Yancey Strickler is Co-Founder of Kickstarter, the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world. His writing has appeared in New York Magazine, Pitchfork, Spin, and the Village Voice, among other publications. He lives in New York City and has personally backed more than 500 Kickstarter projects.

Hope joined Fandor as CEO in February of 2014, bringing with him a wealth of film experience as a creator, curator, advocate and innovator in the film community as well as a vision for how Fandor will grow in the ever-changing digital world of content distribution. Using innovative ways to find and share a greater array of works with the audience that craves them is Fandor's mission and among Hope's strongest passions.

Prior to Fandor, Hope was the Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Society where he successfully raised significant new sponsorship funding, expanded the San Francisco International Film Festival's offerings to include the innovative Artist to Entrepreneur (A2E) program and launched their new Fall Awards event. He also introduced new alliances, including a distribution arrangement with Sundance Artist Services and implemented several grants in such areas as documentary, strategic planning, and operations.

Hope is an influential figure in the film community with a survey of films numbering over seventy that includes many highlights and breakthroughs of the last two decades. Hope co-founded and ran the 90's production and sales powerhouse Good Machine, which produced notable and Academy Award nominated films such as EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN (1994) and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000). After he and his partners sold the company in 2002, Hope went on to co-found the New York production company This is that, which over its eight years produced eighteen features and received numerous awards, including four Academy Award Best Screenplay nominations. Subsequently, he founded Double Hope Films with his wife, filmmaker Vanessa Hope, and looks forward to premiering Vanessa's feature directorial debut ALL EYES AND EARS at festivals this fall.

Hope's films have received some of the industry's most prestigious honors: THE SAVAGES (2007) earned two Academy Award nominations; 21 GRAMS (2003), two Academy Award nominations and five BAFTA nominations; and IN THE BEDROOM (2001), five Academy Award nominations. Ted holds a record at Sundance: three of his twenty-three Sundance entries (AMERICAN SPLENDOR (2003), THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN (1995), and WHAT HAPPENED WAS . . . (1994)) have won the Grand Jury Prize, more than any other producer. Two of his films, AMERICAN SPLENDOR (2003), and HAPPINESS (1998) have won the Critics Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival.

Hope's first book HOPE FOR FILM, a film memoir with insights from his directors and productions, comes out late Summer 2014 from Counterpunch Press. Hope posts regularly on his HopeForFilm blog, home of Truly Free Film, which Variety has called a "fantastic resource." He also co-founded HammerToNail.com, a film review site focused on Truly Independent Film. Hope is recognized, by The Hollywood Reporter and other publications, as one of the most influential and powerful people in Independent Film. He has received numerous awards and honors including the Vision Award from the LA Filmmakers' Alliance and the Woodstock Film Festival's Honorary Trailblazer Award. He lectures throughout the world (most recently as the Keynote Speaker at both the FEMA's Directors Conference in London and at the Binger FilmLab Digital Summit in Amsterdam) and participates on many film juries, (including Sundance, SXSW, and Karlovy Vary). Hope serves on the advisory boards of the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, The Film Collaborative, Power to the Pixel, SXSW Film, and the Woodstock Film Festival.

Currently focusing on social software and peer-to-peer technologies, and the ways electronic networks shape the social lives of the groups that form there, and vice-versa. Clay writes extensively about the Internet, and his writings have appeared in the IEEE Computer magazine, FEED, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and Business 2.0, among others. He also works as a consultant, and his current and former clients include Nokia, Barnes and Noble, the Markle Foundation, the BBC, and the Library of Congress. He publishes a monthly newsletter called "Networks, Economics, and Culture", and his essays are being collected into a book, to be published by O'Reilly and Associates.

Joana Vicente is the Executive Director of the Independent Filmmaker Project and the Made in NY Media Center by IFP. IFP is the oldest and largest nonprofit organization for independent filmmakers in the U.S. Through its year-round programming, IFP guides filmmakers in the art, technology and business of independent filmmaking. In addition to its workshops, seminars, conferences, mentorships, and Filmmaker Magazine, IFP’s programs include Independent Film Week, Envision, The Cross-Media Forum, The Gotham Independent Film Awards and the Independent Filmmaker Labs.

