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PROFILE
Barr Potter, the founder and CEO of MediaWide
Consultants, has been in the entertainment industry for over 30 years. He is an experienced CEO/COO in the film and new media
industries, having established and managed both private and public companies in those sectors. As a result, he is recognized
as a top-tier executive in the worldwide film financing, production, acquisition and foreign sales business, having done deals
with the leading motion picture distribution companies in every major territory around the world (including the United States).
He is also experienced in the strategic planning and implementation of new business ventures, including those in the internet
industry as well as the film business. He has an excellent worldwide reputation and well-established international relationships.
FILMED ENTERTAINMENT
MediaWide Consultants is in the business of providing mangagment, consulting,
business affairs and business development services to companies and individuals in the filmed entertainment industry,
including those in the animation business. Barr is also the
Founder, Chairman and CEO of Tripod Entertainment, Inc., through which he is involved in financing, developing,
writing and producing feature films and television series (for both live action and animation). In 2007, Barr
co-wrote the script for "War of the Dead", which he produced in Lithuania with financing from Lithuanian
Film Studios and an Italian distributor. More recently, Tripod has secured options on a number of published
novels and other IP, which Barr has adapted for film and television, and attached directors to several of these
projects. Given his close relationship with the film industry
in Lithuania, Barr was invited to be a member of the jury for the Vilnius International Film Festival in March 2009. This
was the first time that the VIFF held a competition, which consisted of nine feature-length films mostly from Eastern European
countries. There were four other jurors, one each from Lithuania, England, Germany and India. The jury presented awards for
Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. In 2010 and
2011, Barr served on the jury for the Grand Off World Independent Film Awards, which is a competition for short films
held in Warsaw, Poland, in late November. Fifty-four entries are selected to compete for awards in nine
categories. Barr will again serve as a juror for the 2012 competition. Prior to Tripod, Barr was Chairman and CEO of Largo Entertainment, Inc., a wholly owned
subsidiary of JVC, the Japanese consumer electronics company. As the result of a business plan Barr created, Largo was restructured
from an independent production company into a foreign sales company, which was involved in the financing, acquisition and
worldwide distribution of feature films. Under Barr’s leadership, Largo was involved with 20 pictures, such as “G.I.
Jane” and “White Squall” (both directed by Ridley Scott), “Mulholland Falls” (directed by Lee
Tamahori and produced by Dick Zanuck), “City of Industry” (directed by John Irvin), “John Carpenter’s
Vampires”, and “Affliction” (written and directed by Paul Schrader, which earned James Coburn an Oscar for
Best Supporting Actor and a nomination for Nick Nolte as Best Actor). Largo did business with every major domestic studio,
and pre-sold its films to key distributors in every major territory around the world.
At the end of 1995 Screen
International, a major trade publication for those involved in foreign sales of motion pictures, included Barr on its global
listing of the Power 100 (those “who can make international films happen in terms of greenlighting, packaging and financing”).
Barr has also been invited by The Hollywood Reporter to speak on industry panels in Cannes and Hong Kong.
Before
Largo, Barr was President and COO of Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment, Inc., the North American subsidiary of a worldwide film
production and distribution company based in London. Barr was also a member of the board of directors of Thorn EMI-HBO Home
Video, a domestic joint venture home video distribution company that he was involved in forming.
Barr is a member
of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and has served for many years on the committee that screens and selects
the nominees for Best Foreign Language Film.
NEW MEDIA/INTERNET
Barr was the President and COO
of GlobalMedia.com, an award-winning Nasdaq-listed Internet company based in Vancouver, that was a provider of on-line video
streaming solutions for sports and entertainment companies, and a developer of next-generation technology for broadband and
wireless markets. He served on the company’s board of directors, and was a member of the company’s audit and compensation
committees.
Barr was the exclusive content consultant for a company that developed an innovative entertainment
system to deliver a variety of programming to patrons in family restaurants using touch-panel monitors installed at their
booths and tables.
Barr has been involved with a number of other companies with web-based businesses, including
one that supplies classic movies to a worldwide audience through the Internet, one that developed and produced live-action
episodic comedic content for use by major corporations to market and promote their products and services on the Web, and a
company with a broadband, business-to-business video-on-demand solution.
EDUCATION/MEMBERSHIPS
Barr
received a BA degree from Yale University, and a JD degree from Columbia University School of Law. He is a member of the California
State Bar. He is also a member of the New York State Bar, and practiced corporate and securities law in New York City prior
to entering the entertainment industry.
Barr has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
for over 25 years.
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