IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 17, 2012
DIGITAL MEDIA FESTIVAL INAUGURAL LAUNCH HAS BEEN UNCORKED...PARTS
OF THE FESTIVAL WERE SKYPED LIVE TO AND FROM BORDEAUX, FRANCE.
Under the brand of DigitalMediaFestival.com a group of interesting characters from
film television, digital media, venture capital, photography and technology came together
at the famous Kepler's Bookstore in Menlo Park Silicon Valley this Labor Day weekend
to uncork the StartUp of the DMF, an event that might be described as:
South by Southwest, meets the Consumer Electronic Show and the Sundance Film
Festival twice a year in Silicon Valley. An Expo and Festival where funders, founders,
celebrities, entrepreneurs, film and digital media producers, press, programmers,
green developers, engineers, technology companies, meetup groups, and others
involved with the historic convergence of technology, social networking and the
entertainment business will come together in Silicon Valley California and online
Globally to talk about the Digital Age.
This three days of events set the stage for the April 18 - 22, 2013 Digital Media Festival
and Expo that will take place in Mountain View, San Jose, Menlo Park, and Palo Alto.
Some of the venues included will be the Computer Museum, Kepler's Bookstore, the
Guild Theater, Dragon Theater, Stanford Park Hotel, Zibibbo, Cafe Borrone, Inter-
national Technological University in San Jose and more to be announced.
Cass Warner, the granddaughter of Harry Warner came to discuss her film "The
Brothers Warner" that she'll screen at the April 2013, event, as did author/photographer/
filmmaker Chris Felver, who will be showing his award winning film "Ferlinghetti"
displaying some of his famous celebrity photos and doing a workshop on "shooting
celebrities." Movie and TV actor/activist/techno geek Max Gail, best known for his roll
as Det. Stan "Wojo" Wojeciehowicz from the tv sitcom Barney Miller joined them with a
presentation of his creative way of running panels setting in a circle called LAPs.
The event Keynote address was given by Stanford professor and author Fred Turner,
who gave a talk on his book "From Counterculture to Cyperculture, Stewart Brand, the
Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism," documenting the very rich
music, psychedelic and technological history of Silicon Valley. The book details the
counterculture movement and convergence with technology in Silicon Valley. It has
been stated that his book is "recommended for anyone interested in how technological
objects attain meaning within social and historical context."
Turner was then joined Len Dell'Amico, known in the film and music video world as
"the Grateful Dead's Video Guy," Nicholas Meriweather who heads-up the Dead's
archive at the University of Santa Cruz, and filmmaker Eric Christensen producer of
the documentary, "Trips Festival 1966" about that historic event when Ken Kesey, Bill
Graham, Stewart Brand (Whole Earth Catalogue) and many of the hippie/hackers from
Silicon Valley doing light shows and the Grateful Dead staged 3 historic days that set
the stage for the Fillmore West Trips Festival shows in San Francisco, the birth of the
psychedelic era on to events like Burning Man.
The StartUp DMF event was at Kepler's Bookstore in Menlo Park, where Jerry Garcia
met many of the members of the Dead, while teaching bluegrass lessons on his guitar,
hanging out with Joan Baez and many of the techies from Stanford University and the
new growing hippie movement, the Free University and guys like Kesey and others
that were subjects during the LSD research at Stanford in Silicon Valley. This is when
Thomas Wolf wrote, "Electric Acid Kool Aid Test."
Len Dell'Amico's new feature film "Welcome To Dopeland" was screened with Len
doing an interesting Q & A, and the short "Taste" by French filmmaker Patrice Poulio
was screed with his Q & A being Skyped into the festival on the big screen live from
Bordeaux, France, where he could also view the group at Kepler's and communicate
with them. The afore mentioned filmmaker Eric Christensen's documentary "Trips
Festival" was screened with Eric giving a very interesting follow up talk.
Erin Murphy, who's dad Dudley Murphy directed the classic movie "Saint Louis Blues"
(1929) with Bessie Smith, screened the movie and led a group discussion on the
era of "sound on film" the "audible period" and how then present digital age paradigm
shift is similar to the early days of sound. Ms Murphy will show one of her dad's movies
from the silent era, and be joined by Gina Mertz, the granddaughter of the famous
director King Vidor, who worked for years with William Randolph Hearst and we will
screen their movie "Show People" staring Chaplin, Fairbanks and Marion Davis at
the April 2013 Festival.
The festival was very happy to have Sparky Harlan Executive Director of the Bill
Wilson Center, attend the Press Event. Bill Wilson Center serves over 10,000 youth
and their family members every year in the Silicon Valley at the Center. Just last month
she returned from Washington DC, where the President honored Ms. Harlan and fifteen
other people in the Nation as leaders in this effort to help homeless children in the US.
The Festival is making a challenge to Silicon Valley programmers, engineers, and tech
companies to design and create new ideas to help. The festival dedicated to help bring
attention to the historic plight of homeless and runaway children and youth, in the Silicon
Valley, California and the world.
Archie McLaren, who produces the very successful 28 year running Central Coast
Wine Classic and is helping advise the festival on the blend of wines and wine movies
that will be part of the April 2013 Festival, including the rock wine documentary "Blood
Into Wine" with Maynard James Keenan the lead singer of the band Tool attended.
Bay area author/filmmaker Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D gave an interesting talk on
making youtube videos to promote books, along with author Julian Phillips, who gave
a talk on adapting a novel to screen play that was Skyped to Bordeaux, France.
During the event in Silicon Valley the festival will Skype various producers and guest
from other states and countries into the festival. The virtual festival will be programmed
on Openfilm.com/channels/Digital-Media-Festival, in a partnership with James Caan,
and Robert Duvall, via their Independent premium video sharing website. As well the
festival will be programmed on Youtube, Ustream.tv, Twitter, Facebook and other social
networking sites networked through DigitalMediaFestival.com. A key element will be
the Virtual Online Festival that will be developed after the festival.
During the April 2013 Festival/Expo, there will be simultaneous events in Honk Kong,
France, India, Hollywood, and from a wine vineyard in Paso Robles, Ca. The DMF
will be truly International, Interactive and on the cutting edge of technology. Festival
founder and producer, Benford Standley has been in the entertainment biz for 40
plus years, working with the likes of Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard, Eric Clapton, Les Paul,
and many others, and ventured into live streaming on the Internet in 1995, with a online
concert in 1997 with Willie Nelson. In 1999, he began the first of four years of streaming
the Malibu Film Festival online. His first "Digital Film Festival" was in 2008, and was
attended by Clint Eastwood, Kevin Bacon, producer Sir. Nigel Sinclair, Ramblin' Jack
Elliott, Johnny Rivers and many greats in film and music. Standley is planning to relocate
to Silicon Valley and pledges to keep the festivals evolving in these exponential times.
Streaming, Internet TV, VOD, multimedia, digital media and mobile is no doubt the future
of the entertainment business. The immediate future will see the further development
and growth of Internet Television, and the huge paradigm shift taking place in the film and
television business, a new evolution of "film" festivals is now evolving with our Digital
Media Festival. The word "film" is becoming obsolete, may sound a little radical, but
"The Times They Are A-Changin'" As seen in Keanu Reeves new movie "Side by Side"
we see inside the paradigm shift we are seeing in the digital age.
Date, times, locations and more surprise guest can be found on the festival website at:
FOR MORE INFORMATION or, PICTURES:
Press Desk
Call: 650-223-0300
Email: digitalmediafest@gmail.com
go to website Press room at:
digitalmediafestival.com/digital_pressPg.htm