Keram Malicki-Sánchez

Keram Malicki-Sánchez (born 14 May 1974) is a Canadian-born actor,^[1][2] singer, writer,^[3] futurist,^[4] music producer,^[5] film producer^[6] and film director.^[7]

Early life

Malicki-Sánchez was born in Toronto, Ontario to a Polish father and Ecuadorian mother (a theatre director). Keram studied ecclesiastical and classical choral music at St. Michael's Choir School in Toronto.

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.^[8]

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^[9] in Toronto, Canada.^[10] 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.^[11]

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 ^[11] 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)^[12] – one of the youngest actors ever to be nominated in this category.

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, 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.

During this period he also published a magazine called "Natureboy" that was hand published and delivered to 2000 recipients monthly. It served as an auxiliary to the Blue Dog Pict culture and featured articles written by Malicki-Sanchez and other budding poets, writers, philosophers from Toronto.

In 1995, Keram's Constant Change label released "Irrevocable UPGRADE"^[13] - a compilation of exotic musical works across a wide variety of genres from Lo-Fi to spiritual hymns. 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. Keram released a cassette tape called "Automated Gardens: AN4" as part of an ambient electronic solo project. Keram later added Blue Dog Pict soundman and co-producer Joshua Miles Joudrie and Jason "DJ Shine Spanu" to the line-up, and the band played various shows and raves in Ontario, Canada, including sharing a bill with Richie Hawtin aka Plastikman at the E13 Network rave in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The electronica band later placed three music cues in the independent feature Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy. It was on the film Ecstasy that Keram also met guitarist and actor Alex Lifeson of the band Rush with whom he would later collaborate on his solo record. He created the Constant Change Music publishing company in 1998.

Keram also performs music under his own name, and has songs on various original film soundtracks including MGM's Uptown Girls (released on Nettwerk Records), New Line Cinema's Happy Campers, and Broken (Fuel 2000) for which he performed opposite the film's star Heather Graham in a video for the song "The Hanging Tree" that he composed. Under the Automated Gardens moniker, he and DJ Shine licensed four more tracks to the film Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy whose soundtrack includes some of the top electronic musics artists of the decade.

Malicki-Sánchez moved to Los Angeles in the late 1990s where he in 1998 he founded the band "Ribcage" accompanied by bassist and co-songwriter Paul Gallinato and drummer Eric Michael Hermann. The band released one album titled "For Machines to Dream About" in 1999 which they toured throughout North America. After 2005, he continued to perform music live under the moniker "Keram." As the artist "Keram" he was a regular at Hollywood's Hotel Cafe. During this period he also collaborated on songs with singers Aimee Lynn Chadwick, Jordan Bridges, and Brittany Murphy with a side project called Blue Rose Harlots.

25 January 2008, Keram released his solo debut acoustic album "Box",.^[14][15] 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 April 12. Alex Lifeson made a guest appearance, joining the band onstage for two songs.^[16] An American release party for the same album was held at Molly Malone's in Los Angeles on April 4, 2015.

That same year he licensed two songs in the style of Dubstep to the Lifetime Network^[17] film "Perfect High".^[18] 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"^[19] an 84-minute made-for-TV movie starring Jewel Staite for PixL in 2017.^[20]

Filmmaking

In 2006, Malicki-Sanchez wrote, directed and produced a one-hour fictional film about this early online community and the Sky Pirates entitled "The Charge of the 08.ZIYA". The film is about a rescue mission from a marketing shell game, and is scored by Automated Gardens.

He was later a student in the first years of UCLA Extension's Film, Television and Digital entertainment, Cinematography and Film Producing programs. He graduated from the UCLA program in 2009. In 2012 he was one of 65 people invited to attend and completed Werner Herzog's Rogue Film School in Los Angeles.

His first short film was accepted into the Glastonbury, Atlanta Horror Film Festivals and was an award winner at Shockfest^[21] 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^[22] among others. His third short How (Not) To Become a Vampire features motion graphics by John Watson who also worked as a composer 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).^[6][7][23]

New media

In 1995, concurrent with the release of Blue Dog Pict's third album, Malicki-Sanchez worked with Lee Towndrow (animator and programmer) to produce one of the first ever enhanced CDs released by a band, as it features a MAC/PC compatible Myst-style video game. Malicki-Sánchez worked directly with the CD manufacturer to create a method for putting the data on track 0 so that the CD would also play in a standard CD player.

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.^[24]

Malicki-Sánchez has been invited to speak on various panels concerning technology and the arts by the North by Northeast (NXNE) music conference, the Toronto Sun, Toronto Star, the 2007 NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) in Las Vegas and Cinegear Expo in Los Angeles.

In September, 2008, Keram launched the Keramcast – a podcast he hosts that is a digest for the topics discussed at his various blogs.

