Keram Malicki-Sánchez

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Keram Malicki-Sánchez (born May 14, 1974) is a Canadian actor, singer, composer, writer, essayist, interactive media developer, music producer, film producer and film director.

Acting career[]

Malicki-Sánchez debuted in musical theatre at the age of seven in the title role of Oliver! at the Limelight Dinner Theatre in Toronto. It was positively covered by the Toronto Star,^[1] and launched his acting career.

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 Toronto's Young People's Theatre.^[2][3] It was at the same theatre company that Keram starred in the 1984 musical version of Mordecai Richler's Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, directed by Peter Moss.^[4]

Malicki-Sánchez played a variety of roles in CBC radio dramas, and at age 14, was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Principal Role – 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)^[5] – one of the youngest actors to be nominated in this category.^{[citation needed]} In 1996, Keram moved to Hollywood and worked in many films and TV series (see lists below).

Musical career[]

In 1987, at age 13, Keram released a solo 45" on vinyl, in Spanish, through Ecuador's Fe Discos. In 1990, he founded the record label Constant Change Productions out of Toronto, and formed his band, Blue Dog Pict.^[6] The band released three albums: The Picture Album (1990), Anxiety of Influence: a nodding into...? (1992), and Spindly Light Und Wax Rocketines (1995), all distributed by Montreal's Distribution FUSION III. One of the band's songs, One Hour's Sleep, appeared in the Degrassi High film School's Out, and in a TVOntario documentary about school violence.

In 1995, Constant Change released Irrevocable Upgrade,^[7] a compilation of exotic musical works which Keram curated and produced. He subsequently studied the tabla with Ritesh Das, the tabla master who appeared on the album.

In 1998, Keram launched the band Ribcage, with Eric Ryder Costello and Paul Gallinato, and toured Cleveland and New York, releasing one album, For Machines to Dream About.^[8] After Ribcage disbanded, Malicki-Sanchez spent several years headlining acoustic nights at Hollywood's Hotel Cafe.

In 2003 he wrote and performed the song The Truth Be Told for the film Uptown Girls starring Brittany Murphy.^[9] In 2006, he was recruited to write and teach a guitar song for actress Heather Graham to perform in the film Broken.^[10]

In January 2008, Malicki-Sanchez began releasing albums under the solo name Keram, launching a music video for the song Antiskeptic,^[11] before releasing his solo debut acoustic album Box.^[12]

In 2014, Keram released the album Come to Life, which includes contributions from over 30 musicians, including Alex Lifeson on guitar.^[13] The budget was raised through a successful IndieGogo campaign that achieved 144% of its goal; it was mixed by Rich Chycki and mastered by Andy Vandette at Masterdisk New York. The album was launched at Toronto's Royal Cinema; guests listened to the album while watching abstract images on the screen. That was followed by a live performance at The Supermarket in Toronto's Kensington Market. Alex Lifeson made a guest appearance, joining the band for two songs.^[14]

Keram again crowdfunded to produce three songs: (Don't Get Caught) By the Dazzling Charades (2018),^[15] Artificial Intelligence (2019)^[16] and That Light (2020)^[17] which was mastered by Andy Vandette and feature David Bowie bassist Carmine Rojas, Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson, and Frank Zappa drummer Ryan Brown.^[18]

That same year, Keram licensed two Dubstep-style songs to the Lifetime Network^[19] for the film "Perfect High".^[20] He went on to compose for a variety of movies for Lifetime Movie Network and PixL: Mr. Write (2016), Twist of Fate (2016), Bad Date Chronicles (2017), Same Time Next Week (2017)^[21][22][23] and Sleeping With Danger (2020).^[24][25][26]

Filmmaking[]

Malicki-Sanchez received certificates in cinematography and film production at UCLA Extension. His first short film A Killer App^[27] was accepted into the Glastonbury Festival^{[citation needed]} and the Atlanta Horror Film Festival and won the Best Monster Creation award winner at the 2010 Shockfest Film Festival.^[28] His short film Tulip Pink toured the film festival circuit and screened to sold-out theatres at the 2011 Newport Beach Film Festival.^[29] His third short How (Not) To Become a Vampire^[30][31] featured motion graphics by John Watson, who also worked as a VFX artist on Resident Evil: Extinction, and made the festival rounds in 2011, screening at the Austin Film Festival and winning a People's Choice Award at the Zero Film Festival in Toronto.^[30][31][32] Malicki-Sanchez also debuted a new 360-degree film titled Being Perfectly Frank^[33] that he edited, scored, produced, and co-wrote with the lead actor, Michael Okarma. Okarma's one-man show inspired the film, but Okarma passed away in 2019, before the film was released in October 2020.

