About MovieLabs

Rich Berger

Chief Executive Officer

Richard Berger joined MovieLabs as CEO in 2017, arriving with an extensive digital strategy background and a proven and unique ability to bring companies together to solve the most challenging problems and achieve profound industry change. He is responsible for the overall direction of MovieLabs and oversees technology initiatives on behalf of the major studios. Rich led the development of the “2030 Vision” which has become the industry’s reference for the future of media creation.

Rich came to MovieLabs with over 20 years of experience in digital innovation, and more than a decade leading new media and technology efforts at Sony Pictures Entertainment. He served most recently as SVP of Worldwide Digital Strategy & Advanced Platforms, where he built a reputation for innovation, particularly around emerging digital platforms and formats such as Movies Anywhere and UHD (4K-HDR). Rich also was one of original founders of UltraViolet and helped launch the DECE consortium.

Other roles at Sony included SVP New Media & Technology, where he was responsible for establishing digital policy across all Sony Pictures digital distribution businesses. Rich also worked at Sony Music Entertainment’s New Media Department where he developed Sony Music’s first Enhanced CDs. Rich holds a Masters in Interactive Telecommunications from Tisch School of the Arts and a Bachelors in Computer Science from Rutgers College.

Jim Helman

Chief Technology Officer

Jim Helman is an experienced technologist who brings to MovieLabs an extensive background in building entertainment-related products and a passion for innovation. At MovieLabs, Jim has led cross-industry initiatives including driving worldwide standards for high dynamic range video and building the Entertainment Identifier Registry (EIDR), for which he received an Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Award. His work on security includes the development of the MovieLabs Enhanced Content Protection Specification (ECP), which established a hardware level of robustness for 4K consumer devices.

Jim was a founder and chief software architect at Liberate Technologies, where he led the development of a web platform for delivering interactive cable services. Prior to Liberate, he was a software architect at Silicon Graphics, developing real-time 3D systems for VR, location-based entertainment, and visual simulation.

Jim has also consulted extensively on intellectual property, R&D spin-offs, and video technologies for leading venture capitalists and companies such as Comcast, NEC Research Labs, and Xerox PARC. Jim holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Applied Physics from Stanford University and a B.A. in Physics and Math from Washington University.

Spencer Stephens

SVP, Production Technology & Security

Spencer has extensive experience working in senior technology functions at several Hollywood studios, including serving as CTO of Sony Pictures, VP of Technology and GM of Motion Picture Imaging at Warner Bros. Entertainment, as well as VP of Technology and Digital Production at Disney Television Animation. While serving as CTO at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Spencer led the studio’s technology group working on technology innovation and application, touching on every part of the content pathway, from on-set through post-production and mastering and delivery, to provide a full consumer experience.

Spencer holds masters degrees in computer science and information and cybersecurity from the University of California, Berkeley.

Raymond Drewry

VP, EMEA Operations & Principal Scientist

Raymond has been in the industry for 25 years primarily as a technologist. He has designed and implemented systems that range from the first fully interactive digital cable network in Europe, through the first-ever networked digital video system for journalists at an international sporting event, to real-time robotics systems for special effects and mechanical-industrial performance pieces. He also was a prime contributor to early versions of the X11 window system and Microsoft Windows 1.0.

Before joining MovieLabs Raymond was CTO at Aggregator TV, a UK-based IPTV content company, and before that CTO and VP of engineering at Liberate Technologies. He has also been Director of Technology for New Media at Sybase; Principal Engineer and Architect for graphics systems at Digital Equipment Corporation, working in both research and product groups; and an engineering manager at Microsoft. As a consultant he has worked on large-scale networked multimedia systems, US and EU patents, interactivity for mobile devices, and commercial applications of novel mathematics. His patents, publications, and contributions to technical standards cover distributed multimedia systems and graphics hardware and software. Raymond has a BA in Classics (Latin) and Computer Science from Yale University.

Daniel Lucas

VP, Technology

Daniel Lucas has been a software technology leader for the last 30 years, holding a number of senior positions including leading product development and business development in multiple industries. At MovieLabs Daniel was responsible for building pioneering infrastructure for monitoring online piracy of television and movie content and reporting results. This included a system that monitored all BitTorrent traffic, capturing billions of data points daily, as well as early research into cyber-lockers and the impacts of search engines on piracy. Many of the innovative techniques developed are now commonplace in anti-piracy approaches and have been used to focus policy, business and technology decisions.

More recently Daniel is involved in MovieLabs 2030 vision for Media Production. He contributes to multiple aspects of the vision, with a particular focus on developing the Ontology for Media Creation (OMC) and building implementations to test the ideas in real world scenarios including internal proofs of concept (PoCs) testing software defined workflows, zero-trust security models and JSON implementation of the OMC.

