Simon Crownshaw serves as Worldwide Media and Entertainment Strategy Director. In this role, he oversees the global industry team and manages the overall strategic direction for Microsoft. He provides leadership and direction to teams across studios, broadcasting, sports and live events and the solutions that power those focus areas. In addition to supporting the hundreds of global customers and helping them harness the power of Microsoft to enable media workflows, he is focused on media cloud adoption and the critical data and AI elements that will enable people and processes.

Andy Beach is the CTO for Media and Entertainment Industry at Microsoft. In this capacity he is responsible for the technical strategy for our three clouds -Azure, Dynamics, and Office 365 as they relate the M+E industry. He collaborates closely with product groups and account teams to help customers and partners in developing their media related technology solutions and reference architectures that address their rapidly changing needs.

Jon is a business and technology executive with 25+ years of experience in media, entertainment, medical, education, and telecommunications industries. Jon brings deep experience to the development and application of emerging technology through an understanding of industry culture, process, engineering, and market value. Based in Los Angeles, Jon currently works in partnership with creators, studios, partners, and system integrators worldwide to deliver hyper-scale cloud solutions that modernize production workflows, realize operational and financial efficiencies, and deliver new audience experiences.

Jess Loren is a seasoned entertainment professional, tech entrepreneur, and internationally published author. As CEO and founding partner of To Whom It May Concern, a production services company, and Founder and CEO of Global Objects, she leads the charge in democratizing access to digital replicas of the world. With over 15 years of experience, she has overseen production & experiential projects for brands like Netflix, Hulu, Apple+, Microsoft and NVIDIA, and is a voting member of the Television Academy and a member of the Visual Effects Society. Jess's research on the brain's response to visual imagery continues to guide her work in virtual production, creative development, and experiential marketing.

Erick Geisler is a recognized technology leader and two-time Emmy winner serving as the Chief Technology Officer of Global Objects. With extensive expertise in innovative fields like Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs), generative AI, LIDAR scanning, and photogrammetry, Erick spearheads the development of realistic digital environments, democratizing access to digital replicas of the world. A voting member of the Television Academy and a member of the Visual Effects Society, he combines his technical prowess and artistic vision to drive the success of various projects across diverse platforms. His leadership at Global Objects is shaping the future of digital experiences across multiple sectors.

As the VP of Virtual Production, Addy is immersed in Studio workflows and Industry standards for real time visualization for film and television. Addy is building a Disguise creator community and strategies that will further the proliferation of Virtual Production.

Company Description: disguise has a twenty-year history powering the world’s most spectacular visual experiences including live concerts for artists like Beyonce, location-based experiences like Illuminarium, virtual productions for Netflix and Amazon Prime and extended reality stages for companies like Siemens and Verizon and broadcast coverage for ITV and TUDN. disguise is a real-time production platform delivering the next dimension of visual experiences, bridging the physical and the virtual. Its combination of 3D visualization software, cloud solutions, platform, hardware and services provides creatives and technical teams the ability to realize any creative vision - no matter the complexity. Recognized by the Financial Times as a 2022 Tech hero, disguise is also a recipient of the Engineering, Science and Technology Emmy Award and Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation.

JP Castel is an independent producer who studied filmmaking at UCLA and started his career at Paramount Studios working under legendary producer Robert Evans. He then went on to produce several independent projects including KRISHA, which premiered at SXSW and won both the John Cassavetes Independent Spirit award and the IFP Gotham award before it was acquired by A24. JP’s recent features include INIT!ATION, which premiered at SXSW and was acquired by Saban Media in 2021, and STALKER, which won Shriekfest’s best thriller feature in 2021 and was distributed by Vertical Entertainment. In 2020, JP joined Evercast as a technical producer and now explores the challenges of remote collaborations and what the future may look like as the Vice President of Product.

Ray Thompson is the Senior Director of Partner and Industry Marketing for Avid Technology. Ray has spend 30 Years in the media industry in a variety of roles including Business Development, Sales, and Product Management/Marketing Experience focused on post production, Sports, Media (broadcast and film), and e-Sports. Some career highlights include the development of IP live streaming platform strategy, a key driver in the transformation of start-up software company from video editing focus for sports to content licensing and management/distribution of college sports assets via the web to college sports fans, has executed release of high-performance graphics chip, landing large-scale bid as primary provider of Graphics Processor for Microsoft’s Xbox 360… Ray has developed strategies that have helped penetrate the media/entertainment space for Fortune 500 technology company, developing ISV echo-system creating solutions based approach to selling. Ray is a co-Author of patent for assigning game data to universal time clock on traditional and IP based streams for the purposes of automated creation of highlights across user specified sample of games (video), creation of edits for purpose of recruiting and scouting, and for reporting based on game statistics with drill down to video capability and involved in the development of 3D real time motion capture application able to measure athletes down to the sub-micron level, leveraging game relationship with EA sports to develop simple UI and incorporating real NFL and College playbooks and behavior into Madden game engine for the purposes of high school, College, and Pro athlete development, pre-hab and rehab. Ray is married with 3 kids and enjoys running and going to concerts.

Jackie’s work as a VFX artist and supervisor is widely recognized in the industry, recently becoming an Epic Fellow. She contributed to many top grossing films such as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows II, Tron and Jurassic World. Her extensive roster of credits include film, music videos, live events, and commercials. Within CG Pro, as a co-founder, she is deeply involved in curriculum development, community building, and assisting students in finding rewarding positions that take advantage of their newly acquired skills. She has recently started a diversity non-profit called CG Empowers that provides scholarships for diverse groups to help retrain and up level skills in computer graphics.

Dani Bellar Pilukas is a technology leader at the intersection of creativity and production, with an impressive career spanning companies such as Cirque du Soleil, Tait, and Walt Disney Imagineering. Her expertise lies in redefining the way technology fuels creativity on a global scale. As an Imagineer, Dani led Walt Disney Imagineering into a new era of attractions, and played a key role in the creation of immersive experiences such as Pandora - The World of Avatar, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, and the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction in Shanghai, China. In her current role as the Director of Physical Production with Lux Machina Consulting, Dani continues to lead technical and creative teams in supporting Virtual Production and In Camera VFX LED Volume work across the globe, fueling the power of innovation and collaboration to transform the entertainment industry.

Barbara has spent 30 years in the media & entertainment industry with organizations such as the BBC, Autodesk, Epic Games and now HP Inc. As the Global M&E Industry Lead at HP, she oversees initiatives and industry partnerships that drive adoption of Z by HP technology solutions in entertainment content creation. She has led marketing and PR teams both in-house and agency-side, consulted for several start-ups and was also technology editor with Broadcast Magazine in the UK. She has a strong commercial and analytical background, having started her career as a commodity analyst/trader and holds a BSc in Agricultural Economics from University of London.

Tupac is a light magician, creative visionary and artistic genius. His internationally renowned work includes production design, visuals and lighting direction for acts and organisations such as: Elton John, Sting, Jon Bon Jovi, Beyoncé, Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Nederlands Dans Theater, UNKLE and Xu Bing at the V&A.

As an acclaimed lighting director in the fashion industry, Tupac has worked on shows for Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, Moschino, Prada, Hugo Boss and Thomas Tait. He is a celebrated artist, with his work exhibited across the world. He directed and produced Cosmos Within Us, a performative reality piece that debuted at the Venice Film Festival and won the Spirit of Raindance Award at the Raindance Film Festival. More recently, he has created “Unique” a multidisciplinary immersive music experience at the BFi and Sonar.

At Satore Studio, Tupac leads an international team of creative minds to create groundbreaking work, mixing art and technology. Tupac founded Satore Studio as a place to explore and create powerful art and multimedia experiences, combining lighting, projection, video, sound design, music, and immersive technologies.

Alan Lasky is a highly accomplished media professional with an extensive track record of developing, delivering, and selling new technologies within the media/entertainment and virtual reality sectors. Some of the technologies Alan has been instrumental in bringing to markets include LIDAR, high resolution digital acquisition, and 3D camera tracking among others. Alan is currently taking a deep-dive into Generative AI for Media.

Niall is VP, Partnerships at Move.ai. Niall is a specialist in deploying & productising AI-powered real-time and post production technologies for Media, Entertainment & Sport.

Company Description - Move.ai captures performance data from anyone, anywhere. Move.ai’s patented software extracts natural human motion from video using advanced AI, computer vision, biomechanics and physics, automatically retargeting the data to your character rig. Capture footage in any environment, with no suits and no markers either offline through the Move.ai app or through Move.ai's real-time Invisible Solution, in partnership with disguise.