Vicente is an Academy Award-nominated producer of over 40 feature films by such acclaimed directors as Jim Jarmusch, Brian De Palma, Steven Soderbergh, Miguel Arteta, Hal Hartley, Nicole Holofcener, Alex Gibney, and Todd Solondz. Throughout her career, she has produced innovative works by first-time filmmakers while championing the distinctive visions of established directors, ranging from auteur-driven projects to successful commercial box-office hits as well as award-winning theatrical documentaries. Vicente's films have been selected to and won awards at the Sundance Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, The Cannes International Film Festival, and the Venice International Film festival, including two Sundance Grand Jury Prizes and Venice's Silver Lion for Best Director. Her films have also been nominated for over 25 Independent Spirit awards.

Joana is also recognized as a leading figure of the digital film revolution. Her pioneering digital production companies Blow Up Pictures and HDNetFilms, which she launched with partners Jason Kliot, Marc Cuban, and Todd Wagner, ushered in a new era of digital filmmaking which radically transformed the landscape of American independent film production and distribution.

Before turning her attention to film, Vicente served as a press attaché for the Portuguese delegate to the European Parliament and a radio news producer for the United Nations.

James Schamus is an American award-winning screenwriter, co-founder of Good Machine production company, and the CEO of Focus Features until its merging with FilmDistrict, the motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company. His output includes as screenwriter The Ice Storm, Eat, Drink, Man, Woman and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (all directed by Ang Lee), and as producer Brokeback Mountain, Lost in Translation, Milk, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Pianist, Coraline, The Kids Are All Right, and the upcoming The Moon and the Sun. He is Professor of Professional Practice in Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where he teaches film history and theory. He has also taught at Yale University and at Rutgers University. He is the author of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Gertrud: The Moving Word, published by the University of Washington Press. He earned his BA, MA, and Ph.D. in English from University of California, Berkeley.

Schamus participates as a member of the Jury for the NYICFF, a local New York City Film Festival dedicated to screening films for children between the ages of 3 and 18. He was president of the jury for the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.

Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Filmmaker Magazine, a quarterly print magazine and daily updated website, as well as an active film producer and partner in the New York production company, Forensic Films. Skilled at short and long-form editorial, editorial team building, film production, web video production, post-production, branded content, social media marketing and community development. Particularly skilled at identifying and developing new talent and knowledgeable about the technological and business trends reshaping the media industries.

Forensic Films is a New York-based independent film production company active since 1995. With his partner Robin O'Hara, Macaulay has produced, executive produced and co-produced a number of award-winning and theatrically distributed films. In addition to his work at Filmmaker, Macaulay founded for the Independent Filmmaker Project, its publisher, the IFP Narrative Lab, an intensive mentorship program for filmmakers in post-production with their debut features.

Christine Vachon is an American film producer active in the American independent film sector and daughter of Françoise Fourestier and noted photographer John Vachon.

Christine Vachon produced Todd Haynes' first feature, Poison, which was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival. Since then, she has gone on to produce many acclaimed American independent films, including Far From Heaven (nominated for four Academy Awards), Boys Don't Cry (Academy Award winner), One Hour Photo, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Happiness, Velvet Goldmine, SAFE, I Shot Andy Warhol, Go Fish, Swoon, I'm Not There, Gigantic, Cracks. and Cairo Time. Her latest and upcoming projects include a short film collaboration with ACE Hotel and online film content producers Massify entitled "Lulu at the Ace Hotel" as well as a five-part HBO mini-series adaptation of James M. Cain's 1941 novel, Mildred Pierce.

Vachon also participates as a member of the Jury for the NYICFF, a paramount New York City Film Festival dedicated to screening films for children between the ages of 3 and 18.

Jaron Lanier is a computer scientist, author, and composer.

As a writer:

Lanier is one of most celebrated technology writers in the world, and is known for charting a humanistic approach to technology appreciation and criticism.

He was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 2014. His book "Who Owns the Future?" won Harvard's Goldsmith Book Prize in 2014.

His books are international best sellers. "Who Owns the Future?" was named the most important book of 2013 by Joe Nocera in The New York Times, and was also included in many other "best of" lists. "You Are Not a Gadget," released in 2010, was named one of the 10 best books of the year by Michiko Kakutani, and was also named on many "best of year" lists.

