Speaking


Computer Assisted Reporting Conference, Atlanta, 2015

Panel: VR for the NICAR world: Immersive data, with Robert Hernandez and Fergus Pitt

IDFA DocLab Interactive Conference, Amsterdam, 2014

Panel: Virtual Reality, with Danfung Dennis (Condition One), BeAnotherLab (The Machine to Be Another), and Oscar Raby (media artist)

IDFA DocLab Academy, Amsterdam, 2014

Masterclass: Design Patterns in Interactive Documentary

Presentation Slides

CPH:DOX, Copenhagen, 2014

Community Building seminar

This seminar takes a look at how you can involve your community already during the development phase, and how new digital technologies make it possible to engage them and interact with them. John Jackson, a professional public affairs strategist for companies such as Purpose and the co-author of ‘Small Acts of Resistance’ will moderate the panel, which consists of Kerstin Überlacker from Sweden, who will talk about the transmedia project Ghostrocket about UFO data, the Danish artist group Wooloo who will talk about their social and political community experiments, and finally the American creative media developer Brian Chirls will show us what is technologically possible today, as well as how the opportunities create new rules for how we can involve the audience. Co-organized by SWIM.

Presentation Slides

JSConf Asia, 2013

Getting Serious with Web Video

This presentation introduces Seriously.js, a Javascript library for performing real-time video compositing effects in a browser with WebGL, exploring the lessons learned and the possibilities of combining the best of cinema with the best of the web. I’ll give a broad overview of the technical achievements and challenges, explore the art of designing an API for a creative audience, and project how far we’ll push the browser technology in the next year. Expect shiny demos.

DIY Days Ghent, 2012

Technical aspects workshop

Brian will give a background on how technology and culture shape each other on the Internet, show off the current state of the art, and then demonstrate some bleeding edge stuff that’s coming in the next year. Expect a lots of examples, especially of media pieces that go bad by using technology the wrong way.

South By Southwest Film Festival, 2012

Panel: Does HTML5 offer a montage moment for web cinema?

Imagine if you could weave the sum of all human knowledge seamlessly into your film or documentary. New technologies like HTML5 make this possible. Video, audio and animation no longer needs to be in a “black box”, separate from other elements on a page. Recent works like The Wilderness Downtown, 3 Dreams of Black, and the hypervideo experiments from Mozilla’s Web Made Movies lab point to a radical shift in how we think of moving images. In the same way that montage pioneers like Eisenstein and Griffiths showed us that new formal and technical possibilities could blow our perceptions of cinema wide open, these panelists will bring examples and ideas that point to the storytelling potential when the web is fused with the power of cinema. The panel will include a brief presentation of a few innovative examples that feature high quality story and aesthetics as well as advanced technologies like: WebGL, Popcorn.js and the upcoming HTML Stream Processing API (an open standard for browser access to camera and microphone).

Brett Gaylor – Project Lead, Mozilla Popcorn Project Jigar Mehta18 Days in Egypt Ingrid Kopp – Tribeca New Media Fund

Open Video Conference, 2011

Fun with WebGL, The audio API, and more

Modern web broswers can make some amazing audiovisual candy, through new capabilities like HTML5, fast Javascript, and WebGL. All these capabilities point to untapped creative possibilities—though we’re starting to see some really cool web-native cinema, like Google Creative Lab’s Three Dreams of Black and NFB’s 1 Millionth Tower; and in a burgeoning WebGL gaming community. In this session, members of the web demoscene and creative communities will take turns showcasing their cool hacks and proofs-of-concept. Stuff like 3D and physics, beat detection, video processing, chromakey and lumakey, and more. Free form discussion, and possibly hacking, will follow.

Brian Chirls – Seriously.js Robert Richter – Mozilla Mr. DoobThree.js Corban BrookMozilla Audio Data API Charles “CJ” Cliffe- CubicVR.js

Transilvania International Film Festival, 2011

Thursday, June 9th Panel: Regional cooperation for postproduction, distribution and exhibition of feature films

The roundtable will focus on digital distribution evolution, new models of distribution and will offer the opportunity to present and discuss concrete studies of films produced and distributed in the region, using innovative strategies. Our main belief is that cooperation between producers and distributors is more important than competition during this period of transition.

with Jamie King, CEO of VODO.

