Developing Interactive Narrative Content Seminar 2003: Speakers

Sebastian Belcher | Matt Costello | Frédéric Durieu | Kirk Ewing | Eero Iloniemi | Michael Lew | Craig Lindley | Camilla Lyngbo Hjort | Harald Riegler | Vincent Scheurer | Ashley Smith | Johannes Ulbricht | Teut Weidemann | Karin Wehn | Richard White |

Sebastian Belcher

Sebastian is a senior associate at Harbottle & Lewis, London. Much of his work involves computer games, internet and new media matters.

He handles a variety of commercial and corporate work concentrated on these industries but also more generally within the media, entertainment and leisure industries including the development, distribution, licensing and other content-based deals. He is also involved in the setting up of corporate and contractual joint ventures, start up and financing and mergers and acquisition work within these fields.

Recent work includes advising TakeTwo Interactive Inc., the NASDAQ quoted computer games publisher on its sale of Pixel Broadband Studios, an Israeli broadband technology company to Gameplay, together with an online distribution arrangement providing Gameplay with online rights to Take Two products.

Matt Costello

Matt Costello's best-selling and award-wining work has always strived to mesh game play, technology and story. He is the writer and creator of groundbreaking projects for TV, Online, novels, nonfiction books, PC and console games in both U.S. and U.K.

Matt Costello wrote the gothic horror script for the best-selling and award-winning The 7th Guest, a Virgin CD-ROM. A game guide and a novel based on The 7th Guest have been released, both immediate best-sellers. He also scripted The 11th Hour, the sequel to The 7th Guest. The 11th Hour won major awards from trade publications, including CD-ROM Today's Critic's Choice Award.

Costello adapted A Cartoon History of the Universe for CD-ROM, 'Best of the Year' by MacWorld Magazine and a New Media Invision Gold medal winner, which said, "This is absolutely one of the best CD-ROM's in the Universe.". Costello has been an interactive consultant for many clients, including James Cameron's Titanic, the BBC and.Xulu Entertainment. Barbie's Riding Club, designed and written by Costello, was the #1 entertainment CD-ROM in the US for December/January 1999.

Matthew Costello is a member of the WGAE and consults widely for clients ranging from James Cameron's Digital Domain (for Titanic), the interactive divisions of the BBC and Channel 4 (UK), and media and game companies around the world.

Other recent major multimedia projects include:

• Aladdin for Disney Interactive
• Hercules, for Disney Interactive
• The Dark Half, for ORION/MGM.
• Derelict, an on-line game for The Sci-Fi Channel
• Fatal Illusion The Clue Chronicles for Hasbro
• Clifford's Adventure for Scholastic
• Cyberchase Web Adventures for PBS.

In 2003:

• Doom 3 for ID Software, Texas
• Starsky Hutch for Empire/Minds-Eye, UK
• The Italian Job (Dialogue) - Eidos
• Cyberchase CD Games, for PBS.
• Bad Boys II for Empire/Blitz

In 2004:

• Major Project -- for Eidos/Lost Boys Games.
• The Thing 2 Universal Interactive.

Costello's recent novel was published in 2002, Unidentified, for Penguin-Putnam. His earlier novel, Beneath Still Waters will be filmed early 2004.

He's also the author of The Greatest Games of All Time (John Wiley & Sons). A former Contributing Editor at games Magazine, Costello has appeared as The Game Guy on WNYC in New York (shows archived at www.nykids.org). He is also the designer of many role-playing adventures and boardgames, featuring Dungeons and Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Batman, Lone Wolf Cub, and many others.

Frédéric Durieu

Artist-programmer, Lecielestbleu, F
www.lecielestbleu.com
Frédéric studied civil engineering (polytechnique) at Université de Louvain-La-Neuve and concluded his studies with a thesis on the production of a plant-growth simulation program.
In 1993, he founded together with Yves Bernard the multimedia production company Magic Media, Bruxelles.
1998, he settled in Paris with New York multimedia specialist Kristine Malden - and co-authored with Murielle Lefèvre and Jean-Jacques Birgé, the award-winning Alphabet CD-ROM.
In 2000, he founded LeCielEstBleu, the associated experimental website being an interactive art gallery.
With Jean-Jacques Birgé responsible for the music composition, Frédéric started the animated puppet series ZOO in 2001 – growing to be a huge success right from the start. The accompanying PuppetTool enabling the users to create animations on their own received several awards.