He writes and speaks on numerous topics, including high-technology business, the social impact of technological practices, the philosophy of consciousness and information, Internet politics, and the future of humanism. In recent years he has been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine, one of the 100 top public intellectuals by Foreign Policy Magazine, and one of the top 50 World Thinkers by Prospect Magazine.

His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Discover (where he has been a columnist), The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harpers Magazine, Nature, The Sciences, Wired Magazine (where he was a founding contributing editor), and Scientific American. He has edited special "future" issues of SPIN and Civilization magazines.

As a technologist:

Lanier's name is often associated with Virtual Reality research. He either coined or popularized the term 'Virtual Reality' and in the early 1980s founded VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. In the late 1980s he led the team that developed the first implementations of multi-person virtual worlds using head mounted displays, as well as the first "avatars," or representations of users within such systems. While at VPL, he and his colleagues developed the first implementations of virtual reality applications in surgical simulation, vehicle interior prototyping, virtual sets for television production, and assorted other areas. He led the team that developed the first widely used software platform architecture for immersive virtual reality applications.

Lanier has received honorary doctorates from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Franklin and Marshall College, was the recipient of CMU's Watson award in 2001, was a finalist for the first Edge of Computation Award in 2005, and received a Lifetime Career Award from the IEEE in 2009 for contributions to Virtual Reality.

Lanier has been a founder or principal of four startups that were either directly or indirectly acquired by Oracle, Adobe, Google, and Pfizer. From 1997 to 2001, Lanier was the Chief Scientist of Advanced Network and Services, which contained the Engineering Office of Internet2, and served as the Lead Scientist of the National Tele-immersion Initiative, a coalition of research universities studying advanced applications for Internet2. The Initiative demonstrated the first prototypes of tele-immersion in 2000. From 2001 to 2004 he was Visiting Scientist at Silicon Graphics Inc., where he developed solutions to core problems in telepresence and tele-immersion. He was Scholar at Large for Microsoft from 2006 to 2009, and Interdisciplinary Scientist at Microsoft Research from 2009 forward.

In the sciences:

Jaron Lanier's scientific interests include the use of Virtual Reality as a research tool in cognitive science, biomimetic information architectures, experimental user interfaces, heterogeneous scientific simulations, advanced information systems for medicine, and computational approaches to the fundamentals of physics. He collaborates with a wide range of scientists in fields related to these interests.

Paula Wagner currently helms Chestnut Ridge Productions, developing and producing film, television, theater, and new media projects.

Wagner has worked in the top ranks of the entertainment industry as a talent agent, producer, and top studio executive. She began her career at Creative Artists Agency where she spent 15 years representing some of Hollywood's top actors, directors, and writers. In 1993, she moved on to producing and launched Cruise/Wagner Productions with her former CAA client Tom Cruise. For more than a decade, C/W produced countless critically-acclaimed films, including the Mission: Impossible franchise, Without Limits, Shattered Glass, Narc, The Others, Vanilla Sky, Elizabethtown, The Last Samurai, and Ask The Dust, and Steven Spielberg’s War Of The Worlds, which Wagner executive produced.

Wagner was co-owner and CEO of United Artists Entertainment, LLC from 2006 to 2008. During her tenure, UA released the Robert Redford political thriller Lions for Lambs and the World War II thriller Valkyrie, directed by Bryan Singer.

Prior to her career as an agent and producer, Ms. Wagner began as an actress, performing on and off-Broadway. She was also a member of the Yale Repertory Company. She is a published playwright, co-authoring the play Out Of Our Father’s House. She was a member of Actor’s Equity and Screen Actors Guild and currently, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Producers Guild of America.

Academy Award nominated director Darren Aronofsky was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.

His most recent film, BLACK SWAN, won Natalie Portman the Academy Award for Best Actress and received four other nominations, including one for Best Picture. The film received scores of other accolades, appeared on over 200 critical Top Ten lists, and swept the 2011 Independent Spirit Award with wins for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Cinematography. The film was also a box office phenomenon grossing more than $328M worldwide.

Aronofsky is currently at work on NOAH, based on the biblical story of Noah’s ark. The film stars Russell Crowe, Ray Winstone, Jennifer Connelly, Douglas Booth, Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Anthony Hopkins, and is shooting in Iceland and New York this summer and fall.