New Media[]

In 1994, Malicki-Sánchez founded Robot Pride Day, an ironic annual festival that is still celebrated.^[34] In 2000, he launched Freedom, a highly customized phpnuke messaging and community-building bulletin board which preceded such social media portals as Friendster, MySpace and Facebook, whose community kept the site alive for six years, .

In September 2008, Keram launched Keramcast, a podcast that was a digest for the topics discussed on his various blogs, and at IndieGameReviewer.com, also referred to as 'IGR', an indie game critique blog that publishes reviews from over a dozen writers from around the world. He maintains the position of editor-in-chief, current as of 2020.^[35][36]

In 2020 Malicki-Sanchez was the project lead for a company called Spatialized Events, which was 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 video chat (all programmed using the elation engine and powered by AWS). Malicki-Sanchez developed interfaces and tools to create a solution that could be licensed to 3rd party festivals and conferences. Eighty per cent of the codebase used JavaScript, with the remainder being CSS, PHP, and HTML.^[37]

Virtual Reality and Immersive Technology[]

In 2015, Keram founded VRTO^[38] – a Toronto-based virtual and augmented reality meetup that sold out its inaugural event^[39][40] held at Ryerson University's Student Learning Center, and Transportive Technology^[41] – a virtual-reality content production company which saw Malicki-Sanchez teaming up with Lee Towndrow to create one of the world's first 360 ASMR Immersive videos.^[42] This led to the creation of FIVARS, the "Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories" which he co-organized with technical director Joseph Ellsworth.

FIVARS debuted at Toronto's Camp Wavelength music festival, and showed the first full viewing of MansLaughter by Cinemersia, which claims to be the world's first virtual reality feature film.^[43] FIVARS had its inaugural show in Toronto on 19 and 20 September 2015,^[44] and included 21^[45] virtual reality stories from around the world.^[46] The second FIVARS, which was September 16-18 2016, was at MSMU Studios – a 5,000 square-foot Toronto warehouse redesigned for the festival.^[47] and Malicki-Sanchez curated over 30 selections from around the world.^[48][49]

Malicki-Sanchez then created the VRTO Virtual & Augmented Reality World Conference & Expo^[50][51][52] which was staged at Toronto's Mattamy Athletic Centre (formerly Maple Leaf Gardens). Its keynote speakers were director Brett Leonard, scientist Steve Mann, the Canadian Film Centre's Chief Digital Officer Ana Serrano and the University of Southern California's Philip Lelyveld.^[53] It was at this inaugural conference that Steve Mann and Keram Malicki-Sanchez organized a town hall around the Code of Ethics for Humanistic Augmentation,^[54] also known as the 'HACode'^[55] or 'Toronto Code'.

The second year of VRTO, in 2017, was held at the Rogers Communications Center and featured 100 speakers and 65 installations.^[56] Speakers included many pioneers of the interactive immersive media space, including David A. Smith, Graham Smith, Sara Diamond, and optical holography artist Michael Page.

For the 3rd VRTO festival, in 2018, Malicki-Sanchez swung the focus towards transcendentalism, Gnosis, psychedelia,^[57] astrology, cryptocurrency, blockchain and security and privacy. Featured speakers included Second Life creator Philip Rosedale, 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.^[58]

In 2019, VRTO welcomed media harbinger Douglas Rushkoff, Bloomberg Prize Winner Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Olivier Palmieri of Ubisoft, Sarah Vicks of Intel Studios, and 35 other leaders of the VR & AR industry. Rushkoff recorded the first episode of Team Human live at the conference, which was held at the Toronto Media Arts Centre.^[59]

Malicki-Sanchez has been invited to speak about Virtual Reality and its effects on society at Techweek Toronto,^[60] Digital Hollywood,^[61] the Canadian National Exhibition,^[62] Cinegear Expo, ideacity,^[63] EntertainmentTO, and on Douglas Rushkoff's Team Human podcast.

In 2020, Keram's 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,^[64] and Dyscorpia: Future Intersections of the Body and Technology, edited by Marilene Oliver and Daniel Laforest, and published by the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta.^[65]

Also in 2020, Malicki-Sanchez moved the VRTO conference online, creating a multi-platform 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 micro summit on accessibility.^[66][67]

In October 2020, Malicki-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.^[68] They discussed how, for FIVARS 2021, he created various 3D environments with Blender modelling software and brought them to life using the JanusWeb engine, JavaScript and WebXR and co-developed an immersive 3-screen theater for the web-based event.

Television appearances[]

Filmography[]

References[]

External links[]

• Keram Malicki-Sánchez at IMDb
• ConstantChangeMedia.com
• KeramSongs, his official music site