Creators on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Panelists: Jake Price (Unknown Spring), Theo Rigby (Immigrant Nation), Dan Schoenbrun (Kickstarter), Daniel Koren (The Most Important Thing), Vania Heymann (Like A Rolling Stone), Kel O'Neill (Empire), Adnaan Wasey (POV)

The tools to write, shoot, edit, and distribute films and interactive content are widely available to anyone with a story and the will to see it realized. Crowdfunding and crowdsourcing add even more powerful resources to the budding creative’s personal arsenal. While wearing many hats has long been a hallmark of independent filmmaking, contemporary makers must balance art and business to become more than the writer-director-producers of yesterday. This is the age of the hyper-hyphenate, in which creative professionals juggle vast social networks, new technologies, and creative ambition in order to bring their stories to life. Our panel of storytellers will touch on their own successes and failures navigating our wired, content-rich world—and hopefully remind us all what really matters in the end: telling a killer story.