Keram Malicki-Sánchez

Keram Malicki-Sánchez (born 14 May 1974) is a Canadian actor, singer, writer, new media consultant,^[1][2] and music and film producer.

Early life and acting career

Malicki-Sánchez was born in Toronto, Ontario to a Polish father - a lawyer - and Ecuadorian mother - a theater director and later social activist who fought to have his name legally hyphenated,perhaps the first such case in Canada.^[3][4] Quadrilingual, with fluency in English, French, Polish, and Spanish, he 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 theater. 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 Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Prince Edward in an adaptation of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper at the Young People's Theatre in Toronto - one of the youngest actors ever to be nominated in this category.

He has appeared in films such as John Q, Happy Campers, American History X, Drive Me Crazy, Global Heresy, Punisher: War Zone, and Texas Chainsaw 3D, as well as television series, among them CSI, 24, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ER, Saving Grace, Flashpoint, Catwalk, The Mentalist, True Blood and worked with such directors as Peter Yates, Nick Cassavetes, John Stockton, Peter Greenaway and Tony Kaye.^[5]

As an actor, he has been incorrectly credited as "Karem Malicki-Sanchez" (in the film Global Heresy) and Karn Malicki-Sanchez (Garbage Pail Kids).

Musical career

Malicki-Sánchez released a solo 45" on vinyl in Spanish at the age of thirteen through Fe Discos from Ecuador. 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.

In 1990, he founded Constant Change Productions, an independent record label and new media company; a community that grew from the IRC chatrooms frequented by administrators of Internex online (Canada's first ISP) in the early 1990s. From 2000-2009 the "Freedom v2.5" community site, created and moderated by Malicki-Sanchez, was dedicated to Freedom of Information. It was used by self-styled "Sky Pirates" a name once used for fans of Malicki-Sánchez's band Blue Dog Pict, but later for those who were most loyal to the Constant Change ethic.

In 1995, Keram created Automated Gardens, an ambient electronic solo project, and released a cassette tape called "Automated Gardens: AN4". The indie cassette release was one of the top independent sellers at the now defunct "SAM the Record Man" store in Toronto for several weeks. Keram later add Blue Dog Pict soundman and co-producer Joshua Miles Joudrie and Jason "DJ Shine Spanu" to the line-up, and the band played various gigs in Ontario, Canada, including sharing a bill with Richie Hawtin aka Plastikman. The electronica band later placed three important music cues in the independent feature Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy about the 1990s rave scene, based on the novel Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance directed by Rob Heydon and starring Kristin Kreuk and Billy Boyd.

It was on the film Ecstasy that Keram also met guitarist and actor Alex Lifeson of the band Rush with who he would later collaborate on his solo record.

Circa 1996, around the time of the release of Blue Dog Pict's third album, Malicki-Sanchez also founded Robot Pride Day, an ironic annual global festival celebrated on 4 August. (logs of the annual "state of the union" address can be found in the RPD archives at robotprideday.com

He 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.^[6] 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 continues to work and teach as an actor, write, and perform music live under the moniker "Keram". As the artist "Keram" he was a regular at Hollywood's Hotel Cafe. He released his album at Room 5 in Los Angeles, 21 January 2008 and collaborated on songs with singer 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",^[7][8] described as a precursor to his full-band record "Come to Life." It became a Top Seller at CDBaby.com,^[9] the album's distributor, within its first week. His official website Keramsongs.com contains a unique catalog of many of his unreleased and rare musical recordings.

In 2014, Malicki-Sanchez announced via social media that he had completed work on his album "Come to Life." The album features the contributions of over 20 musicians, and was completed after 7 years. Further, he announced that the album featured the work of his friend Alex Lifeson,^[10] who played guitar on the album, with additional mixing done by longtime Rush collaborator Rich Chycki.

New media

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 logline describes the film as: "A network of young rebels assume their online Sky Pirate personas to combat the Corprat Empyre in this fantastic rescue mission to restore the scope of imagination and save the next generation from an insidious marketing shell game." The film is scored by Automated Gardens.

Strongly entrenched in the New Media, 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, the 2007 NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) in Las Vegas, Cinegear Expo in Los Angeles and the Toronto Star.

While a student at Ryerson University in Toronto, in the first year of the University's New Media program, he co-authored (with Lee Towndrow, a student in the radio and television program) one of the first ever enhanced CDs released by a band: Spindly Light und Wax Rocketines, Blue Dog Pict's third release, featured a MAC/PC compatible Myst-style video game about the legend of the Sky Pirates. Malicki-Sánchez worked directly with the CD manufacturer to create a method for putting the data on track 0 so that the listener could also just put the CD in their player and listen to music (considered an innovation at the time).

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 with distinction 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 A Killer App was accepted into the Glastonbury, Atlanta Horror Film Festivals and was an award winner at the Accolade Film Festival, and Shockfest for Best Monster Creation. His subsequent short film Tulip Pink toured the film festival circuit and screened to sold out theaters at the Newport Beach Film Festival among others. His third short How (Not) To Become a Vampire features motion graphics by John Watson who also worked as a compositor 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).

He also works as a social media consultant and SEO consultant and runs a wide variety of online portals under the Constant Change Media Group banner - the online iteration of his CCP music and production label.

In September, 2008, Keram launched the Keramcast - a podcast he hosts that is a digest for the topics discussed at his various blogs that include TheCulturepin.com, MusicZeitgeist.com and 7DLabs.com.

He went on to complete courses in C, Visual Basic, Java and C++ at UCLA Extension's Application Programming program.

Filmography

• Model Home (2013) - Dean^[11]
• Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013) - Kenny^[12]
• Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy (2011) - Ally^[13]
• How (Not) To Become a Vampire (2011) - Director/Producer/Editor^[14]
• Tulip Pink (2011) - Director/Writer/Producer^[15]
• A Killer App (2010) - Director/Writer/Producer/Editor^[16]
• One Kine Day (2010) - Vegas Mike^[17]
• 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

TV appearances

• True Blood (2012) - Elijah
• 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 at the Internet Movie Database
• ConstantChange.com
• Constant Change Media Group
• KeramSongs, his official music site
• Keram's official Myspace page
• National Film Board of Canada (nfb.gc.ca): Skin Deep (1995) directed by Midi Onodera