Prior to BLACK SWAN, Aronofsky directed THE WRESTLER. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival where it won the esteemed Golden Lion making it only the third American film in history to win this grand prize. One day later it was acquired by Fox Searchlight hours after its gala screening at the Toronto Film Festival. THE WRESTLER won Best Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards and garnered Academy Award nominations for both Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei. Golden Globes were given to Mickey for his iconic performance and to Bruce Springsteen for his original track "The Wrestler."

Aronofsky also wrote and directed THE FOUNTAIN, a science-fiction romance starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. MTV’s Kurt Loder called the film “a classic; dazzling and visually intoxicating” and Glenn Kenny from Premiere stated that THE FOUNTAIN, “may well restore your faith in the idea that a movie can take you out of the mundane and into a place of wonderment.”

In 2000, Aronofsky premiered REQUIEM FOR A DREAM at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was named to over 150 Top Ten lists including the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly and the American Film Institute. The accolades continued with five Independent Spirit Award nominations, including one for Best Director and a win for Best Actress Ellen Burstyn. Burstyn also received Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for her unforgettable performance. Aronofsky’s first feature, π, won the Director’s Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay.

Among his honors, the American Film Institute gave Aronofsky the prestigious Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Medal, the Stockholm Film Festival presented him the Golden Horse Visionary Award, he has won three Independent Spirit Awards, and he was president of the jury at the 68th annual Venice Film Festival in 2011.

Geoffrey Gilmore is the Director of the Tribeca Film Festival and a member of the UCLA Producers Program faculty. Creative Director of Tribeca Enterprises, a New York company that includes the Tribeca Film Festival, the Tribeca Cinemas and the Tribeca Film Festival Doha. He joins Tribeca after serving 19 years as the Director of the Sundance Film Festival, where he was responsible for film selection in all sections of the Festival, as well as managing the Festival and providing overall artistic direction.

Named by Mediaweek as one of the “50 most influential executives shaping the future of media”, Mike is currently investing in and advising digital media and software companies. 

His career spans virtually all forms of media and entertainment, most recently as CEO of the Weather Channel Companies. He was also President of AOL Media Networks, President of Marketing at Time Warner, Founder and CEO of Americantowns.com and Publisher of Entertainment Weekly Magazine.

He is the Chairman of the Board at Unruly Media and Colspace Software and is a board director of several other high growth companies. 

Mike was Chairman of the Advertising Hall of Fame, a former member of the Ad Council and is currently a Director of the American Advertising Federation. He is also a founding member of the Kelly Gang LLC (501c3) and serves on the Board of Counselors at the President Carter Center.

He has passion for his family, great journalism, politics and classic movies. He splits his time between NYC, Martha’s Vineyard and Atlanta.

Jan Schütte was born in Mannheim in 1957. He studied Literature, Philosophy and Art History in Tübingen, Zürich and Hamburg. After working as a photo journalist for various daily newspapers, he became a reporter for regional television current affairs programmes in 1979 before moving into the world of film as a director and producer.

Jan Schütte has been making and producing his own films since 1982. His career began with four short documentaries. Dragon Chew, his feature film debut followed in 1987, and had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

His films subsequently premiered in Cannes, Venice, Locarno, San Sebastian and Toronto, and have won numerous national and international awards. A retrospective of his work screened at the Harvard Film Archive in spring 2006.

After teaching directing at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg, in 2001 Jan Schütte established the Masterclass – now known as Atelier Ludwigsburg-Paris – at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg and was Programme Director of this highly successful programme in conjunction with Peter Sehr from 2001 to 2010.

In 2005/2006 and in 2009/2010 Jan Schütte taught as Visiting Professor at Harvard University in Cambridge/Massachusetts. He spent summer 2008 as Harris Professor at Dartmouth College.

In 2002 Jan Schütte was a member of the International Jury at the Cannes Film Festival together with Martin Scorsese, Abbas Kiarostami, Tilda Swinton and Sharon Stone. He has also been a member of the jury at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as in Vladivostok and Hanoi.

In 2010 Jan Schütte was appointed as Director of the renowned German Film and Television Academy (DFFB), where he is focusing in particular on invigorating the school’s sound creative traditions to meet the challenges of digital technology, introducing innovative teaching formats and partnerships, and expanding the DFFB’s international and inter-disciplinary profile.

