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Tuesday, May 22nd, 2018

2:30 PM - 3:30 PM

Track I: Ahmanson Hall, Live Webcast

Women on the Creative Edge: From Cinematic Entertainment to VR/AR/MR: Experiences in a Changing Landscape

Beatie Wolfe, Singer/Songwriter, Technology Innovator

Tanna Frederick, Producer/actor, Defrost (VR Narrative Film)

Julia Hamilton Trost, Business Development & Content Partnerships, Google VR/AR

Holly Gordon, Chief Impact Officer, Participant Media

Kayla Tabish, Director/Producer

Kim Adams, former, VFX Producer, Pixar, Google and Oculus

Emily Cooper, Chief Content Officer, SAM Immersive, Moderator

 

Kim Adams is currently working in innovation and AR. She was the head of production at Emmy Award-winning Oculus Story Studio; a team at Oculus that focused on narrative virtual reality content. Kim made her transition into VR at Google Spotlight Stories, where she produced Rain or Shine with partner Nexus Productions, and Special Delivery, with Aardman Animations. From 2009-2013, Kim was a Producer at Pixar Animation Studios, where she played an integral role in the creation of Pixar Canada. Adams led the creation of Pixar’s “Toons” / Short Film division. Heading a team of 125 across two companies in two countries, she produced Toy Story and Cars short-form content. Partnering

with eight new directors, she produced 13 short films while shepherding the development of a multitude of additional Pixar short-format projects. Previous to Pixar, Kim served as a visual effects producer on several films including Apocalypto, where she was on location in the jungles of Mexico for seven months. She also worked at Asylum Visual Effects on films such as Master and Commander, which was nominated for an Oscar for visual effects. Kim began her journey in the industry working her way up the editorial ranks on major feature films. Her first job in the industry was as a production assistant at George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic.

 

Beatie Wolfe is an Anglo-American singer songwriter with a raw, acoustic, indie rock sound. Described by GQ as "smoky captivating melodies that envelop the listener in tales of love and loss” and by Highsnobiety as “timeless romantic song-craft,” Wolfe's music pulls from the brooding poeticism of Leonard Cohen, the tender and haunting melodies of Elliott Smith and occasionally veers into Americana and grunge territory. Wolfe's live show has been hailed as "absolutely breathtaking" (The New York Times) and “a profound delivery of depth and soul” (BBC)  A musical innovator as much as a musician, described as "extraordinary" by Forbes, “ingenious” by Fast Company and “bleeding-edge” by WIRED, Beatie Wolfe is at the forefront of pioneering new formats for music, which reunite tangibility, storytelling & ceremony to the album in this digital age. In this vein, Wolfe has created a series of world’s-first designs that bridge the tangible and digital, which include: a 3D vinyl for the iPhone; an intelligent album deck of cards; a Musical Jacket - designed by the tailor who dressed Bowie, Jagger and Hendrix and cut from fabric woven with Wolfe’s music - and most recently the world's first live 360 ̊ AR stream. Beatie Wolfe’s work has been featured in the world’s leading museums, festivals, conferences and received nominations across the music, tech and art fields. Wolfe is also the co-founder of a “profound” (The Times) new research project looking at the power of music for people living with dementia.

 

Tanna Frederick is a producer, director, actress, and activist. In her decade plus collaboration with indie film icon Henry Jaglom, she has starred in and helped produce six of his feature films, including the recently released, The “M” Word, the highly anticipated, Ovation, and three of his plays, including Train to Zakopane, which just completed a  run at the Edgemar Theatre in Santa Monica. Frederick — who got her start performing at the Steben’s Children’s Theatre and then the University of Iowa — is also a mainstay of the Los Angeles theatre community.  She has starred in successful productions of A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia, Richard Nash’s The Rainmaker — which was a Los Angeles Times Critic’s Pick — and Claire Chafee’s Why Why Have a Body, which also marked Frederick’s directing debut. She and Jaglom also collaborated on the stage adaptation of his film, Always… But Not Forever and the yearlong run of his original play Just 45 from Broadway, which was later adapted to the 2012 film of the same name. An Iowan by birth and a Californian by choice, actress Frederick is passionate about both of her home states. She is also the cofounder of the Iowa Independent Film Festival and of Project Cornlight, an initiative aimed at bringing film productions to the Hawkeye State and through which she produced her upcoming film Garner, Iowa. Project Cornlight currently has two other films are currently in development. Frederick has been hard at work producing the series, DEFROST in collaboration with Randal Kleiser, a revolutionary virtual reality experience using the Oculus Rift. She has a great skill for seeking out talented and dedicated individuals for her team. In California, Frederick fell in love with surfing and in 2007, she founded Project Save Our Surf, which is dedicated to ocean conservation, the improved availability of freshwater to those in need and exposing a wide range of people to the joys of the ocean through surfing. Since 2012, Project Save Our Surf Camp has reached thousands of underserved children and teens in Southern California and Mexico, educating them on environmental issues and giving them hands-on instruction in yoga and surfing. She has been instrumental in coordinating fundraising events, camps, beach clean-ups, and carrying out the mission of Project Save Our Surf. For her work on an off stage, Frederick has received numerous awards, including Broadway World Best Actress Award for Rainmaker, Best Actress awards from the Wild Rose Film Festival, Worldfest Houston, the Fargo Film Festival and the Montana Independent Film Festival. She has been named “One to Watch” by MethodFest and received the CineCause Award, the University of Iowa’s Distinguished Alumni Award, Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival’s Maverick Award.

