Internet virus voting for festival films has got to be a daring new concept. That’s where one person sees a set of candidates, votes and then sends links to ten friends who then also hopefully vote, they each send out links to a bunch of their friends. It’s a bit like the clever political films that everyone seems to send links to their friends around the world. Before long, millions of people will have seen the films.

The folks at bitfilm in Hamburg Germany decided to give it a try, despite the statistical vagaries of such a system. My thought was “How naive could they be…when anybody can vote and you have no idea who they are, how valid is the vote?” I also wondered how many people would go to the trouble to vote. So bitfilm boldly mounted all their finalists on their website and had the world vote on them in six categories:

The judges had earlier filtered though nearly 750 entries from 51 countries. They narrowed the field to about 120 serious contenders. These included everything from very short Micromovies aimed at mobile phones to major motion pictures. The finalists were screened on the web as noted above and five finalists were selected for each of the categories. Apparently more than 30,000 people actually voted. Remarkable.

To my utter amazement, and for the very first time, I was virtually in total agreement with the results. I have no idea what forces might be working in virus voting, but it sure seems to reflect my taste in short digital movies. In fact, at the awards banquet, everyone seemed to be in agreement. Okay, so “Travel Diary” wasn’t my absolute first choice…Oh, but then I’m starting in the middle here.

Bitfilm is a six year old digital film festival held annually in Hamburg, Germany. According to bitfilm founder, Aaron Koenig: “bitfilm is a place where digital film makers of all kinds can find a home. The festival is a place for them to meet face to face and exchange ideas and enthusiasm.” And that it is.

Although not one of your polished, celebrity heavy glamour fests, bitfilm is a unique, high energy, nitty-gritty film celebration. It pulses with youthful energy, yet has an intimacy you’ll not often find when film folks get together. The focus is away from big cinema (although Majors are strangely included in the Grand Pix category,) and towards the more edgy short subjects, some of which I found disturbing, others hilarious, and all entertaining. Film makers in Europe don’t shy away from the dark side of reality. The micro-movie Willy Pete is an example. Yet they also come up with wildly creative, uproarious concepts as well. There were also a few semi-American films entered, and they would appreciate more from the US next year.

In part, bitfilm is a serious market for short films. Media buyers come and have a chance to network with young and talented media creators (they’re the ones in the suits.) The rest is mostly pure fun and inspiration. I found people of all sorts attending ‘ mostly young people sprinkled with a few good looking gray haired types like myself. They were enthusiasts from all over Europe who had come to press their fingers on the cutting edge pulse of digital media.

Strangely bitfilm opened with the awards show instead of ending with it. I found that a bit disconcerting. I would have rather had time to go to screenings of all the contestants and build up my list of who I thought should be winners, before having the secret revealed upfront. That’s just my personal take on it. Additionally the awards show was by invitation only and was packed with industry people, but regular ticket purchasers weren’t invited. I could see why, the affair was fancy, catered with delicious food, desert and wine that must have cost a pretty penny. Yet, I’d rather see the awards show at the end, sans the food, but inviting ticket holders to come and participate.

Yes and no, and I’ll tell you why.

First, it was a lot of fun and I hooked up with a ton of interesting and potentially valuable contacts. The fun came in the form of intense youthful spirit, and lots of hands-on fun things to do. Also, I was inspired by the very creative work I saw in the screenings. I’d seen some of them on-line beforehand, but not all, yet seeing them on the big screen made a difference. There was plenty of live entertainment as well, and I enjoyed some of it quite a bit. Some of the really loud bands were…ah, but I’m an old fogy, so don’t go by me. Probably what I enjoyed most was the way all of Hamburg made me feel at home. The bitfilm people couldn’t have been more accommodating. People on the streets were warm and helpful and I found my self hooking up with all sorts of producers, directors, VFX and animation people for dinner or a glass of beer. Actually another thing I really liked was the Alsterwasser. German’s call it “Beer for beginners.” It’s a mixture of light beer and lemon-lime soda that sounded awful, but turned out to be a really enjoyable thirst quencher.

It turns out you can drink in the very comfortable presentation venues. Being a relatively small festival, we’d sit around on couches and soft benches drinking wine while listening to presentations. This lubricated intimacy often lead to people asking questions in the middle of a presentation ‘ dialog like. This was good and bad. The good part was that we could clarify things in process. The bad was that speakers would get off schedule, going overtime without presenting all their material. The actual quality of presentations ranged from fascinating and informative, to just plain awful. Most were somewhere in the middle.

