Variety

8/9/99

Behind the scenes, ahead of the times, hot creatives make their mark.

by Richard Hoefler

 

 

 

Hope isn’t just for the young, and neither is Variety’s annual list of up-and-comer creatives who work behind the scenes in the industry. Compiled by Variety’s international staff of editors and reporters, the following list is necessarily heavy with those  under 30 directors, playwrights and new-media types who are receiving recognition as their careers gear up....

 

Interactive Visionary Kimberly Brooks has become a Hollywood player on the Internet.  Since founding the new-media house Lightray Productions (www.lightray.com) in 1996, the San Francisco native has been one of the leading creators of movie-promoting sites and other online material for such entertainment industry majors as Warners, Paramount, Sony, Virgin Records and ABC Sports.  One of Brooks’ first projects was developing a broadband network for Oliver Stone that converted into an alternative search engine for the Internet.  Brooks, who studied fine art at the Sorbonne in Paris and new media at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, says the popularity of the Internet caught the film studios off-guard.  “They’re just starting to see it as a potential way to promote their product.”