Keram Malicki-Sánchez

Keram Malicki-Sánchez is an actor,[1] singer and composer,[2][3] writer,[4] essayist,[5] interactive media developer[6] music producer,[7] film producer[8] and film director.[9]

Keram Malicki-Sánchez
NationalityCanadian
OccupationActor, music performer, producer and composer, writer, media producer, and film director

Acting career

His debut in the world of music and acting began with musical theatre at the age of 7 in the title role of Oliver! at the Limelight Dinner Theatre in Toronto which performance was met with rave reviews by the local press, including the Toronto Star.[10]

He went on to create the role of Jason in the award-winning trilogy by playwright Jim Betts "The Mystery of the Oak Island Treasure," "The Last Voyage of the Devil's Wheel" and "The Haunting of Elijah Bones" at the Young People's Theatre[11] in Toronto, Canada.[12] It was at the same theatre company that he starred in the role of the eponymous Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang in the musical version directed by Peter Moss in 1984.[13]

In the early stages of his career he played a variety of roles for CBC radio dramas, and at the age of fourteen was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore award for Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Principal Role – Musical[13] in a musical for his portrayal of Prince Edward in playwright Joey Miller's adaptation of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper at the Young People's Theatre in Toronto (1988)[14] – one of the youngest actors ever to be nominated in this category.. In 1995 he was cast to play the role of "Chris" a transgender film assistant in Midi Onodera's "Skin Deep."[15] He moved to Hollywood, California in 1996 and worked in many films that include American History X, Crazy/Beautiful, Happy Campers, John Q, Cherry Falls, and such TV series as 24, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and True Blood.

Musical career

Malicki-Sánchez released a solo 45" on vinyl in Spanish at the age of thirteen through Fe Discos from Ecuador. In 1990, he founded the record label Constant Change Productions out of Toronto, Canada. He began his own band, Blue Dog Pict,[16] aged fourteen. The band released three albums: The Picture Album (1990), Anxiety of Influence: a nodding into...? (1992), and Spindly Light Und Wax Rocketines (1995) that were distributed by Distribution FUSION III from Montreal, Canada. The band had a song featured in the Degrassi High TV movie "School's Out" and TVOntario's documentary about school violence.

In 1995, Keram's Constant Change label released "Irrevocable UPGRADE"[17] - a compilation of exotic musical works across a wide variety of genres from Lo-Fi to spiritual hymns which he curated and produced. He subsequently studied the tabla with Ritesh Das, the master of table who founded and led the Toronto Tabla Ensemble who also appeared on the compilation record.

He launched the band 'Ribcage' featuring Eric Ryder Costello and Paul Gallinato in 1998 and toured through Cleveland and New York, releasing one album title "For Machines to Dream About." After Ribcage disbanded, Malicki-Sanchez spent several years headlining acoustic nights at Hollywood's Hotel Cafe.[18] It was during this period that he develop material for his debut solo album.

On 25 January 2008, Malicki-Sanchez began releasing albums under the solo name Keram, launching a music video for the song "Antiskeptic" filmed in Los Angeles at Club Lingerie, before releasing his solo debut acoustic album Box,.[19][20] at Room 5 in Los Angeles.

In 2014, Malicki-Sanchez announced that he had completed work on his album "Come to Life, " after 7 years. The album features the contributions of over 30 musicians, including Alex Lifeson on guitar. The album was mixed by Rich Chycki and mastered by Andy Vandette at Masterdisk New York. The manufacture and promotional budget was raised through a successful IndieGogo campaign that achieved 144% of its original goal. The album was initially launched by way of an audio-visual presentation of the complete album at the vintage Royal movie theatre in Toronto, Canada. Guests were invited to listen to the entire album while watching abstract images on the movie screen. The album then released via a live performance at The Supermarket in Toronto's Kensington Market district on 12 April. Alex Lifeson made a guest appearance, joining the band onstage for two songs.[21]

