July/August 2002

Film schools embody the most mythologized sector of academia. They retail dreams. They sell success. They market creativity. Sometimes dubbed “the artist’s MBA,” film schools have undergone massive transformations since the 1970’s. They have mutated from outposts for creative dissidents into pre-professional programs.

April in Aspen, Colorado, is a time of transition. The encircling mountains begin shedding their white mantle of snow, ski lifts shut down, skiers ship out, and the conversation changes. Instead of snow conditions, the topic is film, and the action shifts to the center of town, where lively crowds pour into the Wheeler Opera House to partake in the Aspen Shortsfest, now the premiere short film festival in the United States.

Now that electronic games can gross higher than Hollywood films, industry “creatives” are increasingly penetrating the joystick zone to work on stories like “shoot Nazi/junkie/alien scum,” or “crash car into wall again.” But in the absence of the Xbox version of The Crying Game, indie film makers are left to wonder, do they have a place in the digital revolution beyon

“We’re the only full-time underground screening space in North America,” says Blinding Light founder, Alex MacKenzie. This 110-seat microcinema that screens alternative, underground, and obscure film / video works was founded in 1998.

April in Aspen, Colorado, is a time of transition. The encircling mountains begin shedding their white mantle of snow, ski lifts shut down, skiers ship out, and the conversation changes.

The reason that everyone tries to sell to teenagers is that teenagers are HUNGRY PEOPLE. And just as insecure, self-conscious people often make wildly good art, so do hungry people make good curators. We are all experts at giving the thing we want most. So what would happen if a teenager applied her channel-surfing skills to programming?

Delivering video over the Internet poses an interesting challenge to those who want to preserve the image quality of their video while giving the audience the best experience possible. Video delivered over the Internet must both look and sound as good as possible yet download quickly so that the audience does not become annoyed at waiting for too long before the video starts.