Thursday, May 24th, 2018

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

Session I: Haas Conf. Center, Room 172-173, Live Webcast

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

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

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

Bastiaan den Braber, President / COO, SAMO

Sam Gezari, Co-founder & Creative Director, Telexist

Danilo Moura, Chief Operating Officer - Creative Services, LOOT Interactive, LLC

Andrew Goldstein, CEO and Co-Founder, Otherworld Interactive

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

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.

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.

Andrew Goldstein is an award winning game designer, interactive media producer, and market analyst. He is the executive producer and co-founder of Otherworld Interactive, one of the premier content studios for consumer facing virtual reality and augmented reality content. Otherworld Interactive’s experiences have been featured on the BBC, ABC News, as well as at Google IO. Creating content from educational to entertainment spheres, Otherworld Interactive has some of the most downloaded content in the current virtual reality marketplace. Andrew graduated with an undergraduate degree from Colorado College and a M.F.A from the Interactive Media & Games division of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.

Sam Gezari, Co-founder & Creative Director, Telexist: An award winning creative, Sam Gezari works as a director of photography and creative director in Los Angeles. Sam has honed his eye for light, color and framing, and created a distinct style which is visible in his music videos, feature films and documentaries. In 2015 he co-founded Telexist, a full service creative agency specializing in virtual reality and new media, with the goal of combining narrative storytelling with engineering, design and interactivity. Sam is especially adept at leading the development, visual storytelling, and creative work at the studio.

Danilo Moura is a distinguished entertainment industry visionary with over 17 years of experience and is Head of Creative Services at LOOT Interactive located in Culver City, CA. Recently, Danilo served as Executive Producer on Cycling Pathways To Mars starring Dr. Buzz Aldrin. Danilo interfaced with NASA, USGS, Internet Archive and DVDS in order to gather the highest quality and most realistic source assets for Moon and Mars references. In this VR room-scale experience, developed for 8i and Time Inc.’s LIFE VR, LOOT combined multiple technologies with their innovative VR framework to create this groundbreaking interpersonal experience within a fantastic interplanetary trip to Mars. LOOT produced the Apollo 11 Landing site and the Mars photogrammetry assets delivering a realistic Moon and Mars environments.  The 10 minute VR experience features seamless scene transitions, heightening user immersion and enabling an intimate understanding of Dr. Aldrin's vision. In collaboration with 8i, and utilizing LOOT's proprietary framework,  8i's Volumetric Video of Buzz Aldrin featured the ability to maintain eye contact with the user and achieve a seamless scene transition between the scenes. This created an unprecedented level of immersion. Buzz Aldrin: Cycling Pathways to Mars is available for free on multiple VR platforms including Steam and HTC Viveport and Oculus Rift store. During his tenure at LOOT, Danilo has been the executive producer of multiple VR experiences, eight cross platform games for the XBOX®One and PlayStation®4; eleven video streaming applications on the PS3 and PS4; four mobile games and over 700 Virtual experiences for PlayStation® Home. Danilo continues to champion the continued development of the VR, AR and MR platforms utilizing LOOT's extensive experience in video streaming, game and interactive entertainment experience development.

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.