by Marc Guidoni , published on 23.07.2009

This is the fifth edition for this event that many in the audiovisual world judged as a one-time sensation, a gadget event, in its first edition in 2004. And yet… Back then already, their choice of opening the festival with Mike Figgis’ extraordinary film “Time Code” was a sign that their ambition would grow quickly and rely strongly on the new forms of audiovisual writing such as the amazing call for entries based on the arrival of pocket cameras included in mid-range cellular phones… The super 8 of the years 2000…

Today, the Festival’s Jury includes personalities such as Michel Reihac (ARTE) or Benoît Deléphine (Canal+). And that’s not all…Besides the jury competition, the festival also offered professional networking events including a workshop about transmedia. Distributors and producers came, sometimes in teams, to present their developments and reflections.

A small anthology of ideas was exchanged by Ariel Askenazi (Mascaret), Philippe Bony (M6), Sandrine Girbal and Mathieu Chereau (Happy Fannie), Jean-Marc Merriaux (France 5), Arnaud Dressen (Honkytonk) or Pauline Augrain (CNC).

“Do not hesitate to seek out authors from the world of comics or video games to shake up creativity. One of the problems of French fiction is that it has cut itself off from the audience of teenagers and young adults. The stories have to be good and the technology can help enrich and reinforce them. It’s important to make narrative techniques evolve in order to seduce these young audiences that have other expectations.”

“We should no longer think in terms of “programs” but in terms of “universes”. For example by planting clues on the web. People will go look for the clues, become detectives. The goal is to get the audience to participate in increasingly creative ways as we move along.”

“Cellular phones will bring functionalities that will enrich content: for example, GPS mapping can be integrated into a narrative logic. The question for a scriptwriter is: which functionalities, specifically linked to cellular phones, will allow me to reinforce my transmedia writing?”

“Take the long term approach to working with authors: don’t worry about offering relatively raw content to today’s audiences. People are competent enough to realign things while they continue to immerse themselves into a story…”