Christopher Coppola and CSB School of Broadcasting bring free digital media festival to Las Vegas June 6-8, 2008
How often do everyday people get to rub shoulders with Hollywood movie producers? And how frequently are we mesmerized by the plight of a regular working person, parent, grandparent or child in American cinema?
Hollywood director and movie producer Christopher Coppola believes that great stories come from everyday people, and that with the advent of digital technology, those stories can be shared globally through the Internet.
This thinking forged a new, Hollywood-based nonprofit organization called PAH Nation. PAH stands for Project Accessible Hollywood. Coppola’s goal, on a smaller scale, is to bring the movie producing tools used in Hollywood to everyday folks around the world, "Bridging the gap between Hollywood and the heartland," he says.
In partnership with CSB School of Broadcasting, Christopher Coppola—filmmaker, nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, brother of Nicolas Cage and renowned “DigiVangelist”—is bringing miniPAH FEST, his groundbreaking digital media festival, to the Las Vegas Valley for the first time, June 6 to 8, 2008.
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miniPAH is a three-day, free digital media festival that travels to cities throughout the U.S. and internationally. People from all walks of life—ages 5 to 105—get the chance to tell their stories through video in different categories.
Participants can use their own equipment, or if they don’t have it, they are provided with digital equipment and a professional ‘helping hand,’ enabling them to create their own short digital film.
A 501c3 tax exempt organization, miniPAH operates on private and corporate donations and offers participants the opportunity to build confidence using digital technology while discovering the artist within.
The finished work is posted in the online theatre at PAHNation.org, where the public and a pool of celebrity judges review it and cast their votes for the winners. All submissions remain online indefinitely for sharing.
Coming from a storied Hollywood family, and having directed movies himself, Christopher Coppola has one foot in the studio filmmaking industry and the other on the frontier of new media storytelling. Dubbed the “Pirate” of the Coppola family, Christopher says his main goal is to “bridge the gap between Hollywood and the heartland.”
Coppola created PAH-FEST, the Project Accessible Hollywood Festival, for this purpose. The concept is simple—put a digital video camera or mobile phone in the hands of someone with an idea and let them create art. Then put the finished product on the Internet to enable cross-cultural communication and understanding.
The miniPAH: VEGAS categories will include:
- Cell Phone Art: a 1-minute or less video created on a video-enabled cell phone
- DigiPortraits: on a video-enabled cell phone, participants create a 2-minute portrait of themselves or another person
- Cellular Tone Poem: musicians, songwriters and composers shoot a 2-minute video to portray their original music
- Circus Vision Challenge: using a smart phone, children ages 14 and under, embark on a visual treasure hunt to capture and gather a list of visual ingredients
Participants of miniPAH: VEGAS can use their own video enabled mobile phone or check one out on festival days from the festival headquarters at CSB School of Broadcasting.
Cell Phone Art, DigiPortraits and Cellular Tone Poem competitions will be held Friday and Saturday, June 6 and 7, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Circus Vision will be held in downtown Las Vegas at the Triple George Grill from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday, June 7. Children ages 14 and under, and their parents, who plan to participate in Circus Vision will register and turn-in their work underneath the balloons and Circus Vision banner displayed outside the Triple George Grill one block from Fremont Street Experience.
The festival closing awards ceremony and screening will be held at Green Valley United Methodist Church, Sunday, June 8 at 7 p.m.
The Circus Vision entry judged to interpret the list of visual ingredients the most uniquely and accurately, will win a $100 prize. Winners of the Cell Phone Art, DigiPortraits and Cellular Tone Poem contests will win $250 each.
Participation is free and open to the public. All prizes will be awarded at the closing ceremony screening on Sunday, June 8, which will also be webcast live on PAHNation.org.
Additional information is available by calling (323) 645-4353 or by visiting PAHNation.org.
