iSight To See At The 13th Annual Florida Film Festival

by , 10:00 AM EST, March 16th, 2004

Film festivals are a stellar venue for new and independent movie makers to show the world what's on their minds, and they add texture to the cultural fabric of the cities that host them. If you haven't checked out local or more widely known film festivals, you are doing yourself a disservice; there's a certain bohemian atmosphere that surrounds many of these events, due in large part to the absence rampant commercialization. Very often you find pleasant surprises in the movies shown and the people who watch them.

Those attending the 13th annual Florida Film Festival in Winter Park, Florida (a community just east of Orlando) had a surprise, according to a report on MusicVideoWire.com, when Apple's iSight and iChat AV was used for a live interview with music video director Brett Simon during an intermission. From the article:

The Midnight Music Video Showcase programmed and hosted by mvwire's Will Brown was a big hit at the 13th annual Florida Film Festival held at the Enzian Theater in Winter Park, Florida. The Enzian is central Florida's only non-profit cultural arts cinema. Festival veterans have been giving the festival great reviews.

[...]

The highlight of the show came during the intermission when Will lead a 20 minute interview with music video director Brett Simon in a live video conference from Los Angeles. "The response to our music video programs in the past has always been positive, but iSight made the audience feel like they were part of the program," Will Brown enthused. iSight, a portable, inexpensive Apple video conferencing system, uses a real time interactive video image with sound. After the interview, Simon said, "To have a conversation from my computer with a few hundred people at the Enzian Theater on the other side of the country was empowering."

There's more information on the festival itself in the full article at MusicVideWire.com. You can visit the Florida Film Festival's Web site for more information.

The Mac Observer Spin:

iSight and iChat AV seems to be popping up all over the place, and why not? It's great technology, and as Mr. Simon said, it is empowering. We couldn't agree more. More importantly, we are delighted to see that message delivered to a non-Mac-specific audience such as a local newspaper.

ISight Interview With Director Brett Simon Highlights MVWire Midnight Music Video Showcase