Anita Ondine Smith

Anita Ondine Smith (born 16 March 1974 ) is an Australian-British transmedia storyteller.
Biography
Born in Sydney, Smith is the daughter of Anka Makovec, a Slovene artist and Albert Arthur Smith, an Australian carpenter.
After a short period living in the former Yugoslavia Smith and her mother moved to Tasmania, where they became deeply involved in the battle to save the Franklin River from being dammed.
The Tasmanian Dam Case (Commonwealth v Tasmania), was a landmark decision in Australian constitutional law. After years of protests and grass roots action led by Dr Bob Brown (former Senator and Leader of the Australian Greens), the High Court of Australia decided that the federal law protecting the Franklin River was valid.
Smith graduated with Honours in Law from the Australian National University, where she specialized in intellectual property, technology and international law. Her graduating thesis was entitled Lex Cybertoria: International Law and Copyright on the Internet. Anita also holds a B.A. from the Australian National University in Political Science.
While working as a technology lawyer in 1998 for Freehills and an IBM subsidiary, Smith wrote a book, The Millennium Bomb Disposal Kit, about the impact of technology on business. For several years she was a frequent speaker at international conferences on the intersection of law and technology.
Smith moved from Australia to London, England in 1999, where she worked for Shaw Pittman (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman) on complex technology outsourcing transactions as well as cutting edge internet advisory work, with clients including Reuters.
Still in the City of London, Smith worked for Lehman Brothers from 2000 to 2006 in legal, operational risk and executive management functions and held the position of Senior Vice President. Her work included writing and directing a short film entitled Disability Diversity at Lehman Brothers. Smith was also on the board of trustees for the Disability Equality in Education charitable trust.
After a decade in law and business management, Smith moved into filmmaking full-time in 2006, co-producing the 2010 comedy feature film Drop Dead Gorgeous, written and directed by Philip Alderton.
As the independent film industry faced combined challenges from the Financial crisis of 2007-08 and audiences turning to multi-screen, online and mobile viewing, Smith shifted focus to the emerging field of Transmedia storytelling. She collaborated on several projects with transmedia pioneer Lance Weiler through their production company, Seize the Media. Most significantly, Smith executive produced Lance Weiler's transmedia story experience Pandemic 1.0 and produced the companion short film Pandemic 41.410806, −75.654259, which premiered in competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and via a US cable network.
Current work
Smith is Director at Transmedia Next, a Transmedia storytelling production, consulting and training company, based in London, UK and active worldwide.
Smith currently serves as a board member of Screen Tasmania, the government agency responsible for funding film, television and digital media in Tasmania, and is an occasional contributor to the Transmedia Coalition 'Expert' series.
Smith also writes, directs and produces via her company, Touch Light Media and has an ongoing artistic collaboration with American singer and performance artist Rodleen Getsic.

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