Founded by award-winning filmmakers and tech entrepreneurs, Jeff Fitzsimmons, Kelly Fitzsimmons and Brad Lichtenstein, Custom Reality Services (CRS) Today, we are embarking on a new era of storytelling. New technologies and techniques are emerging that let audiences engage physically and emotionally with stories in exciting new ways. We are a team of award-winning filmmakers, visual artists, engineers and storytellers. Our talents combine to create extraordinary stories, often told for the first time.
By crafting narratives that allow the audience to assume a new, often first-person perspective, our work blurs the line of what defines reality. Based in Milwaukee, our diverse, expert team develops heartfelt projects that serve to inspire, engage and start new conversations.
Jeff Fitzsimmons
Jeff Fitzsimmons is a filmmaker, author, artist, technologist, and entrepreneur. His career has ranged from pioneering video maker in Seattle's grunge scene to the co-founding of HarQen, a next-generation voice technology company. At Dillon Works he led the 3D theming of Sony’s massive Playstation tradeshow booth for almost 10 years and he's been chief creative officer for a guerilla marketing firm.
While living in Seattle, he was the head writer for the Emmy™ award-winning children's TV show "How 'Bout That!" He teamed up with former Disney Imagineer, Mike Dillon, to produce the book/kit entitled "The Art of the Bonsai Potato - Zen Without the Wait!", a tongue-in-cheek parody of Western culture's desire to achieve inner peace without having to actually do anything. The Art of The Bonsai Potato: Zen Without the Wait, sold over 250,000 copies.
E. Kelly Fitzsimmons
E. Kelly Fitzsimmons is a well-known entrepreneur who has founded, led and sold several technology startups. Recently, she co-founded Custom Reality Services, a virtual reality production company whose first project, Across the Line, premiered at the New Frontier program of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. She is also the co-founder of the Hypervoice Consortium, which researches the future of voice communications.
Previously, she was the co-founder and CEO of HarQen. Prior to launching HarQen, she founded Sun Tzu Security (1996), an information security firm, which merged with Neohapsis (2003), where she led the combined company as CEO through 2006. Cisco acquired Neohapsis to enhance its information security offerings in 2014. In 2011, the Angel Capital Association awarded her the Silvertip PwC Entrepreneurship Award. In 2013, Speech Technology magazine honored her with the Luminary Award. She is a regular contributor to Information Week and Inc. magazine. Recently, several of her Inc. articles were published in an anthology Been There, Run That. She serves on the board of the Executive Women’s Forum, the largest member organization serving female executives in the Information Security, Risk Management and Privacy industries. She completed her
undergraduate studies at the University of Rochester and holds a master’s degree from Harvard University.
Brad Lichtenstein
Brad Lichtenstein is an award-winning filmmaker & president of 371 Productions. He’s won two Duponts: one for the recent Al Jazeera America series Hard Earned (produced by Kartemquin Films) and another for his 2001 film Ghosts of Attica (produced with Lumiere Productions). His first virtual reality film, Across the Line, about accessing abortion amid hostile protests, premiered at Sundance in 2016. His 2012 movie As Goes Janesville (PBS/Independent Lens) was nominated for a News & Doc Emmy.
Penelope, his film about a nursing home that performs the Odyssey from Penelope’s point of view, aired on PBS in 2015. 371’s Wisconsin’s Mining Standoff, premiered in June 2014 on Al Jazeera America’s Fault Lines and streams on Al Jazeera English. He’s the executive producer of “Precious Lives”, a radio/podcast and print series about young people & gun violence. 371’s tech projects include BizVizz, a corporate accountability app available for iPhones. 371 is in development on American Reckoning, a feature doc about unsolved civil rights era murders. There are Jews Here, a feature doc about disappearing Jewish communities will premiere in July of 2016. When Claude Got Shot, a feature doc about race and gun violence in America, is in production. Brad’s also produced for Frontline and Bill Moyers. His work is supported by Bader Philanthropies, Blue Mountain Center, Creative Capital, the Fetzer Institute, The Forward Fund, ITVS, the Ford, HKH, MacArthur, Nathan Cummings, Retirement Research & Tides Foundations, as well as the IDA and Mary L. Nohl Fellowship. Brad is the founder of docUWM, a documentary program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.