Lance Weiler

Lance Weiler is an American filmmaker and writer from Pennsylvania, and the Director of the Digital Storytelling Lab at Columbia University School of the Arts. He first was known for The Last Broadcast (1997), a found footage horror film which he co-wrote, co-produced, co-directed, and co-starred in with Stefan Avalos. The Last Broadcast made cinematic history on October 23, 1998 as the first all-digital release of motion picture to be stored and forwarded via geosynchronous satellite. Initially working as an assistant cameraman and camera operator on large commercial shoots, in Pennsylvania and later New York City, Weiler is known for increasing work in experimental combinations of film, AI, gaming, and related media. Lance Weiler started in filmmaking by working as an assistant cameraman and camera operator on commercial shoots.

In 1997, he teamed up with Stefan Avalos to co-write, direct, produce and star in a horror film, The Last Broadcast, based on the technique of found footage.

In 2005, Weiler wrote, directed, and co-produced his second film, Head Trauma, also a thriller. It premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2006. It had a 17-city DIY digital theatrical run before hitting stores and retail outlets nationwide on DVD.

Weiler developed a cinema ARG (alternate reality game) around Head Trauma. Over 2.5 million people played the game via theaters, mobile drive-ins, phones and online. In recognition of these cinematic gaming innovations, BusinessWeek ranked Weiler in 2009 as "One of the 18 Who Changed Hollywood".With his writing partner Chuck Wendig, Weiler wrote Collapsus: The Energy Risk Conspiracy, which received an International Emmy nomination for best Digital Fiction in 2011.In 2010, Weiler and Wendig attended the Sundance Screenwriters Lab with their script for HiM.At Sundance 2011, Weiler released Pandemic 1.0, a transmedia experience playing out across film, mobile, web and a live experience.In 2019, Weiler premiered Where There's Smoke at the Tribeca Film Festival. The 1,400 sq ft installation was a combination of an immersive documentary and an escape room. "Over 100 movies screened at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, but one of its best offerings lets you walk inside the frame and experience a story from the inside out." reported IndieWire calling it Weiler's "Most Poignant Work Yet.". Where There's Smoke won a Digital Dozen: Breakthroughs in Storytelling award in April 2020.

In the spring of 2023 the New York Times covered Weiler's experimentation with AI within his course at Columbia University. Weiler first started working with AI when he collaborated with Nicholas Fortugno and Rachel Eve Ginsberg on Frankenstein AI an adaption of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein that cast the monster as an artificial intelligence. The project premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018.