Tiffany Shlain
Encyclopedia
Tiffany Shlain is an American
filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards
. Recognized by Newsweek
as "one of the women shaping the 21st century."
in 1970. She is the daughter of surgeon and author Leonard Shlain
(1937-2009). She is married to artist Ken Goldberg
who is a UC Berkeley
professor; they live in northern California and have two children.
Shlain is a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley
where she was selected as a valedictorian speaker for the interdisciplinary Studies Department and received the highest honor in art, The Eisner Award, for filmmaking. She received her BA in film theory and interdisciplinary studies in 1992. She studied organizational change at Harvard Business School
Executive Education and film production at New York University
’s Sight & Sound summer program in 1990. She serves on the advisory boards for The MIT GeoSpatial Data Center, The Fledging Fund, The San Francisco Film Festival’s Filmmaker Advisory Committee and The UC Berkeley’s Center for New Media. She also advises with The Institute for the Future. In 2010, she was invited to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to talk about how technology is changing the landscape in society.
As a director for both theater and film, she has worked with Harrison Ford
, Peter Coyote
and Alan Cumming
and was selected as an Artist-in-Residence at the Headland Center for the Arts and for a film residency at the San Francisco Film Society
. She has been singled out by The New York Times
, Variety
, The Hollywood Reporter
and the Sundance Institute
for her cutting-edge work using documentaries and internet distribution in unique ways to engage audiences. She lectures worldwide on filmmaking and the Internet’s influence on society. Invitations include Harvard, MIT, Apple theaters in NYC and SF, The Idea Festival, Fortune 500 companies, the 92nd St Y in NYC and The Sydney Opera House. She delivered the keynote address for University of California, Berkeley’s commencement ceremony to an audience of 11,500 on May 16, 2010.
Her recent video art installation, "Smashing", with her husband Goldberg, premiered in New York City at the Pulse Contemporary Art Fair. She has received over 40 awards and distinctions during the course of her career for her work as a filmmaker, artist, internet pioneer and activist.
in 1996 and was creative director and CEO for nearly a decade. The Webbys receive over 10,000 entries annually and are presented annually in NYC. In 1998 she co-founded International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences
, today a 550-person organization and served as the on-air Internet expert for Good Morning America
from 2000 to 2003. Her work with The Webbys has been profiled on The New York Times, The BBC, ABC, MTV, CNN, The Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair and NPR. She also contributes regularly to The Huffington Post. In 2006, she co-founded The Moxie Institute an organization that creates films, discussion programs, theater experiences and internet experiments around social issues using emerging technologies with her husband, Ken Goldberg.
Shlain's films include Connected (2011), The Tribe
(2006), an exploration of American Jewish identity through the history of the Barbie doll, and Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (2003), about reproductive rights in America.
Shlain's films have been selected for inclusion at the Sundance Film Festival
, Tribeca Film Festival
, and Rotterdam Film Festival. The Tribe won Indiewire's Sundance Critics' Choice Award for 2006 and in October 2007 was the most-downloaded short film on iTunes.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards
Webby Awards
A Webby Award is an international award presented annually by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for excellence on the Internet with categories in websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile....
. Recognized by Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
as "one of the women shaping the 21st century."
Bio
Tiffany Shlain was born in Mill Valley, CaliforniaMill Valley, California
Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, United States located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge. The population was 13,903 at the 2010 census.Mill Valley is located on the western and northern shores of Richardson Bay...
in 1970. She is the daughter of surgeon and author Leonard Shlain
Leonard Shlain
Leonard Shlain was an American surgeon and writer; he authored three books.Dr. Shlain was Chairman of Laparoscopic surgery at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and was an Associate Professor of Surgery at UCSF.He was a speaker at such venues as the Smithsonian, Harvard...
(1937-2009). She is married to artist Ken Goldberg
Ken Goldberg
Kenneth Y. Goldberg is a Professor of Industrial Engineering and OperationsResearch , with a joint appointment in Electrical Engineering and...
who is a UC Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
professor; they live in northern California and have two children.
Shlain is a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
where she was selected as a valedictorian speaker for the interdisciplinary Studies Department and received the highest honor in art, The Eisner Award, for filmmaking. She received her BA in film theory and interdisciplinary studies in 1992. She studied organizational change at Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
Executive Education and film production at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
’s Sight & Sound summer program in 1990. She serves on the advisory boards for The MIT GeoSpatial Data Center, The Fledging Fund, The San Francisco Film Festival’s Filmmaker Advisory Committee and The UC Berkeley’s Center for New Media. She also advises with The Institute for the Future. In 2010, she was invited to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to talk about how technology is changing the landscape in society.