Daniel’s early career was in the video game industry, where he was responsible for developing products like Star Trek, multiple games in the Tetris line and in his earlier days several hit sports titles. While at Microprose he oversaw third party and 16 bit console development, responsible for over 20 titles. Later as V.P. of Development at Blue Planet Software he was responsible for developing and licensing the Tetris brand, including the earliest online multi-player version for AOL and multiple variants for system like Nintendo 64 and Sony Playstation.

Leon Silverman

Advisor 2030 Vision, Strategy & Industry Relations

Leon Silverman is an advisor to MovieLabs supporting the 2030 Vision initiative focusing on Strategy and Industry relations in addition to chairing the MovieLabs Vision 2030 Industry Forum.  As head of Strategic Perspective Consulting he also advises major studios and technology organizations, helping drive industry strategy at the intersection of creativity and technology. 

Over his decades long career he has held senior executive roles at Netflix, The Walt Disney Studios, The Eastman Kodak Company, and LaserPacific where he has dedicated his career to the development and introduction of new technology tools and workflows.

Silverman was one of the founders and long standing president of the HPA – the Hollywood Professional Association, where he still sits on the Board. He serves on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – Science and Technology Council, where he also sits on its Executive Committee as well as on the Executive Committee of the Academy’s Members-at-Large.  He is a sponsor of and helped to design and launch the Academy’s talent development and inclusion initiative, the Gold Rising program. 

In addition, he serves the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on the Executive Committee of the Science and Technology Peer Group and also on the Emmy Engineering Award Committee.

Silverman has been honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the HPA, the Bob Lambert Technology Leadership Award from the Entertainment Technology Center at USC, has 2 Emmy Awards for his contributions to technology innovation, holds 10 issued patents and numerous Disney Inventor awards for his contributions to patent applications. He has served multiple terms as Governor and is a Life Fellow of the Society of  Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and was awarded SMPTE’s Presidential Proclamation honoring his “contributions to the Society and the media entertainment industry as a visionary, innovator, and mentor.”

Mark Turner

Program Director, Production Technology

Mark coordinates the Production Technology program for Movielabs that created the 2030 Vision for the future of content creation.. In Mark’s 25 years in the global media industry he has always been at the intersection of technology and business models. Mark has held roles from product management, to sales, strategy, business development and partnerships for start-ups to multi-billion corporates including Ryff Inc, Technicolor, Levels Beyond, RSTOR, Dolby Laboratories, Microsoft, BT Media & Broadcast and Eutelsat.

Mark is President,Entertainment Technologist Inc

Chris Vienneau

Production Technology Specialist

Chris is a senior leader with 25+ years of experience developing tools and services for the entertainment industry for customers such as Disney, Electronic Arts and Google. He has managed market leading tools like Maya, FBX and Arnold generating over 100m per year. He has fostered innovation on several ground breaking projects like Bifrost, ShaderX and Arnold GPU and has several authored patents. He has overseen partnerships with companies like Apple, Adobe, and Nvidia.

Chris is a huge advocate for standards and open source having driven Autodesk’s contributions to the Academy Software Foundation, USD and Materialx.

Chris’ company is FX-DMZ, Inc.

Giridhar Manepalli

VP, Software Technology and AI

Giridhar Manepalli joined MovieLabs in 2023 to help streamline the M&E production process and enable the 2030 MovieLabs Vision. He has two decades of experience in building distributed software systems, developing network transport protocols, modeling data, and operating global infrastructures. His first encounter with MovieLabs was when Entertainment Identifier Registry (EIDR) was conceived in late 2000s. He was the principal software engineer for the EIDR effort.

Prior to joining MovieLabs, Giridhar was Director of Technology at CNRI for a decade and was responsible for the day-to-day research and development efforts. He is the inventor and the co-architect of Cordra software that became the foundational technology for key supply chain efforts world-wide including the derivative financial market in the EU and the construction product market in the UK. He also oversaw the technical operations and the evolution of the digital object identifier (DOI) system into a global scale, low latency, and fault tolerant system.

Giridhar led research efforts as Principal Investigator for several grants from National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and National Science Foundation (NSF). He also contributed to key research programs from DARPA and Sloan Foundation. He is the principal author of the Digital Object Interface protocol and an editor of the Handle System protocol. He has a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Old Dominion University.

Dan Robbins

General Counsel

Dan Robbins serves as MovieLabs’ General Counsel as well as SVP and Associate General Counsel at the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

Dan is a widely recognized antitrust expert. He helped the MPA studios create the joint venture that launched the DVD in 1996 and helped form MovieLabs in 2005.

Since 2007, Dan has been a California gubernatorial appointee to the Uniform Law Commission (ULC), a non-partisan multi-state law reform entity that has drafted some of the nation’s most successful laws, such as the Uniform Commercial Code. He served as ULC president from 2021-23. In 2016 he was elected to the American Law Institute, a highly respected private law reform entity. Before joining MPA, Dan worked at the law firms of Graham & James and Pepper Hamilton, where he specialized in antitrust and intellectual property. He earned an economics degree from Vanderbilt University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and his J.D. from UCLA, where he won an American Jurisprudence Award for his studies in commercial law.