Andrew Cochrane is an interactive and immersive content creator for mediums such as virtual and augmented reality, installations, live events, large-scale domes, and mobile & web apps. His extensive insight into both the creative and the technological aspects of modern content creation provides a unique blend of narrative focus, artistic savvy, and high-tech problem-solving.

Currently, he is consulting and working to bring exciting technology to the world of entertainment and immersive experiences. He is also finishing work on his VR film "The Carrier", which will be released in 2023.

Most recently, he was the Senior Vice President of Post Production Innovation at MSG Sphere Studios; Madison Square Garden Entertainment’s immersive entertainment venue being built in Las Vegas. He created and led the department at the studio responsible for all technological innovation in post-production, playback, and audio that will be used to create all types of content for shows at this new state-of-the-art immersive venue.

In 2019, he completed "THE 100%", a volumetric VR experience that premiered at TribecaX, where it won the award for Best Virtual Reality Experience. This experience was also selected as a finalist for the Creative Arts Emmy in the Innovation & Interactive Programming category and won several other awards for excellence in immersive storytelling.

Andrew is an expert in forming and leading teams for delivering innovative and technologically complex projects. He has been integral to the growing immersive entertainment space, both as a creator and a thinker – speaking at conferences around the world. His immersive content credits span the gamut of live-action, CGI, and real-time experiences for clients such as Intel, Adobe, USA Today, Google, GE, Disney, USA Network, Visa, Las Vegas, and many others. Andrew has also directed commercials for Disney, LG, VIZIO, Google, Target, Barco, and M&M’s. He has also done several traditional and VR projects featuring his own narrative and creative development.

Beck Veitch is a Compositing Supervisor at Wētā FX, with over seventeen years of experience in visual effects. She played an integral role in Wētā ’s work on Matt Reeves’ The Batman, helping to develop the look of camera lensing and rain effects for the action-packed Batmobile chase and has recently finished Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.

Beck’s previous projects include Lead Compositor on Disney’s Mulan and Alita: Battle Angel. In 2018, she won a Visual Effects Society Award for her work on the Oscar-nominated War for the Planet of the Apes, recognising her role in creating Caesar’s hidden fortress and its surrounding environment. Career highlights include compositing on Marvel's Falcon and the Winter Soldier, The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Charlotte’s Web.

Beck is committed to increasing the visibility of VFX as a career for girls and young women and regularly participates in Wētā FX’s outreach to local schools.

Bex joined Wētā FX in 2017 to work on Robert Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel, a project which stretched the envelope in the realm of Facial Motion.

As a Lead Facial Motion Animator, Bex plays a critical role in the creation of computer-generated facial animation in visual effects movies, ensuring that the subtleties of an actor's performance, translated to the movie's characters are realistic, believable, and emotionally engaging.

Hailing from the United Kingdom and growing up in the golden era of history-changing technologies within film, animation and games, she was always looking for a creative career path. While studying animation at university, this path pivoted into specialising in facial animation and the technologies consistently developing to bring performances to life.

Bex received a Visual Effects Society award in 2023 for her work on Avatar: The Way of Water where she was instrumental in the implementation of Wētā FX’s new APFS facial animation workflow.

She is a member of Women in Film and Television, WIFT.

Dan was on-set Visual Effects Supervisor on Avatar: The Way of Water, where he leveraged his 15 years of experience in both game and film visual effects working with directors to help create new virtual production techniques and workflows.

The real-time nature of the virtual set production environment taps into his knowledge of real-time engine/pre- rendered pipelines and how to connect them to modern film VFX workflows.

Through his time at Wētā FX, ILM and Sony Imageworks, Dan has worked on blockbuster franchises like The Avengers, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Avatar. He has also contributed to the VFX of multiple full length animated features Including Happy Feet and Hotel Transylvania. Dan is an active member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences as well as the VES. In 2010, he won a Visual Effects Society Award for his role in creating the jungles of Pandora for Avatar.

Dan’s storytelling work goes beyond feature films and includes supervising on the animated shorts that helped launch the highly successful game Overwatch, as well as cinematics for the franchises of World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone.

Eric Reynolds joined Wētā FX in 2005 to work as a Senior Animator on Peter Jackson’s Academy Award® winning King Kong. He continued work as an Animation Supervisor on Jumper, The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Bridge to Terabithia, as well as a Senior Animator on 30 Days of Night.

Eric’s long experience in the VFX industry has seen him work on high profile projects like James Cameron’s Avatar for which he also developed the motion cycles and behaviours for the flying creatures in the film, establishing their movement and character. He then went on to work as an Animation Supervisor on Rise of the Planet of the Apes which won him a VES award for the character Caesar.

Eric also worked as Animation Supervisor on Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit Trilogy, earning him a VES award as well as Oscar and BAFTA nominations for the dragon Smaug.

He has recently wrapped on James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water.

Eric is an active member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Author of Promptcraft, Creator & Artist, Interactive concept development, showrunner & strategist for media tech events. I love making with others & designing solutions.

I've written for & about AI, film, the metaverse and interactive media for 25 years. I love concept & series design for family participation including game and challenge shows, DIY and making media collabs.

I lead technical and creative media teams to produce experiences and features including series, XR, immersive, streaming & virtual. I started REALITYCRAFT as a design lab to create meaningful connections & experiences people share for a lifetime.

Experience: 15 years in cinematic VR/XR, live art experiences across games, metaverse with 24 years in streaming & broadcast media strategy and production.

Writer, producer, engineer & experience designer bridging multicast channels, shows, games & interactive series for broadcast play. I deliver workflows, show design & streaming events as a full service development partner.

FX co-founder at @ToyshoppeSystems for practical hardware FX. CEO @EvoRealitycraft for playable experiences with metaverse channel integrations, content networks & tech for interactive series.

Over 20 years I've co-produced over 50 media campaigns boosting civic engagement, improving collaboration and raising millions for great causes. In the Affordable Care Act launch we helped 7 million people enroll for healthcare, producing hundreds of live shows & segments with over 60 celebrities and world leaders.

As a systems designer I focus on spatial interfaces, engagement strategy, AI & XR in workflows and networks that enable collaboration. I advise in media, interactivity, AI, FX, robotics & high tech innovation, bringing teams together to design new workflows, workshops, studios and channels.

Fernando Rivas is a researcher at Arquimea Research Center working on NeRF for the last three years and publishing at top-level scientific venues. As a result of his research, he founded Volinga, a spin-out from Arquimea Group, with the goal of transferring NeRF technology to the end users.

Fred Raskin, ACE, a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, began his career as an assistant editor to Dylan Tichenor (Boogie Nights) and Sally Menke (Kill Bill), before moving up to additional editor on Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love and Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow. He subsequently edited four more of Lin’s films: Annapolis, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, and Fast Five. More recently, he has received acclaim for his notable collaborations with Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight, and Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood) and James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3). For his work, Fred has received considerable recognition including two BAFTA nominations and two ACE Eddie Award nominations.

Greg D’Auria recently co-edited the blockbuster hit GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 directed and written by James Gunn for Marvel Studios and Disney. He previously teamed with Gunn on THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: HOLIDAY SPECIAL for DISNEY+ and HBO Max’s fan-favorite, PEACEMAKER, starring John Cena.

Prior to that, he worked with director Justin Lin on F9: THE FAST SAGA for Universal. D’Auria and Lin previously teamed up on Paramount’s STAR TREK: BEYOND and Universal’s FAST AND FURIOUS 6. D’Auria has also enjoyed a successful relationship with writer-director S. Craig Zahler, having collaborated with him on DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE starring Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn, neo-noir prison thriller BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 starring Vince Vaughn, and the cult horror western BONE TOMAHAWK starring Kurt Russell.

D’Auria came up assisting on films including DJANGO UNCHAINED, FAST FIVE, BRIEF INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN, ANNAPOLIS, THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT, and KILL BILL.

As a principal and founder at Lux Machina Consulting and CTO of NEP Virtual Studios, Phil Galler strives to push the boundaries of technology and design in the entertainment industry. Focusing on in-camera visual effects, real-time mixed reality and the future of film making and live broadcast, he has been fortunate enough to find himself at the crossroads of technological innovation and creativity.

Before starting Lux Machina Consulting, Phil worked as a programmer and project manager for one of the largest entertainment technology vendors in the world, handling design and execution of some of the most preeminent shows in the entertainment industry.

Passionate about developing new tools that span high-end media servers, automated lighting, LED, and projection, Phil works across a wide variety of entertainment formats to tackle complex, large-scale entertainment projects and finds ways to empower Lux Machina’s clients with versatile design options, new technology, and unique solutions.

