Conference Sessions:
12 – 12:15 p.m.
Opening Remarks
Guy Finley, Executive Director, Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA)
Mary Yurkovic, Director, Smart Content Council
12:15 – 1:15 p.m.
Metadata Madness Luncheon
Lunch and learn in our annual lightning round updates from trade groups and initiatives making sense out of our industry’s varied metadata needs. What metadata standards and best practices are being formed or are already in place? How are these groups working together to eliminate inefficiencies and create new opportunities for our content?
Eric Hanson, Vice President, Industry Leadership, Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA)
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Christopher Stefanidis, Co-Chair, Technology & Operations Committee, Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) and Vice President, Digital Distribution, Operations and Strategy, The Walt Disney Company
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Seth Levenson, Project Director, Cloud, Entertainment Technology Center @ USC (ETC)
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Harold Geller, Executive Director, Ad-ID
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Kip Welch, Vice President, MovieLabs
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1:15 – 1:30 p.m.
I Want My Talent ID
What is our industry’s plan to protect the privacy of our industry’s most valued asset, our talent? With actors, directors, screenwriters often working across companies, are there benefits for automation and analytics that require a unique, digital identifier? A group of studio executives have started looking at this question and this session will present their initial findings.
Eric Iverson, Chief Information Officer, Creative Artists Agency (CAA)
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1:30 – 1:45 p.m.
Smart Minds: Neurodiversity in the Workplace
Autism isn’t a processing error, it’s a different Operating System! Over 60 million people around the globe are on the Autism spectrum, however, only 15-20% work within the mainstream labor markets. Through workforce training and inclusion, companies could expand the available talent pool and stimulate innovation from inherently unique views and perspectives. This session looks at the benefits of building a program at your company that expands your diversity program to include these talented individuals who may have a unique methodology for problem solving or excel at repetitive tasks.
Tom Roach, Senior Vice President, Technology, Warner Bros. Studios
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1:45 – 2:15 p.m.
Smart Production Technologies at Work!
In this global, 24/7 production environment, the need to efficiently route content and capture feedback and approvals is critical to the success of any production. Any inefficiencies in a studio’s process leads to mistakes, revisions and negatively impacts timelines and the bottom line. Hear from a panel of production technology experts who are on the front lines of using advanced technology and platforms that create smart content to optimize how entertainment is being made.
Moderator: Guy Finley, Executive Director, MESA
Panelists:
Angel Stone, Director, Production IT, Warner Bros. Technology
Amie Tornincasa, Manager of Production Technology, Netflix
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Introduction by: Shawn Przybilla, M&E Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services
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2:15 – 2:30 p.m.
Practical Applications of Machine Learning for Image and Video in the Cloud
A year ago, AWS democratized computer vision by making it easy for developers to extract meaningful metadata from content with managed deep-learning services. Since then, we’ve worked with media organizations to integrate scene detection, celebrity recognition, and facial analysis features into content production and distribution systems. In this spotlight session, we’ll inspire those working with visual content by examining practical applications of artificial intelligence in the cloud.
Shawn Przybilla, M&E Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services
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2:30 – 3 p.m.
NETWORKING BREAK
3 – 3:30 p.m.
KEYNOTE CONVERSATION: Innovation across the Entertainment Industry and the MoviePass Effect
MoviePass, the $10-a-month, moviegoer’s subscription service, has hit the million-subscriber milestone. When it’s losing money on every ticket used, how is this sustainable? Industry veteran (Netflix, Redbox) Mitch Lowe will explain that the business plan is “all about the data,” able to provide for the first time invaluable “who” and “when” data to content creators and producers.
Ted Farnsworth, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Helios & Matheson Analytics, Inc. and Chief Executive Officer, Zone Technologies, Inc.
Mitch Lowe, Chief Executive Officer, MoviePass
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3:30 – 3:45 p.m.
Microsoft Video AI: What’s In Your Content?
This session digs deeper into Azure’s Cloud AI video indexing service that allows users to achieve automatic metadata curation directly from uploaded video content including speech-to-text transcription and closed captioning, face and object detection, language translation along with many other capabilities.