He later crowdfunded 3 new songs - "(Don't Get Caught) By the Dazzling Charades" (2018) and later "Artificial Intelligence" (2019) and "That Light" (2020) which feature David Bowie bassist Carmine Rojas, RUSH guitarist Alex Lifeson again, drummer Ryan Brown Zappa Plays Zappa and was again mastered by Andy Vandette.[22]

That same year he licensed two songs in the style of Dubstep to the Lifetime Network[23] film "Perfect High".[24] Subsequently, he went on to compose and or provide music for a variety of television movies of the week for Lifetime Movie Network and PixL (Mr. Write (2016), Twist of Fate (2016), Bad Date Chronicles (2017) and was the lead composer on "Same Time Next Week"[25] an 84-minute made-for-TV movie starring Jewel Staite for PixL in 2017,[26] and "Sleeping With Danger" (2020) - a TV movie for Lifetime Networks about domestic violence.[27]

Filmmaking

Malicki-Sanchez received certificates in cinematography and film production at UCLA's extension program. His first short film "A Killer App" was accepted into the Glastonbury, Atlanta Horror Film Festivals and was an award winner at Shockfest[28] for Best Monster Creation. His subsequent short film Tulip Pink toured the film festival circuit and screened to sold out theatres at the Newport Beach Film Festival[29] among others. His third short How (Not) To Become a Vampire features motion graphics by John Watson who also worked as a VFX artist on Resident Evil: Extinction and made the festival rounds in 2011 including the Austin Film Festival winning various People's Choice Awards (Zero Film Festival – Toronto among them).[8][9][30] Malicki-Sanchez also debuted a new 360-degree film titled "Being Perfectly Frank"[31] that he edited, scored and produced, and co-wrote with the lead actor - the late actor Michael Okarma - whose one-man show inspired it, and who passed away in 2019 before it was released in October 2020.

New Media

In 2000 Malicki-Sánchez launched "freedom" – a highly customized phpnuke bulletin board, messaging and community building portal whose active community kept the site alive for six years, preceding such social media portals as Friendster , MySpace and Facebook , which perhaps it resembled most, even in its blue and white colour scheme which it derived from the Constant Change Productions website where it was a subdomain. Many of the site's early code modifications were done by longtime friend Will Rowe whom Malicki-Sánchez originally met in the IRC chatroom for Internex Online – Canada's first and independent ISP. In 1994 he founded "Robot Pride Day" – an ironic annual festival named after a song by Blue Dog Pict that is celebrated twenty years later.[32]

In September, 2008, Keram launched the Keramcast – a podcast he hosted that was a digest for the topics discussed at his various blogs and IndieGameReviewer.com, also referred to as "IGR," - an independently run indie game critique blog that has continued to publish reviews for over a decade from over a dozen writers from around the world. He maintains the position of editor-in-chief, current as of 2020.[33][34]

In 2020 Malicki-Sanchez was the project lead on a new company called 'spatialized.events' dedicated to immersive media showcases in WebXR. Working with lead developer James Baicoianu, and co-producer Stephanie Greenall, he helped to build a 3D world that could also play stereoscopic 4k video with ambisonic audio, VOIP and videochat (all programmed for Baiconaiu using the elation engine and powered by AWS.) Malicki-Sanchez developed a series of interfaces and tools to manage the administrative back end in pursuit creating a solution that could be licensed to 3rd party festival and conferences. 80% of the codebase used Javascript with the remainder being CSS, php, and HTML.[35]

Virtual Reality and Immersive Technology

In 2015 he founded VRTO[36] – a Toronto-based virtual and augmented reality meetup that sold out its inaugural event[37][38] held at Ryerson University's Student Learning Center and Transportive Technology[39] – a virtual reality content production company which saw Malicki-Sanchez teaming up once more with Lee Towndrow to create one of the world's first 360 ASMR Immersive videos.[40] This led to the creation of FIVARS, which is an acronym for the "Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories" which he co-organized with Joseph Ellsworth, the technical director.