Jessica Hawk is the product marketing leader for Microsoft's Data & AI business, focusing on product strategy, GTM, sales enablement, industry alignment and driving market making execution and outcomes. Prior to joining Microsoft, she was a co-founder of Capax Global, a National Systems Integrator Partner, that grew into a global services company offering a variety of consulting services and eventually focused exclusively on Microsoft's Azure Application and Data Platform. This led to phenomenal growth and a merger with Hitachi Solutions where the combined companies became one of the very few Microsoft-only “Super Partners” who were able to deliver on all aspects of Microsoft’s Azure, Dynamics and Power Platform solutions. She remained on the executive team at Hitachi Solutions as Senior Vice President of Operations, overseeing its Azure Cloud business including P&L, product strategy, finance and operations, recruiting and team development, and acted as the Executive liaison to Microsoft for both Capax Global and Hitachi Solutions.

Joanna joined Wētā FX in 2009 to work on Avatar as a Lighting TD. Since then, Joanna has worked on some of Weta’s key projects including The Hobbit trilogy, where she became a Lighting Lead, managing the lighting design for a number of sequences. She was also a Lighting Artist for The Adventures of Tintin and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Joanna has recently wrapped on Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 and before that, on Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder.

As CG Supervisor, Joanna is responsible for delivering 3D content for the film, collaborating with supervisors and colleagues across the VFX pipeline to ensure the work is delivered to the highest quality. For Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Joanna worked on a proprietary caching pipeline that enabled the rendering of a huge amount of geo in extreme detail.

Prior to joining Wētā FX, Joanna worked at Framestore in the UK and Animal Logic in Australia.

As Chief Technology Officer, Kimball leads the strategy around future technology for VFX production.

Kimball oversees the complex web of user facing tools, new research and the render software which fuels the ever-evolving VFX pipeline. His focus is on building an integrated and flexible system that has the capability to expand the volume and variety of projects that the company can work on, while retaining and enhancing the stunning visuals Wētā FX is famous for. Key components of this are accomplished by managing external relationships with Wētā FX’s technology partners.

With the ambition of easing the future of VFX production, Kimball contributes time to the Academy Software Foundation. He also plays a role in defining open standards and software within the industry for the interchange of data between Wētā FX and partners.

Kimball brings 25 years of VFX experience to Wētā FX, having originally joined the company in 2017 in a role that focused on our proprietary rendering software, Manuka. He then transitioned into a role that was focused on Gazebo. As a technology leader, he then moved to Head of Department of Engineering, and then Head of Architecture before taking this appointment.

Prior to Wētā, Kimball’s career in media and entertainment took him to Dolby Laboratories, Lowry Digital, Dreamworks Animation, Apple and Silicon Grail. Although there are many career highlights, his time at Lowry Digital was particularly special as he received the Academy Scientific & Engineering Award in 2012 for the creation of a toolset to reduce noise and other artifacts in images for the filmmaking process. During this time, Kimball worked on preserving numerous landmark films and repairing current film issues, as well as personally rewarding non-movie projects like working on the Apollo 11 moon landing footage.

Dr. Orlando Avila García is the head of AI at Arquimea Research Center and co-founder at Volinga. He obtained his PhD at University of Hertfordshire, UK. With over 15 years of experience, he has contributed to numerous research and innovation projects across diverse domains, including banking systems engineering, online advertising, online fraud prevention, customer service, and robotics. In 2020, Dr. Avila García assumed leadership of the AI research team at Arquimea Research Center, where his primary focus lies in the cutting-edge field of Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF). He co-founded Volinga AI in 2023, aiming to bring the NeRF research to the market and drive its practical applications.

Pav Grochola is a FX and Look of Picture Supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks, most recently completing work on the animated feature SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE.

After finishing his Fine Arts degree in Australia in 1999, Grochola saw a future in utilizing computers creatively for the screen. He began his VFX career in commercials, but soon moved to London to work on films.

Grochola spent five years at Double Negative, specializing in effects animation and working on several of the HARRY POTTER films. He has since worked on over 30 feature films and has received numerous awards. In 2012 and 2020, he won Annie Awards for his effects work on EDGE OF TOMORROW and THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES. In 2019, he won a VES award for co-supervising the FX on SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE.

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag is an A.I. director, multidisciplinary creator, visionary, and an outspoken advocate for the conscious use of technology.

Pinar and her partner Gary Koepke co-founded Seyhan Lee, the world's first studio devoted to generative A.I., in 2020. The firm has become the hub for the entertainment industry’s smooth transition into generative A.I.. Seyhan Lee develops human-guided practical and thought-provoking creative A.I. solutions for the film, broadcast, and entertainment industries. At the core of the company's mission lies in developing and perfecting conscious use of technology for the immersive new world, and it's a mission of all of their projects to expand mindfulness and possibilities for the meaningful elation of humanity through technology.

Pinar has always used creative storytelling to bring future technologies into the collective consciousness. She was one of the first creatives to use face-tracking technology for her Diplo music video in 2011, she created the world's first XR catwalk for a virtual fashion line in 2016, and in 2018 she became one of the world's first A.I. artists when Google made a unique tool for her to create with artificial intelligence.

Pinar's work is exhibited at and resides in the permanent collections of Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, the New Museum, New York, and Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara. She won D&AD in VFX Emerging Realities in 2021 for Seyhan Lee's A.I. film Connections for Beko. She writes and speaks passionately on how humans will remain relevant in the age of A.I. and has previously appeared at conferences such as SXSW, Google I/O, Eyeo Festival, TEDx, and others.

For the presentation, she’ll be speaking specifically about Cuebric, the tool that puts generative AI into the hands of the world's most visionary filmmakers and content creators. You can title the presentation: Cuebric: Generative AI Comes to Hollywood.

Pratik Suketu is a creative technologist, filmmaker, and entrepreneur who combines powerful narratives with cutting-edge technology to deliver emotionally resonant and visually captivating experiences. He collaborates with XR's industry leaders to develop advanced AI-driven creative tools and workflows to produce unique storytelling platforms. A two-time MIT Reality Hack winner, he is recognized for his inventive methods of creating experiences. Pratik's work has been showcased in various galleries worldwide.

Rachel Joy Victor is an independent designer, strategist and worldbuilder, working with emergent technologies and mediums (XR/AI/web3) to create cohesive narrative, brand, and product experiences at the intersection of systems and humans. She designs for a range of applications: from multiplatform narratives and immersive experiences, to tools and platforms, to spaces and cities. Rachel draws from her education in computational neuroscience and spatial economics to facilitate the creation of data-informed emergent experience where world simulation and cognitive architectures intersect. This includes the development of tools to enable world state management that responds dynamically to real-time changes of individual agents within it and facilitates procedurally responsive experiences. Rachel’s clients have included Disney, HBO, Technicolor, Vans, Ford, Nike, Havas, Meow Wolf, Niantic, and many more.

Rachel is passionate about offering a more complete picture of the considerations of design for our new reality, and has led executive education sessions at Activision, Unilever Prestige, WB/Sony/NBCU, UGGs, Crocs, and Red Bull, and spoken as an expert on design for emerging tech at the Dr. Phil Show, NAB Show, Infinity Festival, Future of Film Fest, Atos + SAP DEI Summit, Immerse Global Summit, Games for Change, and more.

Rick Champagne leads Global Media & Entertainment Industry Strategy and Marketing for NVIDIA. Rick works closely with customers and industry partners in the film, television, broadcast, and advertising industries to promote the advancement and adoption new technologies. With a long history of managing products such as the Autodesk 3ds Max and Maya Entertainment Creation Suites, Softimage, Mudbox, and Painter, Rick has been in the service of artists and technologists for over two decades. He maintains close ties to industry as a member of the Visual Effects Society, HPA, and Royal Television Society. He also serves on the Board of Governors of the Advance Imaging Society and as a committee member of the Academy Software Foundation.

Rob Sloan is the Co-Founder & CEO of Orbis Tabula, an innovative digital twin services company. At Orbis, Rob works with clients to render physical and imagined locations as adaptable virtual worlds for Media & Entertainment projects. Rob also has over a decade of experience teaching advanced technical filmmaking concepts as a Graduate Professor at Full Sail University. As both an established filmmaker and lecturer, Rob has evangelized innovative technologies like digital cinema workflows, ICVFX Virtual Production, and Generative AI for many years.

Cinematographer Erik “Wolfie” Wolford specializes in commercials, features, and XR production using LED volumes and Unreal Engine.

As a cinematographer, Wolfie is known for his beauty lighting styles. His latest work includes a Miley Cyrus music video, the feature film Unicorn Diaries, multi cam show Elevator Pitch season 8,9 and 10, and the tv show The GOAT CODE.

