New Media Film Festival Shows Great Promise

New Media Film Festival Shows Great Promise

"Mash it up, people!"
-Susan Johnston at New Media Film Festival 2011

The 2nd annual New Media Film Festival (2011) played out over 2 days last weekend (May 20th & 21st) at the Los Angeles Film School with film screenings, panels, interviews and an awards ceremony on Saturday night. With just over 16 hours of festival events, I was fortunate to attend all of the 3D opening night films and most of Saturday's panels/screenings until fatigue set in. Then, headed on home to relax and mull over some of the dozens of insightful ideas presented at this very promising film festival devoted entirely to "New Media."

Now, just so we are on the same page, in my interview with Susan Johnston a week or so ago, she defined New Media as "everything you can do to make media." Although it may sound a bit too general, in practice at the New Media Film Festival this translates into such media categories as Web Series, Applications, 3D, Digital Comics, Shot on RED, and so on. All of which are new, exciting ways of thinking of how to creatively use media forms that simply don't fit traditional categories. In fact, I think one of the main themes of the entire festival, at least what I paid most attention to, was the continuing dialogue between New Media advocates and older, traditional media professionals trying to "fit it" so to speak.

Susan Johnston, the founder/director of the New Media Film Festival, and her team which includes David Kleiler as Artistic Director, Noel Lawrence as Director of Programming, Sarah Leners as the Content Co-ordinator, and JD Piche the A/V Supervisor, put together a very interesting and ambitious program. This included media screenings combined with Q&A's with the directors/producers, and several moderated panel discussions, the two largest occurring on Saturday which focused on the "Who, What, & Why of New Media" and "Distribution, Social Media & Monetization."

The panels featured some established names in the Film/TV industry, with Producer Barry Goldberg, Paul Wagner, Doug Leighton and Stephen Israel (to name a few). Though it seemed at first there might be too many panelists, each panel was very well moderated by knowledgeable and intelligent professionals who provided stimulating questions and moved the discussions along so that everyone got a chance to contribute (not an easy thing to do with strong egos on each panel).

Rather than present an outline of the discussions, I thought I'd share some of the many quotes from notes I took on Friday night and throughout the day on Saturday. Sorry, I don't have the names of the people I'm quoting, but the comments and dialogue exchanges were so quick I only had time to write the quotes:

• "Adjust your strategies to fit the medium." (re: the internet)
• "YouTube gives you the opportunity to monetize your own distribution. Before, you had to be an employee of a corporation."
• " … we share love for creating new content, but also educating others as well."
• "What's fundamentally happened is a supply-side shift. What that means is that the cost of supplying content has massively fallen and the demand side hasn't caught up yet."
• "The new paradigm is community."
• "... we are being forced to collaborate in new ways: not in competition, but as collaborators."
• "We are getting back to 'why' we make films, instead of just creating entertainment."
• "... content creators can bypass all traditional distribution modes and go to the audience directly."
• "The future of new media is live streaming and interactive."

It was reassuring to see that many of those who are either working directly in New Media, or who have thought long and hard about the direction New Media will take in the future, don't all agree with each other. The resulting dialogues were entertaining, as well as enlightening. Plus, those with extensive experience in traditional medias were struggling with how to imagine the future of New Media. The Friday night expressions of excitement over the future of 3D were not met with the same enthusiasm by panelists on Saturday, who openly questioned its viability and future as a new medium. But that's the way it should be. Susan Johnston's talent in her selection of panelists who might butt heads and yet produce a compelling debate was obvious, and since she took part in the Q&A's and panels, a good deal of the success of the "Events to Inform" (as she puts it in the program) must go to her.

As interesting and compelling as the panels were, the real value of a film festival comes in the choice of which films to screen. In this respect, the main producers of the New Media Film Festival 2011 did an excellent job. Running my own Machinima film festival for the last 4 years, I know how much work is involved in choosing the right films to screen. But, with so many unusual categories (how do you judge an application?) the work must have been particularly difficult. Although I wasn't able to see everything that was screened at the festival, I have to say I was impressed with what I saw. Every screening category had stand-out work that inspired as well as entertained.

Some highlights include almost all of the 3D films presented on Friday night. If anyone has doubts about the viability of 3D as an artform, all they had to do was watch the Linkin Park music video "Waiting for the End" (which won first place), or a clip from the colorized, 3D version of Harold Lloyd's silent classic "Safety First," which was a revelation in 3D, opening whole new possibilities in using 3D in silent films. "The Physics of Surfing" was another outstanding 3D film which stuck with me for most of the night. Some of the best 3D I've ever seen was in a clip from the short film "Cosmic Journey: Through Hubble and Cassini," which re-worked deep space photographs from the Hubble Telescope into remarkable 3D art. This film will rock people out when it's released in full.

I had high hopes on Saturday after such a great session of 3D films the night before and I was not disappointed. With so many good films, it's hard to single any out for fear of neglecting other deserving work, but I found myself thinking about "The Puzzle Makers Son," by Michael Field in the Web Series category, "Tempo: A Sound Story," by Eduardo Ramirez Montiel in the Animation category (he won, by the way, and gave a delightful acceptance speech) and "The Sun is Down," by Jason Whiton and Yoko Ono in the Mobile category (winner in this category).

Another excellent aspect of the New Media Film Festival was the fact that so many of the filmmakers participated in Q&A sessions after the screenings. They were short, for the most part, but well moderated and the artists spoke articulately about their work and experience creating the film. If this is the future of cinema, I'm glad that these artists are the ones creating it, and not to mention the many new companies who sponsored the festival and whose websites I'll be visiting (check Mingle Media TV, Gabcast.tv and GoDigital Media Group, for example).

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the New Media Film Festival and came away inspired and full of ideas, this is only their second year in existence and there is room for growth. One area that the festival needs to explore is the gaming industry, especially user-created content, like Machinima. There is remarkable art being created in virtual worlds, too, like Second Life installations and musical events. Indie game design would be a good category for next year's festival as well.

There were also some technical glitches that need to be smoothed out in the future. While none of the delays were problems in themselves, a smoother show would keep the events and screenings focused better. I was also surprised that there were no title cards before screening categories. Although the categories were announced verbally, with so many different categories it would be clearer for the audience if there were title cards.

The most pressing need for the future of the New Media Film Festival, however, is to increase awareness and attendance at the festival. Sadly, there just weren't that many people in attendance. Perhaps free tickets to students and a more aggressive promotional campaign would make the difference, I don't know. But, the festival is so good that it's a shame more people aren't being exposed to such great art and ideas about New Media.

By the way, many of the panels and Q&A's, along with some of the films, are available online, including the final awards ceremony which looked to be a lot of fun. Susan Johnston's YouTube channel has most of them. For more information about the New Media Film Festival and it's future, be sure to visit the festival website. My interview with Susan here at Renderosity.com a few weeks ago has some nice background info as well. A full list of the winners in each category is available here.

Thanks to Nick Charles for suggesting I attend the New Media Film Festival this year and to Susan for inviting me.