Organizers Bring Back Westdoc to New Home

The Westdoc documentary film and reality programming conference will return in September after a one-year hiatus. After two years in Santa Monica, co-founders Richard Propper and Chuck Braverman moved the conference to Culver City where it will take place Sept. 9-12. Screenings will be held at the Pacific Culver Stadium 12 theater, while the adjacent Culver Hotel — where the Munchkins stayed while filming “The Wizard of Oz” — serves as the social center of the conference. The Town Plaza between the theater and the hotel serves as the delegate lounge for attendees and speakers. The co-founders selected the new venues in hopes of successfully matching content creators with television networks and film distributors. “Culver City seemed to have all the right elements,” said Propper, president of Solid Entertainment, a distributor of independent documentary films based in in Encino. Propper and Braverman, a film producer who lives in Topanga, started the conference in 2009 on their own dime after seeing how other entertainment-industry trade events gave short thrift to documentary films and reality programming. Westdoc features film screenings, panel discussions, meetings with cable networks, and Pitch Fest, a contest in which documentary and reality producers compete for exposure before development executives and a cash prize. The audience chooses the winner. Previous Pitch Fest winners “First Position” and “Indie Game: The Movie” both received distribution into film festivals and theaters, Braverman said. The first day of the conference features screenings of documentaries “Big Boys Gone Bananas,” “Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet,” and “Off Label.” “These three films we are running deserve more exposure than just on American TV,” Braverman said. “Big Boys Gone Bananas” follows filmmaker Frederik Gertten in his legal and public relations battles with Westlake Village-based Dole Food Co. Braverman, who has been traveling to film festivals to see documentaries, said he’s convinced that it’s good time to be making unscripted films. “I saw dozens of the best films of the year,” he said. “There are more and more documentary features getting distribution that people are going out to see.” Xytech’s Pulse Software developer Xytech Systems Corp. promoted Greg Dolan, an executive vice president and sales manager, to be the chief operating officer at the Mission Valley company. Dolan’s chief responsibility is keeping the company’s products relevant to its studio and production house clients in the entertainment industry. To assist with that goal, Xytech now offers MediaPulse, a software package for managing digital and physical assets, employee scheduling, work orders, and general administrative functions. “We saw this coming,” Dolan said. “Part of our job is to innovate five minutes faster than the clients.” MediaPulse is the fourth software platform Xytech has released in its 25-year history. Dolan said the package was the most significant investment the company has made in a product, though he declined to give a cost. An advantage of MediaPulse is that clients can adapt it to their specific workflow, Dolan said. “It is a commercial off-the-shelf platform that gives a custom solution,” he added. Animation Exhibit An exhibit of digital prints, drawings and paintings from DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. is on display at the USC School of Cinematic Arts through Sept. 7. The exhibit features work from “Kung Fu Panda,” “Shrek,” “Madagascar,” and others made by the Glendale-based studio. It includes more than 100 digital prints, 30 traditional paintings and drawings on paper, two miniature sets and three character maquettes. “It is with tremendous pride and gratitude that we bring the DreamWorlds show to the School of Cinematic Arts,” DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg said in a prepared statement. “We are fortunate to have a great number of USC alumni working at DreamWorks Animation, and it is fitting that this art exhibit be displayed where the future stars of animation are being trained today.” The gallery at the School of Cinematic Arts is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Staff Reporter Mark R. Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or by e-mail at [email protected].