Vern Oakley

Vern is the founder of Tribe Pictures. Projects creatively directed by Vern have garnered over one hundred and fifty industry awards, forty of which received gold or "best in show" medals for the companies and institutions served by Tribe. His films have launched some of industry's largest public offerings, built the brands of Fortune 500 companies, and been credited with helping to raise almost two billion dollars in contributions to colleges, universities and philanthropies. Since founding Tribe in 1986, Vern has produced and directed short and long form films for top companies in technology (AT&T, MCI, Nextel), life science and pharmaceuticals (Pfizer, Immunex, Schering-Plough), consumer products (Clorox, Scott Paper Company), and finance (American Express, Dreyfus, J.P. Morgan Chase). His films have launched some of the world's largest spin-offs (Lucent, Avaya, Medco), repositioned major corporations and government agencies (Continental Airlines, NASA), been used as primary sales tools and have evolved into internal mission statements. His work has become the creative driver for corporate initiatives in print, online and other media. Vern received top honors at the International Film and Television Festival for his direction of the Emmy Award-winning children's television series Reading Rainbow. He received an Emmy nomination for editing the documentary The Chemical People for PBS. And won multiple festival awards for his first theatrical release feature, A Modern Affair, starring Stanley Tucci, and distributed by Columbia TriStar, which he produced and directed. Vern had a fifteen-year association with The International Film & Television Workshops where he taught among a faculty of the world's most prominent film artists, and is a member of the International Quorum of Motion Picture Producers (IQ), an elite group of filmmakers representing 38 countries on six continents. Vern loves to speak on using storytelling and visual communications for strategic initiatives. He has spoken at Yale University, The Gain Conference for the American Institute of Graphic Artists, Best Practices in Corporate Communication and Kenyon College, his alma mater.