SXSWORLD

New Digital Domain Bridges Film and Interactive Worlds by Matt Singer on Saturday Night Live. A beloved cult fi lm icon announces that he's leaving the world of movies behind to start his own Internet radio sta- tion and then turns one of his podcasts into a television series (about comic books). Th ese are strange signs of the times in a world where the walls between traditionally distinct forms of media are breaking down. As evidenced by the aforementioned activities of David Fincher, Lana Del Rey, Kevin Smith and so many others, pop culture is now one massive, multi-platform stew. Movies feed into television series that inspire web videos that launch Internet memes that get licensed for television shows that spin off into movies. It is the pro- verbial snake eating its own tail, while the tail makes a YouTube video about a cat wearing a hat made out of bread. SXSW's brand new Digital Domain A n Oscar-nominated director makes his fi rst television series for Netfl ix. An unknown singer-songwriter directs and edits her own music video and within months, she's the musical guest Digital Domain program grew organically from this year's SXSW Film submissions. As more and more fi lmmakers turn to the web as a content distributor, more submit web series for festival consideration. Th e SXSW programming team wanted to celebrate the high quality of their work but felt a spot in the main fi lm festival wasn't the right fi t. "Giving them their own space seemed like a logical way to go," Kolmar says. Th at space ultimately became the Digital Domain, with 18 events spread out over four days designed to showcase the diversity of creativity 38 SXSW ORLD / M ARCH F ILM- I A 2012 program is designed with exactly those sorts of cross-media migrations in mind. Th e lineup of screenings and panels showcases the work of the biggest inno- vators in this new hybridized space, from fi lm directors who have developed their own web series to documentary producers who have created iPad apps. Appropriately, all Digital Domain events are open to both Film and Interactive badgeholders. SXSW fi lm programmer Jim Kolmar says the festival hopes that will foster conver- sation and stimulate collaboration between the two worlds. "We hope to give an impression of how diverse the culture is and how much all these projects have in common," Kolmar adds. "We want to get these people in the same room together talking and sharing each other's knowledge and creativity because there's so much common ground." Th e roots of the bubbling in the ever-diminishing gap between celluloid and digital video. Some presentations live, almost literally, at the crossroads of fi lm and interactive. "Dreams Of Your Life: A Darkly Playful Experience," for example, focuses on an interactive website that expands upon the narrative of Dreams of a Life, a documentary playing this year in SXSW's Festival Favorites section. Th e fi lm is about a woman whose dead body decom- posed in her apartment for years before it was discovered; on the site, users interact with a mysterious presence who asks questions that force them to consider their own feelings of loneliness and isolation. Kolmar says the site "pushes the fi lm beyond the limits of its 90-minute runtime" and "uses this technology to explore new, exciting storytelling possibilities." Fans of the popular online comedy hub Funny or Die will be excited to discover that producers from the site, which was founded in 2007 by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, will be on hand at Digital Domain to discuss their cre- ative process and to share their work. Fans of Adam Green, acclaimed director of indie horror fi lms like Frozen and Hatchet, will be happy to know that after his numerous setbacks and hassles from the MPAA and movie theaters over his 2010 fi lm Hatchet 2, he is coming to Digital Domain with "We hope to give an impression of how diverse the culture is and how much all these projects have in common," we some day see the merger of the two conferences into one massive "Filmteractive" festival? "Th at's catchy," laughs Kolmar. "Can we steal that as a hashtag?" ■ gram goes and move forward from there. But there's no question the programming track fi lls a void. "We're at a point in time now where these creators are really starting to understand what the web is, while still recognizing its lim- itless potential," Kolmar notes. But what if Digital Domain is wildly suc- cessful and the fi lm and interactive spaces con- tinue to become even more intertwined? Could future? Kolmar says the SXSW team will see how this year's pro- The Digital Domain programming continues in the Austin Suite at the Austin Convention Center through Tuesday, March 13. See sxsw.com/fi lm/talks/digital_domain for details. So Digital Domain is the present, but what about the Holliston, a horror sitcom for FEARnet that places him far outside the jurisdiction of the Ratings Boards and fi ckle exhibitor chains.

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