Thursday, October 18, 2018

11:30 AM – 12:30 PM – Immersive Hollywood: VR – AR - MR

Session I: Haas Conference Center, Room 172-173

VR/AR as a Branding/Advertising Strategy: The Immersive Experience as Image Maker - Movies/TV/Brand

David Birnbaum, Design Director, Immersion Corporation

Ricardo Diaz, Executive Director of Digital, Omelet

Shelley Andagan, Chief Operating Officer, 3DPaint/FX

Laura Barton, Senior Vice President of Marketing & Strategic Development, Advrtas

Marcy Boyle, CEO, Hot Bit VR

Demetrio Cuzzocrea, Partner + CIO, Hourglass Technologies

Jeffrey Travis, Founder & CEO, Positron/ Creator, Voyager®

Cynthia Lieberman, Marketing and Media Strategist, LieberComm, Moderator

Laura Barton is the Senior Vice President of Marketing & Strategic Development at Advrtas. A Marketing executive and Virtual Reality (VR) evangelist with more than two decades of experience working in emerging technologies and entrepreneurial endeavors, Laura started her career as a lead at one of the first digital content management and distribution companies (www.vubuquity.com, formerly TVN Entertainment) in the world.  She launched some of the first VOD systems and played an integral part in launching 'NFL Sunday Ticket'. Laura has worked with entertainment brands like Universal Studios, Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Disney, ESPN, Worldwide Wrestling

Entertainment, Don King Productions, Ultimate Fighting Championship, and Bob Arum Productions in high budget advertising and Marketing Pay Per View and On Demand campaigns. Laura holds degrees from the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University and Certificate in New Media from UCLA.

Jeffrey Travis, Founder & CEO, Positron/ Creator, Voyager®: Jeffrey is the founder of Positron. He has a unique background with a Hollywood career as a writer/director, as well as being an experienced electrical and software engineer. He is the author of two LabVIEW programming bestselling books. Jeffrey is director of several award-winning films, including "Flatland" (starring Martin Sheen and Kristen Bell) and "Dragon Day." He holds a patent for interactive control systems over the web. Jeffrey is passionate about ways to bring art and engineering together.

Ricardo Diaz, Executive Director of Digital, Omelet: Ricardo manages all things digital for Omelet. He comes from a Computer Science background and has over 20 years of digital marketing experience. Prior to Omelet, Ricardo worked at TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles and Zambezi where he helped create award-winning campaigns for clients including Grammys, Gatorade, Pepsi, Nissan, Sony, VISA, and Adidas, all while helping to create and evolve the digital discipline within the agency. His career is punctuated by firsts: from developing the first iAd for the Nissan Leaf, through to the first SXSW award winning agency-developed platform for TBWA Worldwide, to 2016 Cannes Lion winner for world’s first gestural e-commerce platform for Stance.

David Birnbaum, Design Director at Immersion Corporation, leads a team responsible for developing the tactile aesthetics of emerging technologies. Most recently he’s been focused on bringing the sense of touch to mobile video and ads. Driven by a desire to tell stories with the sense of touch and to bring emotion and realism to digital experiences, David has been creating haptic experiences for over 10 years, in which time he’s been named as an inventor on over 70 patents in the fields of user experience, wearables, gaming, medical devices, mobile communication, and rich interactive media. He holds a B.S. in Music Industry from USC and a M.A. in Music Technology from McGill University.

Marcy Boyle is the CEO of Hot Bit VR, an upcoming platform for entertainment and commerce in virtual reality. She co-directed the feature film, NOBODY CAN COOL, a graphic novel influenced thriller, that was released in the US, Canada and UK. Marcy was picked by Oculus for their Launch Pad Fellowship, and Hot Bit VR was selected for the AR/VR focused accelerator at the Green Screen Institute, and Women’s Startup Lab. Hot Bit VR has been featured in Entrepreneur, Fox News, and listed as one of the “30 Best Virtual Reality Companies to Change Your World Soon.” Her VR experiences have been featured on SamsungVR and festivals and events including Toronto’s FIVARS, London’s VRUK, and USC’s industry demo day. Marcy is a frequent speaker about VR, including appearances at London’s VRUK, Berlin’s RIOT, the US-China Summit on Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University, Augmented World Expo, and KAIST University in South Korea. Marcy graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University, and is on the Board of the Alliance of Women Directors.

