SHANNON HARVEY
Shannon was born at the base of the Rocky Mountains, February 1979, in Boulder Colorado. His parents James and Paula were both classically trained symphony musicians and teachers of brass and orchestral strings. Shannon was naturally drawn toward the dramatic and performing arts and had his first featured performance at the age of seven with the Nancy Spanner Dance Company. At eleven a journey of discovery began for him with his father and mother both leaving Colorado and going in separate directions.
Shannon was now living in Upstate, NY with Paula and attending a select honors school for the performing arts while on the summer holidays visiting James in Australia and assisting his dad with ongoing outback wilderness trips, location recordings and cross cultural projects with aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. Since then Shannon has made two dozen trips between the US and Australia and has experienced first hand an Oz very few people can by relating personally with traditional indigenous Australians.
Shannon attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh studying operatic singing, stage and film directing, production technology, theatrical set design and management receiving a Bachelor Fine Arts in Theater Studies from the College of Fine Arts in 2004
Shannon’s professional credits to date include technical directing and stage management with summer stock theatres, circus and regional opera companies. In 2004 he was asked to apply his theatre skills as designer and builder in the creation of the exotic Hkan nightclub in Pittsburgh; a highly popular venue in the heart of the cities entertainment district. Additionally, for the past five years, Shannon has studied circus arts and in the last year has begun teaching acrobatics, prop manipulation, and clowning with Spaghetti Circus.
In 2006 Shannon enrolled at Carnegie Mellon’s new Entertainment Technology Centre in Adelaide, South Australia for an ETC Masters of Entertainment Technology. At the ETC Shannon has proven to be an up and coming producer, in his second semester, by successfully pitching the concept of projected 3D interactive sets and leading the content creation team for the “Spaghetti Circus Pirates” project. A project that some considered to be possibly “undeliverable” but which became a big success, entertaining over 3,000 people in 11 performances and opening up new possibilities for interactive live immersive theatre and circus.
The Immersive Theater Institute is an initiative of Alchemica Productions which saw Shannon undertake a four month research tour in 2007 as the Research Assistant to Don Marinelli, Executive Producer of ETC Global at Carnegie Mellon University. This three Continent, 5 country, 12 City tour which included meeting with High End Systems, NVIDIA, MUSION, Philips amBX, Dragone, and attending DomeFest in Albuquerque NM. These industry contacts and collaborations have introduced Shannon into the forefront of Digital Theatrical Engineering and Computer Generated Special Effects for Life Events, Immersive Theater and Location Based/Themed Entertainment.
Shannon completed his Master of Entertainment Technology in November 2007 and is continuing to develop Alchemica as a Consulting firm for the development of Interactive Digital Technologies and Ambient Special Effects. He is presently in Redhill, Surry UK consulting for Philips amBX and developing relationships with additional clients and collaborators in Europe.
Shannon’s vision is artistic, theatrical storytelling, employing dynamic 3D digital media, and interactivity within live spectacle to take audiences to new and exotic destinations.