3rd Annual Filmgate Interactive
February 20 – 28, 2016

FilmGate Interactive, the U.S.A.’s only Immersive Media Conference, returns for its third year with more than 20 screenings, 6 performances, 5 interactive exhibits and 15 workshops, which explore the intersection of film, technology and interactive storytelling.

The FilmGate Interactive Conference will take place from February 20 to 28, 2016 at prime arts locations throughout Miami Beach and Miami, Florida. Over 5,000 production professionals and enthusiastic amateurs, are anticipated to attend this year’s conference and their goal is to learn, showcase their work, and develop new content through immersive and interactive techniques – an approach that recognizes the changing landscape of entertainment and storytelling, and produces a more cohesive and rewarding audience experience.

Under the helm of Executive Director Diliana Alexander, the FilmGate Interactive conference aims to engage viewers in the creative process while also providing production professionals, filmmakers, videographers, gamers, coders, writers, photographers, story architects, marketing and advertising creatives and technophile audiences with access to experts and state-of-the-art tools to craft their own projects.

FilmGate Interactive answers the question of how new technology is influencing the future of entertainment, art and digital storytelling. We called the Conference, FilmGate to pay homage to our roots—the capturing of that moment, when film passed through the gate and is illuminated—but there is hardly any film left in today’s reality. We live in a digital world with ever-changing technological landscape and our programming and learning environments reflect that – Diliana Alexander

In a nod to the Hispanic creative and new technology communities from Central and South America and the Caribbean, an important aspect of conference programming embedded since its launching has been to represent diversity and emerging markets. At this year’s Conference, FilmGate Interactive will feature immersive media creators from Brazil and Colombia. “South Florida’s unique socio-cultural demographic and proximity to Latin America and the Caribbean have positioned Miami Beach and Miami as an international destination for arts, development and increasingly, technology,” said Alexander. “There is a tangible shift in the region’s identity as one poised for opportunity and growth.”

Program highlights include:
The Interactive Tech Playground
The Interactive Tech Playground is a curated fair with 30 selected exhibitors offering innovative products (cameras, lights, cranes, lenses, gaming software, apps, video equipment, etc.) and services.  Spanning over more than 8,000 square-feet at the historic Deauville Beach Resort, the Interactive Tech Playground was designed to be a platform to connect trade and consumer audiences to the advances in new technology, from startups to blue chip companies.
The Playground will feature the FilmGate Center Stage, an area for live presentations and an interactive set with live actors, where anyone can “play” with the gear on display.
We welcome new editions to the program: cinematic camera manufacturers RED Digital and Blackmagic. SONY will return with a workshop on High Dynamic Range for Content Production and Distribution, How to get the best imagery from the PMW-F55 and PMW-F5 motion picture cameras and a Miami specific workshop involving underwater videography and photography. Past participants have included Panasonic, Canon, Arri CSC, Kessler Cranes, Schneider Optics, Manfrotto, Dodo Case, Nauticam and Cinedrones, among others.

Interactive Screenings
Manual Cinema’s LULA DEL RAY is the story of a lonely adolescent girl who lives with her mother on the outskirts of a vast satellite array in the middle of the desert, and is performed with overhead projectors, shadow puppets, actors in silhouette, and live music. Set in the mid-century American Southwest, the project is inspired by the music of Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, and Patsy Cline. 
Katerina Cizek’s THE UNIVERSE WITHIN, the final chapter of the Digital Emmy award-winning series HIGHRISE, poses the questions, as cities reach for the sky, how do we engage with our loved ones over the worldwide web? How has this reality rewired our brains? The project was created for the National Film Board of Canada.
DO NOT TRACK, directed by Brett Gaylor and co-produced by Upian, Arte, the National Film Board of Canada, is a personalized documentary series about privacy and the web economy.
AFTER THE STORM, directed by Andrew Grace and for the first time jointly launched on line by PBS’s Independent Lens and the Washington Post, is an interactive documentary, which tells the story of what happened after a half-mile wide tornado plowed through the middle of Tuscaloosa, a small southern college town in central Alabama, after the storm passed, the media left town, and after the adrenaline subsided.
THE STORY OF THE STAFF, a web documentary by Ashley Maynor, an investigation into America’s obsession with temporary memorials. It tracks what happens to more than half a million letters, 65,000 teddy bears, and hundreds of thousands of other packages, donations, and condolence items sent to Newtown, Connecticut, in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting.

