If you must know the backstory...

I survived a life in the country throughout the 1950's as a disciple of Mister Wizard, Steve Allen, and Stan Freburg. The best part of my high school years happened while directing live television at a local public TV station, and writing a column of satirical commentaries for the Scotia-Glenville High School paper (which frequently elicited complaints from the Board of Ed, thus boosting circulation). Eternal thanks to my English teachers, Bob Atwood, Holly Nolan, and Jack Maranville.

My media skills began to congeal at Syracuse University, where I studied film and television, with some physics and international relations on the side. I worked two summers at WRGB-TV in Schenectady splicing TV commercials into feature films, thereby developing an innate ability to interrupt climactic moments for the betterment of commerce. Then, still exploring the media landscape, I went on the air as an FM radio dj and also made my first 16mm film, a short documentary about computer programming (which at that time was being done with punch cards, yikes!).

With a BA, magna cum laude, in 1970, I moved on to the University of Southern California, specializing in traditional and experimental animation. Our professor, Gene Coe, introduced us to the works of John Whitney, Jordan Belson, Norman McLaren and other pioneering film artists – images burned-in to my synapses to this day. A lecture on campus by film veteran Slavko Vorkapich illuminated core fundamentals of montage and editing, another indelible experience. My Master of Fine Arts degree in Cinema was completed there in 1973. One of several animated films I co-created at USC (with James Castle, who went on to be an Emmy-winning motion designer), "The Ecosystem", won honors at the Edinburgh and Zagreb animation festivals, a Cine Golden Eagle, and other awards.

Somehow I felt the urge to leave Los Angeles and move back east. (Maybe I missed the other three seasons.) In Schenectady, NY, I secured a slot as a writer/producer for General Electric's world-famous corporate advertising department and, later ["I've got one word for you, Benjamin. Just one word..."], their Plastics Division, writing speeches and producing meetings and films for executive presentations from Las Vegas to London.

Putting wise words in the mouths of senior executives had a certain charm, and flying around in corporate jets wasn't so bad, either. But I was still restless. So with the help of some friends – Chuck Hanley, George Schubert, and Ross Buck – in 1979, we formed CenterStage Productions in Westport CT. As CEO and Executive Producer, I was responsible for writing and directing the occasional multi-image extravaganza (the creation of which usually involved sitting in a dark room nonstop for 38 hours in front of a computer choreographing 18 slide projectors in sync with a soundtrack).

Large-screen multi-projector module with laser projection, for GE Industrial Services.

Our projects ranged from an international documentary on third-world reconstruction, countless speeches, film and video scripts, the occasional song lyric, and the fund-raising video for Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, with many corporate meetings for Pepsi, MCI, GE, and others.

My writing and programming for these projects received major audiovisual industry awards from groups including the Association of Visual Communicators, the Association for MultiImage International, and the New York and Chicago International Film Festivals.

Live interactive video presentation

As an authorized developer with Apple and MacroMind (which became Macromedia, recently swallowed whole by Adobe) beginning in 1989, I was fortunate enough to create some of the first interactive electronic presentations ever used by Apple Computer, Eastman Kodak, GE, Digital Equipment Corp., and Time-Warner.

A founding partner of multimedia design firm Imergyâ„¢ in 1992 (along with Tom Weisz and David and Flora Perskie), I became responsible for developing interactive CDROM products, leading technology research, and designing multimedia programs supporting high-level corporate communications.

At Imergy, I consulted for Kodak's Photo CD imaging team in Rochester during development of the first (and apparently, only) interactive Photo CD titles, including Rick Smolan's award-winning "From Alice to Ocean".

I both directed and contributed to OPEN WIDER, probably the first original CD-ROM documentary, telling the story of a one-week start-to-finish experiment in digital publishing with journalists from Newsweek, Time, and other New York-based publishers.

Then a dream project: I became director and lead programmer for the Star Trek: The Next Generation® Interactive Technical Manual published by Simon & Schuster Interactive.

Star Trek Interactive Technical Manual - typical screens

Imergy worked closely with Simon & Schuster's producer Keith Halper, and the legendary keepers (and frankly, often creators) of Trek lore Mike and Denise Okuda, to keep the CD true to the franchise. (Here's a link to a description of their book the CD was based on.) This CD was the first commercial title to implement Apple's Quicktimeâ„¢ VR technology, and won numerous industry honors, including nominee as "Best New Game" at Millia '95 in Cannes.

Following that, I was the chief architect of the Star Trek Omnipedia CD-ROM, which incorporated voice-recognition capabilities, also for Simon & Schuster. More than a dozen other Star Trek branded titles followed, including the popular "Starship Creator" and "Captain's Chair" (directed by Stephanie Triggiani).

Outside the CD medium, I led the Imergy team in producing a suite of interactive installations for GE's presence at the Innoventions pavillion at EPCOT in Orlando, Florida. [Exhibit design and direction by The McMillan Group.]

Innoventions at EPCOT, Disney World

During those years, I gave a bunch of lectures and seminars on interactive media at industry meetings and academic venues in the USA and internationally.

In 1995, I joined the visiting faculty of Pratt Institute's Department of Computer Graphics and Interactive Media in Brooklyn (now the Department of Digital Arts). Today I am a full-time Professor and the senior faculty member for the interactive track. As pixelRiot, I specialize in interactive media design and web production. Besides code, I also occasionally write stories.