Martin Wahl, Principal Program Manager, Azure Media Services, Microsoft
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3:45 – 4:15 p.m.
Data, Marketing and Analytics: A New Paradigm
The unique use of data-driven connectivity and backend systems allow for a seamless experience that benefits creators, distributors and ultimately consumers. This panel explores how AI integration into data and analytics platforms are transforming the way media & entertainment is being created, distributed and how the resultant user-data (ultimately interpreted by humans!) is being leveraged for consumers with regard to scale, engagement and reach.
Moderator: Jason Lambert, Executive Director, Content Licensing & Metadata, Sony Pictures Entertainment
Panelists:
Greg Eansor, Senior Director Account Success & Acquisition, Microstrategy
Avi Swerdlow, Manager, Research & Development, Disney/ABC Television Group
Martin Wahl, Principal Program Manager, Azure Media Services, Microsoft
Josh Wiggins, Chief Commercial Officer, GrayMeta
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4:15 – 4:30 p.m.
Information, Intelligence & Innovation: Leveraging Data for Creatives, Creators & Marketers
In the information age, product owners, marketers and creatives don’t automatically have a clear path for leveraging data to make decisions. Similarly, innovation is often an intangible brass ring that often eludes many who become over-inundated with data. This session is about making big data an actionable, useful part of the path to innovation and creative/marketing/product excellence.
Shane Norman, Head of Digital Strategy, Codeblack Films
Introduction: Nona Janssen Walls, Senior Vice President, Data Analytics, Lionsgate
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Presentation not available
4:30 – 4:45 p.m.
Using Consumer “Watch Data” to Grow Your OTT Service
Media companies are constantly seeking ways to pull past the competition and grow their digital business, asking themselves core marketing questions about their OTT service. But what is the solution to answering all your questions? – “Watch Data”. As OTT services continue to pop up everywhere, consumer demands and expectations for high quality video, when and where they want to watch it continue to rise. First party data becomes really important. NeuLion Ace Analytics leverages consumer watch data, allowing them to identify, manage and analyze user segments to create effective marketing communications programs to help attract new subscribers, while maintaining current users.
James Crawford, Technology Evangelist, Digital Platform, NeuLion
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4:45 – 5 p.m.
Interactive Media: By The Numbers
Whether it’s in a headset, on mobile or in a video player, interactivity has been sought after but often maligned by the argument “but who really does it”? This session not only looks at who is really doing it and what they are doing but also their unique approaches to data gathering around their consumers and/or product.
John Canning, Chair, New Media Council, Producers Guild of America (PGA)
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5 – 5:15 p.m.
How Direct to Consumer is Changing the Rules for M&E
Every media company needs to be a consumer-focused platform business. Consumers today demand simple, seamless, personalized experiences across any channel, anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Media companies need to move away from the traditional value chain to a model where the consumer is at the center. By using the right tools, media companies can take the digital, 360-degree view of the consumer, leveraging data to serve them content on their terms, and market in real-time. Content is still king, but alone is not enough to stay relevant to today’s consumer.
Richard Whittington, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Media and Entertainment, Industry Cloud Solutions, SAP
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5:15 – 5:45 p.m.
Smart Advertising: Advancing the Medium (for the Message)
This session looks at Dynamic ad insertion and addressable advertising are the future of non-linear, ad-supported media. This session will explore the trends that advertising agencies and brands are exploiting to make the data thread continues through both the content and supportive ads.
Moderator: Harold Geller, Executive Director, Ad-ID
Panelists:
Mark London, Vice President, Advanced Ad Products, FOX Networks Group
Chris Pizzurro, Head of Sales & Marketing, Canoe
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5:45 – 6 p.m.
Unlock the Power of Smart Content with the Right (Data) Pattern
Smart Content impacts everything including how quickly we can get content to our fans and customers, the experiences they have, and the content’s impact on the bottom line. From our experiences working to help create and put Smart Content into action, MarkLogic has developed the Operational Data Hub pattern to define how to bring data together and enable you to make and use Smart Content.
Matt Turner, Chief Technology Officer, MarkLogic
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6 p.m.
Closing Remarks
6 p.m.
NETWORKING RECEPTION
