Streaming Cinema From City to City

Philadelphia

Streaming Cinema 2.0 kicked off in Philadelphia, USA May 31st, 2001 and continued through to June 2nd.

On May 31st, the festival hosted a round table, "Redefining Online Entertainment" at 6:00 p.m. at WHYY Studios on Independence Square West. The panel, co-sponsored by WHYY and the Philadelphia Area New Media Association (PANMA), focused on the impact of the changing shape of new Internet technologies on online entertainment. Panelists discussed how as the Internet morphs from one medium - a dial-up public network - to a variety of media- broadband, satellite, wireless - the kinds of available content also change. Panelists included: web filmmakers Tara Veneruso and Lance Weiler; Marty Sabraw, Vice-President of Aerocast, a broadband streaming services company; and Doug Mow, Vice-President of Qwest Digital Media, which produces and delivers rich media content via broadband and satellite distribution. It was moderated by Michael Adams, former General Manager of New Media for Knight-Ridder and a Principal of Plum Capital. "Streaming Cinema is a ground-breaking exhibition of film, animation and multimedia," said Dianne Strunk, COO of Eastern Technology Council, "our PANMA should prove a captive audience." The audience joined in for a spirited Q&A about interactivity, Video On Demand and how streaming technology is being used today. The panel was followed by a reception and then several of the panelists were guests on the radio show "Compu Dudes", an NPR program that is broadcast live from WHYY Studios in Philadelphia. The radio show is available via real audio at: http://www.whyy.org/rameta/COMPUDUDES/current.ram

On June 1st, Streaming Cinema continued with "Kid Toon Fest", an animation workshop for kids. The audience, aged 10 to 11, was led by animator John Serpentelli in a workshop that resulted in a 3 minute animation. Serpentelli has created online and broadcast animation for HBO, Nickelodeon, Noggin and Sesame Street.

The Opening Night program took place in the evening of June 1st, a live performance of music and film in the making. For Opening Night, a net artist used stored and live images from the web to create, in real time, a personalized version of "A Thousand and One Arabian Nights."

The stored and live images came from several net artists around the world. The net artist at the Opening Night performance wove together different "threads": stored images; images from pre-selected media artists that were being created and transmitted live; images from computers randomly searching the web; his own images and anarchy. Working with multiples feeds, and set to live music, the net artist wove his own story in front of an audience. Like ancient fireside storytellers, the net artist also worked off of the audience's reactions to the story. As it was created, the net story was webcast live.

And Beyond ...

As the festival continues to move from city to city, different artists at the different venues will pick up the threads of the story and create and pass along their own versions; each story will be uploaded to the web, and the completed story, as well as all the elements of the story (soundtrack, narrative, video images) will be available for use by the next web filmmaker. As performances are planned in several different countries, each net artist will bring elements of his or her own culture to the story. It will be fascinating to see how, as the story travels from country to country, net artists from different countries change and re-create the story (not unlike how the original folk and fairytales spread around the world).

Finally, the stored images and soundtracks are available to audience members during the interactive program of the Streaming Cinema festival so they can create their own versions of the story and pass it along to audiences at the next venue.

"Arabian Nights" is the narrative theme because it is itself a framing story, so the stories within the frame need only be loosely connected. In addition, the stories within "Arabian Nights" are credited to multiple narrators, so the framework is perfect for this net storytelling performance.

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