Kirk Ewing

Eero Iloniemi

Investment Director, CIM, FIN
eMBA, has more than 12 years of experience in the content creation industries. Before establishing CIM he was a founding partner and publisher in PubliCo Ltd, a company specializing in printed and net media. Eero has also worked as an advertising executive, a business journalist and as a foreign news reporter for leading Finnish media companies.
Eero is also a content creator in his spare time. He has written lyrics for recording artists as well as poetry and short film scripts.
Language skills: English, Swedish, French
At CIM Eero’s primary responsibility is evaluation and business development of investee companies.

Michael Lew

Michael Lew is a media artist / engineer from Geneva, Switzerland and also has the Uruguayan citizenship. His background is in electrical engineering, artificial intelligence, acting and filmmaking.
He is currently a Research Fellow in the Story Networks group at the Media Lab Europe in Dublin, where he's investigating what happens to the film form when the medium becomes computational. He works on real-time editing engines, expressive interfaces for video improvisation and multi-track video samplers for theatrical performance.

Michael obtained his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). His master's thesis was carried out with the AI Lab at the Motorola Labs in Paris, France, for which he was awarded the Logitech 2000 prize. He also spent a year in Haifa, Israel, at the Technion Institute of Technology, where he developed architectures for MPEG-2 video streaming.

Before directing his first 16mm short films in film school in New York, Michael founded in Lausanne the hilarious "Avracavabrac" performance company, specialized in hoaxes for corporate events. He also started the Dublin Café philosophique, which regularly brings together people from different backgrounds to discuss philosophical topics. Since 2002, he has been doing experimental video performances in clubs and festivals across Europe and the US.

Craig Lindley

Dr. Craig Lindley is a senior researcher with the Zero Game Studio of the Interactive Institute in Sweden. His research focuses on new dramatic computer game forms, characterisation, narrative and believable agents in virtual environments.

He has an extensive research background in the areas of knowledge base systems, artificial intelligence, autonomous agents and interactive 3D systems. He has previously worked for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia, and for Starlab NV/SA in Belgium.

Camilla Lyngbo Hjort

CEO and Head of creative management, Pinkfloor, DK
Masters degree at University of Copenhagen – Modern culture and communication.
1998-1999 In charge of “Emotion and Immersion in Interactive Media” - a series of international design workshops at Designskolen Kolding’s multimedia department aiming at developing new forms of interactive language.
1999-2000 Project manager at “Betalab”. A laboratory for new concepts in digital media, at DR, danish national TV. Projects included conceptual work and production management for prizewinning “Bagsædestrisser”, an interactive radio drama produced for Internet and national radio.
2000-2003 Co-founder of and Creative director in Pinkfloor. In charge of research, conceptual development and production management on The Bitch Game, The Partymoto Game, a series of mobile games etc.
2003 Head of creative development of the cross media PowerBabe brand including The PowerBabe Game for Internet and SMS as well as a number of products in development: The PowerBabe Game for Console, The PowerBabe Book, The PowerBabe Fashion Collection, The PowerBabe TV show etc.

Harald Riegler

Managing Director, Sproing

Harald Riegler, 29, started his career in the games industry as a programmer and musician in the late 80s and early 90s Atari demo scene. As a member of one of the most successful and influential demo groups during this time, he was soon recruited into the gaming industry. He worked as an audio programmer, musician and sound designer on numerous games for PSone, and soon set out to start an independent business to further pursue his passion for games and music. In 1998, he co-founded Sproing together with his partner Gerhard Seiler, and the company started to work as an outsourcing team for console games and audio projects. In 2001 the team also saw the chance to secure additional funding for console/PC games through the development of web-based games, particularly focusing on games for advertising purposes and online-gambling. Harald had significant influence in establishing the company as one of the premier addresses for ad-games in Austria/Germany, as well as in remaining a successful company for PC and console game projects. In his sparetime, he enjoys soccer, snowboarding and skiing.

Vincent Scheurer

Osborne Clarke, UK

Vincent comes from an in-house background and specialises in commercial and corporate work in connection with the digital media and Internet industries. He concentrates on agreements for the development and exploitation of interactive software products, particularly in the entertainment and educational field, and on Internet related agreements.
His recent work includes advising on international distribution and licensing agreements for software games and the acquisition and exploitation of trade mark licences within software products, including product placement agreements. He also advises on the agreements concerning the exploitation of rights over the Internet and other new communications structures as well as Internet and e-commerce service provision, development and maintenance agreements.
Vincent qualified as a barrister in 1994. He worked as an in-house lawyer for a software house before joining Osborne Clarke in 1999 as a non-practising barrister.