As a director for both theater and film, she has worked with Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in...
, Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote is an American actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, television and audio books. His voice work includes narrating the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Apple's iPad campaign. He has also served as on-camera co-host of the 2000 Oscar...
and Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming, OBE is a Scottish stage, television and film actor, singer, writer, director, producer and author. His roles have included the Emcee in Cabaret, Boris Grishenko in GoldenEye, Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United, Mr. Elton in Emma, and Fegan Floop in the Spy Kids trilogy...
and was selected as an Artist-in-Residence at the Headland Center for the Arts and for a film residency at the San Francisco Film Society
San Francisco Film Society
is a nonprofit arts organization located in San Francisco, California that presents and exhibits year-round film programming and events in addition to the annual San Francisco International Film Festival....
. She has been singled out by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
and the Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981 that actively advances the work of filmmakers and storytellers worldwide...
for her cutting-edge work using documentaries and internet distribution in unique ways to engage audiences. She lectures worldwide on filmmaking and the Internet’s influence on society. Invitations include Harvard, MIT, Apple theaters in NYC and SF, The Idea Festival, Fortune 500 companies, the 92nd St Y in NYC and The Sydney Opera House. She delivered the keynote address for University of California, Berkeley’s commencement ceremony to an audience of 11,500 on May 16, 2010.
Her recent video art installation, "Smashing", with her husband Goldberg, premiered in New York City at the Pulse Contemporary Art Fair. She has received over 40 awards and distinctions during the course of her career for her work as a filmmaker, artist, internet pioneer and activist.
Technology
Shlain founded The Webby AwardsWebby Awards
A Webby Award is an international award presented annually by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences for excellence on the Internet with categories in websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile....
in 1996 and was creative director and CEO for nearly a decade. The Webbys receive over 10,000 entries annually and are presented annually in NYC. In 1998 she co-founded International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences
International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences
The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences or IADAS was founded in 1998 in New York to help drive the progress of the Internet and evolving forms of new media. The academy selects the nominees and winners for the Webby Awards, and their European equivalent, the Lovie Awards.Membership...
, today a 550-person organization and served as the on-air Internet expert for Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
from 2000 to 2003. Her work with The Webbys has been profiled on The New York Times, The BBC, ABC, MTV, CNN, The Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair and NPR. She also contributes regularly to The Huffington Post. In 2006, she co-founded The Moxie Institute an organization that creates films, discussion programs, theater experiences and internet experiments around social issues using emerging technologies with her husband, Ken Goldberg.
Filmmaking
Shlain produced her first feature-length film Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death, & Technology, which opened at the Sundance Film Festival. Connected exposes the importance of personal connectedness in relation to understanding global conditions, ultimately showing how all of humanity is invested in today’s crucial issues. More than a film about social issues, it is a work that speaks directly to empathy, social engagement, and what it means to be connected in the 21st century.Shlain's films include Connected (2011), The Tribe
The Tribe (documentary)
The Tribe is an award winning short documentary film directed by Tiffany Shlain and narrated by Peter Coyote. Weaving together archival footage, graphics and animation, it tells the history of both the Barbie doll and the Jewish people from Biblical times to the present.-Awards:*Best Documentary:...
(2006), an exploration of American Jewish identity through the history of the Barbie doll, and Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (2003), about reproductive rights in America.
Shlain's films have been selected for inclusion at the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
, Tribeca Film Festival
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival is a film festival founded in 2002 by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the consequent loss of vitality in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.The mission of the festival...
, and Rotterdam Film Festival. The Tribe won Indiewire's Sundance Critics' Choice Award for 2006 and in October 2007 was the most-downloaded short film on iTunes.
Filmography
- Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death, & Technology (2011)
- The TribeThe Tribe (documentary)The Tribe is an award winning short documentary film directed by Tiffany Shlain and narrated by Peter Coyote. Weaving together archival footage, graphics and animation, it tells the history of both the Barbie doll and the Jewish people from Biblical times to the present.-Awards:*Best Documentary:...
(2006) - Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness (2003)
- Less Is Moore: The Life of Betty and Gordon Moore (2001)
- Machine Time (2000)
Film awards
- Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death & Technology (2011)
- Sundance Film FestivalSundance Film FestivalThe Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
2011 - Women in Film Awards from All Roads Grant - National Geographic SocietyNational Geographic SocietyThe National Geographic Society , headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical...
- Women of Vision Nomination from L’Oreal/Entertainment Weekly/Sundance
- Festivals: Sundance, Ashland International Film Festival, Cleveland International Film FestivalCleveland International Film FestivalThe Cleveland International Film Festival, first held in 1977, is the largest film festival in Ohio. The 2010 festival featured over 300 films. Since 1991 the festival has been held at Tower City Cinemas in downtown Cleveland.-Roxanne T...
