Program

As of October 10, 2017 (subject to change)

EVENT SCHEDULE:

8 a.m.: Registration Opens
9 a.m.: – 4:15 p.m.: General Sessions
4:15 – 5:45 p.m.: HITS Breakout Sessions
4:15 – 6 p.m.: SoCal Women’s Leadership Group Cross-Studio Mixer
6 – 7 p.m.: Networking Reception
7 – 9 p.m.: ISSA-LA October Dinner Meeting
 

CONFERENCE SESSIONS:

9 – 9:10 a.m.
Opening Remarks
Devendra Mishra, Executive Director, HITS and Chief Strategist, MESA
 

9:10 – 9:15 a.m.
Conference Welcome Remarks
Eric Belcher, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cast & Crew Entertainment Services
 

9:15 – 9:45 a.m.
KEYNOTE: Thoughtfully Ruthless® is The Key to Exponential Growth
What has author and analyst Val Wright learned from working with executives from Starbucks, LinkedIn, Financial Times, and Google? The secret to innovation and success, she believes, is becoming “Thoughtfully Ruthless,” focusing your time and energy on products, profits, and customers not internal energy black holes. Her HITS Fall Keynote will demonstrate how the most successful leaders ruthlessly, (in a thoughtful way,) manage their time, energy, and resources.
Val Wright, Global Leadership & Innovation Expert, Author, Val Wright Consulting
 

9:45 – 10:05 a.m. INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY: HOLLYWOOD 2025
The Work Ahead: Mastering Hollywood’s Digital Future
At the heart of Hollywood – and our lives – is work. This is the foundation of the entertainment industry, and much of modern society—and it has never changed faster because of digital transformation. In an age of automation, algorithms and AI, many need answers to the question: “What do I do when machines do everything”? Meanwhile, Hollywood will move from a world of the mass-media “entertainment economy” to one centered on “the experience economy”. The work that we do in 2020 (and 2025) will change – in profound ways – creating unprecedented change, opportunity, and threat. Of course in today’s Hollywood, the creative, consumer-facing work usually gets the spotlight. What is less appreciated will be the impact of “being digital” on work in middle and back end systems, applications and processes that are at the heart of most big studios – processes that drive work that matters today and tomorrow. As the experience economy takes shape, companies – and individuals – that get in front of it will be pioneers in totally new markets.
Robert Brown, Associate Vice President, Cognizant Center for the Future of Work
 

10:05 – 10:35 a.m.
Harnessing Technologies to Transform Hollywood For New Media
The successful century-old art of producing content is being transformed by the deployment of digital technologies of production where an unprecedented direct relationship exists between the creator and the consumer world-wide. Technology enables audiences to feel empathy that simply was not possible before. From computer-aided script writing and application of AI and machine learning to emerging VR/AR experiences as well as higher-resolution production/editing/storage in the cloud, the creator is able to maximize the value of collaboration and deliver content, direct to the consumer, with lower risk and higher reward.
Moderator: Devendra Mishra, Executive Director, Hollywood IT Society and Chief Strategist, MESA
Panelists:
Greg Geier, ‎Senior Vice President, Production Operations Global Mastering and Servicing, Sony Pictures Entertainment
Alex Grimwade, Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer, Twentieth Century Fox Television
Robert Schefferine, Vice President, Production, ABC Entertainment Marketing
Amie Tornincasa, Manager of Production Technology, Netflix
 

10:35 – 11:15 a.m.
NETWORKING BREAK
 

11:15 – 11:45 a.m.
Enabling New Forms of Content and Delivery: Satisfying the Emerging Demographic
The M&E space where time-constrained consumers utilize their personal devices at their will and place and time of choosing, is significantly impacting traditional movie theaters, TV Channels, music and home entertainment. Content production, marketing and distribution, driven by technology, are changing to meet the insatiable demands of the emerging consumer demographic.
Moderator: Jay Tucker, Executive Director, UCLA Anderson School Center for Management of Enterprise, Entertainment and Sports
Panelists:
Sean Flynn, Vice President, IT Infrastructure and Global Operations, IMAX Theaters
Amanda Kozlowski, Senior Vice President, Digital Marketing, Lionsgate
Wayne Peacock, Vice President, Global Insights, Blizzard
Ted Schilowitz, Futurist in Residence, Paramount Pictures
 

11:45 a.m. – 12:05 p.m. INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY: HOLLYWOOD 2025
SaaS Based Product Lifecycle Management to Drive Worldwide Digital Content Sales
Managing, marketing and selling catalog titles in a worldwide digital marketplace is very challenging due to lack of data, inefficient workflows, manual effort and the sheer volume of availabilities. It costs thousands of dollars to get titles on to digital stores, but the vast majority of titles available around the world sit on the virtual back shelves completely ignored, never to be found. In fact, numerous titles and languages that could be available aren’t. When you add market conditions like the proliferation of SVOD platforms to distract consumers from transacting, these once valuable assets quickly become less meaningful. However, it’s not all doom and gloom, as there is evidence that if a consumer is connected with content they are interested in at the right price, they will transact. So how can that happen at scale? SaaS based product lifecycle management applied to worldwide digital content sales can solve these challenges and deliver inventory maximization, consumer awareness, transactions and massive supply chain efficiency. This presentation looks at breaking down the challenge and how it can be solved through intelligent collection and presentation of availability and consumer interest data with the ability to execute based on that data.
Steve Rosenberg, Chief Commercial Officer, Premiere Digital
 