Ashley Smith

Ashley Smith is responsible for developing the Van Dusseldorp client network and has special expertise in the areas of Digital and Interactive Television, SMS and Mobile services, Online Sports, Digital Entertainment and Financial Services. A regular speaker at international events, Ashley is also responsible for the production of a number of high level pan-European new media events, including the successful TV Meets the Web seminar series, in Amsterdam. Ashley has over ten years experience in sales & marketing and analysis across the financial services and new media sectors. He holds a Masters Degree in European Communications and undergraduate qualifications in Business, Marketing and Investment Markets.

Johannes Ulbricht

has for some considerable time been involved in legal matters that concern media and culture. During his studies, he worked for the media legal expert and current constitutional judge Professor Hoffmann-Riem. Initial experience as an attorney was gained in the chambers of Prinz, Neidhardt and Engelschall.

In addition to jurisprudence, Dr. Ulbricht, who likes to look beyond the judicial boundaries, has also studied culture management. He gained his doctorate in 2002 with ñmagna cum laudeî through an interdisciplinary thesis on the topic of ñEconomic, technical and legal framework conditions for innovation with art in digital spaceî. Dr. Ulbricht has also gained trade specific practical experience as the Managing Director of the Rudolf-Arnheim-Institut fur Kunst und Kulturokonomie, a position that he still holds today.

Dr. Ulbricht gained additional industry experience through advisory work for Bertelsmann Digital World Services on the complex of topics regarding the interaction of technology and law where copyright protection is concerned as well as in general in media law and in the multifarious questions concerning culture management. The enthusiastic jogger, music listener and concert goer is active privately as a novelist and as a screenplay writer for computer games.

Practical experience of Attorney Johannes Ulbricht:

• IT/Internet law
• Competition law and the rights to use a name

Main spheres of interest of Attorney Johannes Ulbricht:

• Computer games law with its interrelationships to other copyright and music law

Teut Weidemann

CEO, Wings Simulations GmbH

1981 the Pet 2001 changed the life of Teut Weidemann. He became addicted to "computers", learning so fast that he taught even his teachers at school programming languages and ran the "computer room". Much later ....
Teut Weidemann is now one of the "oldest" game producers in germany being in business since 18 years, producing freelance teams back in 1985. He then got lucky to be in the right place when the first job "Development Director" was created at the largest developer/publisher at that time: Rainbow Arts/Softgold back in 1987. During this time he oversaw the complete development of the publisher, releasing over 30 titles in the next 4 years on classic "homecomputer" platforms like C64, Amstrad, Spectrum, Atari ST, Amiga and PC. Many games became the best sellers from germany and are still known among "classic gamers" today: Katakis, Turrican, R-Type, X-Out, MUDS, and Sperical to name a few.
One of Teuts past teams is now one of the best console action developers today working for LucasArts and Nintendo: Factor5. Their titles are the #1 best selling Star Wars games like Rogue Squadron and Rogue Leader.

When the first developer crash came during 1991 he left the company and joined Apple to sell large scale DTP networks to gaming and computer magazines, among them Ziff Davis and "Die Abendzeitung". 1993 he joined a company which invented "Advertainment" games and built up their development department, using "virtual workforces" for the first time. This development work was intensively covered by the german media (like "Der Spiegel") as the internet age was just starting. The work he completed was for companies like Kelloggs, 3M, german government and Kraft, Jacobs, Suchard.

In 1995 Teut felt ready again to tackle the worldwide professional game market and planned to start his own company. But first he was asked to built up the development department for the physics nobel prize winner Dr. Gerd Binnig who developed learning games for complex fractal systems.

Later Teut joined Microsoft Games Seattle as a specialist for the german and european market. His job was to judge potential for Microsofts upcoming titles in germany like Age of Empires and to solve retail problems Microsoft had at this time for games. He also had to identify potential developers for Microsoft for aquisition or publishing their games.

1996 Teut finally founded his own company Wings Simulations GmbH after successfully showing his title "Panzer Elite" to worldwide publishers. In Mai 1997 Wings Simulations signed a world wide publishing deal with Psygnosis, a Sony company. Wings was one of the first independent german developers signing such a deal by that time.

In November 1999 the game was released and received praise and awards, being the best selling historic tank simulation of this date. The game is still the genre reference, although over 3 years old. The game was rereleased in 2001 as "Panzer Elite Special Edition" by Jowood.

