AFI DigiFest Showcases Digital Media, Mobile Innovation

The AFI Digital Content Lab has been an R&D incubator for innovative digital media and entertainment for 11 years. Volunteer mentors have worked with a wide range of innovators in 3 to 6-month periods of hands-on development, generating more than 90 digital media proof-of-concept prototypes.Every year, these projects are presented to the public at AFI DigiFest, a two-day event held in conjunction with AFI FEST. This year’s AFI DigiFest takes place Nov. 4 and 5th in Hollywood.

“It’s been an interesting year,” AFI Digital Content Lab director Suzanne Stefanac told MobilizedTV. “On the one hand, the economics have caused an enormous amount of angst throughout the industry. But at the same time, I think I’ve never seen as much raw creativity and innovation. Somehow the uncertainties of the marketplace have freed up the imaginations of the best minds. This year’s AFI DigiFest bears testimony to this flurry of invention. From major players like Digital Domain with their remarkable visual effects for the movie 2012, which opens right after AFI DigiFest on November 13, to the Purchase Brothers, a couple of kids from Toronto, who created a marvelous mix of machinima and live action for under $500, the watchword is passion. It’s been a pleasure putting this year’s roster together. I hope the audience finds it as inspiring as we have.”

Each day, innovators and their mentors will present the cross-platform projects they’ve been working on in the previous months. Day One of the Fest will feature: a Mobile Storymaking Session with filmmaker L.M. Kit Carson, who shot the Africa Diary series with a Nokia mobile phone (covered here in MobilizedTV); a mobile application that provides an interactive past-to-future timeline for an innovative ITVS cross-platform microseries; a social network and proposed marketing plan for Interview Project Presented by DavidLynch.com; an online strategy for engaging youth in environmental action challenges by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation; and an interactive mentoring environment for One Economy that encourages students from low-income families to consider science as a career.

Day Two will present a curated look at some of the most innovative digital media productions released over the past year. They include First Things Last, an iPhone app for dynamic and visual storytelling; Manobi, a mobile phone application that has raised the standard of living for farmers and fishermen in Senegal; LIVE MUSIC, a 3D animation put together by animators all over the world and masterminded by Mass Animation’s Yair Landau, former Sony Pictures vice chair; a look behind the scenes of an augmented reality application created by Trigger for the film District 9; digital visual effects from Digital Domain for the upcoming feature 2012; and Urban Wolf, a microseries based on surveillance camera footage.

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