He also works as a social media and SEO consultant and runs a wide variety of online portals that include his decade-long position as editor-in-chief at Indie Game Reviewer.^[25]

Virtual reality & immersive technology

In 2015 he founded VRTO^[26] – a Toronto-based virtual and augmented reality meetup that sold out its inaugural event^[27][28] held at Ryerson University's Student Learning Center and Transportive Technology^[29] – 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.^[30] 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.^[31] FIVARS had its inaugural show in Toronto on September 19 and 20, 2015,^[32] including 21 ^[33] virtual reality stories from around the world.^[34] The second FIVARS continued in 2016 at MSMU Studios – a 5,000 square foot warehouse redesigned for the fesival.^[35] September 16–18th and Malicki-Sanchez curated over 30 selections from around the world.^[36][37]

Malicki-Sanchez then created the VRTO Virtual & Augmented Reality World Conference & Expo^[38][39][40] 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.^[41] 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^[42] also known as the "HACode"^[43] 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.^[44] 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 FIVARS festival took place at the House of VR in Toronto with Malicki-Sanchez spearheading the curation of another 35 pieces from 14 countries. The show was co-produced by Jessy Blaze.

The 3rd VRTO festival, in 2018, Malicki-Sanchez swung the focus towards transcendentalism, Gnosis, psychedelia^[45], 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.^[46]

Malicki-Sanchez has also been invited to speak about VR and its effect on society across North America including at Toronto Tech Week,^[47] Digital Hollywood,^[48] the Canadian National Exhibition,^[49] Cinegear Expo and ideacity^[50] among others.

In 2018 he released a Virtual Reality app for Google Cardboard titled "G^FF<R" through his production company Transportive.Technology that serves as an educational tool surrounding cinematographic lighting techniques or the Three Point Lighting technique.

Acting filmography

• The Christmas Switch (2014) – Manny^[51]
• Model Home (2013) – Dean^[52]
• Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013) – Kenny^[53]
• Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy (2011) – Ally^[54]
• How (Not) To Become a Vampire (2011) – Director/Producer/Editor^[55]
• Tulip Pink (2011) – Director/Writer/Producer^[56]
• A Killer App (2010) – Director/Writer/Producer/Editor^[57]
• One Kine Day (2010) – Vegas Mike^[58]
• Punisher: War Zone (2008) – Ink
• Sex and Death 101 (2007) – Master Bitchslap
• Cake (2005) – Frank
• Queen West (2005) – Ross
• Little Black Book (2004) – Waiter
• The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 2: Vaux to the Sea (2004) – Virgil de Selincourt
• Something In Between (2002) – Jon Talents
• Global Heresy (Rock My World (US)) (2002) – Flit
• John Q (2002) – Freddy B
• Crazy/Beautiful (2001) – Foster
• Happy Campers (2001) – Jasper
• Cherry Falls (2000) – Timmy
• Drive Me Crazy (1999) – Rupert
• American History X (1998) – Chris
• No Contest (1994) – Cal
• Boulevard (1994) – Sister
• Skin Deep (1995) – Chris Black
• Eleni (1985) – Nick's Son
• Rock My World (2002) – Flint

TV appearances

• True Blood (2012) – Elijah Stormer
• Flashpoint (2012) – Pete Joris
• The Mentalist (2012) – Tookie Burroughs
• Charlie's Angels (2011) – Lee Bowen
• Endgame (2011) – Naveed
• Saving Grace (2007) – Razor
• The L Word (2006) – Chase
• Without a Trace (2005) – Scott
• The Jane Show (2004) – Iggy
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2004) – Jamal
• The Guardian (2003) – Lucas Farr
• 24 (2001) – Larry Rogow
• ER (1999) – Rick, Goth Kid
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1999) in "Earshot" – Freddy Iverson
• Late Last Night (1999) – Drag Queen
• Silk Stalkings (1999) – Lyn Mocrief, Monk
• L.A. Doctors (1999) – Alex Atcheson
• Ready or Not (1993–1996) – The Liz
• TekWar: TekLab (1994) – Mustapha
• Catwalk (1992–1993) – Johnny Camden
• Katts and Dog (1992)
• War of the Worlds (1989–1990) – Ceeto
• Friday the 13th: The Series – Peter Marshak (1989), Ricky (1988)
• Street Legal (1988) – Tom Prouse
• Summer Storm (1988) – Joey
• The Ray Bradbury Theater (1988) – Martin
• Zardip's Search for Healthy Wellness (1988) – Zardip
• I'll Take Manhattan (1987) – Justin Amberville (child)
• Amerika (1987) – Young Caleb
• Faerie Tale Theatre (1985) – Willie

References

External links

• Keram Malicki-Sánchez on IMDb
• ConstantChange.com
• KeramSongs, his official music site
• National Film Board of Canada (nfb.gc.ca): Skin Deep (1995) directed by Midi Onodera