Wolfie helmed high-profile XR productions using LED volumes and Unreal. These titles include, Mr Spam Gets a New Hat produced by David Prescott and directed by academy award-winning William Joyce. His television credits include Season 8 of Elevator Pitch, which used LED sets combined with practical sets. On Redbull’s Plane Swap, Wolfie shot live-action hosts integrating virtual sets in Unreal with practical sets lit to match seamlessly. For Riot Games Porter Robinson, Wolfie lit virtual sets in Unreal and then shot live-action content using LED Volumes. Wolfie serves the global market from Hollywood CA.

Wolfie came up through the lighting department in the 1990’s lighting features, music videos and commercials with legendary directors Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Mc. G and Francis Lawrence. Soon Wolfie was joining lighting crews on big-budget features including Shane Black’s Iron Man 3, JJ Abrams Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar where Wolfie specialized in miniature set lighting.

Edward has deep hands-on experience in the CG world. He has worked for ILM, Disney, and Digital Domain on blockbuster films – Jurassic World, The Lion King, and Jungle Book. Widely recognized as a cutting-edge technologist, he has led teams of developers in architecting and enhancing VFX related software. As co-founder of CG Pro, he creates and teaches dynamic courses focused on Unreal Engine, VFX tools and the emerging world of Virtual Production.

Elijah Allan-Blitz is an Emmy award-winning Director. He was the first VR Director for Time Magazine with an experience about the holocaust created as a companion piece for the Ken Burns documentary, Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War.

He has since partnered with Van Jones to create The Messy Truth VR Experience. A virtual reality series starring Marvel actors designed as a curriculum for empathy.

Most recently, he directed the first AR short film for Disney + called Remembering.

Elijah has also directed VR experiences for Aloe Blacc, PBS, Laird Hamilton, HBO, and Michael Pollan.

Damien Stolarz is a technology executive, inventor, and author. He has led the development of numerous cutting-edge, award-winning technologies in mobile apps, video streaming, smartphone accessories, peer-to-peer networking, and in-vehicle systems. As an IP professional, Damien has created successful 8- and 9- figure licensing campaigns and performed due diligence on over half a billion dollars of patent transactions. Damien has authored numerous technical books and articles on digital video and emerging technology. He holds a dozen patents in the areas of security, AR/VR, interactive television, mobile device integration, and artificial intelligence. Damien received a BS in Computer Science/Engineering from UCLA and is a registered patent agent (USPTO #67646).

Jerome Prescod is a 2020 Engineering Emmy winner for his team efforts in remote workflow solutions. Born in the tropical island of Trinidad and Tobag, Jerome found a passion for technology at a young age and made his way to Los Angeles having now worked in IT for nearly 20 years. Currently a team member of Disney's renowned Content Security Team within Studio Technology; Jerome’s focus is in both the post-production workflows, cybersecurity and content, with a desire to work with creatives.

As a respected member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), British Academy of Film Television Arts (BAFTA), and the Visual Effects Society (VES), James Knight has had a front-row seat to the exciting evolution of the media and entertainment industry. Currently serving as the Head of Global Media and Entertainment at AMD, Knight plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of visual effects and virtual production, steering the development and implementation of innovative digital solutions. In his capacity, he manages all of AMD's studio relationships worldwide, which includes major studios and VFX & post houses, putting him at the intersection of technology and storytelling in the global entertainment sphere.

Charlie Fink writes the weekly Forbes column "This Week in XR" and co-hosts its companion podcast. Since 2016, he as been covering AI, XR, and The Metaverse for Forbes. Fink is the author of the critically acclaimed AR-enabled books Charlie Fink’s Metaverse (2017), and Convergence, How The World Will Be Painted With Data (2019). Fink teaches at Chapman University and ASU.

Charlotte Nelson is a dynamic professional currently serving as the VP of Strategic Organizational Planning at Digital Domain. Her extensive background in VFX spans over 50 film, TV, and animation projects. From story development and previz to virtual production, live-action, and final deliveries, Charlotte's experience encompasses the entire production pipeline. Previously Head of Production at the largest visualization company in the world, she also worked in VFX Production roles at two of the top studios in London prior to relocating to the US.

As the Co-Chair of the Los Angeles section of the Visual Effects Society (VES), Charlotte actively advances the interests of VFX professionals in the region. She is a strong advocate for shared knowledge, mentorship, and the recognition of visual effects artists. Her passion for fostering a global community within the industry fuels her belief in the power of collaboration and support.

With an MBA from UCLA, Charlotte combines her creative expertise with strong business acumen. She is also a producer and co-founder of Slapworks Animation studio, driving the development of original content. Alongside her professional pursuits, Charlotte actively supports the Women in Animation Group, and champions diversity.

Charlotte Nelson's contributions to the VFX industry, her dedication to innovation and collaboration, and her strategic vision have earned her widespread recognition. She continues to shape the exciting future of Digital Domain and the VFX industry as a whole.

Eliot Mack started his career as a mechanical engineer, crashing composite vehicles at the University of Michigan and MIT. He got his first taste of the entertainment industry designing a 5 ton walking dinosaur robot at Walt Disney Imagineering's R&D group.

Moving to the opposite scale of the robotics spectrum, he joined iRobot as the lead designer of the original Roomba, the world's first successful home robot.

In 2004, having had his fill of chasing dust bunnies, Eliot followed his interests in visual effects and motion tracking and founded Lightcraft Technology. By applying real time robotics technology to the motion picture industry, he went on to create the Emmy Award-winning Previzion and Halide FX virtual studio systems.

In 2018, he teamed up with Avid founder Bill Warner and CTO Greg Cockroft to create a new vision of 'ultralight' virtual production technology for everyone, leading to the Jetset iOS app.

For over 25 years, Michael has worked with the Film, Television and Broadcast industries and has devoted most of his career to working with manufacturers of cutting-edge technology and evangelizing their tools. He works with the American Cinema Editors and has moderated several panels with top TV and Film editors at ACE's EditFest, as well as presenting technologies at NAB, IBC, SuperMeet, SMPTE, DCS, LACPUG, HPA and other trade shows, seminars and industry events.

And he not only works with editors, but he has even played one on TV; as the editor of the late Sydney Pollack in an episode of the hit TV show, Entourage.

Eddi Weinwurm is CEO and CTO of ObviousFuture, a German AI company focused on media analytics. He has many years of experience in both the development of media management software and in artificial intelligence. He already once revolutionized media asset management by inventing modern project-based PAM. As an AI evangelist, he has been preaching about the upcoming revolution and its possible dangers and potentials for years.

Cinematographer Erik “Wolfie” Wolford specializes in commercials, features, and XR production using LED volumes and Unreal Engine.

As a cinematographer, Wolfie is known for his beauty lighting styles. His latest work includes a Miley Cyrus music video, the feature film Unicorn Diaries, multi cam show Elevator Pitch season 8,9 and 10, and the tv show The GOAT CODE.

Wolfie helmed high-profile XR productions using LED volumes and Unreal. These titles include, Mr Spam Gets a New Hat produced by David Prescott and directed by academy award-winning William Joyce. His television credits include Season 8 of Elevator Pitch, which used LED sets combined with practical sets. On Redbull’s Plane Swap, Wolfie shot live-action hosts integrating virtual sets in Unreal with practical sets lit to match seamlessly. For Riot Games Porter Robinson, Wolfie lit virtual sets in Unreal and then shot live-action content using LED Volumes. Wolfie serves the global market from Hollywood CA.

Wolfie came up through the lighting department in the 1990’s lighting features, music videos and commercials with legendary directors Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Mc. G and Francis Lawrence. Soon Wolfie was joining lighting crews on big-budget features including Shane Black’s Iron Man 3, JJ Abrams Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar where Wolfie specialized in miniature set lighting.

As Business Development Manager for the Americas at Blackmagic Design, David focuses his efforts on expanding the use of the creative tools for visual media production. His passion for innovation and technology are paired with his respect for craft and storytelling.

David’s career spans over 25 years in visual arts and media production.

David started his professional journey in the early 1990’s as a documentary filmmaker working on various projects in and around the high performance military aircraft industry. The experience exposed him to the full gamut of the production workflow from cameras to post production.

David saw new and exciting prospects to visual storytelling through the emerging computer aided production technologies in the mid 1990’s. He worked on industry leading productions utilizing advanced composting and green screen technology in both broadcast and motion picture pre-visualization while working for Discreet Logic, later Autodesk Media & Entertainment.

In the early 2000’s David was the project lead on the implementation of real-time graphics technology at CNBC and later NBCU, where in 2008 the use of fully immersive virtual set production was highlighted by NBC News coverage of the Presidential Election.

David established his own technology and production company in 2010 and worked to provide the real time visual effect technologies he had help pioneer at the studio and network levels to a broader audience of users. He continued to innovate techniques and technologies in the virtual production market leading up to his current role with Blackmagic Design.

