Joe Velikovsky

Joe Velikovsky a.k.a. JT Velikovsky (born 11 November 1975) is an Australian Transmedia Writer-Director-Producer and Consultant, and Film Writer-Director-Producer, and also Game, Film and TV Writer, Game Designer, and Producer. He is also a musician, songwriter, novelist, cartoonist, illustrator, inventor, and engineer. Velikovsky wrote & designed the videogame Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal (2007), which sold over 1 million copies. His first feature film as a writer, the thriller film Caught Inside,^[1] won several awards, including the Audience Award at the 2010 Sydney Film Festival, and was released in cinemas in 2011. As an academic scholar, Velikovsky is noted for his StoryAlity Theory^[2] of high-RoI (return-on-investment) feature film stories, and also Creative Practice Theory,^[3] a synthesis of Pierre Bourdieu's practice theory, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's systems model of creativity. In 2013, in the domain of memetics, Velikovsky proposed the holon as the structure of the meme, the unit of culture ^[4] synthesizing the major theories on memes of Richard Dawkins, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, E. O. Wilson, Frederick Turner (poet) and Arthur Koestler.

Biography

Velikovsky was born to a librarian mother and grazier father in Mudgee (a place-name which means "nest in the Hills") and was raised on a wheat, sheep and cattle farm in Cassilis (which means nothing). His parents divorced when Velikovsky was 6, his mother married a poet and WWII veteran, and the family moved to Murrurundi - which means "nestled in the valley" - and later to Wang Wauk (which means "Fruit Bat").

Velikovsky’s first published work, at age 13, was the illustrations in the children’s book, Metamorphic. After completing high school at Chatham High in Taree, Velikovsky learnt to play the guitar and began songwriting.^[5] He returned to Mudgee to work in farming, construction and demolition, and obtained a class 1 explosives license.

In 1990 Velikovsky relocated to Newcastle, and with guitarist Phillip McIntyre and drummer Dave Carruthers, formed a 3-piece rock/reggae band, Texas Radio,^[5] with Velikovsky playing bass guitar. The band released a self-titled album in 1994, and a second album by the band is due for release in 2014. Velikovsky is listed in The Who’s Who of Australian Rock & Roll.

Velikovsky attended the University of Newcastle NSW from 1991–1993, and received a B.A. in Communication Studies, majoring in screenwriting. In 1993 Velikovsky won the award for The Student Contributing Most to the B.A.C.S Course. While at university he gained his first TV credit, working as a sketch-comedy writer on Channel 7’s The Comedy Sale!. During his university student years he also gained a cult following for his articles, short stories and cartoons published in the Newcastle University magazine, OPUS.

During 1993-2006 Velikovsky worked as a freelance Script Editor and Screenwriter for feature films, TV and multipath movies. Clients included Fresh Air Films, Brilliant Interactive Ideas, and Taffner-Ramsay Productions.

In 1993-4 Velikovsky also worked as a Writer-Director, and also as an actor and stage manager for comedy theatre company Footlice Theatre Company on various productions, including Making Movies and Stagecoach To The Centre Of The Earth. He also taught Film and Video Animation, and was a writing tutor at Newcastle University. In 1994 he received literary recognition with the publication of a satirical horror-comedy short story about an incubus, I, Spartacus in the anthology of young Newcastle writers, Shadows Of Life,^[6] edited by Mark Crowley.

In 1995 Velikovsky was a founder and board member of 'The Open City Film Festival’, Australia’s first low-budget feature film festival, which featured international guest, film producer-director Roger Corman. The film festival continues to this day (as The Newcastle Film Festival^[7]).

From 1995 to 1997 Velikovsky attended the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in Sydney, and studied screenwriting for a 2-year postgraduate Certificate. At AFTRS he wrote and directed the short horror-comedy film Skullmuncher (1995) and also wrote sci-fi comedy film Retro Sheilas (1996) and sci-fi docudrama Rocket Man (1997). He also wrote 5 feature film scripts while at AFTRS. During his time as AFTRS Velikovsky worked with script editor John Lonie, scriptwriting guru Linda Seger, Star Wars & Raiders producer Robert Watts, and The Writer's Journey author Chris Vogler.

Velikovsky's AFTRS graduation short film, Rocket Man^[8] received widespread critical acclaim, screening at the Montreal World Film Festival and the CILECT International Film Schools Congress in 1997, and as a result in 1998 Fox Studios Australia contracted him and co-writer/director Adrian Van de Velde to develop a science-fiction action-thriller TV series.

Velikovsky’s film work has screened on Foxtel, ABC, SBS, and in many film festivals, including the Adelaide International Film Festival and Montreal World Film Festival. Velikovsky also worked on a documentary: John Doyle – Roy of 'Roy & HG'.