Jan Schütte is a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin Brandenburg and of the European Film Academy. He lives in Berlin with his wife, Christina Szápáry, and four children.

Amy Dotson is the Deputy Director & Head of Programming of IFP and produces independent features and documentaries.

James founded Dogfish in 2009 to produce and invest in independent film (in which he made 6 films). He was named by Deadline Hollywood as one of 2012′s 10 Producers to Keep Watching. In 2013 he launched the Dogfish Accelerator program after an inspiring experience working for TechStars in Boulder, Colorado. He’s a Northwestern University graduate and received his MBA from NYU Stern in 2013. He currently is an Adjunct Professor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts where he teaches Strategies For Independent Producing. James aspires to be one of the world’s most renowned hermits. He tends to spend most of his free time in South Williamsburg watching cartoons and googling “best Texas BBQ in NYC.” He also runs a monthly meetup called A Presentation of the Deplorable, Bizarre, and Terrible in which he binge watches 10 films in a row that most of the world has never seen (most of the time for glaringly obvious reasons). As of July 2014 only 3 people have attended.

Renen Schorr is a film director, screenwriter, film producer. In 1989, he became head of Israel’s first independent, national school for film and television. He then founded the Sam Spiegel Film & TV School – Jerusalem, and has served as its director since that time.

In 2004, producing partners Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy established Parts & Labor, a production company dedicated to director-driven, collaborative filmmaking. Integral to the company’s vision and consistency is an unwavering dedication to each project, respect for the process, and a true love of film.

In October 2008, Parts & Labor signed a first-look/development deal with producer Scott Rudin. That same year, at the Toronto International Film Festival, Variety singled out Messrs. Knudsen and Van Hoy in its annual list of “10 Producers to Watch;” and they were nominated for the [Independent] Spirit Award for producing. In addition, they have been included in Filmmaker Magazine’s annual list of “25 New Faces of Independent Film” and on Paste Magazine's Top 10 list of “Arthouse Powerhouse Producers;” most recently, The New York Observer named Messrs. Knudsen and Van Hoy two of  “The  Insurgents of 2010: 50 People Shaping the Next New York.”

Last year, in addition to Beginners, Parts & Labor premiered Cam Archer's S—t Year, starring Ellen Barkin, in the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes International Film Festival; and Aaron Katz’ critically acclaimed third feature, Cold Weather, at South by Southwest. The latter was released theatrically by IFC Films in February 2011.

Braden King’s Here, filmed in Armenia and starring Ben Foster and Lubna Azabal, recently had its world premiere in competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and had its international premiere at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival, where it took home the CICAE Art Cinema Award.

Julia Loktev’s The Loneliest Planet, shot last summer in the Republic of Georgia and starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenburg, is currently in post-production.

Previous productions include Kelly Reichardt’s acclaimed Old Joy; Cam Archer’s Wild Tigers I Have Known; Steve Collins’ Gretchen; Spencer Parsons’ I’ll Come Running; Nik Fackler’s Lovely, Still; So Yong Kim’s Treeless Mountain; Cruz Angeles’ Don’t Let Me Drown; Bradley Rust Gray’s The Exploding Girl; and David Barker’s Daylight.

At Vimeo, Jeremy co-created the first Vimeo Festival + Awards and he also works on creative strategy across brand partnerships and editorial vision. Jeremy is an award winning creative director and filmmaker. He is based between London and New York. During the past fifteen years Jeremy has worked with Warner Brothers, PlayStation, Babelgum, Cinelan, TED, Tribeca Enterprises, and Arts Alliance to name a few. At RES Media Group he was Director of International Operations and Senior Programmer for the maverick digital festival RESFEST. He became Head of Programming for the final festival in 2006. As a filmmaker his film The Last Supper traveled to over a dozen festivals including Sundance and as a cinematographer he shot over 40 short films. He graduated with honours from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Mark Heyman is a writer and producer, known for Black Swan, The Skeleton Twins and The Wrestler.