Founder and CEO of Brinx.TV, host of The NIL House, and six-time Emmy-winning creator, host, and executive producer of over 1,500 segments of Sport Science, John Brenkus has worked with over 1,800 of the greatest athletes of all time.

He's been featured on ESPN, ABC, CNBC, and Fox Sports, sand in Sports Illustrated, Forbes, Wired, and GQ - to name just a few.

He's spoken and keynoted around the world--from the TED stage to the headquarters of Fortune 500 companies.

And his book,The Perfection Point: Sport Science Predicts the Fastest Man, the Highest Jump, and the Limits of Athletic Performance, is an Amazon, Barnes & Noble, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Publisher's Weekly best-seller. John has made the science of champion building his entire career. And he's a pro.

Frank Patterson is a studio executive, entrepreneur and higher education thought leader. He serves as President and CEO of Trilith Studios, the second largest purpose-built film studio in North America, where Avengers: Endgame, WandaVision and The Suicide Squad were produced, among others. Most recently, he led the transition of the studio from a facilities business to a three-pillar business focused on content, technology, and world-class facilities.

Prior to Trilith, Patterson co-founded and served as the CEO of Pulse Evolution Corporation, a technology company that produces hyper-realistic digital humans for live and virtual reality applications. While at Pulse, Patterson produced the immersive live production of Michael Jackson’s “Slave to the Rhythm” at the Billboard Music Awards, which featured an original performance by Pulse’s digital human likeness of the late Michael Jackson.

Patterson launched his entertainment career by founding and leading several film production companies, including Houston Cinema Group and Envisage Media, where he produced and directed straight-to-video feature film content as well as commercials and various video products for brands.

As an educator, Patterson teaches producing at Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts, where he served as dean for 14 years. He has taught at the University of Texas and Chapman University, where he also served as associate dean, and The Los Angeles Film School, where he led the school as president.

The “Hollywood Reporter” named Patterson one of the nation’s top mentors to a generation of Hollywood filmmakers. The Florida Governor’s Office recognized him for "inspiring a generation of Florida filmmakers" and for his "contribution to and support of production in Florida."

His creative and research activities are focused at the intersection of artificial intelligence and immersive technologies, with an interest in digital human agency.

Tommy Snyder is the Director of Product at Evercast. With a passion for harnessing technology to create transformative products, he aims to be a visionary for innovation in the film space. He brings over 10 years of experience in the tech industry, consistently leading cross-functional teams to deliver cutting-edge solutions that push boundaries and delight users. Tommy holds degrees in Information Systems & Film from Colorado State University. He was a key contributor to the sale of a small startup, which led to his role as Director of Photography for NBCU for 5 years.

Having worked at Brompton between 2017 and 2019 as Product Specialist, followed by senior technical roles at disguise and Votion Studios [Hong Kong], Cesar is an expert when it comes to knowing how to use technology to create and deliver spectacular visual, virtual, and live experiences. He has an incredibly strong background in the industry and in his new role as Product Lead he is guiding the way with new and existing products, liaising with Brompton’s key customers across the globe and building deeper connections with them.

Jeremy Brooks is an Emmy-nominated VFX/Virtual production Producer with over 10 years of experience working across TV, film, music, promos, and experimental content. His diverse credits and background make him an amazing problem solver and an excellent Producer. Jeremy is charismatic, Articulate & incredibly hard-working.

With in-depth knowledge and experience working in VFX, ICVFX, VR, immersive formats, and AR applications. Highly experienced at working with senior management, creatives, and executives while budgeting, organizing, and producing high-end TV series,Blockbuster hits, Award winning Indies, interactive experiences, VR walkthroughs, ad campaigns & more. A confident leader with hands-on experience setting up shoots and dealings with crews at the forefront of production. His knowledge is diverse, and his producing skills are unquestionable.

With the last 3 years of experience, Jeremy has become a phenomenal talent and collaborative problem solver for virtual production. His expansive technical knowledge and creative flare gets maximum results across film and TV, regardless of the budget. Starting his VP career as a freelance virtual production project manager, Jeremy has an incredible eye and understands the distinctions of great VP artistry. Jeremy has worked both the facility and client side and understands each arena's inner workings and politics. Jeremy is highly passionate about his work. His specialty lies in taking projects from start to finish. Currently, he’s partnered with Netflix.

Rick Grandy is a Principal Solutions Architect at NVIDIA focused on graphics and machine learning for the Gaming, Advertising and Media & Entertainment industries. Rick has nearly 3 decades of experience in visual effects and animation with industry leaders Industrial Light and Magic, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Digital Domain, Bad Robot, and others. His work initially centered on the development of digital characters and animation tools. Over time it grew to cover the VFX pipeline end-to-end including real-time previsualization, asset management, post-production, and ingestion/delivery systems. At NVIDIA, Rick has spent the past 5 years combining his experience with the latest in production technology and advanced research to help our customers build the solutions necessary to perform magic on the screen.

Matt Jefferson has over 25 years of experience in supporting software developers, strategic technology partners and solution integrators to build and deliver innovative solutions for broadcast, film and live streaming. He recently completed his 13th year at Blackmagic Design leading strategic partnerships and developer relations.

David has over 25 years of experience in the visual effects industry for film and television. Working on countless television shows and films like Sharknado have given him a keen insight into the needs and requirements of post-production professionals across genres. David is an avid photographer and artist, and was originally drawn to AI technology to bolster his artistic endeavors. He is well-known in the maker community for pioneering a technique for 3d printing on fabric, paving the way for new technologies in fashion.

As a senior software engineer with experience running a small team-based agency, Grant provides the long-term vision, technical planning skills, and team leadership to our operation. Grant ran a small crew of VJ artists for a number of years, coordinating performances in the electronic music scene. Running hundreds of shows from local dives to world-renowned festivals such as EDC Las Vegas has given him a strong foundation of experience in live-event production. Grant began his career in film and television as a director, editor and graphics artist, netting him two Emmys and two Addy awards.

Ben Hansford is an award-winning Director living at the intersection of storytelling, entertainment, and interactive experiential. His commercial work melds a love for comedy with emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Unreal Engine, XR/virtual production, motion capture, Unity game dev, as well as more "traditional" vfx.

Born in New Orleans LA, and raised on a steady diet of movies, fine arts, hip-hop, and Dungeons & Dragons, Ben elevated his passion for storytelling by attending USC's Graduate School of Film & Television. (Where he now teaches a course in Filmmaking with an emphasis on Artificial Intelligence & Emerging Technology).

Ben has been fortunate enough to direct for clients such as Nike, Old Spice, Bethesda, Bungie, Activision, EA, Call of Duty, Playstation, Microsoft, Mountain Dew, Zynga, P&G, Target, Netflix, Marvel, & more.

Damien Stolarz led the technical team that developed Evercast’s Emmy-award winning video production & collaboration software. He is an innovator in the areas of real-time communication and peer-to-peer networking, and has authored numerous technical books including Mastering Internet Video (Addison-Wesley). He holds a dozen patents in the areas of security, AR/VR, interactive television, mobile device integration, and artificial intelligence. Damien received a degree in Computer Science/Engineering from UCLA and is a registered patent agent.

Oscar-winning visual effects specialist Craig Barron has spent his career evolving visual effects into new and immersive experiences.

Joining Magnopus in 2014, he’s been helping to shape the future of virtual and augmented reality in filmmaking and beyond. Starting out at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), he played a part in the visual effects for films such as The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. He then went on to produce VFX for feature films, commercials, television, computer games and IMAX from his own studio, Matte World Digital. It was there he worked on Zodiac, Alice in Wonderland, and Hugo.

Over the years, Craig has contributed to the visual effects on more than 100 films, bringing artistic visions to life for Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, and Tim Burton to name a few. He received an Emmy Award for his work on By Dawn's Early Light, and an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects on Batman Returns. In 2009, he won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

At Magnopus, Craig has led the creative team on numerous award-winning projects, including the original short film Remembering for Disney+ which was produced using virtual production techniques.

Craig is a film historian, museum exhibit curator, and educator with a focus on the history of visual effects in classic films—from Hollywood’s studio age to the modern era.

A seasoned producer, Daisy Leak keeps on pushing boundaries to shape immersive experiences of the future.

She brings more than 13 years’ experience to her role as Director of Production at Magnopus, working on Emmy-nominated MISSION: ISS, the acclaimed Remembering for Disney+, and the multi-award-winning Expo Dubai Xplorer for Expo 2020.

Before joining, Daisy spent eight years as a producer at The Walt Disney Company, working on social games and interactive—from initial idea through to launch and live ops. She loves working with technology and entertainment teams to solve problems that push augmented, virtual and mixed reality experiences to a whole new level.