 

Kayla Tabish is driven by content that parallels our current political and social climates. She produced Loren Cass, for which she was nominated for an IFP Gotham Award and the film world premiered at Locarno International Film Festival. Loren Cass was programmed at many prestigious film festivals, including Viennale and Dennis Hopper's CineVegas, the film then went on to receive theatrical distribution and was called "One of the Year’s Greatest Discoveries" by The New York Times. Kayla then directed Culture of Fear starring Malcolm McDowell(Golden Globe nominee, A Clockwork Orange, Mozart in the Jungle) and Steven Bauer(2x Golden Globe nominee, Scarface, Ray Donovan). Culture of Fear will be released in mid 2018. Her next feature is currently in development.

 

Julia Hamilton Trost: Business Development & Content Partnerships, Google VR/AR: As the Head of VR/AR Content Partnerships at YouTube, Julia leads global VR/AR content strategy and partnerships. She works closely with partners and creators to expand the library of compelling VR video content on YouTube, building on the momentum of the newest format - VR180.  Prior to joining YouTube, Julia was the Business Development Lead for Daydream, Google's VR/AR team, managing content partnerships with a focus on VR video.  During Julia's time on the Daydream team, Women's Wear Daily selected Julia for their 2017 "10 of Tomorrow" list as an emerging leader in the technology space. Julia joined Google in 2006 and led partnerships with top tech brands in Google’s media sales division. Passionate about media and tech, she worked at The Atlantic magazine and CNN's “Larry King Live” in Washington, DC prior to Google. Julia resides in San Francisco with her husband and graduated from Duke University.

 

Holly Gordon, Chief Impact Officer, Participant Media: As Chief Impact Officer, Holly Gordon oversees all development and execution of Social Impact campaigns for Participant Media, further strengthening the company’s mission to create entertainment that compels and inspires social change. These global, multi-year campaigns are driven by the company’s content and powered by strategic partnerships to address the most important issues of our time. Before joining Participant, Gordon co-founded Girl Rising, a global campaign for girls’ education. Selected by Fast Company as a member of the League of Extraordinary Women and named by Newsweek/Daily Beast as one of 125 Women of Impact, Gordon is also an Executive Producer for the Girl Rising film at the center of the movement. Forbes Magazine named the Girl Rising campaign the #1 Most Dynamic Social Initiative of 2012. Gordon serves as Board Chair of Girl Rising and is the co-chair of The Nantucket Project Academy, an accelerator for social change leaders and ideas. Prior to launching the TNP Academy and Girl Rising, Gordon served as Director of Content for the Tribeca Film Festival. She came to Tribeca from ABC News, where she worked for 12 years as a producer and booker for the major news broadcasts. Gordon is a member of the 2015 class of Presidential Leadership Scholars, serves on the boards of Unreasonable Group and All In Together and is a strategic advisor to The One Love Foundation.

 

Emily Cooper, Chief Content Officer, SAM Immersive: Emily Cooper is a new media filmmaker. She has traveled domestically and internationally filming 360/VR directing documentaries and news. Her work on the 2016 The World Cup of Hip Hop: Take Back the Mic helped the project earn an Interactive Emmy nomination. She began her career in Virtual Reality working at The Virtual Reality Company as their first outside hire. She teaches workshops on 360 filmmaking, speaks on storytelling in emerging technologies at conferences/festivals including SXSW, UCLA Pulse, and her thoughts on diversity have been included in reports by the Ford Foundation; she was a 2017 Google Jump Start awardee. She is currently in development for two feature length documentaries on issues of social impact.