Toby Alington – Chairman Toby has worked in audio to picture for 25 years. Credited as a "veteran of music television" by The Times, he formed Richmond Studios in 2000, merging three previous media and design ventures, and is MD of the company.
Richmond Studios provides many production services around its core business of DVD design and authoring, and has won many awards for music soundtracks, DVD production and design output.
Toby lives in Twickenham, and when workloads permit he pursues his hobby of piloting planes around the skies.Nominated Chairman of the Association earlier this year, he is passionate about increasing communication within the industry through DVD Europe events.
Will Timbers – Secretary Will started Pink Pigeon in 2002 almost a year after graduating from art college. Combining his interests in art and maths, DVD soon developed to be one of Pink Pigeon's areas of expertise. Completely self-taught he has adapted code for complex DVD interactivity which can be downloaded from the web.
A recipient of Princes Trust support, Will is a firm believer in the confidence that can be gained through networking and sharing information. A London finalist in the Shell Livewire Young Entrepreneur competition in 2003, he has spoken at universities and events on topics ranging from DVD production to business development.
In his spare time Will plays chess for Chelsea Arts Club and football for the Groucho Club.
Jean-Luc Renaud – TreasurerSwiss-born Jean-Luc Renaud has been involved in the film, TV and new media industries for over 25 years. Jean-Luc co-authored the book The Future of the European Audiovisual Industry. In 1991, Jean-Luc founded Globalcom Ltd and in the same year, launched the Advanced Television Markets newsletter.
In 1997, he launched DVD-Intelligence, a newsletter that became the premier industry website www.dvd-intelligence.com. The company also produces the annual DVD and Beyond magazine. In 2004, a BAFTA member, Jean-Luc started the annual Film-to-DVD conference targeted at independent filmmakers and other content owners interested in using DVD and next-generation formats as distribution platforms.
Chris Skarratt – Committee member
Chris started his career at the Moving Picture Company in post production back in ‘99 where he learnt the fundamentals of the industry before transferring his skills into DVD pre-mastering and production at Stream. He was then head hunted to form the core of the authoring team at Panasonic (PDSM) in Hammersmith before leaving to launch PPC DVD. After 4 very successful years of growth he decided to break away with 2 other business partners and form Petrol, a creative DVD, online and marketing company.
He has lectured at Kingston University on best practices for graduates to break into the media world, a regular attendee at industry events and seminars and he is very passionate about his work, the UK film, television and entertainment industry.
Laurel Parker – Committee member
Laurel is the most recent addition to the DVD Europe committee, and is currently too busy to write her biography. Suffice to say that with all her Anglo-American experience at ECI, we're delighted to have her on board!
