Flickr: jamesmichaelroot

After graduating from college, I lived in Japan for two years, teaching conversational English at a private school to all age groups.

I returned to the US in 1991 and moved to Los Angeles to work in the entertainment industry. For three years I worked freelance as a PA on films, music videos and commercials. From early 1993 to late 1994 I worked on a film with Michael Tolkin (writer: The Player, Deep Impact; director: The Rapture, The New Age) as the key PA and then as Michael’s assistant.

During 1994 – 1995 the web began to take off and I discovered a passion and affinity for the internet, technology and the possibilities offered at the intersection of entertainment and online. I joined the web team at NewsCorp in 1995 and helped to develop the first generation of websites for 20th Century Fox properties including FoxKids.com, FoxSports.com, TheX-Files.com, and Fox.com. From there I went on to Hollywood.com as the head of production and editorial where I helped develop and run the Hollywood.com suite of internet properties. This role included selling large sponsorship packages to Intel and Microsoft as part of co-branded marketing campaigns developed to support emerging software and chipset products.

Following my position at Hollywood.com, I was recruited by Microsoft to be part of a two-person business development team based in Los Angeles and focused on the filmed entertainment space. Our charter was to get format adoption of Windows and the Windows Media platform across as many consumer and professional applications as possible. We accomplished this goal by supporting partners and projects developed on the platform.

Supported projects included:
•AFI’s Digital Content Lab (formerely the eTV Workshop)
•MovieLink (the 5 studio JV to distribute movies online via download)
•CinemaNow (similar to Movielink)
•Digital Cinema (working with Technicolor and Artisan to distribute movies like Standing in the Shadows of Motown).
•HD-DVD prototyping with films like Terminator 2: Extreme Edition and Step Into Liquid
•Supporting Project Greenlight through a joint partnership with AVID

Since leaving Microsoft in early 2005 I have been a director of business development for a small interactive design firm called Playground Media Group. And then most recently, I've been working at LivePlanet producing a series of next generation online entertainment experiences and media properites. These include a project I concepted, created and sold to LivePlanet. www.constitutionlive.com is an online video portal designed to re-energize the US Constitution by having politicians, celebs and average citizens read the Constitution on camera.

Throughout the past 12 years that I have been working in the digital media and online space, I have also created a number of personal creative projects that take advantage of what the web and new techologies have to offer.

These projects include:
•A 1995 re-broadcast of the original War of the Worlds radio program, streamed in Real Audio.
•Starting in 1999 an online site called “Soundtrack Factory” which legally (via a license with ASCP and BMI) distributes MP3 compilations as downloads. This project, developed with a creative partner, consists of 90 minute to 2 hour downloadable audio files which are effectively story-driven play lists. The concept is that each compilation is the soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t really exist. The project is designed to create the illusion that there is in fact a movie though (each “soundtrack” is accompanied by a one-sheet, a story synopsis and audio files that are “director commentaries”). Each audio file is more than a soundtrack however. Each compilation creates the unique experience of a "movie in your head". This site is currently offline but its first on the list to get redeveloped when we have the time.