LANCE WEILER

Lance Weiler is a critically acclaimed award-winning writer / director. Recognised as a pioneer because of the way he makes and distributes his work – WIRED magazine named him “one of 25 people helping to re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood” – he has successfully self-distributed his films The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma to more than 20 countries while grossing over $5m in the process. The Last Broadcast, which he co-wrote and co-directed, became the first film to be distributed digitally to cinemas in 1998.

Always interested in experimenting with new ways to tell stories and reach audiences, Lance developed a cinema ARG (alternate reality game) around Head Trauma. Over 2.5 million people experienced the game via theatres, mobile drive-ins, phones and online.

In recognition of his cinematic gaming  innovations, BUSINESSWEEK named Lance “One of the 18 Who Changed Hollywood.”. Others on the list included Thomas Edison, George Lucas, Steve Jobs and Walt Disney.

His next feature film / transmedia project entitled HiM won the Arte France Cinema award at the 2009 edition of CineMart. In January 2010 HiM attended the Sundance Screenwriters Lab marking the first time the lab has supported a feature film / transmedia project.

In 2006, Lance founded the WorkBook Project an open creative network that has grown to become a thriving international community of filmmakers, musicians, game designers and software developers. In 2007, Lance started a roving conference series for creatives called DIY DAYS. DIY DAYS has travelled to LA, San Francisco, Boston, NYC and Philadelphia. Over the course of 2009, Lance co-created and produced 24 episodes of a stylized doc series entitled RADAR. The series explores storytelling and creativity in the digital age and was recently nominated for a Streamy Award for best doc series. Lance often speaks about the changing landscape of entertainment. From the evolution of storytelling to changes in media creation, distribution and discovery – Lance has spoken at MIT, USC, Columbia, Cannes, and Sundance in addition to high level ad agencies, brands, gaming, and media companies. He’s been compiling his thoughts and theories into a book entitled Putting the Mass Back in Media which he intends to publish as a rich media resource.

Since 2007, Lance has sat on the board of the IFP, a national filmmaking organisation. Lance also advises a number of tech companies in the entertainment space and writes a regular column for Filmmaker Magazine on the impact of tech on entertainment. For fun he runs a discovery blog called Text of Light where he posts the random things he <3’s.