40 Facts About Bran Ferren

Bran Ferren is Chief Creative Officer of Applied Minds, which he co-founded in 2000 with Danny Hillis.

Bran Ferren was the only child of artists John Ferren and Rae Tonkel Ferren.

Bran Ferren grew up surrounded by art, artists, and technology.

Bran Ferren's father was personal friends with Alfred Hitchcock and created paintings for The Trouble with Harry and designed the nightmare sequence in Vertigo.

Bran Ferren's uncles came from the worlds of engineering and technology: Roy Bran Ferren served as director of flight test for North American Aviation and worked on the B-25 Mitchell bomber, X-15 rocket plane, XB-70 Valkyrie, and B-1 Lancer bombers.

Bran Ferren first attended Hunter College Elementary School for gifted students in New York City, followed by a year at the American Community School, in Beirut Lebanon while his father served as the first artist-in-residence for a US Department of State cultural exchange program to introduce American abstract art to the Middle East.

Bran Ferren started his first design and engineering company, Synchronetics while in high school.

Bran Ferren left high school at age 16 to attend MIT, but departed in 1970 to continue entrepreneurial pursuits.

Bran Ferren is a theater designer whose work has been seen on Broadway and London West End stages, Australia, and in touring productions world-wide.

Bran Ferren produced, directed, and was the cinematographer for the movie "Funny", which received a Nomination for a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and nomination for Best Documentary at the Chicago International Film Festival, Gold Jury prize at the Houston International Film Festival, and was featured in the Toronto International Film Festival Midnight Madness program, and at the Cleveland International Film Festival.

Bran Ferren served as lead designer, engineer, and producer of the 50-state, 16-month tour of the Bill of Rights, which celebrated the document's bicentennial.

Bran Ferren was the chief designer for the award-winning Columbus Center Hall of Exploration, a science discovery center, located at Baltimore's Inner Harbor in 1997.

Bran Ferren did the lighting design and interiors concept for Ian Schrager's "White" variation of Studio 54 in NYC, as well as invented the what is believed to be the first multi-monitor video wall, which premiered at the opening of the Palladium Club, in New York City, in 1985.

Bran Ferren has been recognized for his unique approach working with directors in the design of special effects and visual effects across motion pictures, television, theater, concerts, and later in theme parks and architecture.

Bran Ferren was nominated for an Oscar for Best Visual Effects for "Little Shop of Horrors", and received a British Academy of Film and Television Arts nomination for special visual effects.

Bran Ferren is a voting member of both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences.

When Eisner interviewed him on his new talk show, Conversations with Michael Eisner, he said that he loved that Bran Ferren "pushed me against the wall, and pushed management" in the areas of creativity and technology.

Bran Ferren supported Disney's Strategic Planning Group and had direct creative and technical involvement in a wide variety of design and technology projects for Disney Theme Parks, such as the Tower of Terror ride, the Test Track by General Motors, the Indiana Jones Adventure, the Virtual Reality Animation Studio, and many prime time television projects.

Bran Ferren has had a 30+ year creative history collaborating with top Senior ABC Network director Roger Goodman, with dozens of News, Sports, and Entertainment division projects.

Bran Ferren's team was responsible for engineering the ABC Times Square Studios armored electronic-dimming soundproof window systems, robotic cameras, large on-air displays, and a massive curved LED ticker display.

In 1996, Bran Ferren created the Disney Fellows Program which attracted some of the brightest minds in Computer Science, including Alan Kay, Marvin Minsky, and Seymour Papert, as well as astronaut Story Musgrave.

The first Disney fellow was parallel-computing pioneer Hillis with whom Bran Ferren went on to found technology innovation and design firm Applied Minds in 2000.

Bran Ferren has headed projects for General Motors, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, John Deere, Herman Miller, Intel Corporation, Sony Corporation, ESRI, the Smithsonian Institution, Genworth Financial, the Library of Congress, and several US Government agencies.

Bran Ferren was the creative design lead at Applied Minds, for the Genworth R70i Aging Experience, featuring a novel computerized robotic exoskeleton to simulate aging with live audiences at venues such as the 2016 CES and then the Liberty Science Center, as well as Genworth Financial's new website.

Bran Ferren has been named inventor on over 500 current and pending US patents.

Bran Ferren has been directly involved as lead designer for over 100 command centers for the United States Government and private corporations.

Recently, an Applied Minds team led by Bran Ferren was hired by leadership of the Smithsonian Institution to help develop their digital strategy.

Bran Ferren has an extensive public speaking career as a subject matter expert, that has spanned a wide range of professional, government, and academic audiences.

Bran Ferren has delivered the commencement speeches to the California State University, Northridge - College of Arts, Media and Communication The University of Redlands- College of Arts and Sciences, and the University of Irvine - Claire Trevor School of the Arts, the School of Education, and the School of Physical Sciences.

Bran Ferren was one of the first technical experts to articulate the concept of emotional resolution for imaging systems, in particular for cinema production.

Bran Ferren has served as a member of the Army Science Board for five years, the Defense Science Board, the Naval Historical Foundation Advisory Council, The USO Digital Advisory Council, The Department of Homeland Security, and the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel.

Bran Ferren is a member of the advisory boards for the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation at UC Berkeley, CuriosityStream, NanoMech, ReactiveCore.

Bran Ferren is a member of the board of directors for NPR's The Loh Down on Science.

Bran Ferren's photographs are part of several private collections, and he is completing the editorial work for a large format photo book project called Eleven Seconds.

In 2009, Bran Ferren collaborated with Laurie Anderson on the exhibition "The Third Mind" at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Bran Ferren worked with Patrice Regnier and Carter Burwell on his film project TESLA.

Bran Ferren had creative meetings with Jim Henson in 1988 about a Muppets theme park prior to Henson selling his company to Disney.

Bran Ferren is cited as a senior inventor at the company Intellectual Ventures, headed by former Microsoft CTO, Nathan Myhrvold.

Myhrvold and Bran Ferren are often cited as being close or best friends and collaborators.

The final scene in the 1980s music video "Take On Me" by A-ha was inspired by the similar scene designed by Bran Ferren in Altered States.