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MillimeterEditor's Notes
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Cynthia Wisehart
So Far, the Web has Been far More Restrained Than TV about invoking the feeling of The Colosseum. Judging is done more discreetly than on television, and it is not part of the entertainment — although it is sometimes part of the interactivity if the public is allowed to vote. Many contests are designed in all sincerity to give aspirants support and a chance to “make it.” Some contests, too, take advantage of what the Web does really well, which is to build relationships and connections.
One feature of the most interesting contests is the idea of throwing a handful of promising people together to see if they can coalesce into a team and produce anything of value on a deadline. The other important feature of the best contests is that they combine the virtuality of the Web with a real-life, flesh-and-blood experience. Last Siggraph, for example, HP exhausted an eager group of students by pitting them against each other in an animation marathon — onsite. Hmm, little bit Roman there.
The nonprofit Real Ideas Studio is in the second year of an unusual and remarkably successful international contest that has landed it in a spotlight at the Cannes Film Festival. Last year, Reel Ideas Studio brought 10 teams of five students who didn't know each other together at Cannes; armed them with cameras, laptops, editing software, and mentors; and then asked each team to produce a documentary about the festival and a daily blog about their experiences. The winning entry was screened at the festival, and it will also screen at Sundance in January.
This got the attention of the Cannes organization, which has given Reel Ideas Studio a plum storefront location at the center of the festival to serve as Reel's production studio. This allows an upgrade from laptops to workstations, among other things.
The other new feature this year is that the contest will also be open to virtual teams — who can form, register, and then submit original documentaries about their own communities. Documentaries must be made by the virtual team in the contest time frame between March and the Cannes Film Festival. The same judges who are onsite at Cannes will judge the virtual entries.
Tune into our annual Sundance blog Jan. 17-20, 2008, at blog.digitalcontentproducer.com/sundance. We'll be talking to last year's Real Ideas Studio winners at their Sundance debut.