FIVARS debuted at the Camp Wavelength music festival in Toronto and showed the first full viewing of MansLaughter by Cinemersia – which claims to be the world's first virtual reality feature film.[41] FIVARS had its inaugural show in Toronto on 19 and 20 September 2015,[42] including 21[43] virtual reality stories from around the world.[44] The second FIVARS continued in 2016 at MSMU Studios – a 5,000 square foot warehouse redesigned for the festival.[45] 16–18 September and Malicki-Sanchez curated over 30 selections from around the world.[46][47]

Malicki-Sanchez then created the VRTO Virtual & Augmented Reality World Conference & Expo[48][49][50] which in its first year was staged at the Mattamy Athletic Centre (formerly Maple Leaf Gardens) that featured director Brett Leonard, scientist Steve Mann, Canadian Film Centre's Chief Digital Officer Ana Serrano and USC's Philip Lelyveld as keynotes speakers.[51] It was at this inaugural conference that Steve Mann and Keram Malicki-Sanchez organized a launching via keynote, panel and town hall around the Code of Ethics for Humanistic Augmentation[52] also known as the "HACode"[53] or "Toronto Code."

The second year of VRTO, curated and directed by Malicki-Sanchez, featured 100 speakers and 65 installations. It was held at the Rogers Communications Center – a part of the Ryerson University campus.[54] Speakers included many pioneers of the interactive immersive media space, including David A. Smith, Graham Smith, Sara Diamond, optical holography artist Michael Page.

The 3rd VRTO festival, in 2018, Malicki-Sanchez swung the focus towards transcendentalism, Gnosis, psychedelia,[55] astrology, cryptocurrency, blockchain and security and privacy. Featured speakers included Philip Rosedale - creator of Second Life who announced the implementation of EOS as a base for his social VR world High Fidelity, and game designer Steve Gaynor, whose games Gone Home and Tacoma Malicki-Sanchez cited as keystones for immersive storytelling and keynote speaker and Voices of VR podcast host Kent Bye whose opening presentation touched upon esoterica and the philosophical foundations of experiential design.[56]

In 2019 VRTO welcomed media harbinger Douglas Rushkoff, Bloomberg Prize Winner Amelia Winger-Bearkskin, Olivier Palmieri of Ubisoft Sarah Vicks of Intel Studios, and 35 other leaders of the VR & AR industry. The conference moved to the Toronto Media Arts Centre. Rushkoff recorded the first episode of Team Human in Canada live at the conference.[57]

Malicki-Sanchez has also been invited to speak about VR and its effect on society across North America including at Toronto Tech Week,[58] Digital Hollywood,[59] the Canadian National Exhibition,[60] Cinegear Expo, ideacity,[61] EntertainmentTO, Team Human podcast hosted by Douglas Rushkoff and New Yorker magazine, among others.

In 2020 his essays were published in two books: Handbook of Research on the Global Impacts and Roles of Immersive Media Edited by Jacquelyn Ford Morie and Kate McCallum, and Dyscorpia: Future Intersections of the Body and Technology, Edited by Marilene Oliver and Daniel Laforest, Published by Dept of Art and Design, University of Alberta.

The same year he moved the VRTO conference online, working with various platforms to create a multiplatform experience he coined "The Flotilla." It used a video-streaming conference app, the Mozilla Hubs web VR platform running custom code on the Amazon Web Services cloud and hosted a microsummit on accessibility.[62][63] The launch of this initiative corresponded with his creation of the company Spatialized.Events.

In October 2020, Malick-Sanchez was interviewed alongside JanusVR developer James Baicoianu by podcaster Kent Bye on Voices of VR about the creation of a 4k 360-degree screening space in WebXR for the FIVARS festival.[64] it was the 6th year that he directed and curated the festival, this time as a wholly virtual event, with producing partner Stephanie Greenall.

