World's First Tech-Master Film Fest to Debut in Palo Alto

The Palo Alto International Film Festival (PAIFF) will debut this September in Palo Alto to award and celebrate the best film technology inventors from around the world, said organizers at think-tank Palo Alto Institute (PAI).

By being situated in Silicon Valley, a global hub for technological innovation, PAI hopes to lure the best film-technology innovators from around the world.

This first-of-its-kind “tech-masters” film festival aims to carry on the tradition of motion-picture innovation, which began in Palo Alto with a bet.

Palo Alto became the birthplace to the world’s first-ever motion picture in 1872 when former California Gov. Leland Stanford made a bet that a race horse could lift all four hooves off the ground at one time. The founder of Stanford University hired photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who used 24 cameras to take a linear series of fast-paced photographs of one of Stanford’s horses running in Palo Alto. With a single shot, Muybridge proved Stanford’s bet that a horse can lift all four hooves off the ground.

Muybridge played photographs of the horse sequentially in a technologically innovative projector called the Zoopractiscope. People who viewed the sequenced photographs could see for the first time what looked like the re-creation of a “horse in motion.” Many believe Muybridge’s invention gave birth to motion pictures and cinematography.

“Hollywood often is considered the center of the movie industry, but increasingly, the true center of media is here in the Bay Area,” said Devyani Kamdar, executive director at PAI. “We believe the technology causing the paradigm shifts is largely developed here."

To kick-off the film festival, PAI will re-enact the horse running at Stanford—using modern technology, Kamdar said.

“The first one will probably involve a 'For.A' super-slow-motion HD camera that takes 700 images per second,” Kamdar said. “Muybridge used 24 cameras; the new technology shoots 700 frames in one second.”

“Which is insane,” said Alf Seccombe, director of media and programming at PAI. Seccombe used to work at the Sundance Film Festival.

Big film tech names such as John Knoll, a visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic and one of the original creators of Adobe Photoshop, will speak at the festival. Knolls also worked as visual-effects supervisor on the films Avatar, the Star Wars prequels, Pirates of the Caribean, and Star Trek.

Jean-Michel Frodon, film critic and former editor of the prestigious Cahers du cinemas, loves the idea of a film festival celebrating the masters of the technology, said Kamdar. Frodon plans to attend. Academy Award winner Walter Murch, who mixed sound for Francis Ford Coppola, will also attend.

“We will also be seeking out the start-up guys who are working on the newest technology that’s no one’s ever heard about yet,” Kamdar said. “Someone who might be famous in 10 years.”

The festival will award “innovators and masters” of new film technology, with awards for most innovating film director and most innovative use of technology. “Our awards are going to be different from other film festivals,” she said.

There won't be awards for best picture or best international film, for example, she said. “We’re driven by what new technologies we see.” 

Organizers plan to showcase 20 features, 25 shorts and 30 talks panels and workshops this first year.

“Our goal is to sell 15,000 tickets, which is really ambitious,” said Seccombe.

Films will show at the the in Palo Alto Square, at Stanford and the Palo Alto Chidren’s Theater. Technicolor will also offer a all-day, eight-hour course for 3D certification.

“We’ve done a lot very fast,” said Seccombe. “I’ve never seen a first-time festival snowball this fast and getting a following so fast,” he said. “I’m used to getting the response, ‘oh, another film festival,’ but people are actually getting that we’re actually filling a need” 

Activities and films will begin on Sept. 29 and continue through Oct. 2.