12:05 – 12:35 p.m.
KEYNOTE: Data Analytics – Converting Elusive Science to Practical Business Applications
Legacy-driven silos of companies have struggled with understanding the value of data analytics so that investments could be justified. Inadequate resources and non-alignment of objectives among the stakeholders of finance, marketing, operations and research have stymied progress in the past. The panel will address how these organizational impediments are being overcome to yield economic value to the overall enterprise.
Mark Shafer, Senior Vice President, Revenue Management & Analytics, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
Introduction by: Andrew Patterson, Chief Technology Officer, Cast & Crew Entertainment Services
 

12:35 – 12:45 p.m.
Introductions to Afternoon Breakout Session
Guy Finley, Executive Director, MESA
 

12:45 – 2 p.m.
NETWORKING LUNCHEON
 

2 – 2:30 p.m.
KEYNOTE: Disruptive Technology -Taking a Page Out of the Pentagon’s Playbook
What is disruptive technology and where does it come from? The answer, in a nutshell, is DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. For nearly sixty years, DARPA has led research and development of technologies that have changed the world, from the Internet to GPS to human cyborgs. Only once in its long history of innovation did the world’s most powerful & potent research agency almost get outperformed. It had to do with biology. It’s a dramatic and cautionary tale.
Annie Jacobsen, Author, “The Pentagon’s Brains”
 

2:30 – 2:50 p.m. INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY: HOLLYWOOD 2025
Why OTT Tech Will Drive the Future Entertainment
OTT video streaming is getting as easy to implement — and as easy to monetize — as traditional television. And this is great news for Hollywood. This presentation describes how improvements in streaming technology, the networks used to deliver content and the tools available to personalize viewing experiences will give consumers better access to content and enable quality level viewing near a TV-like experience — all elements that will help usher in a new era of content consumption. It will outline key advances in streaming video quality — from increases in frame rate to higher resolutions — and discuss how the OTT world’s embrace of new video formats has and will continue to pay dividends for viewers and content providers alike as well as how the expansion and continual upgrade of content delivery networks (CDNs) worldwide is facilitating dramatic improvements in service quality and the viewer experience. In closing we will illustrate how the personalization of OTT services is a critical differentiator in a crowded marketplace and highlight some of the sophisticated tools that are available for simultaneously delivering compelling content and relevant advertisements, ultimately enabling content providers to achieve new levels of viewer engagement.
Ralf Jacob, President, Verizon Digital Media Services
 

2:50 – 3:10 p.m. INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY: HOLLYWOOD 2025
Blockchain & the Hollywood Supply Chain
The global system behind entertainment is opaque. It impacts content creators who do not know what, when, and how their content is consumed. Imagine the impact if all stakeholders had access to the same facts – Guilds, Unions, Studios, Record Labels, Publishers, Distributors, and Viewers. Blockchain technology offers this opportunity. In this article, we will explore new methods for enabling accountability in pre-production, production, post-production, distribution, and consumption with a secure chain of custody for Intellectual property, royalties and more.
Steve Wong, Director of Business Development Media & Entertainment Group, DXC Technology
 

3:10 – 3:40 p.m.
Blockchain’s Relevance and Impact on M&E
As the conversation about Blockchain technology evolves into practice across various business models in different industries, the relevance and impact to both internal and external systems in media & entertainment is being debated. How does our industry view Blockchain’s practicality and potential to drive a new form of accountability and where will the technology make a permanent impact? This session gives an overview of where the technology could be adapted to specific business needs and examines the potential impact to talent, advertising and distribution.
Moderator: Guy Finley, Executive Director, MESA/CDSA
Panelists:
Eric Diehl, ‎Vice President, Media & Content Security, Sony Pictures Entertainment
Alanna Gombert, President, Gombert Consulting (former General Manager, IAB Tech Lab)
Eric Iverson, Chief Information Officer, Creative Artists Agency (CAA)
 

3:40 – 3:45 p.m.
Closing Remarks and Breakout Sessions Instructions
Guy Finley, Executive Director, MESA
 

3:45 – 4:15 p.m.
NETWORKING BREAK
 

4:15 – 5:45 p.m.
HITS INNOVATION and TECHNOLOGY SHOWCASES
(Multi-Track Break-Out Sessions)
Industry experts share innovative ideas, processes, or perspectives in an interactive and intimate way with the audience who are free to choose which topic/area they find most interesting. Sessions will address key areas on three separate tracks:
TRACK 1: DATA & INNOVATION
TRACK 2: METADATA, RIGHTS & ASSETS
TRACK 3: CLOUD, WORKFLOW & TRANSFORMATION
 

