Speaking at the 2012 IMERSA Summit

Markus Beyr, themed entertainment entrepreneur. Austrian Markus Beyr has made himself the global number one address for immersive special venue theater attractions in Asia and Europe. He’s helped develop hundreds of attractions, steadily building a business in 3D/4D (and now 5D) guest experiences over the past 17 years. Recent projects with high international profiles include Marvel Superheroes 4D for Madame Tussauds London, Arthur at Futuroscope in France, Dragons Treasure at City of Dreams Macau (honored with a Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement) and a dozen others in 2010 alone.

Greg Downing, XRez & Gnomon School for Visual Effects – Assistant Professor. Greg specializes in image-based 3D technologies and computational photography techniques. His photographic work has been displayed in some of the most prestigious museums including the American Museum of Natural History, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Tech Museum.. He has worked on the development of photogrammetry and stitching software at Realviz and in film production as a technical director at Rhythm & Hues and Sony Pictures Imageworks on “Narnia”, “Spiderman 3″ and “I am Legend” and co-produced the award winning short fulldome film Crossing Worlds. Greg will share his experience producing 3D imagery for fulldome productions.

Yaroslav Gubchenko Executive Director at Fulldome Film Society, Russian Federation Motion Pictures and Film

Eric Hanson X Rez – Visual effects designer– Assistant Professor for School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California. Eric is a visual effects designer specializing in the creation of digital environments. Having worked with leading visual effects houses such as Digital Domain, Sony Imageworks, Dream Quest Images, and Walt Disney Feature Animation, his work can be seen in “The Day After Tomorrow”, “Cast Away”, “Mission to Mars”, “Fantasia 2000”, and “The Fifth Element”, among others. He has authored four educational DVDs on digital environments for The Gnomon Workshop, as well as having published two books on Maya technique, Maya being an Autodesk game design and 3d modeling program. Eric will share his skills in developing digital environments for the fulldome, and the creation of digital environments, workflow production.

James Hyder, LF Examiner editor and publisher. Mr. Hyder has worked in the LF industry since 1984, and has experience in all phases of the industry: production, distribution, and exhibition. In the 1970s, Hyder worked hands-on in audio and video production. In 1984 he started working at the Langley IMAX theater at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. As manager of the most popular IMAX theater in the world, he learned the concerns of exhibitors. While at NASM he assisted in the development and production of several IMAX films, including Cosmic Voyage, although he modestly declines to accept any direct credit for its Oscar nomination.

Valerie Johnson-Redrow, who sits on the Board of the New Media Council of the Producers Guild of America (PGA), is currently working on a 3D giant-screen documentary with MacGillivray Freeman Films. Prior to that, she was producer of King Kong 360 3D for Universal Studios Hollywood.

Jeffrey Kirsch is executive director of the Reuben H Fleet Space & Science Center in San Diego, which in the 1970s became the home of the first permanent giant-screen film dome theater. As a producer, Kirsch has over the years been connected to several pioneering special venue documentaries including Chronos and To the Limit. Under Kirsch's stewardship, The Fleet's dome theater was recently refitted with a custom fulldome system.

Ed Lantz, Vortex Immersion Media & IMERSA Founding Director. Lantz has over 20 years of management and executive level experience in media and entertainment technology, art, science and business. He has demonstrated consistent success in envisioning and leading high-risk technical and entrepreneurial operations with excellent strategic planning, management, marketing, P&L, and negotiation skills. Ed is internationally recognized as a pioneer and leading authority in large-format digital cinema and immersive experiences. Other areas of expertise include cable television, themed entertainment, photonics, virtual reality, events production, 3D animation and special effects for large-format film and video. Mr. Lantz is President & CEO ofHarmony Channel (a national cable television network), operates Visual Bandwidth, Inc., an immersive cinema and fulldome video advisory network, and recently co-founded Vortex Immersion Media as President and CTO.

Ian McLennan is a prominent consultant with extensive experience in the planning, funding, creation and management of museums, planetariums, science/interpretation centers, tourism projects and World Expositions.

