Exclusives

The very best of three media and entertainment worlds will be in one place March 10 in-person in Los Angeles at the annual Smart Content Summit, with not only all things covering how data is integral to every part of the media and entertainment supply chain, but also with the Annual Participant Meeting of the Entertainment ID Registry (EIDR), and the latest on the Media & Entertainment Data Center Alliance (MEDCA) gracing the stage.

Here’s what attendees of the event can expect:

• Following opening remarks, Atul Phadnis, founder of cross-border content and data intelligence platform Vitrina AI, will deliver the opening keynote for the day: “Why Map the Global Supply Chain for the Entertainment Industry?”

When mulling the ecosystem servicing the industry, it’s not hard to imagine the sheer volume of companies working together at various levels of synchronicity, integration, and transparency, across platforms around the world. But how wide and deep does the global entertainment supply chain really run?

Phadnis will set the stage for the Smart Content Summit with a deep look at the international media and entertainment “universe” of content creation and distribution, discussing scaling data across the enterprise using AI, data and metadata standards, and providing key benefits and use cases around aggregating this kind of information.

• “Intelligent Data Governance: International Solutions for Global Organizations” will see Ashleigh Faith, director of Knowledge Graph Semantic Search, and MLAI, EBSCO Information Services, Anthony Accardo, ED of product management for Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution, and Meg Morrissey, co-chair of the Language Metadata Table (LMT), discuss some defining the value proposition of a data governance program, determining what elements and capabilities of managing data you need to bring to bear and identify critical success factors while helping you avoid typical roadblocks and pitfalls.

• Morrisey and Yonah Levenson, VP and group director of information services for Ad-ID, will deliver an update on LMT.

• “Smart Licensing; The Power to Predict Content Performance” will see Sherry Brennan, EVP and GM of Whip Media’s Whip Media Exchange division, offer up new insights in the fresh tools available that can ignite the right connections between content buyers and sellers, using a data-driven approach and predictive insights, accelerating deal-making and maximizing revenues.

• Justin Briars, director of studio products and services for Fox Entertainment, will discuss renewed investments in evolving the studio’s supply chain into a software development-driven environment that keeps up with the increasing demand across business units for access to critical data that drives well informed decisions, in the presentation “Smart Supply Chain: Investing in the Links.”

• From 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., attendees will have two sets of breakout sessions to choose from:

Stage A

• “Whip Media & Giant Pictures: Connecting Content Licensing with a Data-Driven Approach for Global Growth” with Jaime Otero, VP of business development and content strategy, Whip Media, and Nick Savva, GM, Giant Pictures.

• “Intelligent Cloud I/O: Lessons Learned from Moving Petabytes to and from the Cloud” with Jon Finegold, chief marketing officer, Signiant.

• “Intelligent Products – the Future of M&E” with Sabrina Chamberlain, senior director, data engineering, Slalom.

• “Meeting the Demands of Production Connectivity” with Lisa Gerber, director, M&E, and Robbie Yates, sales engineer, PacketFabric.

Stage C

• “Store, Manage, and Build with Qumulo’s File Data Platform” with Pascal Filion, systems engineer, Qumulo.

• “Streamlining Media Accessibility with AI/Auto-Generated Transcript Metadata” with Ed Hauber, director of business development, and Tom Moniak, director of sales, Digital Nirvana.

• “A Faster Way to Move Media” with Taylor Donohue, VP, product, Alteon.

• “The Connective Tissue Between Physical, Digital, and Meta” with Nathaniel Bradley, CEO, Data Vault/ADIO.

Beginning at 2 p.m., the Entertainment ID Registry (EIDR) kicks off its Annual Participant Meeting (APM) on Stage A:

• Following welcome remarks attendees will be introduced to EIDR’s 2022 board of directors, who’ll outline EIDR’s strategic vision for collaboration in the next decade of operations. This APM opening session addresses the goals of speeding commerce, decreasing costs, increasing discoverability, and improving consumer experiences by connecting content producers and platforms with industry-curated unique identification of the fundamental building blocks of movie and TV distribution.

• “EIDR Kicks Off Analytics” sees Jonathan De Armas, owner and solutions architect of Island Pitch, and Jim Whelehan, M&E sales director for MicroStrategy, look at a new EIDR offering. EIDR’s registry has, from the very beginning, been a clear value proposition for every member and user. For 12 years, members have registered their content, amassing more than 2.5 million records. Now, EIDR will provide the tools to utilize this data within business workflows. This session looks at what’s been built, what it does now and where EIDR is going with the project.

