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The American Film Institute Digital Content Lab (AFI DCL) has announced plans to hold its annual interactive media showcase on November 8th and 9th (note: tickets for the event go on sale October 12th, and can be ordered on the AFI’s Web site, or by calling 1.866.AFI.FEST). Renamed the AFI DigiFest (it was formerly known as the AFI Digital Content Festival), and taking place this year at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Linwood-Dunn Theater in Hollywood (1313 N. Vine), the event will showcase new digital and interactive content created for television, mobiles, broadband and gaming environments and will, the AFI DCL says, highlight both innovation and real-world applicability. A featured component of the AFI’s AFI Fest event, the showcase has been sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), Adobe, IBM, Microsoft, and AOL.

The first day of the DigiFest will see the Digital Content Lab hosting a series of curated presentations that highlight noteworthy digital productions from around the world that debuted over the past year. The presentations will include a preview of "Quarterlife," a new broadband video series from "thirtysomething" creators, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz that will premiere on MySpace.com on November 11th. The preview will be presented by Herskovitz himself. Other presenters will include winners of the 2007 Primetime Emmy Awards for Interactive Television, Current TV’s president of new media, Joanna Drake Earl (who will provide a preview of the channel’s new online interface), and "Fallen Alternate Reality Game" creator, Matt Wolf (who will explain how the game, which attracted around 2.8 million visitors and 250,000 players, served as a promotional vehicle for the ABC Family TV movie, "Fallen").

The DigiFest’s second day will feature five new prototypes that have been incubated in the Digital Content Lab (note: the prototypes were all conceived and produced at the Lab in collaboration with mentors drawn from high-profile interactive design and production companies): an online video platform and citizen journalist toolkit for PBS’s weekly investigative news program, "NOW"; a strategy for retaining viewer interest during ads in a DVR environment, that was developed for Bravo’s "Top Chef"; a multiplatform, interactive social network for "Players," a new documentary about video game fans that is being produced by MTV, EA and Mekanism; a pilot for an original dramatic machinima series, created within a 3D game engine; and a user-generated film contest, dubbed "Filmocracy," that was developed for ITVS.

Originally Published: October 12, 2007 in [itvt] Issue 7.39 Part 1

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