, - Nashville Film FestivalNashville Film FestivalThe Nashville Film Festival , held annually in Nashville, Tennessee, is the oldest running film festival in the South and one of the oldest in the United States. In 2009, Nashville Film Festival received close to 2000 submissions from 86 countries, programmed nearly 260 films and had an attendance...
- The Margaret Herrick LibraryMargaret HerrickMargaret Herrick , was the librarian and director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Herrick is generally credited with naming the Academy Award an "Oscar", declaring the statuettes "looked just like my Uncle Oscar"...
of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesThe Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
acquired the script for Connected for their permanent collection
- Sundance Film Festival
- Yelp: With Apologies to Allen GinsbergAllen GinsbergIrwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
's Howl (2010)- Sundance Film Festival 2011
- Guggenheim Museum/Youtube Creative Biennial Short List
- The TribeThe Tribe (documentary)The Tribe is an award winning short documentary film directed by Tiffany Shlain and narrated by Peter Coyote. Weaving together archival footage, graphics and animation, it tells the history of both the Barbie doll and the Jewish people from Biblical times to the present.-Awards:*Best Documentary:...
(2006)- Ovation Award: Best Documentary, LACMA screening in LA, June 2010
- Best Documentary, Westchester Film Festival, May, 2008
- Best Short Documentary, Cleveland Int’l Film Festival March 2008
- Number 1 Downloaded Short Film on iTunes Oct 26th, 2007
- International Jewish Topics, Argentina Jewish Film Festival Oct. 07
- Best Documentary: New York Shorts Fest Oct 07
- Best Documentary, LA ShortsFest Sept 07
- First Prize, Warsaw Jewish Film Festival April 07
- Pioneer Award, Warsaw Film Festival May 07
- Grand Jury Prize: Best Short Documentary, Florida Film Festival, April 07
- Golden Star Award, Best Short Documentary, Mar. ‘07
- Best Documentary Short, Nashville Film Festival ’06
- Best Historical Documentary, San Francisco Women's Film Festival ’06
- Director's Choice Award, Black Maria Film Festival ’06
- Audience Award, Ann Arbor International Film Festival ’06
- Indiewire's Sundance Critics' Choice Award ’06
- Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Happiness (2003)
- Best Documentary Short, Moab Film Festival ‘03
- Juror's Citation, Black Maria Film Festival ‘03
- Finalist, USA Film Festival, National Short Film & Video Competition ‘03
- Affiliate Award, Excellence Award from Planned Parenthood Federation ‘03
- Nominee for San Francisco International Film FestivalSan Francisco International Film FestivalSan Francisco International Film Festival is the oldest continuously running film festival in the Americas. Organized by the San Francisco Film Society, the International is held each spring for two weeks, presenting an average of 150 films from over 50 countries...
, Golden Gate Award, Official Selection ‘03 - Honorable Mention, Best Women's Short Category, Cleveland Int’l Film Festival ’03
- Hunter & Pandora (1992)
- Best Experimental Film, Cinequest Film Festival 1992
- Eisner Award, Highest Award in Art by the Chancellor’s Committee, UC BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
1992
Art/Design
- Artist-in-Residence, Headland Center for the Arts Fall ’06
- HOW International Design Award for Webby Awards Invitation ’01
- American Graphic Design Award for Webby Awards Invitation ’99
Leadership
- Women in Film Award for making Connected, All Roads Award National Geographic 2011
- Women of Vision Award for Directing by L’Oreal/Entertainment Weekly/Sundance 2011
- Keynote Commencement Address, UC Berkeley, May 2010
- Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute 2007 to 2009
- For Creating Socially Responsible Films by Partners Ending Domestic Abuse 2009
- Victoria Award for Ethical Leadership, The Woodhull Institute, NY ’06
- Activist Award on behalf of Women’s Rights, Ritz Carleton, Given by Planned Parenthood GG ‘04
- one of Newsweek Magazine’s "Women Shaping the 21st Century" ‘01
- Shining Star Award recipient, American Women in Radio and Television ‘00
- Valedictorian Speaker, Interdisciplinary Department. UC Berkeley 1992
- Student Ambassador to USSR in the People to People program: 1988
External links
- Mixed Media: Tiffany Shlain on filmmaking, networking and the Webbys - San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
- Online discussion with Tiffany Shlain - Washington Post
- Chat Transcript: Internet Expert Tiffany Shlain - ABC NewsABC NewsABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...