2014 Schedule
Interactive: March 7–11  •  Film: March 7–15  •  Music: March 11–16

Future 15s: Creativity

New to the Film Conference this year, Future 15s are short, intense salvos with each speaker delivering a 15-minute solo performance before being immediately replaced by the following speaker. Come hear Thomas Benski, Mark Shapiro, and Jigar Mehta give their thoughts on the creative process.

18 lessons from 18 Days in Egypt by Jigar Mehta
Jigar Mehta co-creator of the web native storytelling project, 18 Days in Egypt, will share 18 lessons learned from the experience of creating, developing and implementing the interactive project.

Stop-. Motion. The Glacial Life Of A LAIKA Puppet by Mark Shapiro
LAIKA animates its films on ones; puppets on Coraline, ParaNorman & The Boxtrolls were moved 24 frames/second. Mark Shapiro describes the hand-crafted process in real-time and with time-lapse footage.

Talent Incubation: The Future of Independent Film? by Thomas Benksi
As audiences become more savvy and more connected to the process, the need for new, engaging, innovative and interesting film projects increases. Where will the next wave of great directors emerge from?

Presenters

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Jigar Mehta

Media Innovation Strategist

18 Days In Egypt

Jigar Mehta is a digital entrepreneur, documentary filmmaker and journalist. Prior to joining Matter, he co-founded Groupstream, a collaborative storytelling platform that harnesses the power of a group’s social media. It is a startup that grew out of the acclaimed web native documentary project, 18 Days in Egypt. The project began in 2011 while Mehta was a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University and is an inaugural awardee of the Tribeca Film Institute New Media grant and the Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Lab. Before Stanford, Mehta was a reporter and video journalist for The New York Times and played key roles on several award winning documentaries, including Wonders are Many and My Flesh and Blood. Mehta has a Masters in Journalism and Bachelors in Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mark Shapiro

Head Of Ent Brand Mktg

LAIKA

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Thomas Benski

CEO

Pulse Films

Thomas Benski, CEO and Co-Founder of Pulse Films, is a BAFTA and Grammy nominated producer who has worked on over 60 music videos and commercials, 4 TV series', 3 feature films and a number of cutting edge interactive projects. Most recently Thomas produced the seminal 'Shut Up and Play the Hits' film about the breakup of LCD Soundsystem (official selection at Sundance 2012) and 'Who is Dayani Cristal?' featuring Gael Garcial Bernal (opened at Sundance 2013 and won the acclaimed 'Best Cinematography' Award; The film was also screened at New York Film Festival and San Sebestian this year). Thomas also produced the feature length documentary 'Look Back, Don’t Stare' about the return of Robbie Williams to Take That. The film was broadcast after X-Factor in the UK and attracted an audience of 8 million. Other credits include the Grammy-nominated and Grierson short-listed documentary 'No Distance Left To Run', the definitive history of the band Blur in 2010, and the Paramount feature 'Katy Perry: Part of Me' in 2012 which went on to become the 4th highest grossing music documentary of all time, taking in excess of $32,000,000 at the Box Office. He is responsible for the creative and strategic development of Pulse, working closely with the teams across Pulse's entire output.

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Music sponsor

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Interactive sponsors

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