The bad ones were usually a function of poor preparation, poor speaking ability and poor English and/or poor visuals. Did I mention that bitfilm is presented in English despite being in Germany? It is…oh there is the occasional burst of German or French, but for the most part the talks are in English and most speak it well. The great presentations were presented by professional speakers with excellent visuals on topics of interest. Some of the best presentations were given in the Mobile Technology seminars ‘ although many of the smaller presentations were very well done and entertaining as well.

Bitfilm is much about having fun with digital media. Nokia set up a digital film studio in a large tent right in the middle of St. Pauli's main square Spielbudenplatz, across from the Mandarin Kasino. People would walk across and create a small digital film…usually after a few of those potent German beers. The setup was terrific, with all the lighting, green screens and props you’d need to make a fun short video. Everything was shot with the remarkable new N-series Nokia phones that incorporate a sophisticated Ziess lens camcorder right into the phone. I kept thinking how much spies would have given to have one of these babies back in the day.

After shooting your movie using props like a full bore moon suit, a mock up of a hot air balloon and a trampoline with lots of little props like chunks of green cheese and ray guns, The Nokia team would composite a background of your choice behind your action sequence. It was all, packaged and put onto a USB drive mounted in a wrist band. Upon leaving I also got a Nokia “Directors” cap for my trouble.

Walking back across the square to the Mandarin, you could take part on all manner of digital craziness. My favorite was a black wall covered with little black boxes which turned out to be digital scanners. You were invited to scan anything you wanted and it would be integrated into a huge, ever changing video wall collage project. As you can imagine, a room full of slightly tipsy, highly creative young artists came up with some unique and interesting things to scan, especially body parts from faces to tattoos on interesting parts of the anatomy. One guy was scanning lit matches, another had a spinning LED toy and several butt level scanners were in full use. I personally made many trips to the scanners and what parts I scanned will remain a dark secret forever.

Another hysterical digital diversion was the scream booth. It was just like the old fashioned automated portrait booths of yesteryear. You sit down, close the curtains and take your picture. Only in this case you saw a blurry image of yourself on the screen. To take a focused picture you had to scream as loud as you could. It took some seriously hellish screaming to get the damn thing to fire. These images also were presented to the public. You can just imaging what those portraits looked like.

The things I didn’t like were first of all the smoke. Europeans must have a great love of lung cancer. They smoke everywhere, all the time. I could hardly breathe at the Awards Show even though it was dubbed “non-smoking.” I must admit that Aaron Koenig, who was hosting the show, told people ‘ right from the stage ‘ to crush out their ciggies when he spotted them lighting up. The problem was: all the smokers went to the lobby instead of outside to smoke. It got so thick in there that you could hardly see your hand in front of your face. Naturally they opened the lobby doors to let in fresh air, which drove all that tobacco exhaust into the main venue. I was with a cadre of foreign journalists and we all found it difficult to deal with. But bitfilm is working on it. I also didn’t care for the main venue which was the Mandarin Kasino, a Chinese restaurant/casino that was empty and soon to be torn down. Although not very attractive it did serve the purpose and definitely had a rough and ready feel to it.

As an aside, I’d like to note that bitfilm takes place smack in the middle of one of Europe’s most famous red-light districts. I found that most interesting because it didn’t feel sleazy, but did have kind of a naughty feel to it. The women of the evening work one side of the street and if you avoid that, you don’t get approached. The area is also a center of Hamburg’s lively night life with lots of young families wandering past the sex shops to attend the latest musical (Moma Mia) or go out to dinner (The fabulous EAST is just off the Reeperbahn.) On the last day of bitfilm, Hamburg’s family fun fest “Winderdom” opened just around the corner. I went and it’s the biggest festival of its kind in Europe. What a blast.

Back to bitfilm and the winners. You can find these short format winners on-line at www.bitfilm.de:

I recommend that you take a moment and check out the winners. You’ll find them entertaining, inspiring, and in the case of Willy Pete, more than a little disturbing. Most of the creators of these remarkable short films were available at their screenings for informal Q&A sessions and perhaps a chat over beer at the bar later on. As I write this you can also see some of the great runner ups…go for it.

I would definitely go back to bitfilm. It has a frontier feeling to it that lets you know you have your bare toes wrapped over the razor edge of innovation in digital media entertainment. The young people you meet here will soon be the movers and shakers in a new industry that they are now pioneering. Get ready to saddle up and ship out for next year’s bitfim, and leave an extra week to explore this amazing “Venice of the North,” with its fair prices, amazing restaurants and lovely citizens. You’ll come home with your creativity buzzing, raring to try some new things and with a new set of perspectives on what you’re doing. Enjoy.