Nora Barry has been working at the intersection of narrative and technology for more than 20 years. In 1998 she launched The Bit Screen, the first online site for web film. In January of 1999 the site was featured by the New York Times and quickly went international, drawing over a million viewers a week.
The Bit Screen became a lab for experiments in digital narratives and online storytelling, helping give rise to data-based, interactive and pass-along films. Dubbed “La Dame du Web Cinema”, Nora became a guest speaker at film festivals and conferences in the US and Europe and wrote and published a number of articles about emerging narratives, including the definitive “History of Web Cinema,” which was published in conjunction with the show she curated for Future Cinema, at the ZKM Museum in Germany. Nora went on to create several digital film platforms, including Kurz Film Kanal for Europe Online, and Cinema Lounge for AT&T/Media One. She originated “Streaming Cinema”, the first festival of online film, which traveled to Europe and Asia, as well as to cities in the US. She pushed story forms to the next level when she originated the first live, online film mix, “Story Streams.” The project brought together three filmmakers in France, Mexico and Canada who each created their own version of the universal myth of “The Hero’s Journey.” The films were uploaded and mixed live by a VJ at a studio in Philadelphia and streamed live over the Internet. Again experimenting with emerging technologies and digital narratives, Nora created the first “Game-Film”, an online video game that generated short films based on how the game was played. The films were created collaboratively, using the Internet2, by teams in Beijing and Seattle; Salt Lake City and Philadelphia; and Rio de Janeiro and Uppsala. Exploring the universality of myth, Nora used the story of the descent to the underworld as the subject of the game and films.
Nora is a student of fairy tales and folk tales and multicultural myths, with a deep and abiding interest in Irish mythology. Early in her career Nora wrote and sold several screenplays and returned to writing later on with the blog, “The Dame Domain.” Emulative of Erma Bombeck, the blog followed a fictionalized version of Nora’s own family. The blog was syndicated to Reuters and the Chicago Sun Times and published in a collection, “The Home Fires are Burning…My Feet.” Nora has also published articles in several books, including “Pink TV: Sixty Years of Women in Television”, and has written for major publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Forbes.
Ms. Barry was graduated from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University with an MS in Communications, where she studied television and media production. Post-Syracuse she studied directing at the Walnut St. Theater. She received her BA in Political Science and French from LaSalle University. In addition, she has pursued coursework towards an MBA. She is a member of the National Storytelling Network.
Nora’s Publications on Narrative:
Forward. Webcinema: The Cybernetic Image. Italy.
“Descent to the Underworld”. A Minima, Journal of New Media. Spain.
“Talking Pictures: Networked Cinematic Technologies”. Human Affairs Journal. Published by: Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia. Italy.
“Telling Tales Online: A History of Web Cinema”. An Anthology on Electronic Digital Media and Electronic Culture. Published by: The Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, Slovakia.
“Story Forms”. Remixing Narrative Media. University International of Andalusia Press, Seville, Spain.
“Telling Stories on Screen: A History of Web Cinema”. Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imagery After Film. For the ZKM Museum in Karlsruhe, Germany. Published by MIT Press.
“Digital Shanachies”. TakeOver: Who’s Doing the Art of Tomorrow. Published by Ars Electronica Press, Linz, Austria.
Mike Adams is a distinguished network and cable television producer and executive. He has won three National Edward R. Murrow Awards for individual excellence; five National and Regional Emmy awards for writing and design; and 42 Associated Press and Press Club of New Orleans awards for storytelling and production. He has produced nine documentaries and thousands of hours of news and sports broadcasts for television and radio. Mike has worked with the Tribune Company, Knight Ridder, CBS, CPB, and The BBC, among others. Michael’s storytelling spans multiple media and a wide variety of subjects. Recognized with over 50 national and regional awards for stories as varied as the impending dangers of floodwaters in New Orleans (20 years before Katrina) to the misdeeds of a Governor, which eventually led to his incarceration, to deep and broad levels of police corruption.
Mike is known as an innovator of new content formats. He developed one of the first 24-hour local cable news channels for Cox Cable; and created and launched the first regional news channel, Chicago Land for Tribune. He developed multi-platform content strategies for Knight Ridder and represented Tribune at the MIT Media Lab.
He didn’t just use the media, he created groundbreaking new methodologies for audiences including the early introduction of regional digital media and the early use of reporters in multiple media forms. He has served as executive producer on hundreds of hours of live television as diverse as national political conventions, Super Bowl broadcasts and Papal Visits to the United States. Mike is a graduate of Loyola University New Orleans and is a Fellow of the Loyola Institute of Politics.