Prior to her career in production, Daisy was a successful TV and film actress with appearances in Cloverfield (2008) and Criminal Minds (2011) and worked as a stand-up comedian at the Improv Hollywood.

As Chief Technology Officer, Kimball leads the strategy around future technology for VFX production.

Kimball oversees the complex web of user facing tools, new research and the render software which fuels the ever-evolving VFX pipeline. His focus is on building an integrated and flexible system that has the capability to expand the volume and variety of projects that the company can work on, while retaining and enhancing the stunning visuals Wētā FX is famous for. Key components of this are accomplished by managing external relationships with Wētā FX’s technology partners.

With the ambition of easing the future of VFX production, Kimball contributes time to the Academy Software Foundation. He also plays a role in defining open standards and software within the industry for the interchange of data between Wētā FX and partners.

Kimball brings 25 years of VFX experience to Wētā FX, having originally joined the company in 2017 in a role that focused on our proprietary rendering software, Manuka. He then transitioned into a role that was focused on Gazebo. As a technology leader, he then moved to Head of Department of Engineering, and then Head of Architecture before taking this appointment.

Prior to Wētā, Kimball’s career in media and entertainment took him to Dolby Laboratories, Lowry Digital, Dreamworks Animation, Apple and Silicon Grail. Although there are many career highlights, his time at Lowry Digital was particularly special as he received the Academy Scientific & Engineering Award in 2012 for the creation of a toolset to reduce noise and other artifacts in images for the filmmaking process. During this time, Kimball worked on preserving numerous landmark films and repairing current film issues, as well as personally rewarding non-movie projects like working on the Apollo 11 moon landing footage.

Naida Albright has been working with pro filmmakers and content providers on behalf of RED Digital Cinema for over five years. As the Senior Director, Global Strategic Relations for RED Naida strategizes opportunities for the RED brand globally, while continuing her focus of cultivating filmmaker relationships. Naida is an Associate Member of the American Society of Cinematographers. She has been moderating filmmaker panel discussions for over twenty years.

Bex joined Wētā FX in 2017 to work on Robert Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel, a project which stretched the envelope in the realm of Facial Motion.

As a Lead Facial Motion Animator, Bex plays a critical role in the creation of computer-generated facial animation in visual effects movies, ensuring that the subtleties of an actor's performance, translated to the movie's characters are realistic, believable, and emotionally engaging.

Hailing from the United Kingdom and growing up in the golden era of history-changing technologies within film, animation and games, she was always looking for a creative career path. While studying animation at university, this path pivoted into specialising in facial animation and the technologies consistently developing to bring performances to life.

Bex received a Visual Effects Society award in 2023 for her work on Avatar: The Way of Water where she was instrumental in the implementation of Wētā FX’s new APFS facial animation workflow.

She is a member of Women in Film and Television, WIFT.

Joanna joined Wētā FX in 2009 to work on Avatar as a Lighting TD. Since then, Joanna has worked on some of Weta’s key projects including The Hobbit trilogy, where she became a Lighting Lead, managing the lighting design for a number of sequences. She was also a Lighting Artist for The Adventures of Tintin and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Joanna has recently wrapped on Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 and before that, on Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder.

As CG Supervisor, Joanna is responsible for delivering 3D content for the film, collaborating with supervisors and colleagues across the VFX pipeline to ensure the work is delivered to the highest quality. For Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Joanna worked on a proprietary caching pipeline that enabled the rendering of a huge amount of geo in extreme detail.

Prior to joining Wētā FX, Joanna worked at Framestore in the UK and Animal Logic in Australia.

Paul Debevec is Chief Research Officer at Netflix’s Eyeline Studios, Adjunct Research Professor at the University of Southern California, and a Governor of the Visual Effects Branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Paul's work in photogrammetry, HDRI image-based lighting, photoreal digital characters, and virtual production has received two Academy Sci-Tech Awards, the SMPTE Progress Medal, and a Lifetime Achievement Emmy. His work has contributed to the Oscar-Winning Visual Effects in The Matrix, Spider-Man 2, Benjamin Button, Avatar, Gravity, Ex Machina, The Jungle Book, and Blade Runner: 2049.

Josh Kerekes is the Head of Virtual Production at Pixomondo. He facilitates the design and construction of PXO’s Virtual Production stages, including two in Toronto and two in Vancouver. He also leads the direction of virtual production innovation, working with technology partners and developing bespoke solutions to keep PXO ahead of the curve while maintaining the company’s status as the pre-eminent leader of Virtual Production.

In addition to leading PXO’s Virtual Production division, Josh is also a Virtual Production supervisor. He oversaw PXO’s VP work on Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 and the upcoming Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, shot on PXO’s main Toronto stage. He is currently supervising the forthcoming Netflix series Avatar: The Last Airbender, in production on PXO’s main Vancouver stage, which is also the largest LED Volume stage in the world.

Christina Sours is a Partner with Los Angeles-based production consulting firm, Nextgen Production. She is a consulting producer on virtual production projects for studios and vendors, such as Disney Television Studios and the MBS Group.

Ms. Sours spent the start of her career working across marketing and publishing before jumping into on-set film production roles. In 2016 she worked at GoPro in their original content division until 2017 when she moved into VFX at Industrial Light & Magic. She spent her first ILM years in the Technology department project managing Rendering, Comp and Virtual Production R&D teams. In 2019 Christina transitioned to StageCraft Production to manage both ILM’s development of the StageCraft full production service as well as their Motion and Facial Performance Capture stage team until she left to freelance in 2021.

Jason Schugardt is a Solutions Architect for NVIDIA helping customers connect to the best solutions at NVIDIA. With over 25 years of experience in the Visual Effects industry he has worked on numerous blockbuster films, including the Academy Award-winning The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Peter Jackson's King Kong, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2, and Steven Spielberg's Minority Report, and many others. Driven by his passion for exploring cutting-edge technology, he's led innovative VR and AR projects, pushing the boundaries of technology in story telling. At NVIDIA, Jason enjoys leveraging his deep expertise to help clients harness the power of generative AI and Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs)

Alexx Henry is an award-winning director and 3D avatar evangelist with roots in celebrity and entertainment photography. He is currently the CEO of BlueVishnu and designer of the xxArray™ 3D capture system.

Recognized by The Huffington Post as “fearless in his vision,” Henry has been working with technology to capture everyday people in 3D, and to build a world where people are using personalized 3D avatars to make their lives better.

Henry and his studio have been recognized with numerous awards including a Cannes Cyber Gold Lion, Horizon Interactive Best in Class three years running, and a Unity 3D Best in Class for the interactive 3D digital magazine, Art and Skin.

Jerome Prescod is a 2020 Engineering Emmy winner for his team efforts in remote workflow solutions. Born in the tropical island of Trinidad and Tobag, Jerome found a passion for technology at a young age and made his way to Los Angeles having now worked in IT for nearly 20 years. Currently a team member of Disney's renowned Content Security Team within Studio Technology; Jerome’s focus is in both the post-production workflows, cybersecurity and content, with a desire to work with creatives.

Dane currently serves as Chief Strategy Officer ( CSO) of The Third Floor and oversees projects where previsualization, virtual production, and real-time content creation are making significant in-roads. Danes evaluation of emergent technology, combined with the design of cross-functional team ‘s, drives development of practical technical applications and creative solutions for clients.

Raymond Mosco is a Latino American entrepreneur, producer, and technology evangelist. Mosco has held notable positions at Apple, Facebook, and Oculus during its highly publicized $3b acquisition. As a veteran of both Silicon Valley and Hollywood, he serves as a conduit between entertainment and technology, focusing on how immersive technology will shape the future of storytelling. Raymond currently works for HTC VIVE where he is currently focused on Virtual Production as the product champion for VIVE Mars ecosystem.

Bilawal Sidhu is a creative technologist, product builder and TED speaker who has merged physical and digital realities, and is now infusing them with imagination. With more than a decade of experience in the tech industry, he spent six years as a product manager at Google. There, he made significant contributions to groundbreaking projects such as Google's Immersive View, ARCore Geospatial API and YouTubeVR. His work with organizations and people – including Warner Music, Pepsi, Elton John and Gorillaz – underscores his talent for crafting engaging experiences through technology.

Bilawal’s journey into computer graphics began at 11, setting the stage for a prolific content creation journey. Since then, he’s captivated more than a million followers across YouTube and TikTok with his AI and visual effects expertise. Driven by a mission to empower the next generation of artists and entrepreneurs, Bilawal openly shares AI-assisted workflows and industry insights on Twitter and Substack, demystifying AI creation and inspiring others to embrace the potential of the "co-pilot era."

An alumnus of the University of Southern California, Bilawal holds a dual degree in Computer Science and Business Administration. Growing up across India, the UK, and the US, he's fluent in Hindi and Punjabi. When he’s not working, you can find Bilawal perfecting his barista artistry and expanding his collection of electric guitars.

