Digifest Arrives at SMC Friday

Digifest is one of the largest events in multimedia design that it is celebrated all over the world. This year Santa Monica College will be hosting its own Digifest 2005, which will display design and digital projects by SMC students.

Most of the Digifest events are held in places such as Canada, which this year will be hosting "Digifest 2005 Going Wild," and present new insights into technological effects on the economy and culture brought about by multimedia design.

"There's a lot of industry and interns that show up for Digifest," said David Javelosa, who is one the leading teachers working in the video game design program along with William Lancaster, chair of the academy's Design Technology department. He is one of many who have made Digifest an event that has had a huge turnout over the past few years.

"We had quite a successful turnout last year at Digifest," said Javelosa. "We had a couple hundred people show up. Most of them were family and friends of the students who had submitted work to Digifest."

This is one of the reasons that many teachers and students who work making Digifest feel that they could be expecting a huge turnout this year as well. The event will be big, so there are plenty of things to do.

There will be tons of demos that students will be testing. Those who submit work have come from all over the globe, mainly made possible by the gaming companies that surround the school, who have participated by being some of the main contributors towards running Digifest.

The festival includes the animation / digital video screening and the exhibition of work submitted by the students. The goal of Digifest is to show that students are able to conjure up a vast amount of creativity that when mixed with technological factors result in these projects.

Javelosa said that contests aren't available at Digifest, which isn't the case for the other events that happen all over the world. But that is of little consequence as most of Digifest is just as good without it.

"I am pretty excited about Digifest," said Isaias Rojas, a student of Javelosa's video game design course. "I like video games, designing them and I might be willing to check out Digifest," he said. He is one of the many students of Santa Monica College who feel optimistic about the way Digifest will turn out.

Digifest will be held on Friday, May 13, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., with animation and video screenings at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., at the Academy of Entertainment and Technology, Room 235, 1660 Stewart St., Santa Monica. For information, call (310) 434-3700. The event is free of charge.