Interactive Exhibits
Nonny de la Pena and her Emblematic Group team will present ONE DARK NIGHT, a Trayvon Martin VR Reenactment. The near constant flow of news detailing yet another shooting death of a black person by U.S. police officers may eventually dull the shock for some observers, but what if you could relive the incidents reported as if you were there? This is a data driven, immersive virtual reality reenactment of the February 2012 Florida shooting death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman.  
DISCLOSE MIAMI, a participatory, slow, immersive sound and sight installation, designed for relaxation, conversation and creative production, will be created by Billy Wrasnik, Emily Ferrier and a team of creative technologists in real time during the Conference, It will stitch together the sounds and sights captured by the participants of the SOUND FOR THE NEW MEDIA FRONTIER workshop, being held at the conference prior to the event.

Workshops
IMMERSIVE MEDIA MASTER CLASS with Katerina Cizek: An innovative storyteller who works across many media platforms, Katerina Cizek created the seven year long, multi-media project HIGHRISE for the National Film Board of Canada. The project won the 2011 Digital Emmy award in the non-fiction category for digital programs.
Sound designer and classically trained musician Billy Wirasnik will lead a SOUND FOR THE NEW MEDIA FRONTIER workshop, which will present practical answers the question of what can be done to incorporate thoughtful, meaningful use of sound. Attendees of the workshop will use the medium of Slow TV, an emerging genre of observational films, as a vessel of exploring sound and patient filmmaking.
The Brazilian #EraTransmidia group, will teach a Multi Audience Multi Platform workshop (MAMP), which will utilize real cases and hands on activities, to create story worlds.

Interactive Events
SHE DOES LIVE. Witness the live recording of a podcast with hosts Elaine Sheldon and Sarah Ginsburg and special guest Mariana Santos. SHE DOES features notable women of all generations, working at the intersection of media, film, journalism, art and technology. Former Knight International Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, Mariana Santos is a visual storyteller who did groundbreaking work as a member of the interactive team at The Guardian in London before becoming director of Interactive and Animation at Fusion Media.
ZICA AND THE CHAMELEONS, created for Nickelodeon Brazil by CinemaAnimadores, is an immersive TV show about a not-so-typical teenager, who relates to the world through her art. The event, designed for grade and high school students, will include a live experience and live music.

Best Of N.O.L.A.
“I’m Not Gonna Move to L.A.” (N.O.L.A.) is a monthly event that for the last three years has screened local shorts made in Florida under the same roof at independent art house O Cinema.  After a Q & A and rapid-fire trivia, the audience is asked to vote for their favorite film using some unorthodox devices. In a culmination of N.O.L.A. all-stars, the winners of the past months have been invited to O Cinema Miami Beach for a chance to win the grand prize, the Pink Kraken.

All screenings, installations and workshops are suitable to all skill levels and high school students. University Student admission with valid I.D. is $60 and includes access to the Tech Playground, workshops, projects and an invitation to the launch event. All appropriate events are free to high school students. The ALL ACCESS PASS is $120 with perks such as invitations to industry happy hours, the kickoff pool party at the Deauville Hotel and the Future Survivor themed closing party and awards ceremony.  The Pink Kraken, FilmGate’s ultimate entry into VIP events, is $225 for aforementioned programs, plus invitations to all private events and a one-year membership to South Florida’s very own FilmGate Miami.