Lance Weiler is a storyteller, entrepreneur and thought leader. An alumni of the Sundance Screenwriting Lab, he is recognized as a pioneer because of the way he mixes storytelling and technology. WIRED magazine named him “one of 25 people helping to re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.” Always interested in experimenting with new ways to tell stories and engage audiences, Lance has designed experiences that have reached millions of people via theaters, mobile devices and online. In recognition of these storytelling innovations, BUSINESSWEEK named Lance “One of the 18 Who Changed Hollywood.” In 2011, Lance was nominated for a International Emmy® in digital fiction for his work on Collapsus: the energy risk conspiracy. Lance sits on two World Economic Forum steering committees; one focused on the Future of Content Creation and the other examines the role of Digital Media in Shaping Culture & Governance. In addition, Lance teaches at Columbia University on the art, craft and business of storytelling in the 21st Century and is currently working on a slate of next gen storytelling projects.

Dennis Crowley is the co-founder of Foursquare, a service that combines social networks, location awareness and game mechanics to encourage people explore the world around them. Previously, Dennis founded Dodgeball, one of the first mobile social services in the US, which was acquired by Google in 2005.

He has been named one of Fortune's "40 Under 40" (2010, 2011), a member of Vanity Fair's "New Establishment" (2011, 2012) and has won the "Fast Money" bonus round on the TV game show Family Feud (2009). He is currently an Adjunct Professor at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP).

Dennis holds a Master's degree from New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program and a Bachelor's degree from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University.

Frank Lantz is the Director of the New York University Game Center. For over 12 years, Lantz taught game design at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. He has also taught at the School of Visual Arts and Parsons School of Design. His writings on games, technology, and culture have appeared in a variety of publications. In 2012, The New York Times referred to Lantz as a "reigning genius of the mysteries of games" following his design of iPhone puzzle game Drop7.

A pioneer of grassroots distribution for independent films, Caitlin began her career as a journalist, working on staff at NPR affiliates WFIU and WFUV and at New York’s flagship PBS station, WNET. She graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University in 2003, with a degree in American history, and completed a Master’s in journalism from the Indiana University Graduate School of Journalism in 2005. After founding Film Sprout in 2009, she became a leading voice for the nontraditional distribution of documentary films in community settings, and a champion of films’ power to effect grassroots social change. Her presentations on grassroots film distribution have rallied filmmakers at SXSW, Hot Docs, IFP, Sheffield Doc/Fest, RIDM, Los Angeles Film Festival, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and The New York Foundation for the Arts, among others. She serves on the board of Brooklyn documentary center UnionDocs, and has participated in the advisory board of NYU’s Cinema Research Institute and the documentary advisory committee of the Paley Center for Media.

Bob Greenberg—founder, chairman and CEO of R/GA—has been a pioneer in the advertising and communications industry for nearly four decades. He leads the vision for R/GA, an agency that serves as the digital partner for Fortune 500 companies and world-renowned brands, including Nike, Beats by Dr. Dre, Unilever, L’Oréal, MasterCard, Samsung, Coca-Cola, Ameriprise and Johnson & Johnson.

R/GA is one of the world’s most influential agencies, emphasizing the importance of business transformation, product/service innovation and breakthrough communications. The agency has offices in New York, Chicago, Austin, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland, and internationally in London, Bucharest, Stockholm, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Sydney and Singapore.

Bob, along with his brother Richard, founded R/Greenberg Associates (R/GA) in 1977 with the idea of creating a company that valued design but also focused on developing leading-edge motion graphics and live-action film and video production. The company created groundbreaking visual effects for movies such as Alien, Predator, Se7en and Zelig. To date, R/GA’s body of work spans 400 feature films and 4,000 television commercials.

Bob has evolved the company several times since its founding, transforming it from a world-class movie title shop, to a digital studio, to a major digital advertising agency and today, to an all-in-one full-service agency, product and service innovator and consultancy. Now in its fifth business model, R/GA has become one of the most successful integrated marketing services companies, creating everything from new products and digital services to social and mobile campaigns to broadcast commercials.

Bob serves on the boards of numerous schools and organizations, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Ad Council, the Tisch School of the Arts (Dean’s Council Advisory Board), NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, Parsons The New School for Design and the Berlin School of Creative Leadership. He is also a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Bob has won almost every industry award for creativity, including the Academy Award, D&AD, and Cannes Lions. Among his most notable awards are the Honorary Royal Designer for Industry (HonRDI) from the Royal Society for Arts, the 2007 BDA Lifetime Achievement Award, Clio Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Communications in 2003, and the Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design. He was also the Cannes International Advertising Festival Cyber Jury President in 2004 and 2013, served as a member of the 2005 Titanium Jury, and President of the Titanium and Integrated Jury in 2010. Bob was also recently inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame.