From 1995-2000, Velikovsky worked as a professional story analyst/script assessor for Fox Studios Australia, PolyGram/Universal Films, and the New South Wales Film and TV Office (now ScreenNSW).

At AFTRS in 1995 Velikovsky also studied Game Design and Writing, and began professional work as a Game Writer and Designer. Velikovsky lived in Kings Cross from 1997-2000 while working as a Writer and Script Editor and Script Reader. During this period, he also wrote a screenwriting textbook "The Feature Screenwriters Workbook", a guide to feature film screenwriting, and literature review of over 100 texts on screenwriting.

In 1999-2000, Velikovsky was the National Games Market Analyst for Australia at Inform Pty Ltd (now GfK) in Sydney. His clients included Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and all the members of AVSDA (now the iGEA).

In 2000, he relocated from Sydney to Adelaide to work as a writer/game designer for Ratbag Games, game titles included Saturday Night Speedway and Next, also working as a film and TV screenwriter.

In 2002 Velikovsky was a judge for the 2002 Festival Awards for Writing (Multimedia). Has been quoted on videogame issues in many media, including Australian Radio National, JJJ Radio, Official PlayStation 2 magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Melbourne Age and the Financial Times.

Velikovsky was a guest speaker on The Future of Sci-Fi in VideoGames Panel at Addercon 2002 (The Adelaide Science Fiction Festival) and the Spatial Cinematics Forum for the 2003 Adelaide International Film Festival.

In 2004 Velikovsky started an Augmented Reality games development company, A-Rage Pty Ltd (Augmented Reality Active Game Engine), in partnership with the University of South Australia. The company developed award-winning hardware and games for a mass-market Augmented Reality game peripheral, generally regarded as ten years ahead of its time.^[9] As Creative Director of A-Rage Pty Ltd, Velikovsky’s augmented reality game Sky Invaders 3-D won a prize for 'Best Unsigned Professional Game' at the 2004 Australian Game Developers Conference. Velikovsky was Producer, Director, Game Designer and Writer.

In 2004 Velikovsky also wrote Australia’s first exclusive mobile phone comic strip, a gothic-noir horror-comic strip called Dr N. Sayne,^[10] illustrated by Deane Taylor, Art Director of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.

In 2005 Velikovsky relocated to Melbourne to work for videogame developer Red Tribe, and wrote^[11] and game designed the PS2, Wii and Xbox 360 game Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal,^[12] a game which has sold over 1 million copies.

In 2008 Velikovsky wrote the 35mm short film Hero which screened in the St Kilda and Edinburgh Film Festivals.

Velikovsky’s first feature film as a writer, a thriller called Caught Inside ^[1] was shot in 2009, and released in 2011. Velikovsky also works as a Writing Mentor for the Australia Council For the Arts.^[13]

Velikovsky has also guest-lectured in Transmedia, Film & Game Writing, Videogames History and Game Design at RMIT, Monash, Flinders, Uni SA and Charles Sturt Universities, and many other institutions including the 2001 Australian Game Developers Conference, the 2002 National Screenwriter's Conference in Melbourne, 2009 National Screenwriter's Conference in the Barossa Valley ^[14] and the National Young Writers' Festival in Newcastle.^[15]

Velikovsky is also a Story Analyst/Script Assessor for Film, TV and Games for the Australian Writer's Guild.^[16]

Velikovsky was a judge for the 2010 Australian Writer's Guild awards, and the 2010 Australian Director's Guild awards. He is also an Advisory Board member of the Inter-Disciplinary Global Research Project on Transmedia, and a co-editor of the ID-Net TM1 Global Transmedia Conference proceedings.^[17]

In 2012 Velikovsky published a comic-fantasy magic realism transmedia novel titled A Meaningless Sequence of Arbitrary Symbols,^[18] a roman a clef satire of the videogame industry and videogame culture, the premise of which is that `God is a game designer'. The novel features Henry Jenkins, Ernest W. Adams, Jesse Schell, and Matt Costello, all colleagues of Velikovsky's in the videogame industry. The novel is a community favourite in the `Comic Fantasy' genre of Penguin's BookCountry site.^[19]

In 2013 Velikovsky published the StoryAlity screenwriting manual,^[20] based on a doctoral study of the top 20 RoI (return-on- investment) films of the past 70 years. The book is the first screenwriting manual to integrate the scientific research on creativity (a la Csikszentmihalyi 1996, 2000; Simonton 2004 & 2011; Sawyer 2012, et al).

Velikovsky currently lives and works in Sydney as a transmedia consultant and film writer-director, a high-RoI film/story/screenplay consultant, and feature film screenwriter, editor and script doctor.

References