For the past decade, James Swirsky has been an independent filmmaker.  Building upon an odd concoction of film degrees, business degrees and a collection award winning short films, in 2004 James founded BlinkWorks - a digital film production company.

Through BlinkWorks, James has amassed an impressively robust body of work, producing national broadcast, corporate, commercial and documentary projects.

Ever since the Commodore 64 took its place in his family’s home, video games have played an important part of James’ life (the phrase ‘Load”*”,8,1 is forever emblazoned in his mind).  Video games have been a steady constant, taking him from childhood through to the glorious, well-respected position of ‘Games Tester’ at Electronic Arts (Fun fact:  James holds the single project record for ‘bugs found’ at EA Canada*).

With a history filled and informed by video games, and a profession built on dedication to telling stories, Indie Game: The Movie is the perfect film for James to make.  And James would like to think that he is the perfect filmmaker to make it. :)

* To all the NBA Live 2001 players out there: you’re welcome.

Throughout her film & TV career, Lisanne Pajot has been talking to people about their passions. An experienced story-teller and interviewer, she is excited to delve deeper into the motivations and creative experience of game developers for Indie Game: The Movie.

Prior to joining BlinkWorks, Lisanne worked for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).  At the CBC, she was a producer/editor for national lifestyle series and also spent time in the corporation’s world-renown documentary division.  Lisanne’s work at the CBC has yielded multiple Gracie Allen awards, and a Gemini Nomination (Think Canadian Emmys - It’s like the U.S. Daytime Emmys only with even less stars.)

Lisanne holds a bachelors’ degree in Communication and Visual Rhetoric, and is a ragged veteran of the Canadian Children’s musical theatre circuit (this explains her predisposition to gravitate towards games involving microphones, dance mats and/or virtual stage moms).