Donnie Ocean

Donnie Ocean is an American film writer, director, and producer known for his unusual approaches to storytelling in virtual reality, such as in the films "Leviticus," and "The Eye of Creation." He has also directed and produced a wide range of virtual reality documentary experiences addressing human crises as well as the protection of human rights. Haiti was Donnie's first of this kind, shedding light on the water crisis affecting more than half of the entire country of Haiti. This film was part of a campaign that brought Pure Water for the World over $300,000 in the first month. Black Snake in Sacred Waters was another virtual reality film tied to a relief effort, capturing the violence and madness against the Lakota tribe and other protesters who were facing the DAPL organization, fighting their presence at Standing Rock in North Dakota. Then came Donnie's, "Spare Change," a visceral VR experience of living on the streets as a homeless person in Los Angeles. Spare Change won the 2018 Audience Choice Award from the Downtown Los Angeles Film Festival and was exhibited for 3 months at the Museum of Social Justice in Los Angeles. Don has helmed a large variety of VR experiences, interactive music videos, and experimental virtual horror thrillers. He also served as producer on several large-scale 360-video broadcasts, such as the 2016 Academy Awards which was also the first multi-continental virtual reality broadcast in the world. Donnie Ocean began his venture into immersive media in 2016, producing the first ever 360/VR-live stream of the Academy Awards for the Associated Press, in partnership with 360 Designs. That year, Don won the Youtube Streamy Award from Youtube for best VR/360 experience in Game Lab as the VR artist for Specular Theory. Donnie's most recent project is the Creative Accelerator of Nonprofits, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to using innovative multimedia platforms to educate society about important problems and, more importantly, provide concrete suggestions for how to get involved. The group's focus resides in alleviating crises, strengthening human rights, and assisting healthy development in children. Donnie also co-founded Mean Cat Entertainment's new plug-and-play real-time filmmaking system of 2020 for indie filmmakers. This system, the MC FX Studio, has become a groundbreaking development in the modern world of visual storytelling. * More About Director Donnie Ocean - At 14 years old, Donnie Ocean spent two years in a for-profit prison camp for children in Mexico, hosted by an organization called WWASPS. While there, he dreamed of making movies with his two younger brothers and helping out other kids in bad situations. At 16, he journeyed back to the United States and lived the next 8 years of his adolescence and early-adulthood as a homeless youth in Los Angeles. He claims he was, "raised by coyotes, carnies, punk rockers, and Cal Arts students," while living in makeshift huts throughout Southern California's flood ravines, also known as the washlands.