Future of the Small Screen: Presentation of the Masterclass

As a sequal to the lecture and presentation series The Future of the Small Screen in 1998, the International Film Festival Rotterdam is organising this year, in co-operation with the Dutch Cultural Broadcasting Fund, a masterclass for film and television directors and new media designers. For a week, the participants will together investigate the new creative possibilities that accompany the rise of digital media and interactivity. It will focus on the future relationship between television and the computer. Now Internet is becoming increasingly commonplace, ways of using the World Wide Web will increasingly influence television. At the same time, the television language and the medium video are increasingly becoming part of cinema. Whether it is about television or the computer, the developments on the `small screen' are characteristic of the future of the cinema.The aim of the masterclass is to stimulate new programme forms that use television or Internet. During the masterclass the participants will develop programme concepts that could not be made for traditional media. How can Internet and television strengthen each other? What happens when they take over each other's functions? What kinds of interactivity are relevant, and how can the user be stimulated to react and play an active part in the programme? How do you design a functional interface for interactive television? In the week prior to the festival (from 25 to 31 January) the participants work on the programme concepts, that are both narrative and non-linear, dramatised or documentary. They are accompanied and instructed by teachers with expertise in the field of the new media, directing, graphic design and interactive screenplays. The results of the masterclass will be presented during the festival. Masterclass Teachers Sawad Brooks, artist, software designer and lecturer in art and technology, at present at the Parsons School of Design in New York. Bruno Felix, head of 'VPRO Digitaal', that investigates the influence of digital technology on the production, distribution and use of the media. Douglas Gayeton, multi-media artist and film-maker. He directed and designed e.g. the interactive film Johnny Mnemonic and Vanishing Point. Glenn Kaino, artist and programme developer for television and Internet. Marsha Kinder, director of the Labyrinth Project, a research institute at the Annenberg Center for Communication that is involved with interactive narrative structures. Daniel Ockeloen designs software for the VPRO new-media project. Paul Perry, artist, lectures regularly on computer art and communication, for instance for the Media-GN course in Groningen. Hans de Wolf, scriptwriter, responsible for e.g. the script for the VPRO youth series Het labyrint. Femke Wolting, programmer Exploding Cinema, staff member 'VPRO Digitaal'.