Dan Neafus, Manager Gates Dome Theater & IMERSA Founding Director, has produced engaging audience experiences for over 35 years, and continues to do so as Operations Manager of one of the finest immersive theaters in the world, the Gates Dome Theater at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. With an emphasis on technology, Dan utilizes many tools in his work, from supercomputer graphics, to 3D sound and automated lighting.  By collaborating and inspiring fellow visionary pioneers he has charted a course for the future of dome theaters and the immersive experience. As Producer, his fulldome films have been distributed to over 150 theaters world-wide including Black Holes the Other Side of Infinity and Cosmic Journey; A Solar System Adventure. Dan is a frequent speaker at international conferences and fulldome film festivals, focusing on “The Language of Fulldome”, “Immersive Cinema” and Fulldome standards development. His consulting firm Artlight Design Inc. advises on Fulldome film development and technical considerations for dome theaters. He has also created numerous public and performance artworks utilizing light and form.

Barry Perlus Cornell University – Professor, Digital Arts, is an artist and educator who employs photography and digital imaging in his artistic practice. His work embodies a keen interest in observation and interpretation, using elements of scale, perspective, light, color, and abstraction to create new interpretations.

In recent projects, Perlus has been using panoramic imaging techniques as a departure from conventional pictorial space. With this approach he developed a multimedia website about the large-scale astronomical observatories built in India by Jai Singh in the early 18th century. His long-standing interest in science has been an influence in other projects, including a current exploration of deep forest spaces at night.

Mark Petersen, president and founder of Loch Ness Productions, is a long-time producer of classic and fulldome planetarium shows, broadcast and online videos, and has more than three decades of experience as soundtrack producer and space music composer. A Fellow of the International Planetarium Society, he served on the Executive Council from 1985 to 1990. He personally undertook the development and annual publication of the IPS Directory of Planetaria and Planetarians.

Berend Reijnhoudt. President Euromax, GSCA, Theater Director Omniversum

Hue Walker Bumgarner-Kirby – Founding Member - Senior Artist ARTSLab. Hue is a founding member and senior artist with ARTS Lab at the University of New Mexico. She provides international support for artists, film makers, educators and students interested in learning about fulldome and designed and taught the world’s first university-based fulldome production course. Hue will share her experience as art director, modeler and animator for fulldome production development using Maya.

George Wiktor, is a past president of the Themed Entertainment Association, and a pioneering producer/consultant who has worked with top design firms including BRC Imagination Arts and The Hettema Group. An outstanding recent project for Wiktor was the “Beyond All Boundaries” multimedia theater at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. He is a proponent of “Participation Culture” in which social technologies are used to create audience involvement in storytelling attractions.

Ryan Wyatt Director, Morrison Planetarium - California Academy of Sciences & Founding Director of IMERSA. Wyatt assumed his role as Director of Morrison Planetarium and Science Visualization at the California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco) in April 2007. Prior to arriving in San Francisco, Wyatt worked for six years as Science Visualizer at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City; previously, he opened technologically-advanced planetariums in Phoenix, Arizona, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Wyatt’s professional interests include making research data sets accessible to the general public, and developing standards and “best practices” in the fulldome video community. A paper co-written for Natural History magazine reflects on the role of modern planetariums in bringing cutting edge science to a variety of audiences, and his “Visualizing Science” blog provides an informal look at his ideas and opinions related to visual representations of science. Wyatt also indulges avid enthusiasms for archeoastronomy, the history of science, and intersections between art and science

Ka Chun Yu, Ka Chun is the Curator of Space Science for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. His current research focuses on evaluating the use of immersive virtual environments for teaching astronomical concepts.  Dr. Yu has done extensive development work on real-time interactive astronomy, virtual environments and visualization software, including lead developer and scientific programmer for Cosmic Atlas, a space flight simulator and full-dome show creation tool; the Cosmic Atlas Galaxy, a real-time simulation of the entire Milky Way; and the Immersive Model Presentation panoramic image viewer for visualizing a wide array of non-astronomical fulldome content.