Keynote Speaker:

Spiridellis

Evan Spiridellis, co-founder and president of JibJab Entertainment
Evan and Gregg Spiridellis founded JibJab in 1999 with a few desktop computers, a dial-up Internet connection and the dream of building a big new media brand. Five years later, they achieved ‘overnight success’ when their 2004 election parodies, This Land and Good to be in DC, were seen over 80 million times around the world, leading Peter Jennings to name the brothers ‘People of the Year’. Since then, Gregg and Evan have built JibJab into a leading online entertainment brand with 6 million registered members and over 100 million annual visitors to their website. Thirteen of their videos have premiered on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. They have formed digital distribution partnerships with Yahoo! and MSN, produced branded entertainment campaigns with Pepsi, Anheuser-Busch, Verizon Wireless and OfficeMax, and secured financing from Polaris Venture Partners, Overbrook Entertainment and Sony Pictures Entertainment. Gregg, JibJab’s CEO, is a recovering investment banker with an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. Evan, JibJab’s Chief Creative Officer, was a successful independent filmmaker with a BFA in Illustration from Parson’s School of Design.

Panelists:

Bellavia

Michael Bellavia, President of Animax Entertainment
An Emmy-winning producer and President of Animax Entertainment, Michael has produced or executive produced all of Animax’s client projects for Disney, ESPN, Fox, MTV, Nickelodeon, and Spin Master among others. These have included TV shows, DVDs, websites, virtual worlds, games, mobile apps, and a range of other entertainment based social media. He also grew the company to being listed on the Inc. 500 in 2009. Prior to Animax Michael was a Lead Strategist at Concrete Media, a boutique interactive agency and also worked in business development and marketing at several entertainment studios including Sony. Michael has an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in Engineering from The University of Michigan. He is on the Board of Delegates of the New Media Council of the Producers Guild of America, a mentor for AFI’s Digital Content Lab, and has spoken at Digital Hollywood, Ad-Tech, OMMA, NAB, Virtual Worlds Summit, the UK’s e-com Law, and KidScreen Summit.

Burch

Brendan Burch, Partner & President, Six Point Harness Studio
Brendan Burch is the CEO and co-founder of the Hollywood animation studio Six Point Harness. After graduating from California Institute of the Arts' Character Animation program, Brendan went to work writing and animating shorts at Atom Films. He continued to build his resume by animating for Belkin, Knowledge Kid’s Network, Nestle, and Warner Brothers. His expert knowledge of Flash character animation landed him a job on Romp Films’ feature, Jake’s Booty Call, one of the first Flash animated features ever produced. Once on-board, Brendan helped create a workflow pipeline that enabled the completion of the project. As the film wrapped, Brendan led the talented members of the animation team to start Six Point Harness Studios. Within the first year as an independent studio, Six Point Harness was awarded the titling sequence for Dreamworks feature, Eurotrip. Now after six years Six Point has an impressive credit and client list including series work on MTV's “Where My Dogs At?”, Nick Jr's “Wow, Wow, Wubbzy” and numerous pilots and commercials for the likes of ABC, NBC, FOX, Cartoon Network, Disney and BET. Currently, Six Point Harness is working on the Drawn Together feature with Comedy Central.

Lloyd

Lauren Lloyd, Director of Production, JibJab Entertainment
Lauren Lloyd has a strong, well-rounded background in filmmaking and creative writing. She holds a Bachelor's degree with honors from Temple University in Film and Media Arts and a Certificate in Writing. Lauren is knowledgeable in each stage of production.

In 2006 she followed her dreams from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. Her mission was simple: to entertain and inspire the masses through visual media, whether film, video or any other creative channel. Luckily she interviewed for a Production Associate position at JibJab Media in 2007 and landed the job. The animation world was new to her, but it took her little time to understand its technicalities and intricacies. She witnessed the promising future of the company become reality and has grown along with it.

Since her start at JibJab, the company has drastically revised its business model and evolved to be an impressive force in both the eGreetings and animation industries. Currently Lauren is the Director of Production at JibJab and is grateful to work with an incredible team of talented animators, designers, illustrators, editors and writers.

In addition to her work at JibJab, Lauren writes creatively with a group of fellow writers. She recently completed her first feature screenplay, and her first published article should be available online in spring 2010. Photography and traveling are two of her other hobbies that go hand-in-hand and keep life exciting.

Dean

Marge Dean, General Manager, W!LDBRAIN Animation Studios
Marge Dean is one of the leading producers of television animation. She oversees physical production for animated programming on all platforms for W!LDBRAIN Animation Studios.

Prior to joining W!LDBRAIN, Dean served in leadership roles at top animation companies, including Warner Bros. Animation, and is recognized as a pioneer for bringing animation into the digital age during her tenure at Sony TV Animation. She served as VP of Animation for Technicolor, where she created an animation service business for the long established media company. Before her post at Technicolor, Dean established the television arm of Omation Studios for Steve Oedekerk, where she produced the Emmy nominated series, Back at the Barnyard (Nickelodeon). At Warner Bros. Animation, she produced a number of DVDs and successful television series, including What’s New Scooby Doo?. Along with her producing responsibilities at Warner Bros. Animation, Dean served as a consultant on production strategies for all new animation projects at the studio.

Dean began her career in television animation as a production manager on The Ren and Stimpy Show. She went on to work for D.I.C. Entertainment as an Associate Producer. Her next move was to the new television animation division of Sony, where she was quickly elevated to Director of Animation Production and oversaw both daytime and primetime animation. She has also worked extensively overseas in China, India, Japan and Korea.

Dean is based in the San Francisco office.

Special Guest:

Winfrey

Amy Winfrey, Creator of hit animated web series and Nickelodeon toon, Making Fiends
Amy Winfrey is the creator of many popular animated web series including MuffinFilms, Big Bunny, Making Fiends and Squid and Frog. Her work has been featured in the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, the Seoul International Animation Festival and The World Animation Celebration. Her web series Making Fiends was recently made into a television series for Nickelodeon, with Amy as creator and co-executive producer.