South By Southwest Film Festival, 2010

Sunday, March 14th – 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM Panel: The Main Event: Finding an Audience for Your Film

The music industry is in freefall, bringing speculation that live shows are the revenue stream of the future. But what about film? Learn how to create events from four-walling, to multiple screenings how to make these screenings profitable, both financially and critically.

Laure Parsonsx + x films / Director/Consultant Mila Aung-Thwin – EyeSteelFilm / VP Brian Chirls – Three Eyed Labs Liz Ogilvie – B-Side Jon Reiss – Hybrid Cinema / Filmmaker & Consultant

The Conversation, 2010

Saturday, March 27th – 3:15 PM to 4:15 PM Workshop: Social Media Consults

Social media experts will briefly highlight some of their favorite strategies for generating awareness – then answer your questions about tools and tactics that will work for your projects.

Angel Aviles-Clinton, Co-Founder, BeScene Marketing Mila Aung-Thwin – EyeSteelFilm / VP Sean Fitzroy, Founder, Cineshift Joselin Mane, CEO, LITBeL Host: Scott Macaulay, Producer and Editor, Filmmaker Magazine

DIY DAYS NYC, 2010

Saturday, April 3, 2010 – Time TBD Content TBD, but I promise it will be sci-fi and trippy

Harvard Business School Entertainment and Media Conference

Thursday, February 11, 2010 “From the “Window” to the “Wall”: Changing Distribution Patterns in the Film Landscape” with Mark Gill (CEO, The Film Department), John Logigian (Former COO, Walden Media), Georg Szalai (Editor of The Hollywood Reporter), Anita Elberse (Harvard Business School)

Open Video Conference

Saturday, June 20, 2009 @ 2:30 pm Vanderbilt Hall, NYU 40 Washington Square S New York, NY 10012 map more details

Independent Film Festival Boston

Sunday, April 26, 2009 @ 12:00 pm Somerville Theatre 55 Davis Sq Somerville, MA 02144 (617) 625-5700 map more details

New Producers Alliance DigiDays Panel at Berlinale

Sunday, February 8, 2009 @ 11:00 HomeBase Lounge Köthener str. 44 10963 Berlin map Hosted by New Producers Alliance

International Film Festival Rotterdam 2009

Cinemart/Rotterdam Lab Workshop DIY Workshop, Monday, January 26, 2009 “Why DIY?” Panel, Monday, January 28, 2009 with Lucius Barre, Lance Weiler (Seize The Media, dir. Head Trauma), Michel Reilhac (ARTE France Cinema), David Pope (New Producers Alliance), Michael Gubbins (Screen International), Della Churchill (Chilling Pictures), Liz Rosenthal (Power to the Pixel)

New Zealand Film Commission, “Smashing The Window: A New Era of Film Distribution”

October 3, 2009 Presentation: “A New Physics of Storytelling” Presentation: Four Eyed Monsters War Stories Panel Discussion with Jason Janego (Magnolia Pictures), Andy Freedman (Substance PR)

From Here to Awesome, DIY Days San Francisco

August 17, 2008 Presentation: “Cinema and the Singularity” with Jerry Paffendorf (Wello Horld)

South By Southwest Film Festival, 2008

March 11, 2008 Panel: We Like Short Shorts with Jigar Mehta (The New York Times), Nathan Zellner (Goliath), Brent Hoff (Wholphin DVD), Nicole Barnette (Fourteen)

International Film Festival Rotterdam 2008

Cinemart Panel

Big Apple Film Festival

November 17, 2007 Panel: Distribution in the New Age with Aaron Levine (Gen Art), Peter Goldwyn (Samuel Goldwyn Films), Clémence Taillandier (Zeitgeist Films), Erik Davis (Cinematical.com) View video of entire panel

Power to the Pixel at London Film Festival

October 26, 2007 Breakout Q&A; moderated by Richard Ayers (Magic Lantern) Video of entire session

Vancouver International Film Festival

September 26, 2007 Panel: Viral Marketing and Digital Distribution with Jim Gilliam (Brave New Films), Gerard Ungerman

Directors Guild of America

September 8, 2007 Independent Directors Committee Think Tank with Arin Crumley and Susan Buice (Four Eyed Monsters)