The Wild West of Storytelling: From Hollywood Legacy to Immersive Worlds

The future of storytelling is no longer confined to the screen—it’s unfolding across physical, digital, and spatial worlds in real time. It’s the wild-west all over again. This panel brings together Billy Zane, an iconic Hollywood storyteller whose career spans legendary films like Back to the Future, Titanic, Zoolander, The Phantom, Dead Calm, and many more—and Travis Cloyd, Director of the D.R.E.A.M.S. program and professor at California Institute of the Arts, who is actively building the bridge between enterprise technology, immersive media, and next generation education.

Moderated by Deborah Worrell, a seasoned entertainment technology executive, this conversation explores how storytelling is evolving in an era defined by AI, XR, and Location-Based Entertainment (LBE)—and what it truly means to create experiences that go beyond the rectangular screen.