PROGRAMMING SNEAK PEEK
Next week sees the first badges for the 2020 HERE Summit go live, but today we wanted to give you a sneak peek at some of the programming that we have in store for attendees of the Summit.
The Summit features a unique blend of talks, panels, salons, workshops, and town halls — and this year we’ll be continuing to evolve the ways in which we help the creative community connect.
But you knew all that already, you want to know who will be giving those talks, leading the workshops, and engaging in our salons.
There’s more to come, but here’s your first look at who will be on deck this year.
The Summit features a unique blend of talks, panels, salons, workshops, and town halls — and this year we’ll be continuing to evolve the ways in which we help the creative community connect.
But you knew all that already, you want to know who will be giving those talks, leading the workshops, and engaging in our salons.
There’s more to come, but here’s your first look at who will be on deck this year.
VIRTUAL REALITY & BEINGS
Pete Billington (Fable Studio) explores the convergence of art and technology. His career began at Silicon Graphics at the dawn of the web era. As a visual effects software consultant, he contributed to films like Star Wars and The Matrix. He helped pioneer the motion-capture pipeline and rapid prototyping design process now adopted by most major studios. His artwork can be found in over 15 feature films. He is the director of the acclaimed Virtual Reality experience Wolves in the Walls, which strives to balance narrative structure with natural, intuitive interaction. His next pursuit is the creation of a long-term character relationship utilizing Ai, interactive storytelling and a little magic.
Jessica Yaffa Shamash (Fable Studio) began her career at Pixar Animation Studios where she learned the art of making creatures into friends and infusing magic and whimsy into the everyday ordinary. Her passion for storytelling brought her to Facebook’s universally-recognized, Oculus Story Studio, known for pioneering and defining the landscape of Virtual Reality cinema. Her work marries innovation and timelessness, fusing various art forms and technology into new imaginative mediums. She is the Co-Creator and Creative Producer of Wolves in the Walls, a Neil Gaiman adaptation, which earned her a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Innovation in Interactive Media. This work was also featured at Sundance, Cannes and Tribeca Film Festival. She lives in San Francisco and is a founding member of Fable Studio.
Tender Claws is an indie game studio based in LA. The team is committed to creating compelling, unique games that are rooted in story and creatively tailored to compliment platform strengths. They've become recognized for quirky high-quality content and imaginative mechanics. Their debut PRY, was named one of Apple’s Top Apps of 2015 and was a finalist for The Future of Storytelling Prize and for IGF’s “Excellence in Narrative” award.
They next created Virtual Virtual Reality: a narrative comedy adventure that won Google Play’s best VR game of 2017, was a finalist for Unity’s Best VR game and one of the best selling/top reviewed on Oculus GO. Their AR virtual pet that feeds on your emotions, Tendar, was showcased at Sundance, received an Honorable Mention at the GDC Awards and won Innovation Awards at Indiecade and Games For Change. Currently they are in their first live actor run for The Under Presents where immersive theater meets VR gaming. An intriguing multiplayer experience set between two worlds: a jaunty vaudeville stage and the harrowing survival narrative.
They next created Virtual Virtual Reality: a narrative comedy adventure that won Google Play’s best VR game of 2017, was a finalist for Unity’s Best VR game and one of the best selling/top reviewed on Oculus GO. Their AR virtual pet that feeds on your emotions, Tendar, was showcased at Sundance, received an Honorable Mention at the GDC Awards and won Innovation Awards at Indiecade and Games For Change. Currently they are in their first live actor run for The Under Presents where immersive theater meets VR gaming. An intriguing multiplayer experience set between two worlds: a jaunty vaudeville stage and the harrowing survival narrative.
THEATRE
Charlie Miller is Associate Artistic Director at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. He is the co-founder and Curator of Off-Center, which began in 2010 as a small theatrical test kitchen has grown into a signature line of programming for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, credited with bringing immersive theatre to Colorado and helping establish Denver as a national hub for immersive art. Off-Center’s recent large-scale immersive and experiential projects, including Sweet & Lucky (2016), The Wild Party (2017), Between Us (2019), and The Last Defender (2019) have garnered local and national praise and attracted a significantly younger audience to the DCPA. His most recent projects include Camp Christmas created by Lonnie Hanzon and the upcoming world premiere of Theater of the Mind created by David Byrne and Mala Gaonkar.
THEMED ENTERTAINMENT
Mister and Mischief are Jeff and Andy Crocker, a husband and wife creative team who produce playful, one-of-a-kind experiences. Combining their collected background across film, television, theatre, comedy, and themed entertainment, they're out to create projects that inspire, delight, and turn strangers into co-conspirators. In addition to their popular existentialist puzzle play Escape from Godot, they have also created a 3D interactive human child.
