ARTE France presents interactive version of short film magazine Court-Circuit as Web TV
/ August 28, 2007
The French version of the 'Court-Circuit' short film magazine, televised by the Franco-German station ARTE every Wednesday in only a few European countries and not until after midnight, can now be enjoyed anytime, anywhere – on the Internet.
ARTE has set up an Internet platform called 'Court-Circuit off' for its francophone viewers. The actual short film magazine is only one of many options on offer here. The platform includes a whole series of sections that are Web-specific and therefore not only supplement the TV broadcast, but also take advantage of the possibilities presented by the Internet.
In the online version of the magazine 'Kurzschluss', films and reports featured in all of the issues produced since the beginning of the year can be called up individually, i.e. 'interactively'. As in the television show, these include – in addition to the short films themselves – reports that are usually well worth watching, interviews, 'Making of', 'La premi?re fois' and 'Zoom'. Here can also be found the somewhat infantile pedagogical guides 'La Leçon du Professeur Kouro' and 'Le Truc'. Unfortunately, the site is lacking a search function which would help the user to locate specific topics, film titles or directors in the various sections of the magazine.
In addition to the magazine itself, 'Court-Circuit off' also offers the topics News (Actualité), Atelier, Short Films, Forum, Competition and Podcast. The structure is somewhat confusing, making navigation difficult. This is probably due to the fact that 'Court-Circuit off' was evidently not conceived as an independent platform, with all sections cast from the same mould, but that it instead draws on other previously existing Web offerings on the ARTE server, each exhibiting its own structure and design.
The category Short Films ('Courts métrages') links to a site that is devoted exclusively to animated film, currently featuring about 40 titles. Recently (in the 15 August 2007 issue), 'Candy Boy' was added – Pascal-Alex Vincent’s ('Far West', 'Hollywood malgré lui') first venture into animation. The films in this section can be viewed for free in Realplayer format, while the 100 or so short fiction films in the Video on Demand area are available for a fee – with supermarket-like prices ranging from 0.99 to 2.99 euros.
The 'Concours' section is accessible only online – so to speak as a bonus - from ARTE France. It presents an animated film competition for French film students, with cash prizes for the winners. The 71 competition entries can be viewed as QuickTime movies.
'Forums - Blogs – Chat' leads only to another overview page with the sub-categories Blogs, Forum and Podcast, which can in some cases also be accessed directly from the main menu. 'Blogs' links to the general ARTE blog, which is of course not specific to short film. In the 'Forum' on the other hand, the only theme addressed is the online competition for student films ('Concours Online des Courts-métrages'). Under the heading 'Podcast', users can subscribe to the above-mentioned 'Kurzschluss' magazine features for iTunes, iPod or as Flux RSS.
The 'Info pratiques' section provides useful information on the production, sale and screening of short films. Also of interest here is insider information provided by the station on its short film purchases in past years as well as the opportunity to contact the editors.
What is really interactive here, besides a quiz on film formats, is the Atelier Final Cut, where users can edit a film online and add a soundtrack. The site prescribes the resource material that can be used, however. (cf. on this subject our article 'Short Film Remixing on the Internet')
These interactive interfaces were conceived by the multimedia agency Trois Fois Plus, which specializes in online games.
In summary, 'Court-Circuit off' is an interesting attempt to extend a television programme onto the Internet and to design it specifically for the medium of Web TV, even if the 'interactivity' is limited here to calling up pre-produced content. Television is and always will be a 'push' medium!
(rww)