Evaluation Juries

Adam Sigel is a writer, producer and content strategist working across multiple platforms. As a writer, Adam’s list of credits include feature films and TV series for companies such as Alcon Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Hearst Entertainment among others. He served as a writer and story editor for Steven Spielberg on his video game project for Electronic Arts and was a writer/producer of the award-winning web/mobile cross-platform series “Afterworld.” He has developed digital content and served as content strategist for a wide range of companies including Disney, Microsoft, Activision, Cisco, Johnson & Johnson, Sony/Columbia Tri-Star, Fox Searchlight, Suzuki, GE and NBC/Universal. Also, he has served as expert or mentor to cross-media producers for international organizations such as Nordisk Film and TV, Screen Australia, Torino Film Lab, Power to the Pixel, Independent Filmmaker Project, Berlinale Talent Campus, Atlantic Film Festival, Merging+Media, Distrito Cinema of Columbia, Forum Brazil, the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland and the National Film Board of Canada.

Adam studied film production at Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and graduated with high honours from Wesleyan University (film and history).  

Alison Norrington is a storyteller, producer and experience designer. She is founder of storycentral, a London-based entertainment studio that incubates and develops ground-breaking IP with global partners in film, television, Virtual Reality, theme parks, animation, gaming and advertising.   She specializes in storytelling and experiences crossing traditional formats, live events, digital and location-based entertainment. Alison explores new frontiers of experiential storytelling and has designed and led labs at the London Film School, Singapore Media Academy/MediaCorp, Swedish Design Institutes and the Royal College of Art. She is an expert program and event organizer, working with many global events and partners including Canada Media Fund, ITVFest, Canada Screen Awards, Festival de Television, The Children’s Media Conference, Banff World Media Festival and Canada Media Producers Association. Alison is Conference Chair for StoryWorld Conference, Exec Producer of the Virtual Reality Thread for The Children’s Media Conference, is a two-time TEDx speaker and has presented at a number of entertainment and media conferences worldwide. She is featured on the BAFTA Guru series and is a member of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, The Writers Guild of Great Britain and Women in Film & TV.

Amber MacArthur is the co-host of App Central on CTV, a television show that features the latest developments in mobile technology and social media. The show airs in Canada, Singapore, Australia and South Korea. She is also the President of Konnekt Digital Engagement, a digital marketing agency based in Halifax and Toronto. After receiving a post-graduate degree in Journalism, majoring in the digital realm, she moved to San Francisco to work for two tech start-ups during the dot-com boom. Upon returning to Canada, Amber worked as a web strategy manager with Microsoft Canada, leading the development and editorial teams to create a female-focused lifestyle portal. She was also the country’s first new media reporter, covering digital news for Toronto’s Citytv. In 2010, Canadian Business named Amber Canada’s top social media expert on how to build a brand.

Anita Ondine is an internationally renowned transmedia creator, consultant and educator, who has overseen the concepting and development of over a dozen original transmedia properties, including Lance Weiler’s groundbreaking Pandemic 1.0 which was the first fully transmedia story experience to debut at the Sundance Film Festival. Anita also produced the companion short film “Pandemic 41.410806,-75.654259,” which premiered in competition at Sundance and was distributed via a US cable network reaching 28 million homes. Anita runs her own production company, LivOn Productions. Anita has also worked with several major broadcasters in Europe, Asia and the United States to develop their own transmedia programs. She co-founded the popular Transmedia Next workshop series where she is Creative Director and Lead Trainer. Anita is a vocal advocate of the power and potential that transmedia in particular, and digital media more broadly, provides storytellers and has a specific interest in using transmedia in the context of social change. She speaks internationally on themes related to transmedia and the intersection of technology and entertainment, and is a Board Member of Screen Tasmania.

Annelise Larson comes from a background as an independent producer, with training at such prestigious institutions as the Canadian Film Centre (Producers’ Lab) and Banff Centre for the Arts (Electronic and Film Media). Since 1995 she has been working in the field of online marketing and has always been an avid gamer and consumer of digital content. She works extensively with government organizations and production companies in the film, television and interactive industries in North America. Her focus is helping content creators and storytellers use the digital opportunity to define, find, attract and engage their audiences and work toward strategic and sustainable business models. She has sat on the Interactive Fund jury for BC Film + Media (now Creative BC), the Experimental Stream jury for the CMF, has taught across the country on behalf of such organizations as Telefilm Canada, the Canadian Film Centre, Women in Film, and the National Screen Institute, and is a highly sought after speaker for media festivals and conferences. Annelise has developed and implemented marketing strategies and gathered and analyzed online data for digital and screen media products as diverse as social TV apps, transmedia experiences, webisode series, feature films, television series and production companies themselves. Her online course Becoming a Storypreneur has been taught to media storytellers across Canada and in conjunction with Boost Hbg in Sweden to rave reviews. Currently, Annelise is excited to be working on launching a suite of webinars to teach how to think and work like a storypreneur and to bring the filmmaker crowdfunding and VOD platform Seed&Spark to Canada.

