to, and follow.

Christopher Rice lives in Northridge with his girlfriend, journalist Katie Christiansen. He started working professionally as a script reader at the age of 17 with goals of improving his sense of story as a director and has read for production companies, agencies, and a consulting corporation in Beverly Hills.

Lance Weiler is a filmmaker and a self distribution pioneer. His films THE LAST BROADCAST and HEAD TRAUMA are distributed in the United States and in over 20 countries around the world. Lance often lectures on filmmaking, technology, media consumption and distribution. He’s spoken at the Sundance, Berlin and Cannes Film Festivals in addition to numerous Universities and film societies. Lance is currently working on a number of new film, tv and cross media projects. He is also working on a book entitled “Putting the Mass Back in Media” which will be released in 2008. He currently sits on the board of the IFP, is the founder of the Workbook an “open source social project” for content creators and a co-founder of the discovery and distribution festival FROM HERE TO AWESOME. For more on Lance visit www.lanceweiler.com

Alex Afterman is the co-founder and Vice President of Heretic Films, a San Francisco based independent DVD/VOD/Digital label founded in 2003. As label head Alex is responsible for managing everything from acquisition of new titles for distribution, co-ordinating the creation of key art, authoring, production and replication of the DVDs, logistics, and marketing and publicity, including determining advertising budget, co-op purchases and handling all media relations.

Prior to founding Heretic Films Alex spent several years working as a Product Manager and Account Manager for various new media companies including internet content syndication company iSyndicate and web based real estate portal LoopNet. In addition to his responsibilities for Heretic Films Alex also co-produced the documentary ‘24 Hours on Craigslist’, which had a successful theatrical run before being released on DVD through Heretic Films.

Hunter Weeks made his feature-length directorial debut with 10 MPH. He’s also the mastermind behind the creative marketing and distribution efforts that led to national recognition and critical acclaim for the film. Photographing the world since the early nineties, Hunter Weeks has developed an eye for capturing moments of humanity in off-the-beaten-path places, like Croatia, Morocco, and Indonesia. His photography background influences his work on documentaries, which currently focus on American pop culture subjects. As the follow-up to 10 MPH, he’s working on a documentary about fantasy football, currently titled 10 Yards.

Brian Chirls is a filmmaker and technologist in New York. He has worked on the film Four Eyed Monsters as Manager of Distribution and Marketing. Brian is currently consulting on the distribution of John Sayles’s latest film, Honeydripper, while continuing to develop and write about ways for independent artists to create and distribute their work. Brian has also produced and directed a number of short films, video blogs and a bit of machinima.

Before becoming a filmmaker, Brian built financial software and worked in construction management on subway stations and highways. He graduated from the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania and is the least successful member of his graduating class.

To learn more about Brian’s work, see chirls.com.

Kfir Pravda – a marketer, blogger, and content creator. His blog “Media, Technology and Rebel Filmmaking” is read and quoted by investors, venture capitalists, CEOs of technology companies, content creators and bloggers. He often moderates and participates in industry panels discussing telecom and media topics and writes for a major Israeli newspaper. His customers are publicly traded companies interested in improving their market position by utilizing social media tools and innovative marketing solutions. Kfir also serves as VP of Marketing of IMTC, an international consortium of blue chip and startup companies, cooperating on promoting video technologies by interoperability and fostering open standards. Organization members are, among others, Nokia, Ericsson, Polycom, Apple and Cisco. Loves crime films, single malt Whisky and his shiny new Mac.

Marc Lougee - Creative Producer / Director, Hand Hade Heroes Marc’s work as a director blends techniques ranging from 3D/ CGI computer animation to stop motion to classic 2D character animation. His projects integrate live action, special effects, puppets, miniatures, models and all manner of visual effects illusions.

Marc has lent his expertise of mixed-media animation production to scores of national commercial campaigns and broadcast interstitials, including work for ABC Saturday Morning, MTV, HBO, Epic Records, Fox Television, Kool Aid, Parker Brothers, Mattel, Hasbro, The Pillsbury Doughboy and the original “Bud Bowl” Super Bowl half-time campaign for Budweiser (which logged over 350 million viewers worldwide for the 1.5 minute spot).

Lougee enjoys applying his creative sensibilities to broadcast series programming. Working closely with Producer Susan Ma, he played a key role as Creative Producer in assembling the creative team for What It’s Like Being Alone in 2005/ 2006 and his contribution as Episode Director provided a major creative force behind the show. Marc’s directed animation on several series and pilots for MTV, Discovery Kids, Fox Television, Sci Fi Channel, HBO, BBC and the CBC. Several of these series are currently on-air, including the DiscoveryKids! / BBC’s Dinosapien, MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch, and the BBC’s Ace Lightning.

Marc directed and co-produced (with Susan Ma) the award-winning short film, “The Pit and the Pendulum”, executive produced by animation and visual effects legend Ray Harryhausen (Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Clash of the Titans) and Fred Fuchs (Francis Ford Coppolla’s Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein).

Since it’s premiere, “The Pit and the Pendulum” has been chosen as an Official Selection in over 150 film festivals worldwide, garnering several awards and nominations, including Best Animated Film at Miami Shorts International Film Festival, Best Adaptation at the International Horror & Sci Fi Film Festival, Best Animated Short Film at the Dragon Con Film Festival, a Storyteller Award a the Redemptive Film Festival, an Ideology Award at the Cinepobre Film Festival and Best Animated Film at the HD Fest Awards.

More info on the film and the trailer can be found on the official film site;
http://www.thepitandthependulumshortfilm.com

For the latest news, screening dates, locations check the blog;
http://www.thepitandthependulumshortfilm.blogspot.com

Zachary Mortensen, founder of Ghost Robot, has produced many feature films and documentaries including “Choking Man,” “ROAD,” “Hell House,” and “Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox” along with countless music videos and commercials. In late 2006 Mortensen and producing partner Joshua Zeman created Space Unicorn to address the needs of filmmakers on the web. Space Unicorn designs and creates websites and web strategies for motion pictures.

STEVE BALDERSON - Roger Ebert named Steve Balderson’s film FIRECRACKER (with Karen Black) on his list of 2005’s Best Films. Currently filming WATCH OUT, based on the best-selling novel by Joseph Suglia, Balderson’s other work includes: PHONE SEX (featuring Margaret Cho, Ron Jeremy, Penn Jillette and Lloyd Kaufman), PEP SQUAD (the satire that predicted American school violence), and UNDERBELLY (a year in the life of Princess Farhana). Steve is also the subject of the award-winning WAMEGO documentary series about DIY Filmmaking. If you are unfamiliar with Balderson’s movies, you can purchase them from anywhere in the world.

Michael Ambs - I started out editing in the computer classroom after school hours in Onsted, Michigan, writing shorts and directing impromptu music videos with my friends. What started off as an innocent way to pass the time in a small town, has grown into a part of my life I hope I’m never without - I enjoy writing, filmmaking, vlogging, riding the subway, mint chocolate chip ice-cream, taking photographs, designing websites, and all other things web-geekery.

I co-created a project, tentatively titled ‘Pedal’, with Amanda Walker, which documents a young man’s long distance bicycle trip. We are currently in the editing process for the feature length film, and are also releasing a making-of short series to better explain how we made the film, what it took from us on a personal level, and to better explain the story we hope to tell in the end.