JON REISS  Named one of “10 Digital Directors to Watch” by Daily Variety, Jon Reiss is a critically acclaimed filmmaker whose experience releasing his documentary feature, Bomb It with a hybrid strategy was the inspiration for writing Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution in the Digital Era, the first step-by-step guide for filmmakers to distribute and market their films. He recently co-wrote Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul.

Bomb It 2 for which Reiss extended his exploration of graffiti and street art to the Middle East, South East Asia and Australia just released on iTunes and Amazon on August 6th, 2013. His previous documentary feature films are Better Living Through Circuitry, a startling, humorous and entertaining glimpse into the exploding rave culture and Cleopatra’s Second Husband, a dark psychological drama.  Reiss has also directed videos for Nine Inch Nails, The Black Crowes, Danzig, Slayer, and the Kottonmouth Kings. Reiss’ “Happiness in Slavery” video for Nine Inch Nails won awards at the Chicago and San Francisco film festivals and was voted Top Ten by the Village Voice Critics Poll for Best Music Video.

Reiss is also a media strategist who helps filmmakers and companies navigate the new distribution and marketing landscape.  He has worked with and consulted for IFP, Paramount Studios, the Sundance Institute, Screen Australia, Film Independent, Creative Scotland, The South Australian Film Corporation and numerous film schools and festivals to devise ways to educate and help independent filmmakers in the new economic landscape.    He has conducted his TOTBO Master Classes over four continents and is the year-round distribution and marketing lab leader at the IFP Filmmaker Labs and the Director of the IFP PMD Labs he co-created with the IFP. He also teaches at the Film Directing Program at Cal Arts.

Jon Reiss’ early credits also include four hour-long documentaries concerning the notorious performance group Survival Research Laboratories which were included on a compilation 10 Years of Robotic Mayhem. Reiss got his start in filmmaking at Target Video, a San Francisco based alternative video company where he covered much of the West Coast punk explosion.

Reiss is working on two additional books one on the concept of the Producer of Marketing and Distribution a crew position he coined in Think Outside the Box Office and secondly a book that takes the structure outlined in TOTBO and applies it to all the art forms.   Reiss also contributes to Filmmaker Magazine, Huffington Post, Indiewire, Screen Daily, Moviemaker Magazine and other publications and is currently producing a film on Breast Cancer.

JEFFREY KUSAMA-HINTE is an Academy Award® and Emmy Award® nominated, Golden Globe® winning Producer working under the banner of Antidote Films, the company he founded in 2000. He has also directed two documentaries.

Kusama-Hinte's latest production was John Turturro's FADING GIGOLO, starring Mr. Turturro and Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Sofia Vergara, Live Schrieber, and Vanessa Paradis. Prior to this, he most recently produced Lisa Cholodenko's THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, starring Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo. The film received four Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture, and four Golden Globe® nominations, winning two Golden Globes® for Best Actress (Annette Bening) and Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy).

Kusama-Hinte directed and produced the documentaries CHARLOTTE: A WOODEN BOAT STORY and SOUL POWER which screened at the Toronto and Berlin International Film Festivals, and won the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival Audience Award.

Kusama-Hinte also produced the documentary THE DUNGEON MASTERS, directed by Keven McAlester, which premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, and Marina Zenovich’s ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED, which received five Primetime Emmy® Awards nominations, winning two Emmys® for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming. Kusama-Hinte’s other productions include the critically acclaimed eco-horror thriller THE LAST WINTER directed by Larry Fessenden, the Jon Reiss-directed graffiti documentary BOMB IT, Julian Goldberger’s THE HAWK IS DYING, Gregg Araki’s MYSTERIOUS SKIN, Catherine Hardwicke’s THIRTEEN, Lisa Cholodenko’s LAUREL CANYON and HIGH ART, and Larry Fessenden’s WENDIGO.

Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte resides in Brooklyn New York, with his spouse and two children.  When he is not making films he can usually be found making furniture in his woodworking shop (aka Brooklyn Verkstad); he also serves on the Boards of the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) and The Nation Institute.