UDEN
The Utah Digital Entertainment Network - UDEN - is a non-profit trade association run by volunteers. I am a co-founder and have been the Chair since launch in 2014. We have more than 1000 registered members. The directors of UDEN are myself, Jeff Peters and Clark Stacey. We have a handful of volunteers that help us keep the organization running.
We have held meetings mostly quarterly since inception, apart from 2020 during the health pandemic. You can see most of our prior meetings on Youtube.
Trade Mission
One of the UDEN events I am most proud of is the trade mission to France in 2018. You can read about it - and see what happened - in a blogpost, here. A busy week of meetings resulted in a handful of contracts for Utah entertainment creators.
UDEN booth - the centerpiece of our trade mission to France
I had hoped it would be the first of many such trade missions, helping spread around the world the talent that we have in Utah, and still have my fingers crossed we can figure out the right format.
4 years before we started UDEN while I was still a VP/GM at EA, I had persuaded Utah’s Governor’s Office of Economic Development to take a booth at the 2011 Game Developer’s Conference in SF. The booth was packed and at the time they told me it had been a huge success. But they never went again, as it seems, this sector is not a priority for the state after all, which was one of the reasons we started UDEN.
This wasn’t the Utah booth, it was some other region that was also attending, and I had been joking that their slogan was perhaps a lie, as it definitely wasn’t happening there!
Pictured is Jessie Matte, left, who used to work for EA Salt Lake as a Producer. I had met Jessie when we both worked at EA SPORTS in Florida, and he moved to join my team at EASL.
Pandemic
During 2020. we stopped having regular meetings, of course, and instead turned our website into an information page for our local community, with advice on staying healthy, effectively working from home,
Social Media
I have created and managed UDEN’s website and the social media since inception (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), and together with Jeff Peters, arranged and run almost all of the regular UDEN events. The two of us, in fact, do most of the volunteering :-) but we are always looking for others to assist if you can spare a few hours each month!
I also have tried to write a monthly newsletter to the community, but tried not to send one when there wasn’t anything particularly useful to say!
How it Began
When I left EA, I had no intention of starting a trade association. Like many others here, I was highly opinionated about the lack of a community for the creators of digital entertainment and technology in Utah, happily tut-tutting at those who complained that little progress seemed to be made year-to-year to help the talented film-makers and videogame creators in the state. Imagine my surprise, then, when I proposed setting up a self-help group. I was as shocked as everyone else when the words came out of my own mouth!
It happened when I was invited to sit on a panel. On January 15th 2015, Drew Clark held the first Utah Breakfast Club meeting at the State Capital at the crazy hour of 7am! The distinguished co-panelists I was joining were::
Virginia Pearce, Director, Utah Film Commission
Clark Stacey, CEO, Wildworks
Marshall N. Wright, Director, Business Development, Governor's Office of Economic Development
Craig Caldwell, USTAR Senior Research Professor, Digital Media Cluster; and Arts Director, Engineering Arts and Entertainment, University of Utah
Drew Clark, Moderator, Founder, Utah Breakfast Club; Of Counsel, Kirton McConkie
The theme for panel discussion was:
"Well-known as a high-tech haven, Utah also has a supporting role in independent film production, which is showcased each January at the Sundance Film Festival. Less well-publicized is the key role that Salt Lake City has played in computer graphics and digital animation, helping to build a digital entertainment nexus on the Wasatch Front. This panel discussion will assemble key leaders in film and video entertainment to explore questions about Utah’s accomplishments and its promise, about incentives for production, about cultivating talent and about the state’s branding. What do these important industries need to take the next step?"
Highlights from that meeting here: http://www.utahbreakfast.com/news/2015/1/16/the-video-of-the-utah-breakfast-club-on-hollywood-on-the-wasatch-front
Virginia Pearce, Marshall Wright, me (you can see how early it was!), Craig Caldwell and Clark Stacey
The meeting was very well attended by those involved with digital media in the State of Utah (despite the freezing temps and early hour!) and a lively panel discussion ensued with some great and pointed questions being asked. A few familiar themes emerged, which I'll paraphrase, including "Why isn't the State doing more to promote digital media?" and "There is no industry voice to represent the varied needs of this sector". So I asked the room who would join an industry group, and what should it do? Most of the participants were from the entertainment sectors of digital media, especially film and gaming. Virginia posed the interesting idea of a group much like "Made in New York", a successful trade group representing the entertainment sectors of that State. So I offered to start such a group here in Utah if everyone in the room would support it. They said they would. Doh!
Made in Utah was born!
First up was a Facebook group which I created that very same day. Then I formed a committee - many of the panel members became committee members. We held our first meeting in March which was very well attended. Soon afterwards the collective decided we needed a better name, not least because 'Made in Utah' is also used to promote other sectors in the State, not least cheese! Hence we transitioned to become the Utah Digital Entertainment Network.
Full meeting video here: http://www.utahbreakfast.com/news/2015/1/19/video-of-the-premiere-utah-breakfast-club-event-hollywood-on-the-wasatch-front