Shelley Andagan Chief Operating Officer & Public Speaker: As COO of 3DPaint/FX, Shelley Andagan directs and manages the company’s worldwide workflow processes and personnel while also coordinating strategic planning and brand alliances. She works with clients to streamline each production from development to delivery. Translating information derived from her direct-to-client interaction, Shelley collaborates with the 3DP team to find the most innovative and expedient solutions possible given production parameters which maintaining high quality standards that are expected in Hollywood.  Proud of their teamwork and opportunity to produce groundbreaking content across genres, Shelley developed and executes the company’s social media strategy while also supporting inclusion of their work in conferences, festivals, and awards competitions across the globe. While at 3DPaint/FX, Shelley managed the completion of nearly 30 VR projects.  These 360 films range from scripted to documentary-style shoots with both monoscopic and stereoscopic deliveries at various levels of VFX integration.  She also oversaw stereoscopic conversion projects for the studio’s VR and traditional film clients.  Some of Shelley’s 360 film credits which derive from her work alongside VR houses Within / Here Be Dragons and Milk VR include: • The New York Times Magazine’s “Great Performers” 9-film noir collection • National Geographic’s “The Protectors” film • USA Network’s “Mr. Robot” VR Experience • General Electric’s 5-plus-episode series, “The Possible” • Samsung VR’s “The Raid” Prequel to Fox’s “24: Legacy” • United Nations films “The Ground Beneath Her” and “My Mother’s Wing” • SHOAH Foundation’s “The Last Goodbye” interactive experience. Drawing from her experiences, Shelley shares her expertise as a guest speaker on the national and regional level at professional conferences and events.  She is also a guest lecturer, educating media professionals of the future.  Her most notable speaking engagements were at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas, Digital Hollywood, and the Los Angeles Post Production Group.   Shelley’s most recent contributions to higher education were at Gnomon School of Visual Effects and Emerson – LA. Prior to this role, Shelley spent over a decade in feature film & television development, production and post-production with major motion picture studios and independent producers alike. Her “flattie” credits include projects such as: • Disney's "Jungle Book" •New Line Cinema's "San Andreas"• Marvel's "Iron Man 3" and “The Runaways” • 20th Century Fox Television's "Prison Break" • "World Trade Center," "Becker" and "Star Trek: Enterprise" at Paramount Pictures. Shelley holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Television, Radio & Film from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

Cynthia Lieberman, Marketing and Media Strategist, LieberComm: Cynthia Lieberman is a recognized leader in creative content, brand and influencer marketing and PR. She has lead countless marketing and media campaigns for most major Hollywood studios on hit shows such as “Access Hollywood,” “Entertainment Tonight,” “The Dr. Oz Show,” “America’s Got Talent,” “Judge Judy,” and “Seinfeld,” plus feature films, fanfare galas and more. A true storyteller at heart, Cynthia is co-authoring a book on influencer marketing, “The Influencer Code” (Hatherleigh Press, 2019), and is a frequent press contributor and blogger on topics related to the impact of tech on human behavior. She owns LieberComm, a marketing firm serving a long list of prestigious clientele that includes  Fortune 500 companies, major entertainment entities, non-profits and forward-thinking businesses in digital tech and AR/VR. She is a frequent presenter and moderator at high-profile conferences, including NATPE, TV Academy, PROMAX, Digital Hollywood and NAMLE. Her expansive background is fortified by a graduate degree in the pioneering field of Media Psychology and Social Change, and she teaches domestic and global courses on Social Media and Influencer Marketing and Entertainment PR at UCLA. Lieberman has received numerous industry awards for her creative talents, serves as a board of director for the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), and is co-founder of the digital literacy site, Cyberwise.org (“No Grownup Left Behind”).