In
a ceremony held June 13, 2003, The Bell Fund awarded
$10,000 to the creative team to continue its development
of the project.
"The winning show Accidental Lovers pushes the
limits of artistic and business models for a new kind
of interactive entertainment," said Bell Fund
Board Member and CyberPitch jurist Catherine Warren.
"We gave the Bell Fund prize to this creative
team for their imagination and audacity in creating
a romantic comedy that unites love, death and musical
improvisation with live audience participation between
cell phones and TV." The project surpassed 23
other international applicants for the prize.
Accidental Lovers is an iTV program about the romance
between a 60 year-old artist and a 29 year-old musician
whose lives and deaths are determined by the choices
of the audience. It is one of several projects currently
underway at Helsinki's Crucible Studio, which aims
"to achieve deeper emotional experiences in the
interactive media and to create production methods
to develop content and technology simultaneously in
the multi-talented teams of artists, designers, scientists
and technology". http://crucible.lume.fi/crunet.nsf
The CyberPitch Award is handed out each year at the
Banff Television Festival. It is one of a series of
three CyberPitches held throughout the country. In
May, the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund awarded
a CyberPitch prize at the Hot Docs Festival, and the
next CyberPitch award will be presented at nextMEDIA,
to be held in Charlottetown, PEI, October 22
24. In addition to the Bell Fund cash award, winners
receive complimentary registration for the next CyberPitch
venue, post-festival mentorship from the Banff New
Media Institute at The Banff Centre and the opportunity
to attend the Banff New Media Institute's Interactive
Screen programme.
The Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund encourages the
development and production of content for digital
media and television and aims to stimulate partnerships
and learning among members of the new media and television
industries. The Bell Fund receives annual contributions
from Bell ExpressVu as part of its broadcast distribution
undertaking (BDU) contributions to the industry. The
Bell Fund is incorporated as a not-for-profit organization,
governed by an independent Board of Directors representing
various sectors of the television and new media industry.
The Fund is administered by the Independent Production
Fund.