Filmography

TV appearances

References
  1. "Texas Chainsaw 3D review: Manson Family values - The Star".
  2. "IMDB: Sleeping With Danger full cast list".
  3. "IMDB: Same Time Next Week full cast list".
  4. "A Killer App" – via www.imdb.com.
  5. Keram Malicki-Sánchez (2020). "Out of Our Minds: Ontology and Embodied Media in a Post-Human Paradigm, Source". In Jacquelyn Ford Morie; Kate McCallum (eds.). Handbook of Research on the Global Impacts and Roles of Immersive Media. ISBN 978-1799824336.
  6. "Taking Virtual Reality for a Test Drive". New Yorker Magazine.
  7. "Keram Malicki-Sanchez - Credits - AllMusic". AllMusic.
  8. "How (Not) to Become a Vampire". 2 September 2011 – via www.imdb.com.
  9. "How (Not) To Become A Vampire - National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI)". 5 September 2014.
  10. "A new twist: Keram Malicki-Sanchez; 7; was chosen from a field of 200 of play the lead role in Olive Pictures | Getty Images". Gettyimages.at. 16 November 1981. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  11. "You are being redirected..." www.youngpeoplestheatre.ca.
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  13. "Malicki-Sanchez, Keram 1974– - Dictionary definition of Malicki-Sanchez, Keram 1974– - Encyclopedia.com: FREE online dictionary". www.encyclopedia.com.
  14. http://www.youngpeoplestheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/ALL-SEASONS-revised-Spring-2015.pdf
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  18. http://blogging.la/2005/09/07/hotel-cafe-fundraisers/. Missing or empty |title= (help)
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  20. "Keram â€" Box". 9 February 2008.
  21. "BTW- Starring Keram, Julian Taylor, Buddy Black, Royksopp and Robyn, Rusty Ford, the return of Current Records, Emilia and the Mississauga Music Walk of Fame 2014 - Cashbox Magazine Canada". cashboxcanada.ca. 14 May 2015.
  22. Listen to Keram Malicki-Sanchez's new song That Light featuring Alex Lifeson | https://www.rushisaband.com/blog/2020/05/21/5439/Listen-to-Keram-Malicki-Sanchezs-new-song-That-Light-featuring-Alex-Lifeson
  23. Bella Thorne To Star in Lifetime Movie As Teen Heroin Addict – Variety | https://variety.com/2015/tv/news/bella-thorne-lifetime-movie-perfect-high-heroin-addict-1201421586/
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  35. "How An Indie Festival Is Fostering A New Kind of International Cinema In The Pandemic". Medium.com.
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  42. "MansLaughter, The Night Café & More Heading to FIVARS Canadian VR Film Fest".
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  49. "Toronto VR Expo explores a Canadian-wide collaboration with Montreal technology leaders". www.newswire.ca.
  50. Damiani, Jesse (18 July 2016). "The Future of Tech Just Changed at VRTO--Here's Why That Matters to You".
  51. UploadVR'Lawnmower Man' Director Brett Leonard and Meta’s Steve Mann Keynote VRTO Conference
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  55. "Six Psychonauts on VR, Psychedelics, & Consciousness Transformation". voicesofvr.com.
  56. Kajko, Suave. "VRTO – Canada's Virtual and Augmented Reality Conference Runs June 15–18 in Toronto!". NOVO magazine.
  57. "EP. 134 TEAM HUMAN LIVE FROM VRTO | WITH KERAM MALICKI-SÁNCHEZ AND AMELIA WINGER-BEARSKIN". Team Human.
  58. "Keram Malicki-Sanchez's schedule for Techweek Toronto 2016".
  59. "VR2016Spring". www.digitalhollywood.com.
  60. "The Ex's Innovation Garage Showcases Latest in AR and VR". cfccreates.com.
  61. "Keram Malicki-Sanchez - Virtual Reality Toronto - ideacity".
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  63. "VRTO 2020 The Flotilla: La expo sobre la realidad virtual regresa por 5to año a Toronto". TorontoHispano.
  64. "#957: How FIVARS Festival is Using WebXR to Deliver 360 Video". VoicesOfVR.com.
  65. - Being Perfectly Frank 2020
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  70. - HNTBAV on IMDB.com
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  73. - One Kine Day
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