• “Working Group: Catalog Mergers and Acquisitions” will see Nona Janssen Walls, senior principal consultant for Slalom offer insights on the new EIDR Working Group for Catalog Mergers & Acquisitions.

• “Automate your EIDR – Triggered” with Murthy Addiredi, senior manager of software engineering with UnitedHealth Group, and Richard Kroon, EIDR’s director of technical operations, discuss a future where EIDR registration doesn’t have to be a manual process.

• Janssen Walls, EIDR ED Hollie Choi, Levenson, and Mary Yurkovic, director of Smart Content, will tackle EIDR’s hopes on the standards front in “Identifier Interoperability – The Future of Standards.”

• “Broadcast Automation” will see Guy Hadland, CTO of Unisoft, examine how automation can be achieved using a combination of EIDR IDs and Ad-IDs.

• “Expanding Globally – What Tools are Needed to Achieve Long Term Success?” with Dan Meyer, sales manager for BeBanjo, brings an exploratory session looking at why and how streaming services can compete both domestically and internationally to enable sustainable growth and success.

• “When Streaming Goes International” will feature Alisa Joseph, SVP of business strategy and development for Whip Media, Sara Nix, senior director of archives and global data governance for Paramount, and Steve Rosenberg, chief commercial officer for Premiere Digital, as they discuss the unique challenges and solutions facing teams bringing streaming services spread into international markets.

Beginning at 3:50 p.m., MEDCA kicks off a series of presentations covering its first six months in existence on Stage C:

• “Two Years Later: Making Virtual a Reality” will see Sinan Al-Rubaye, chief experience officer with ICVR, Victoria Bousis, founder and creative director of UME, and Ryan L’Italien, director of solutions for Perforce, will look at how just before the pandemic started, the best and brightest minds in virtual production were spending weeks to craft and create just a few minutes of virtual production content. This session looks at where we are heading as the challenges turned into victories and virtual production continues to proliferate in M&E.

• “Smart Connected Stages: The Great Build is Underway!” will feature Anna Claiborne, CTO and co-founder of PacketFabric, Crafty Apes VFX supervisors Chris LeDoux and Tim LeDoux, MEDCA’s EVP Eric Rigney, and A.J. Wedding, co-founder of Orbital Studios. With Hollywood’s frenetic adoption of virtual production, remote technologies and their accompanying data-centric workflows, media & entertainment is moving rapidly and deeper into the well-established paradigm of the data industry. Data is the data center industry’s realm.

This session gathers the players at the forefront of the “next great build” to discuss the challenges and opportunities in this emerging industry ecosystem.

• “What is MEDCA and Why it Matters to M&E’s Future” will feature the leaders of MEDCA: Lisa Griffin, executive director, Rigney, and Sean Tajkowski, technical director.

As “IP everything” continues to proliferate across small and large installs around the world, data centers (large or small) are the heart of the transformation. The “homegrown” approach is showing signs of weakness as more companies are building at an exponential pace. Smart, connected stages and remote connectivity require industry standard build outs for interoperability and the long-term evolution of the production process. But what industry standard should we reference and aspiring to when 90 percent of today’s M&E workflows are based on data-centric processes while most stages are built on legacy platforms which were integrated out of necessity, rather than a structured engineered approach. Where can we learn from the experts to make the application of these products within M&E successful?

• To close the day, Shari Alyse, a TEDx and inspirational speaker and best-selling author (“Love Yourself Happy”) will be the closing keynote speaker. Her keynote — “Unleash Your Joy! 5 Ingredients to Living a Joy-Fueled Life” — will offer up Alyse’s answer to the ways you can make yourself happier in day-to-day life. In this high-energy, inspiring, and enjoyable talk from “America’s Joy Magnet,” attendees will not only find out her secret to happiness, but also the key ingredients needed to meet life’s uncertain moments with unwavering joy! Come experience why she’s been described as “caffeine for your soul.”

The 2022 Smart Content Summit event will be held in conjunction with the EIDR Annual Participant Meeting (EIDR APM) and is presented by Whip Media. The event is produced by MESA, in association with the Smart Content Council and EIDR, with sponsorship by BeBanjo, Signiant, Qumulo, Adio, Alteon, Digital Nirvana, PacketFabric, Slalom and Rightsline.

For regular program updates, visit the event website here.

For free virtual registration, click here.

For sponsorship opportunities, contact Evie Silvers at [email protected], or Garrett Finley at [email protected].