Thursday, October 18, 2018

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM – Immersive Hollywood: VR – AR - MR

Session I: Haas Conference Center, Room 172-173

VR-AR/MR ThinkTank - The Deep Dive - Creative - Visionary Experiential Content and Technology

Kelsey Wong, Experience Producer, Magnopus, Production Lead, “Coco VR”

Katja Rasi, CEO and founder, AR Video Booth

Evette Vargas, Writer, Director, Producer, Multiplatform and Virtual Reality Creator

Bastiaan den Braber, President / COO, SAMO

David Gull, CEO, Outer Realm

Eden Chen, co-founder, Fishermen Labs

Moderator, Seth A. Schachner, Managing Director, Strat Americas

Eden Chen is a co-founder and a managing partner at Fishermen Labs, one of the fastest growing digital creative agencies in the US. Fishermen Labs has created AR experiences that have reached more than 100 million people. Eden has advised and built products for Snapchat, IAC, Walmart, Sony, the United Nations, Qualcomm, and countless startups and serves in strategic, design and technical roles. Eden is also the founder of Sonar Teams (an account management tool), Common Foods (a socially conscious packaged foods company), CE Foundation (a foundation dedicated to furthering inner city education), and Chen Hu Holdings (a real estate holding company). Before this,

Eden was the founder of Lightmark Capital, a Los Angeles based hedge fund. Prior to these ventures, he worked as an investment banker at Citigroup. Eden invests and sits on the board of numerous startups and nonprofits including Pioneers and SENE. He has been interviewed by Bloomberg and US News and has written for Venture Beat, and Entrepreneur magazine. Eden was selected as a part of Forbes’ 30 under 30, LA Business Journal's 20 in their 20’s, Emory Magazine’s 40 under 40, and was a TedX speaker. Fishermen Labs was designated the 4th fastest growing company in Los Angeles county by the Los Angeles Business Journal and the 185th fastest private company in the US by Inc Magazine. Eden graduated with honors from Emory University.

Evette Vargas is emblematic of Hollywood’s new breed of multiplatform storytelling talent. Named by the New York Times as an “Artist to Watch,” Vargas is an award-winning writer, director, producer, multiplatform and Virtual Reality creator. Co-founder of Digital-Reign, an emerging media production company, Vargas' work includes series for Amazon, MTV, Bravo, DirectTV; as well as writing, apps, games and branded entertainment for FAST & FURIOUS, LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy and Madonna. Vargas executive produced, wrote and directed her digital series DARK PROPHET, starring Henry Rollins. The series was nominated for two Emmys, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and is available on Amazon Prime. The Virtual Reality series will premiere on the Sony PlayStation VR. Vargas recently sold her one-hour series MUSES to Turner Broadcasting Super Deluxe, is developing her show TRANS with Electus, and her series TEMPEST with The Wolper Organization. Vargas has optioned her Y.A. series, THE SPECTORS, to Campanario Productions. Vargas’ slate of VR projects includes the VR experience for The Weinstein Company feature film, THE CURRENT WAR, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Vargas is also writing and producing two VR projects based on her original IPs, one of which she is producing with The Rogue Initiative. Vargas is a member of the Writers Guild of America, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Producers Guild of America and serves on the advisory board of the Alliance of Women Directors. Vargas earned her BFA in Directing and Film/TV Production from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and her MFA from UCLA for Screenwriting with a concentration in Television Showrunning. Vargas was born in the Bronx and learned to tell stories at the dinner table with her family where the imagination ruled.

Kelsey Wong is Experience Producer at Magnopus and recently lead the production team for Coco VR in collaboration with Pixar. Her recent credits include the Emmy-Nominated Mission:ISS and Disney Movies VR, to name a few. In addition to Virtual Reality, Kelsey has worked on a variety of Augmented and Mixed Reality experiences, museum installations, and novels. She has partnered with clients such as Disney, Pixar, ILM, Booktrope, and Relativity Television to deliver more than 50 projects over the last decade. Wong grew up in Singapore and holds an Animation degree from California State University of Los Angeles. When she is not producing cutting edge experiences, she is an avid creator of crochet amigurumi.

Bastiaan den Braber, Co-Founder and President/COO, SAMO VR; @basdenbraber: Bastiaan is the co-founder, President / COO of SAMO VR, a start-up that drives revenue in virtual and augmented reality by helping music industry companies define, finance, and deliver their emerging tech strategy. He is also a Venture Advisor with Lumo Labs, a 2-year venture building program for emerging tech start-ups. In addition, he is an advisor to other start-ups, frequent speaker, panel member and moderator at industry events, and judges events like hackathons. Bastiaan den Braber builds on a 15 year career in management consulting with specialties in digital strategy, market entry strategy, business planning, and business development. Bastiaan received his MSc in General Management and Specialization in Strategic Marketing from Nyenrode University, Netherlands. He received his BSc in Commercial Engineering and Management from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands. He lives in Los Angeles, and is always on the lookout for opportunities to use emerging technology for the greater good.

David Gull, CEO of Outer Realm, is a leader in the application of immersive software to real-world projects, helping visions become a reality by first developing high fidelity, true-scale virtual prototypes in Virtual and Augmented Reality. As a licensed architect, David understands that people's ability to visualize complex projects is inherently limited, and building any ambitious future requires buy-in, alignment, and clear understanding from an array of stakeholders. David founded Outer Realm to create a solution that showcases unbuilt projects and products as realistically as possible in order to ensure they are actually built, and to improve the product outcome through design iteration and validation. Prior to Outer Realm, David was a VP at Floored, a Virtual Technology startup acquired by CBRE. He also has 6 years at the renowned architecture firm Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. David graduated first in his class from Cornell University’s #1 Ranked Architecture Program.

Katja Rasi, M.Sc. (Tech.), Founder and CEO, AR Video Booth from Finland. She has experience in augmented reality, digital marketing, international sales and organizing fairs and events. Katja has created a third person view camera called as the Sideward Camera which enables video shooting and sharing of augmented reality experiences. This firmware innovation has been developed for storytelling, effective video marketing, collecting contact information and increasing sales with CTA. The concept also reduces pressure on success of viral videos. Katja has studied at Tampere University of Technology with special interest in future researching, created several brands and led efficient brand awareness campaigns.  She is also a board member of the family business in tailored automatic control systems and electric car charging with solar energy solutions. Member of Finnish Virtual Reality Association FIVR.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/katja-rasi/

Seth Schachner is Managing Director of Strat Americas, a Miami and Los Angeles-based consultancy that provides strategic guidance and helps global clients with media and technology partnerships.  Strat Americas has worked in virtual reality, digital music, video, and the mobile sector. Seth spent eleven years with Sony Music, where he held senior digital leadership roles in Latin America and for Sony’s Jive Records label group in North America. Previously, Schachner has held business development roles with Microsoft, Liberty Media, Viacom, and Universal Music. Seth was one of AOL’s first business development executives, negotiating its first content deals with the American music industry. A Columbia University graduate, Schachner is currently Chairman of Florida's Film & Entertainment Advisory Council, which helps guide Florida on state film and entertainment growth strategies.