In 1988, VideoFilmFest launched as part of the Berlinale. It gradually evolved until it was rechristened the transmediale in 1998, and today it’s one of the premier festivals for film, art, video, and digital work. Kristoffer Gansing has been the festival’s artistic director since 2011, and for this year’s theme he’s selected the “afterglow,” an exploration of how media technologies and practices are turned into trash. As the festival’s website explains, “As media technologies have now become completely integrated into everyday life, they function similarly to natural resources, producing physical and immaterial waste products that get appropriated in such diverse contexts […]

As a continuation of Filmmaker‘s coverage on upcoming courses at the MINY Media Center by IFP, Starlight Runner CEO Jeff Gomez opted to share a few of his thoughts on why transmedia is no mere trend. “At the turn of the century,” notes Gomez, “our entire communications system went into hyperdrive, and has only been picking up speed. At the same time, our three network, three newspaper, three neighborhood movie theater world has been blown to a million pieces.” How one capitalizes on the wealth of new media is exactly what Gomez aims to instruct in his masterclass, “Creating Blockbuster […]

As a consumer of new media – to say nothing of its makers – how does one go about keeping abreast of the emerging form’s constant developments? MIT Open Documentary Lab hopes to keep interested parties up to speed with _docubase, a new project that was launched yesterday at IDFA. A curated platform, _docubase will maintain an open dialogue on the “new documentary,” the fledging form that draws from interactive and community-created fact-based storytelling. “No longer must we look back at those unconstrained moments of creativity from a nostalgia-tinged distance,” reads the _docubase manifesto, referring to the unchecked and experimental early years […]

If you own a smartphone, chances are you’re familiar with push notifications. Popularized by Apple’s iOS 3.0 edition in 2009, push technology utilizes open IP connections to forward notifications from third-party apps to your mobile interface. Formerly reserved for large-scale corporations — The New York Times, etc. — San Francisco-based App.net has created a free marketing channel called Broadcast that democratizes the process of push notification. App.net CEO Dalton Caldwell likens this application to “your own promotional arsenal” for users who already enjoy an active social media presence. News that may otherwise be buried in the barrage of tweets and […]

George Orwell claimed in his 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” that English was in a bad way: common consensus (which he was satirizing) held “that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes.” His own opinion was more that “the decline of language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer.” Thus it could be resisted: “Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and […]

As the producer of films like The Ring and Mulholland Drive, Neal Edelstein is no stranger to horror films and thrillers. And with his new project, Haunting Melissa, he’s moved beyond traditional pictures with his first immersive production for iPad and iPhone. Available for free in the App Store, Haunting Melissa centers around the search for a girl who vanished from the farmhouse where her mother had earlier gone insane, but this story is told in a succession of videos released to the viewer in seemingly random bursts. The temporal extension – and unexpected timing – of the narrative through these push notifications […]

Apple’s “polarizing” mobile operating system iOS 7, an update which stripped away the skeuomorphism (i.e., the fake leather and other real-world metaphors found in apps like Calendar and Game Center) of previous versions in favor of a “flat” design style, was unveiled by the company on June 10 at its WWDC keynote and pushed to users on September 18. And for the most of this year, the Apple media universe — the parade of blogs and podcasts that have made a mini-industry of commenting upon the Cupertino company — have spoken of little else. But now that the OS is […]

Tokyo Sally is the second narrative feature by director-cinematographer-editor Kal, after his 2010 debut Superhero in the Rain. He’s also a prolific producer of music videos, documentaries, and spots for companies like the Food Network. The Tokyo Sally project, which features Anna Adams, consists of one 60-minute film and a related app, Tokyo Sally: Lost Highway, both of which are nearing completion. Kal envisions the film as the first in a series of ten pictures that will explore different aspects of horror and suspense films; each will be self-contained but, when seen together, will relate to a larger story. The film […]

Mégaphone, an interactive project currently running in Montreal, is designed for a world that’s forgetting that the word social doesn’t necessarily have to precede media. The project seeks to remove the fiber optic interface that currently connects so many of us and move public discourse back into a public space–that is, somewhere outdoors with plenty of foot traffic. Thus it’s built around a pre-Industrial Era public speaking model like Hyde Park’s Speaker’s Corner in London: anyone can take to the mic to discuss any topic they like (though there is an MC and suggested time slots for certain subjects to […]

This morning, Mayor Bloomberg and IFP’s Executive Director Joana Vicente kicked off the launch of the Made in NY Media Center by IFP alongside the Center’s Founding Artist in Residence, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. At the event, Mayor Bloomberg said, “The Made in NY Media Center by IFP continues the work this administration has done to diversify New York City’s economy and provide access to affordable work space. New technologies and distribution platforms are appearing every day, and entrepreneurs, growing businesses and creative individuals will have the chance to harness their skills with the educational resources provided by the Media Center […]