Guest Speakers and Performers so far...

Even though it's the inaugural Byte Me! Festival, luckily we know people. And it seems that a lot of them are very happy about the opportunity to come to Perth and share their skills.

You can see more detail about the guests at: http://byteme.net.au/spea.html

So far, we have Keynote Speaker Posie Graeme-Evans - TV Producer, Lyricist and Novelist. Posie created and produces 'McLeod's Daughters' which is shown in over 200 territories worldwide, so she knows a thing or two about creating niche content for an international audience. She also co-created Hi-5, and on Sundays, she writes novels - which are bestsellers. I have to say, I don't know if or when this woman sleeps, her accomplishments seem almost impossible - so we're incredibly honoured that she's willing to make the time to come over and talk at our Festival.

Still on the Film and TV theme, we have Gen Bailey - guerilla film-maker extraordinaire. Gen is only in her mid 20's and yet has made over 25 short films and music videos that have won numerous awards around the world. Gen's pragmatic 'just do it' attitude is very refreshing, and has enabled her to be incredibly prolific. She's a great example of 'it's about the story' - her docos are extremely low-budget but very successful.

Mo Selle, aka Murni Mastan, is based in Singapore. She's a film-maker and also works in television, but is best known as one of the highest profile female VJs through her residency at Ministry of Sound, Singapore. The list of people she's performed with reads like a Who's Who of the international clubbing scene. She is also involved with Edirol-Roland in developing VJ hardware and software, and so is on the cutting edge of this new and rapidly evolving Industry.

DOTHY, aka Dorothee Sorbier, is a motion graphic designer and VJ from Toulouse, France. Her slick, vector-based content is just the type of digital content that adapts well to any platform - film, tv, web, mobile. DOTHY recently performed at the Mapping VJ Festival in Switzerland to great reviews.

Sue Erokan from Dreamworks Animation has spoken in Perth before at a WAnimate event. For those of you who missed that talk or who want to hear about her more recent work on Shrek the Third, no doubt you'll be looking forward to this one. Also, Sue is an acclaimed teacher of ATS Bellydance, so if you're interested in bellydancing there's a good chance that she'll be doing something in that field as well while she's in Perth for Byte Me! Festival.

Kate Rothschild is a digital content producer whose previous work has included being a senior producer at Nickelodeon in New York. She is currently developing cross-media content and consulting in the digital media field, based in Perth.

Solu, aka Mia Makela, is a Finnish Live Cinema artist, activist and educator based in Barcelona. Her recently completed thesis on Live Cinema is general regarded as the best resource available in this field, and although she claims to have little interest in commercial VJing she is widely credited by many high-profile VJ's as one of the best in the world. She's often called 'the VJ's VJ'. Solu has run practical workshops to demonstrate the usefulness of VJ tools for a wide variety of professions, such as architects.

Tom Ellard is an audio-visual artist and educator who performs as Severed Heads. Severed Heads were an Australian act that achieved international fame in the 80's with hits such as 'Dead Eyes Opened'. We're keen to gain more recognition for the significance of Severed Heads in the history of audio-visual performance. While they gain a brief mention in the handful of books so far published on VJing, there has yet to be a detailed analysis of their role and influence in the international VJ scene.

VJ MoRpH, aka Grant Muir, is one of the longest-established and most respected VJ's in Australia. He has performed at most of the big music festivals on the East Coast. Like VJzoo, he collects vintage Fairlight CVIs - the Australian-made video synthesiser that revolutionised both television and live video performance in the 80's by being the first widely-available device capable of luma-keying. The CVI was also responsible for those awful gimmicky, flourescent effects in many 80's music videos that defined the early look of MTV.

CasioNova also has a thing for vintage equipment. He will be performing using vintage Casio keyboards with visuals made on an early Commodore computer. Should be much fun.

Local acts and speakers are still being organised, although check out the site for more details about those already involved, including DXU:555, Audio Cephlon, Chrism + Fenris, ChiKiTroniX, VJ Trixee, VJzoo and Tomas Ford.

We're also still working on securing more Visual FX and animation speakers, so don't think we've forgotten about those...

Hope there's something amongst all of the above that will get you away from your keyboard for a few evenings in December...

best,

kat black =^..^=