Wings Simulations joined the Jowood Software Productions AG in Mai 2000 to tackle larger games: online and multiplayer games. The next game designed by Teut and his team at Wings is called "Söldner - Secret Wars" and is planned for release Q3/2003 and is targetted at the mature online player.

Reference Sites:
www.wingssimulations.com
www.secretwars.net
www.jowood.com

Karin Wehn

http://www.karin-wehn.de

Teaching and Research Positions
1999 to date
University of Leipzig, Media & Communication Studies. Research associate in the
department of Media Studies and Media Culture.
2001-2003
University of Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany. Guest professor in Social and Economic Communication (Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftskommunikation).
1995-1999
University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Researcher in a project on German crime fiction on television, funded by the German research council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).

Journalistic Experience
2003
Contributions for the short film magazine ãKurzschluss" for the television station Arte.
1998 to date
Articles for various media journals (grimme, Funk-Korrespondenz, Fernseh-Informationen)

Education
2003
Post-doc thesis: Animation on the internet. (in progress)
2000
Ph.D in Media & Communication Studies at the University of Halle-Wittenberg. Title of thesis: Crimetime in Flux. Production, Distribution and Genre Development of TV Crime Fiction in West Germany and East Germany in the Dual System.
1995
Master Degree in English Linguistics, English Literature, Applied Linguistics, New German Literature. Title of thesis: Dubbing of American Tv series for the German market
1999
Scholarship from the Deutsche Rundfunkarchiv, Frankfurt
1987
General Qualification for University Entrance (Abitur) at Stift-Keppel-Gymnasium, Hilchenbach

Publications o.a.
Wehn, Karin: "Crime-Time" im Wandel: Produktion, Vermittlung und Genreentwicklung des west- und ostdeutschen Fernsehkrimis im Dualen Rundfunksystem. Bonn: ARCult 2002.
Brueck, Ingrid; Andrea Guder, Reinhold Viehoff, Karin Wehn: Der deutsche Fernsehkrimi. Eine Programm- und Produktionsgeschichte von den Anf&ngen bis heute. Stuttgart: Metzler 2003 (forthcoming).

Webprojects
Animation on the internet. http://www.animation-le.de.vu

Memberships
DGPuk. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Publizistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft. http://www.dgpuk.de/
SAS. Society for Animation Studies. http://www.awn.com/sas/
Studienkreis Rundfunk und Geschichte. http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~skrug/

Richard White

Trainer/Curriculum Consultant/Speaker Richard is active in the development of training strategies for Interactive Media. As well as being an advisor to both UK National and European bodies, he has created and participated in workshops, seminars, and training programs for both universities and independent training courses in Britain, Europe and the United States. These include the European programs sagas, Sources II, Arista, EAVE. The Channel 4 Future TV Workshop, PAL Multimedia Labs and New Media Knowledge in the UK. The Focal Interactive Media Workout Basle, CAID Athens. ITVF New York. Universities include Lulea and Gotland in Sweden and La Femis in France.
He has been a speaker and panellist at numerous events including, The Big Picture - Dublin, Sharing Stories - Edinburgh/London, Imagina - Paris, Edinburgh Film Festival, Banff TV Festival - Canada, MCCI Kuala Lumpur, IEMMYs - New York, Digital Independents - San Francisco.

Career History
May ’01 -July '03
University of Gotland, Visby/Sweden
Mentor for newly formed Art and New Media Unit, developing curriculum and lecturing in Interactive Product Design.
Feb ’00 – Currently
INITIAL CUT, Paris/London
Co-founder and Board Member
Independent Interactive Media Development House.
* IP Rights Creation/Acquisition/Enhancement.
* Interactive Media Project Development.
* Partners Worldwide.
Jul ’98 – Jan ‘00
EUROPEAN COMMISSION DG10 (Culture & Education), London/Bruxelles
Head of Development (New Media)
MEDIA II Fund, offering Europe wide financing for Interactive Media Projects.
March ’95 – Present
SQUISHBAND, London
Founder and Executive Creative Strategist
Interactive Media Development Consultancy.
Prior to this u.o.:
EPIC MEDIA GROUP plc., Executive Producer
4i FILMS ltd , Development ExecutiveLOMBARD PRODUCTIONS LTD , Producer / Director
TAKE TWO FILM AND VIDEO , Producer / Director
The Company, Theatre Producer/Director
Performances at The Roundhouse, Rock Garden, Theatro Technis, Avignion, Edinburgh, Paris and Amsterdam.