Andy is a live experience designer and director with a background in theatre, television and immersive events. Specializing in playful genre parody and interactive comedy, Andy has worked with The Bezark Company, Comedy Central, IFC, adult swim, The Second City, Skirball Cultural Center, ComedySportz and Center Theatre Group.
Jeff has previously produced for film and television, visual effects, and projection mapping animation. Currently, he is a project manager for Cinnabar, a leading custom fabricator of museum exhibits, theme park attractions, and art installations. Recent projects include Wallis Annenberg PetSpace, Avatar: Discover Pandora, and the Community Planetarium at Orange Coast College. He is the president-elect of the Themed Entertainment Association, Western Division.
Andy is a live experience designer and director with a background in theatre, television and immersive events. Specializing in playful genre parody and interactive comedy, Andy has worked with The Bezark Company, Comedy Central, IFC, adult swim, The Second City, Skirball Cultural Center, ComedySportz and Center Theatre Group.
Jeff has previously produced for film and television, visual effects, and projection mapping animation. Currently, he is a project manager for Cinnabar, a leading custom fabricator of museum exhibits, theme park attractions, and art installations. Recent projects include Wallis Annenberg PetSpace, Avatar: Discover Pandora, and the Community Planetarium at Orange Coast College. He is the president-elect of the Themed Entertainment Association, Western Division.
MUSIC FESTIVALS
Nova Han (Electric Forest) One of the nation's lead visionaries and producers in the immersive marketing and live entertainment, Nova is the Creative Director for Madison House’s world-class Electric Forest Festival. Her works have also been featured at the Official Grammy’s Celebration, the Emmy’s, Coachella, Firefly Festival, and festivals world wide. She has provided works and entertainment for artists such as the Black Eyed Peas, Deadmau5, Bassnectar and Shpongle and has been the Creative Director for The String Cheese Incident since 2010. Nova has been recognized globally by XLIVE for Best Production Design in 2017 and 2018 for her works at Electric Forest.
ESCAPE GAMES
Husband and wife team Luke and Madison Rhoades are the owner’s and creative minds of Cross Roads Escape Games in Anaheim. Luke graduated Vanguard University with a BA in Performance and Technical Theatre. Madison graduated the University of Southern California with a BA in Fine Arts and Theatre. After graduating, they became a tag team art department designing, building, and painting sets for theaters and haunted attractions throughout Los Angeles. Cross Roads Escape Games opened in Anaheim January of 2016 with the award winning Hex Room game. In April 2016, the family friendly Fun House game opened followed by The Asylum mini game and The Box mini-game. Luke and Madison created the first ever strategic escape room, The Psych Ward, which opened December 2018. Still on the path to create unique experiences, their interactive theatre event, The Séance, opened October 2019 with a limited run.
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The Wild Optimists began when Juliana Patel (left) & Ariel Rubin (right), combined their theatre degrees and writing backgrounds with their lifelong love of gaming to create the Kickstarter sensation Escape Room In A Box: The Werewolf Experiment, now licensed to Mattel and winner of Game of the Year at the Mattel Inventor Awards. Today they focus on designing new ways to play, creating puzzle and gaming experiences for tabletop games, theme parks, music festivals, historical sites, marketing activations, and more.
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Impact & Engagement
Geoffrey Jackson Scott is a Brooklyn-based cultural organizer, creative producer, and engagement strategist. He is Co-Founder and Creative Director of Peoplmovr, a creative studio specializing in involvement, that partners with organizations, communities, and artists on the development and delivery of strategies designed to bring people closer. Peoplmovr centers the principle of equity in all areas of its work as part of its commitment to advancing love and collective liberation. Recently, Peoplmovr developed The Mile-Long Opera, a citywide public engagement project that brought together 1,000 singers for free performances on the High Line in Manhattan. At the heart of the work was an extensive initiative that activated non-profit arts and cultural organizations across all five boroughs. Seven Anchor Partners served as hubs for engaging local communities—from recruiting singers, to welcoming the public for open rehearsals and workshops, to hosting social and cultural events and public programs in the lead-up to the performances. Geoffrey proudly serves the field as a member of the Boards of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and the The Alliance of Artists Communities.
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Aaron Cedolia is a communications strategist, creative producer, and artist. He is Co-Founder, Communications Director of Peoplmovr. Aaron has worked for over ten years in communications strategy and marketing. He managed the overall communications strategy for New York University's (NYU) music and performing arts programs (2004-2012) and currently directs communications for NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. This work includes a holistic branding strategy of all web, social, print, and live event communications towards engaging multiple internal and external audiences. Aaron has produced several installations and public art projects in NYC and Chicago. His work is participation-based and often takes place in surprising and underused public spaces. He has created work for organizations including The Present Group, Art in Odd Places, New Museum's Festival of Ideas for a New City, and ArtPrize. Board member: The Laundromat Project.
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