Tuesday, May 22nd, 2018

3:45 PM - 5:00 PM

Track II: Herscher Hall, 3rd Floor, Room 303-304, Live Webcast

AR/MR Brings Movies, TV, Games, and Advertising to the Real World

Movie and TV adaptations are big business, from videogames to toys to lunchboxes. Now augmented reality is a new channel for licensed rights, as seen by Niantic’s $200M funding to make an AR Harry Potter game. Fans can live more viscerally in the real world. Retailers are hard hit, but it’s still more fun to shop in the real world. As movie theatres embrace add-ons like IMAX and 3D, might AR be the biggest movie add-on of them all? We’ll share secrets and make predictions, with wit and sizzle. How do you adapt a franchise to AR? What are the best practices and pitfalls? Climb aboard the digital train. Content is king and now it’s getting real with AR.

Natascha French, CMO, VNTANA

Michael Cummings, former Licensing Head, Amazon Studios

Alina Mikhaleva, Co-Founder & Managing partners, Spherica

Joel Newton, co-founder, CityLights (Distributor of Darren Aronofsky  Produced, VR Series, “Spheres”

Lynn Rosenthal, Founder/CEO, Periscape, AR/VR

Ryan Faber, ‎Consultant, Deloitte Digital

Moderator - Johnny Monsarrat, CEO, Monsarrat, Inc.

Natascha French, Chief Marketing Officer, VNTANA: Natascha French is the Chief Marketing Officer of VNTANA, an industry leading augmented reality platform that allows brands to easily create interactive hologram experiences to engage consumers and generate leads. It has been used by major brands including Microsoft, Intel, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Pepsi and Nike to name a few. Natascha oversees the company’s marketing, sales and communications strategy. Prior to working at VNTANA, Natascha began her career has a journalist for CNN, and worked for various marketing and communications agencies globally, including Allison+Partners, where she focused on building the startup technology division. She has a successful track record of identifying and sourcing strategic partnerships, and scaling startups through a variety of tools that embraced the latest technology. Natascha has a bachelor’s degree from Emory University in Political Science and Journalism, having prior studied at the University of California, Berkeley. She serves on the leadership council for Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, and CHLA’s Digital Marketing Committee.

Joel Newton is the Co-Founder and CEO of CityLights, an immersive entertainment financing and distribution company. The company made it's first public announcement at Sundance when it acquired SPHERES, a virtual reality series. He previously co-founded The Virtual Reality Company (VRC) where he developed and executive produced Virtual Reality projects with filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, and fellow co-founder Robert Stromberg.

Alina Mikhaleva, Co-Founder & Managing partners, Spherica: After ten years of successful career in broadcast media, Alina Mikhaleva moved to lead a virtual reality startup Spherica. Spherica is an independent VR production studio based in Los Angeles. Founded by a small team of VR enthusiasts, Spherica aims to create truly engaging cinematic VR experiences for viewers worldwide. Spherica's proprietary technology demonstrates to the industry professionals the potential of virtual reality filmmaking when it is freed from the limitations of a static camera. Spherica has been working in VR industry with clients including HBO, CBS, RYOT, and many others on both fiction and non-fiction content, as well as developing and creating original VR content. Spherica is an award-winning independent VR studio based in Los Angeles. Since the early days of 360 video, Spherica has been pioneering virtual reality filmmaking by developing proprietary technologies to enhance video capture. Spherica was the first company to introduce a revolutionary stabilization technology — quickly establishing a new standard for VR filmmaking: smooth camera movement.  Today, Spherica continues to pioneer cinematic VR by introducing new, even more advanced solutions, including proprietary state-of-the-art rovers, cable cams and drones. Spherica’s patent-pending stabilization technology provides for a comfortable, natural user experience by completely eliminating the problem of motion sickness for the viewer. VR content created by Spherica demonstrates the full potential of virtual reality filmmaking when it is unhindered by the limitations of a static camera. Spherica has produced dozens of VR experiences for clients - including HBO's Westworld VR, Lexus, Google, AP, RYOT, NBC among others - as well as Spherica’s original content – the first action series in VR “Immersive Combat” scheduled to be released in early 2018.

Michael Cummings, former Licensing Head, Amazon Studios: Michael is an entertainment industry executive with expertise in strategic planning, business development and leveraging data to help organizations make better decisions. In between independent consulting, he produces the Spec Media podcast, the first parody podcast with a science fiction spin. He also writes for OnViolence.com and other outlets. Michael spent three years at Amazon Studios, helping the organization grow from 30 people to over 500 while building, creating and improving strategic planning and business development for a company at the intersection of digital entertainment and technology, including helping Amazon Studios launch their licensing and merchandise business. Prior to coming to Amazon, he served for five years in the U.S. Army, with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan in both infantry and military intelligence. Michael also graduated from UCLA Anderson’s School of Management in the top 2% of his class, focusing on entertainment strategy. He has worked or consulted for companies such as Amazon Studios, The Walt Disney Company, NBC-Universal, Chipotle and We Are The Mighty.

Lynn Rosenthal is the Los Angeles-based CEO and Founder of Periscape, Inc. and Periscape Studios. She is a VR and AR enthusiast on the forefront of creating luxury VR/AR/MR Experience Centers at high-profile locations worldwide. With her expert sense of story and production gained in the trenches as a Hollywood producer, a wealth of knowledge of the retail world and a touch of savvy working as a high-profile marketing strategist, Lynn is delivering the best in location-based entertainment with both curated and original VR and AR content.  Lynn continues in her role as CEO of Rosenthal Media, an immersive media consulting firm that specializes in developing media identities, strategic campaigns and experiences for clients ranging from rock stars to global retailers. She is known for solving her clients’ biggest marketing challenges with a rare blend of humor, boldness, industry knowledge, and strategic thinking that unfailingly results in stellar creative execution. This is possible, in part, because she started her career as a comedy writer for Joan Rivers and Sam Kinison.

Johnny Monsarrat, CEO, Monsarrat, Inc.: In 1994, Johnny Monsarrat founded a $160 million Warner Bros. acquisition, Turbine, which invented MMO gaming, now a $20 billion industry. Now his new company, Monsarrat, is the world's best qualified team to surpass Pokémon Go with an AR mobile walking game, based on a multi-billion dollar movie / TV property to be announced. They are pioneering “Big Movement Gaming”, which puts an MMO game into an AR world. Then they'll spin out a platform for 3rd party AR experiences. Johnny is an Ivy League award-winning public speaker. His business partners and advisors include Brian Sullivan, co-creator of Age of Empires; Kate Edwards, former Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association; Henrik Strandberg, the first person to run a free-to-play videogame in the western hemisphere; and Wild Bill Stealey, co-creator of Sid Meier’s Civilization and Railroad Tycoon as former CEO of MicroProse. See http://monsarrat.com