Annika Gustafson is the executive director of BoostHbg, a ground breaking development and funding incubator for innovative media and film in Helsingborg, Sweden. Previously based in Montreal, Annika spent many years developing her creative and business expertise in the international film industry. Returning to Sweden in 2010, she produced the Financing Forum for Kids Content before joining BoostHbg as the Nordic countries' first Transmedia Commissioner.
 
In Montreal, Annika was a board member of Doc Quebec and in Sweden she’s a board member of DocLounge and Nemo. She’s a well sought after speaker and panelist who also coaches companies on storytelling and audience/consumer reach.
 
With her passion for strong stories that can develop organically over several platforms, Annika draws on her years of experience as an award winning filmmaker to help clients and talents increase reach, impact, and financing possibilities. She continues to nurture her passion for social change through documentary story telling. Her Sundance supported film Brown Gold will premiere in 2015.

Britta brings nearly a decade of insights, strategy, brands and advertising to the table, as well as a lifetime of being a digital native. Passionate about developing and implementing great strategy and innovative insights to help brands and business achieve, Britta also has a special expertise in the digital and social space.
Britta has worked on digital, brand and innovation insights and strategy as well as creative campaigns and a few launches for a diverse group of brands including Coca-Cola, American Express, MTV, HBO, eos, P&G, Virgin America, Agent Provocateur, Jawbone, and the nonprofit Nanhi Kali. Most recently serving as Director, Digital Strategic Insights at MTV.

A new technology and digital media specialist since 1994, Bruno Guglielminetti worked as a director at Radio-Canada from 1987 to 2010, where he directed the Christiane Charette en direct show on Radio-Canada’s Première Chaîne radio station from 2006 to 2010. He wrote for La Presse from 1996 to 2003 and for Le Devoir from 2005 to 2010. He served as Director of Digital Communications and Strategic Information at the public relations firm National in Montréal from 2010 to February 2014, and has served as Digital Communications Director at the Just for Laughs Group since February 2014.

He is the author of the best-seller Les 1 000 meilleurs sites en français de la planète, published by Éditions Logique. In 2003, he received the Communicator of the Year Award from the International Association of Business Communicators (Canada). In 2004, he received the Mérite de la langue française award in the field of new technology from the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF). In May 2009, he received the Excellence in Science and Technology Reporting Award from the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance, in Ottawa.

Caitlin Burns has spent a decade working with narrative intellectual property franchises, independent artists, brands and philanthropic initiatives. Developing content strategies, overseeing multiplatform storyworlds and supervising localization campaigns spanning the globe, she understands what it takes to create a success story. Her independent feature McCarren Park, a film distributed by a geolocated mobile app, premiered at the Tribeca Film Institute’s Interactive Day and screened at the New York Film Festival.

Her past work includes: Pirates of the Caribbean, Disney Fairies, and Tron Legacy for The Walt Disney Company, James Cameron’s Avatar for Fox, Halo for Microsoft, Happiness Factory for The Coca-Cola Company, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Nickelodeon and Transformers for Hasbro. She has also worked with Sony, Showtime, Pepperidge Farm, Scholastic, Tribeca New Media Fund, FEMSA, Wieden+Kennedy, Odd Division, Tool of North America, Campfire, Reebok, Stratasys and The Disney Channel.

She regularly speaks to educational institutions including: Ithaca College, New York University, The New School, Ontario College of Art & Design, Bloomfield College, SUNY Purchase and Columbia University. She also travels internationally to speak and educate on business models and changing production practices in the entertainment industry. 

A trained economist, Carl-Frédéric de Celles is co-founder, president and senior partner of iXmédia, one of Quebec’s leading interactive solutions design and production firms. He has developed many original, popular and highly successful projects and initiatives, including the ZAP Québec community network and the annual Le Web à Québec conference (WAQ), and has been associated with Kabane, Zengo, Opossum, Molecube and Caribou. He is a member of the board of directors at a number of organizations, including Rencontres cinématographiques de Québec, ZAP Québec, WAQ and the ANDI (Art numérique et divertissement interactif) regional business round table. In recent years, he has been chairman of the board of the TECHNOcompétences sectoral committee for the IT industry workforce, headed the Workgroup on Digital Production and Interactive Media, and served as treasurer for the Institut canadien de Québec, which operates Quebec City’s public library network.

Catherine Warren is president of FanTrust Entertainment Strategies, an international management consulting firm for the digital distribution and media production industries. A digital media veteran with 25 years of experience, Catherine has published more than 25 books on science and computing for adults and children, and produced numerous award-winning websites and interactive broadcasts. She is the North American executive board member of the United Nation’s flagship World Summit Award for Digital Media, and is a judge for the international Digital Emmy Awards and the Rose d’Or.

Dré Labre spent 15 years at agencies such as MacLaren McCann, Blast Radius, Tribal DDB, and (currently) Rethink. Dré’s strategy and artistry have earned him judging positions at awards shows including the DMAs, CMAs, London International and the Webbys. He is a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences (IADAS) and is on the board of directors of the Advertising and Design Club of Canada (ADCC).