TRACK 1: DATA & INNOVATION
4:15 – 5:15 p.m.
Making Better Movies by Making Movies Better
Every business is becoming a digital business. And every company must digitize to survive. Hollywood is no different. The fact is, Hollywood needs to think about production as a business process. And now, digital methods are finally at our disposal and we can transform production’s sub-processes to make them more efficient. These methods include: metadata management; machine learning; integration / interoperability; always-on connected devices, and real-time collaboration. By doing so, we can make better movies by making movies better.
Guillaume Aubuchon, Product Innovation, Cast & Crew Entertainment Services
Eric Belcher, Chief Executive Officer, Cast & Crew Entertainment Services
John Berkley, President, Cast & Crew Entertainment Services
Ivana Malcolm, Director, Product Innovation, Cast & Crew Entertainment Services
Lee Wittlinger, Director, Silver Lake Partners
 

5:15 – 5:45 p.m.
Innovative Software Wrangles Your Titles and Data
The conversation continues from the main stage with a deeper dive into Storefront Management Software and the data behind it. There are literally millions of dollars on the table and you may be missing the critical tools and data to take advantage of the opportunities. Learn from our founder and president just how easy it is to find lost revenue, while saving money on time/energy/effort, in managing your entire product catalog across multiple retailers in one easy to use software package.
Erik Anderson, Founder and President, Premiere Digital
 

TRACK 2: METADATA, RIGHTS & ASSETS
4:15 – 4:45 p.m.
Turn Metadata into Megadata: How to Transform Your Business with Great Data
As new formats arrive and the requirement to deliver to new territories and partners increases, your ability to take in, transform and deliver content quickly, as well as refresh old content, will be critical to any future success. During this interactive session, Ooyala will explain how creating a single source of truth for all your metadata, including asset, business, event and AI data, will allow you to connect the tools in the production pipeline, streamline your workflows and survive in today’s fast moving content market.
Joey Fulcher, Director of Media Logistics Sales, Americas, Ooyala
 

4:45 – 5:15 p.m.
Ahead of the Tide: Rights Management and Licensing Opportunities in the Digital Future
The crisis in video rights management has begun. It started with the explosion of digital first content and is only going to get bigger with the rise of “prosumer” videos that integrate your content and then appear in multiple new distribution outlets. The good news is that this could also open up a world of new consumption models and monetization opportunities if you’re armed with scalable platforms that use machine learning to connect large content catalogs, extract deep metadata and identify crucial relationships between content. In this session, we’ll discuss ways your original works might be reproduced, distributed, performed, and adapted in the digital future and how to stay ahead of this rapidly changing game.
Michael Jeffrey, Vice President, Business Development, Music & Video, TiVo
 

5:15 – 5:45 p.m.
Artificial Intelligence Made Actionable for M&E
By now, you’ve probably heard that artificial intelligence is the talk of town in the M&E sector. Studios, broadcasters and OTT service providers can harness this technology to extract valuable insights from both structured and unstructured content. In this session, experience how artificial intelligence is transforming public and private audio and video data for the M&E industry. See first hand how purpose-driven solutions are improving workflow efficiencies through content search & discovery; advertising verification; sponsorship valuation; content extension, competitive research, talent development, and more.
Jeanette Graham, Regional Business Development Director, Veritone
 

TRACK 3: CLOUD, WORKFLOW & TRANSFORMATION
4:15 – 4:45 p.m.
Get Real Work Done on the Fly – Remote Collaboration for Video Editing
As production budgets and timelines shrink, remote collaboration tools promise to bridge the gap. In this interactive session, we will showcase ways for your team to work seamlessly across distance without sacrificing quality or security.
Tim Donovan, Head of Field Engineering, Sohonet
Drew Law, Customer Success Manager, Sohonet
 

4:45 – 5:15 p.m.
Secure Burst Rendering to the Microsoft Cloud
Extraordinary trust is required if you’re going to render top-tier content in the public cloud. Learn how to secure VFX workflows in the cloud, and hear how one studio—Jellyfish Pictures—used Microsoft Azure to optimize burst capacity for the latest hits!
Joel Sloss, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Azure
 

5:15 – 5:45 p.m.
The Future Workplace
Most CxOs today are either thinking about or have started to implement their digital transformation, but have they taken into consideration the effect on the new work culture? This session will focus on the way we will work in the near future, the workers and co-workers and the places we will work from. Benefits of attending this session include gaining insights into the future co-worker(s) , how they will want to work and where they want to work;  understanding the impacts of the Mega-Trends; and to be able to readdress your digital transformation strategy
George Muir, Futurist, LiveTiles
 

6 – 7 p.m.: HITS/So-Cal/ISSA Networking Reception
 

7 – 9 p.m.: ISSA-LA October Dinner Meeting
Note: Attendance is complimentary to HITS/So-Cal registered attendees!
 

Social Engineering Panel Discussion
Our panel of experts will draw upon a wealth of experience in Information Security to share their thoughts, strategies, and case studies with us on this all too relevant hot topic
Moderator: Richard Greenberg, Information Security Officer, LA County Public Health
Panelists:
Sig Murphy
, Managing Director, Incident Response and Forensics, Cylance
Upen Sachdev, Principal, Cyber Risk Advisory Team, Deloitte
Brian Contos, CISO & VP Security Strategy, Verodin

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