Matthew Edgerton is a globally recognized executive in the areas of Technology, Strategy , Creative Development and Humanitarian Initiatives.

He currently leads the Global Media Strategy for the Microsoft Division of Accenture Cloud First, where he directs efforts to drive joint go to market initiatives and product innovation within the M&E space.

As an active writer and producer he has a special interest in the areas of Science Fiction, Drama and Surrealist concepts that push the envelope spurring our cultural zeitgeist to new heights.

Within the humanitarian space, he most recently drafted a set of novel climate rating metrics and scorecards for induction into the United Nations Climate initiative.

Callum is one of the most experienced and passionate champions of volumetric video, multi-camera and immersive technologies in the world. He created the first desktop post-production processes for multi-cam content, which was used in ‘Ferment’ - an award winning film shot entirely on multicam array. As one of the founders of Timeslice Films, he also helped develop the groundbreaking prototype GoPro video array in 2011.

Filming all over the world, Callum’s credits span from camera array visual FX sequences for feature films (including the bullet-time technique, as used in The Matrix) and commercials, to pioneering volumetric AR, VR and virtual production projects that have raised the bar across the industry. Credits include Sony’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody (CTO), Disney’s Pinocchio (Virtual Production Supervisor), Disney’s The Nutcracker The Four Realms - Immersive 360 Multicam VFX Sequence , Marvel’s Captain America Winter Soldier (Volumetric Capture) Ridley Scott’s Virtual Vikings (Technical Director), Billboard Awards - Madonna (Technical Director - capture) Live Broadcast AR for Sky Sports, The Open - (Technical Director - capture) and more.

For almost three decades, Josh has worked in the entertainment, live events, and touring industries, leading companies handling top- line revenues that have exceeded $300 million annually. Previous roles have been at AEG, VEE Entertainment, Ironman, and the Rock & Roll Marathon Series.

Aaron Behman is the Global Lead, M&E at AMD. In this role he looks after various media workloads including artist workstations, virtual production and ICVFX, rendering, transcoding and CDN. He works closely with partners, customers, and internal stakeholders to identify opportunities for collaboration, develop new technologies, and create new business models to help accelerate the transformation of the media and entertainment industry. Prior to moving over to AMD, Aaron was at Xilinx for over 15 years where he had responsibility for the broadcast and pro a/v embedded market and most recently ran product marketing and product management for Xilinx’s high density data center video transcoding solutions.

Adrian joined Brompton Technology founding company, Carallon, in 2015 as a Senior Developer and worked his way up to Engineering Manager before moving to Brompton as Director of Engineering in 2021. He’s both an accomplished software developer and valuable team leader at the center of the company’s most important projects, including the development of the Tessera SX40 processor which went on to win several awards. An innovator in his own right, Adrian has been heavily involved in specifying many of Brompton’s industry-first features and products, drawing inspiration from his background in visual effects for film and a long-standing passion for technical theater. These have not only had an impact on the company, but the industry as a whole.

Tommy Snyder is the Director of Product at Evercast. With a passion for harnessing technology to create transformative products, he aims to be a visionary for innovation in the film space. He brings over 10 years of experience in the tech industry, consistently leading cross-functional teams to deliver cutting-edge solutions that push boundaries and delight users. Tommy holds degrees in Information Systems & Film from Colorado State University. He was a key contributor to the sale of a small startup, which led to his role as Director of Photography for NBCU for 5 years.

Lisa started as a 2D animation artist in film opticals, in-camera visual effects, then analogue computer, then digital visual effects and live-action visual effects combined with animation. She worked in USA, Canada, Europe & Asia as a Visual Effects Supervisor, Second Unit Director, Pre-Production Assistant Director, and Post-Production Supervisor. International coproduction credits include: Heavy Metal, Tron, Star Wars, Inspector Gadget, Curious George, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Philip Marlowe, Ray Bradbury Theater, Outer Limits and X-Files.

Lisa was the first Visual Effects Supervisor to use digital effects in a television series: “The Twilight Zone” (1988-1989 - 30 episodes). She was recognized with Honorary Membership in Society of High Definition Arts & Sciences; and memberships in British Academy of Film and Television Arts; American Film Institute; British Kinematograph, Sound & Television Society; IEEE; SMPTE; ACM SIGGRAPH.

Invited to work at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, Lisa set up a 'Radio, Film and Television Department' to create content & technology pipelines for co-productions and long-distance education. Lisa left Embassy work to become the first Digital Visual Effects Supervisor in China, working on Chinese films co-productions at the Beijing Film Studio and Shanghai Studio. Lisa worked for Sundance Film Institute to bring Sundance Film Festival to Beijing, and Eastman Kodak as their China Strategist to filmmakers and new technology.

During the Hollywood and Silicon Valley digital cooperation phase, Lisa’s work included converting pipelines at studios (Rhythm & Hues, Dreamworks, Pacific Data Images, ILM) into digital pipelines capable of moving large shot count feature films (Batman, Star Trek, Speed, Mousehunt) and full digital CG animation feature film pipelines (Bugs Life 3D, Atlantis, Star Trek: Experience, Antz, Shrek, Frankenstein, Final Fantasy).

Lisa served on the Board of Directors for the Visual Effects Society (Global Committee start-up and Education Committee start-up), Women in Animation (Education Committee), and the Board of Directors for the Directors Guild of America (Canada branch Technology Representative creating training for film directors to transition to digital filmmaking). Lisa also sat on the Director's Guild committee to draft the North American Free Trade Agreement for Entertainment & Technology; the International Co-Production Agreement (USA/Canada); and in China the International Co-production Agreement.

Lisa took a hiatus from Hollywood and moved to London to be a Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, for the world’s first climate-change carbon-reduction sustainable technology development fund. Upon her return to LA’s independent production scene, Lisa focused on storytelling, mentoring and consulting on new technology content creation. In China’s first Free Trade Zone, Hainan Island new technology park, Lisa spoke at the Digital Civilization Conference’s Student Bootcamp. Since inception, Lisa participates in the United Nations SciTech Digital Cooperation: “Leave No One Behind”global sustainable technology development and digital education initiatives.

Patrick is an experienced architect currently working at RoTo Architects. He is also a self-taught creative technologist with a passion for exploring the dynamic relationship between space and interaction.

Among his recent accomplishments is the creation of "the StoryTellers Machine." This innovative project harnesses the power of AI to transform textual narratives into stunning visual representations. Using advanced speech recognition algorithms, the machine comprehends and interprets spoken stories, extracting key elements that form the basis for the subsequent visual generation process.

By combining AI image generation tools like Stable Diffusion with speech recognition algorithms, the StoryTellers Machine produces captivating and interactive visual aids for any story input. This groundbreaking approach pushes the boundaries of traditional storytelling, offering audiences an unparalleled experience that captivates, inspires, and engages in fresh and exciting ways. Patrick's work represents a significant step forward in the world of interactive storytelling, demonstrating the potential of AI to enrich our creative expressions.

Carey Smith is an independent Post-Production Producer in Los Angeles. She started her career at The Post Group, in Hollywood, as a facility Operations Scheduler and moved up thru post-production during the 90’s. Carey has credits as Production Manager, Post Supervisor, Associate Producer, Co-Producer and, currently, Post Producer. Her credits include: Everything Everywhere All At Once (A24), The OA Part II (Netflix), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Columbia/Sony), The Social Network (Columbia/Sony), The Kite Runner (Dreamworks), Rocky Balboa (MGM), Gigli (Revolution/Sony), America’s Sweethearts (Revolution/Sony).

Carey had also worked in visual effects as a VFX Producer on Fight Club (Fox/20th Century), and as VFX Coordinator on Pepsi’s Alien commercial and Godzilla feature trailer (Centropolis Film/TriStar).

Aashish D’Mello is an Assistant Editor and Editor & based in Los Angeles. He has served as Assistant Editor on over 10 feature films, documentaries and TV series, and has worked as Editor on multiple award-winning shorts and feature films.

(Assistant Editor: Everything Everywhere All At Once (A24), Hysterical (FX), The Rehearsal (HBO); Additional Editor: Sanzaru (Oneonetwosix Films)).

Zekun 'Zoe' Mao is an Assistant Editor & Editor based in Los Angeles. She has served as Assistant Editor on over 7 feature films and documentaries and has edited multiple award-winning short films and feature films.

(Assistant Editor: Everything Everywhere All At Once (A24), Devotion (Sony/Black Label Media); Good on Paper (Netflix), Editor: American Girl (Netflix).