Eliana Russi is an international business developer in the interactive media sector, specializing in TV and videogames Industries. She currently leads the Brazilian Game Developers Program promoting local companies internationally, fostering new business opportunities for the sector. Also, is the executive producer of Brazil’s International Games Festival (BIG), a major industry event for independent games in Latin America. Working with the Consulate General of Canada in São Paulo from 2001 to 2007, she promoted the Canadian Audiovisual sector in Brazil, fostering relationships to help the first feature film and television coproductions. Eliana is the sectorial representative for Games at SPCine, São Paulo Audiovisual Company and Secretaria de Cultura do Rio de Janeiro. She holds an MBA speacializing in e-Economy from the University of São Paulo.

Éric Viennot is pursuing a career these days as an author and independent consultant in the field of video games, documentaries and transmedia fiction. For many years, he taught courses on new media at the Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris. He then co-founded the Lexis Numérique studio which has specialized in digital imaging and multimedia since 1990. Éric has had a parallel career as a video game author. Besides Les Aventures de l’Oncle Ernest (Adventures of Uncle Ernest) and its sequels such as La Boite à bidules (The box of widgets), he is especially well known for the In Memoriam game series (released as Missing: Since January in English), often cited as a classic paradigm in the genre of alternate reality games (ARG). More recently, he has created the transmedia fiction Alt-Minds. Widely recognized in Europe as a pioneer in transmedia fiction (Les Echos magazine has dubbed him “the francophone pope of transmedia”). Éric is regularly involved in conferences and higher education programs on digital and transmedia creative in France and abroad (INA, ESCP, Centre Pompidou, MIT, Lincoln Center, Festival de Montréal, to name just a few). He was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2004.

Frank Boyd founded the UK’s first digital media lab, the Arts Technology Centre (Artec), in1989. He was also a founder of European Multimedia Labs, the UK Digital Media Alliance and the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards before joining the BBC Innovation and Learning Department as director of creative development. In 2002, he created Unexpected Media to support innovation and creative research on media of the future. Recent projects include the BBC Innovation Labs and the international Crossover Labs program in Australia, Canada, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Italy and the UK. Frank is currently a consultant on convergence and the creative industries for the UK government’s Technology Strategy Board.

Frédéric Cavazza has worked in the web sector for more than 12 years as a consultant on various missions for French and international firms, including Renault, L’Oréal, Orange and Vodafone. Nowadays he is an independent consultant, delivering expertise, education and training, and speaking at engagements in France, Switzerland, Canada, Romania, Chile and other countries worldwide. Frédéric is also a natural-born tech evangelist, who writes 8 blogs on topics ranging from innovation, social media and e-commerce to enterprise 2.0 and wireless technologies.

Dr. Frederik Lesage is a lecturer in Cultural and Creative Industries and Digital Humanities at King’s College London and a visiting lecturer in the Screen Media and Cultures program at Cambridge University. Frederik was awarded a Ph.D. by the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics in 2009. His research specializes in investigating how small to medium-size organizations develop scalable platforms and co-creative practices for delivering online content. Frederik has made presentations at numerous international conferences and his work has been widely published.

Before founding social media agency Jumpwire Media in 2009, Gavin worked for Skype funded webvideo start up Joost and he was the Head of Cross Platform Business Development at global media company Endemol. 

Jumpwire Media specializes in building and managing social media communities for pages with fans over 100,000. Jumpwire clients include: Starz, Sony, Yahoo, Katie Couric, BBC, etc

Gavin has been working in media space for over 25 years. He has lived in Japan, Africa, and Europe exploring and understanding the global digital space.

He is invited to speak at media industry conferences around the world including: MIPCOM, International Institute of Communications, Harvard Business Club of New York, etc.

He is an avid cyclist, surfer, skier, and soccer player. He lives in Los Angeles. 

Gina Desjardins is a journalist and columnist specializing in new technologies and digital media. She worked for several seasons as a reporter for Vox Télé and the technology show Le Lab, before moving on to M.Net (Musique Plus) as a video game reviewer and as a researcher for VLOG (TVA), a program devoted to the best videos on the web. Today Gina blogs in the tech sections of MSN.ca and Radio-Canada (Triplex), and is frequently invited to comment on the current scene on radio and television. She also works as a consultant, coach and speaker on social networking, tech user experience (sites, applications), the history and playability of video games, and multimedia and transmedia strategies.

Guy has 20 years’ experience in digital entertainment projects across multiple platforms and has produced over 200 projects including massively multiplayer games, EPGs, digital radio interfaces and interactive fiction. He was Head of Multimedia for Penguin Books UK before going on to produce acclaimed websites for the band Oasis, the Guardian newspaper, and FoxKids.

After leading the broadband and interactive TV production for BBC Worldwide, Guy produced the online massively multiplayer game Diaspora which pitted thousands of online players against each other simultaneously, and developed 3D games engines for PC and Playstation.
He has been General Manager of Digital Services for PBL Media (Channel Nine and ACP Magazines) and Director of Content for Telstra BigPond. He is currently with The Project Factory.

Until recently, he was President of the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) for 4 years and remains an active Board member. He was a judge for the BAFTA Interactive awards before moving to Australia and is a current judge for The Webbys.