Keynotes

George Sanger, also known as “The Fat Man”, is a composer of over 200 different computer and video games. His best-known works include The 7th Guest, Wing Commander, Hard Nova, Maniac Mansion (NES version), Loom, and Tux Racer. Sanger leads the band Team Fat, which also includes fellow video game music composers Dave Govett, Joe McDermott and Kevin Weston Phelan. He created the first General MIDI soundtrack for a game, the first direct-to-MIDI live recording of musicians, the first redbook soundtrack included with the game as a separate disk, the first music for a game that was considered a “work of art,” and the first soundtrack that was considered a selling point for the game. Sanger is on the board of advisors for Game Developer Magazine, and Full Sail’s Game Development Degree program. He is on the Board of Directors of the BEAM Foundation.In 1995, he was the first music producer to be accepted into the National Recording Academy based on his work in games rather than in CD’s, film, or movies. He worked toward the goal of establishing a Grammy category for games, first alone, then years later in the group led by Chance Thomas that achieved this goal.

Sally Bedell Smith is the author of the bestselling biographies of William S. PaleyPamela HarrimanDiana, Princess of WalesJohn and Jacqueline KennedyBill and Hillary Clinton and Queen Elizabeth II. A contributing editor at Vanity Fair since 1996, she previously worked at Time and The New York Times, where she was a cultural news reporter. She was awarded a Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for magazine reporting in 1982 and was a fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center in 1986. She received the 2012 Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence, an award presented by the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York. Elizabeth the Queen won the 2012 Goodreads Choice Award for best book in history and biography, the only major book award decided by readers.