Kylee Peña is Product Marketing Manager for Pro Editorial at Adobe. As a former editor herself, she’s a seasoned problem-solver who wants to bridge the gap between creative and technology using a well-honed sense of user empathy and well-earned arsenal of technical knowledge. Kylee has over 15 years of experience in post-production, including hundreds of television and film credits as both a creative and technical professional on shows such as Jane the Virgin, Colony, and Scorpion.

LORI H. SCHWARTZ is a true technology catalyst (‘Tech Cat’).

As a leading advisor in marketing and tech innovation, Lori collaborates with executives of multiple brands, tech, and content companies to ensure their understanding of emerging content models. Los Angeles-based, Lori is a CNN Technology contributor and an active MC and Host for BtoBevents.

Lori’s StoryTech initiative facilitates communication between storytellers and technology companies. Her trends briefings, curation, and tour products for large events have become well known globally through the work @CES, @NAB, and @IBC.

Previously Lori was a Governor for the Television Academy’s Emerging Programming Peer Group, driving thought leadership for the future of interactive media. She was Chief Technology Catalyst for McCann Worldgroup, North America where she drove tech and content innovation and was the key principle to launching the highly regarded IPGLAB where she facilitated emerging media upfronts for Microsoft, Intel, General Motors, Nestlé, and Sony.

She has been profiled as one of the “30 Executives Shaping the Evolution of Media and Technology” by Variety and “100 People to Have Lunch With” by MediaPost Publications.

An active spokesperson, Lori launched Digital Hollywood’s ‘Women’s Entertainment and Technology Mentor Program’ and is a recipient of the Lucy Hood Digerati Award for her contributions to the Television Academy. She is the proud mother of Sadie Bee!

Christina Lee Storm is an award-winning producer and executive recognized for her groundbreaking work at the intersection of storytelling and technology spanning film, television, animation, documentaries, virtual reality, augmented reality, and XR.

Founder and CEO of ASHER XR, Christina drives the strategic and creative development of emerging technologies for linear, digital, and multi-platform storytelling. As Director of Virtual Production at Netflix, Christina played a pivotal role in establishing global virtual production ecosystems and spaces, executing on films, series, and ancillary content. During her tenure as Vice President for the Advanced Creative Technology team at DreamWorks Animation, Christina’s producing credits include award-winning VR experiences for "How to Train Your Dragon," AR projects for "Trolls World Tour" and "Abominable," and an interactive theme-park "Kung Fu Panda" experience at Universal Beijing.

Beyond her creative achievements, Christina helps shape the future of the industry by serving on the Television Academy's Emerging Media Program Executive Committee and as Co-Chair of the AI Working Group, the Producers Guild of America's National Board of Directors, and as Board of Governors for the Advanced Imaging Society. Supporting women in STEAM, Christina is a proud Founding Member of DreamWorks Animation's TECHWomen and member of Women in Animation.

After 20 years in the interactive entertainment industry, Ian Milham joined Industrial Light & Magic to help lead the development and use of its revolutionary StageCraft virtual production process on Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian. He serves as the leader of the on set ILM team delivering photorealistic, in-camera visual effects using real time environments and an LED volume, and works with productions on creative and technical development and operation of seamless virtual sets and imagery.

After the success of season one and the development of season two of The Mandalorian, Ian went on to help oversee the expansion of StageCraft worldwide and work with films such as Thor: Love and Thunder and Obi-Wan Kenobi on successful use of virtual production.

In addition to on set StageCraft work, Ian is the supervisor of ILM’s San Francisco stage, which contributes motion capture performance and virtual camera work to numerous ILM projects.

Ian graduated with a BFA in Illustration from Syracuse University and began work as a matte painter and real time environment artist, before moving up through the ranks to become an Art Director and Creative Director. His Art Direction on Dead Space earned a Best Real-Time Visuals nomination by the Visual Effects Society and Outstanding Visual Achievement BAFTA nomination.

Zekun 'Zoe' Mao is an Assistant Editor & Editor based in Los Angeles. She has served as Assistant Editor on over 7 feature films and documentaries and has edited multiple award-winning short films and feature films.

(Assistant Editor: Everything Everywhere All At Once (A24), Devotion (Sony/Black Label Media); Good on Paper (Netflix), Editor: American Girl (Netflix).

Joe is a Virtual Production Supervisor with DNEG and a veteran of traditional post VFX and onset VFX supervision. Sliding over to virtual production with his background with data acquisition, client relations, and cameras, he's been able to communicate with and guide producers and creatives through changing methodologies and technologies, such as LED volumes, motion capture, and simulcam. Having worked in multiple departments onset, he's able to speak to interdepartmental demands, needs, and concerns in a way you only get by spending many hours together, figuring out things as you go.

Coming out of Louisiana, he's previously worked with ILM and Lightstorm/Weta but has been a part of the VP team at DNEG since 2020. In 2023, it is a much larger team by virtue of the partnership with Dimension Studio, and he's been lucky enough to help foster the company's working relationship with Monolith . This incredibly resulted in work on Muppets Mayhem for Disney Plus. He considered retiring at such a career peak and may well still if he gets to work with Gonzo next time.

Carolyn Giardina is tech editor at The Hollywood Reporter, with responsibilities including its Behind the Screen coverage.

She has been immersed in covering the art and science of filmmaking throughout her career, which also involved work as an editor, reporter or columnist for titles including CinemaEditor, British Cinematographer, SHOOT, The IBC Daily,and SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal. She co-authored Exploring 3D: The New Grammar of Stereoscopic Filmmaking (Focal Press, 2012).

Carolyn has been the recipient of American Cinema Editors’ Robert Wise Award, which recognizes a journalist for contributions to film editing; International Cinematographers Guild’s Technicolor William A. Fraker Award, for journalistic contributions to cinematography; and the Advanced Imaging Society’s Distinguished Leadership Lumiere Award.

Jorge Martinez leads the sales & operations at stYpe for Latin America mainly and also for some projects on the USA East Coast and Spain.

His background as an Electronics Engineer has taken him to work in the Live Events and Broadcast Industry for the last 24 years.

From Live TV stations as TV Azteca in Mexico to cable channels as HBO Latin America Group leading Engineering and Operations teams, this experience led him to join the technology side with Vizrt for 9 years, leading sales and operations for Mexico, Central America, The Caribbean and also moved to Atlanta to work with the Central and South US Regions, where he led several projects for Virtual Studios, Media Asset Management, Sports Analysis, Studio Automation and CGI graphics workflows for News and Sports.

Jorge joined stYpe in early 2021 to expand the Virtual Production world with its precise camera and object tracking systems and also with the rendering solutions developed for Unreal Engine called stYpeLand, Green Killer and stYpe XR, boosting the Film, Ads and TV industries to help content creators and producers to create new worlds with the precise tracking and rendering that are currently required.

JJorge Martinez leads the sales & operations at stYpe for Latin America mainly and also for some projects on the USA East Coast and Spain.

His background as an Electronics Engineer has taken him to work in the Live Events and Broadcast Industry for the last 24 years.

From Live TV stations as TV Azteca in Mexico to cable channels as HBO Latin America Group leading Engineering and Operations teams, this experience led him to join the technology side with Vizrt for 9 years, leading sales and operations for Mexico, Central America, The Caribbean and also moved to Atlanta to work with the Central and South US Regions, where he led several projects for Virtual Studios, Media Asset Management, Sports Analysis, Studio Automation and CGI graphics workflows for News and Sports.

Jorge joined stYpe in early 2021 to expand the Virtual Production world with its precise camera and object tracking systems and also with the rendering solutions developed for Unreal Engine called stYpeLand, Green Killer and stYpe XR, boosting the Film, Ads and TV industries to help content creators and producers to create new worlds with the precise tracking and rendering that are currently required.

Helena Packer, Senior Vice President/General Manager, DGene is an esteemed visual effects supervisor and artist. Her work spans feature films, television, advertising, augmented reality, and AI for content creation. Helena’s many credits include XMen2, 21 Jump Street, Charlie Wilson’s War, Stepford Wives, Failure to Launch, and Twin Peaks. Her work in commercials includes Coca-Cola, Sunkist, Hyundai, and Miller Beer. In 2008, she was inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has since chaired the Visual Effects Diversity Committee. She serves on the Science and Technology Committee and Executive Committee and is a member of its Science and Technology Council.

Rhea has long experience in software systems engineering with motion capture, photo reconstruction, VR and real time graphics. After years working on-set with Sony Imageworks, Disney Feature Animation, Universal Studios, Fox VFX Lab and Weta Digital, she's currently integrating VP technologies like mocap, virtual cameras, real time rendering and collaborative VR into feature animation workflows at Netflix. Like many of us, she's also been exploring how to frame and support AI's changes to the creative process, from metadata extraction to media generation.