5 Things To Check Out At Tribeca Innovation Week

There's a familiar feeling in the air. New York has started thawing out, Spring is finally blossoming, and the sounds of birds on their branches can only mean one thing: it's Tribeca Season.

For those in the know, the nascent Tribeca Film Festival, started in 2002 by industry heavyweights Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hartkoff, as an effort to revitalize the neighborhood in the wake of 9/11. It's a premier destination for the best and brightest voices in cinema, storytelling, and anywhere and everywhere in between. A hotbed for films that run the gamut from major studio pictures like The Avengers, all the way through wide-right indie gems like Let The Right One In, the past few years has seen the festival take a cutting-edge approach towards promoting new and innovative modes of storytelling.

This year, as part of their ever-expanding foray into non-traditional modes of storytelling, the festival is proud to present Tribeca Innovation Week, a six-day stretch that includes an awards' show, a major tech summit, a hotly-anticipated panel series, a gaming festival, a mobile hackathon, and a major transmedia gallery showcase, all geared towards "coders, screenwriters, hackers, futurists, directors, the generally curious, and anyone who has a story to tell."

So grab your screening buddies and your place in line outside the box office, and join us we count down five of the best things worth seeing at Tribeca Innovation Week:

Circa 1948 allows visitors to explore an immersive, 3D installation that recreates 1948 Vancouver in stunning detail. The project features no-longer-existing landmarks from the seaport city, painstakingly rendered in historically accurate detail by Stan Douglas and Canada's NFB Digital Studio. Check out more work from the NFB here.

Another part of Storyscapes, and the first of its kind, Clouds is a feature-length, non-linear documentary made entirely out of code (see our past coverage on this project, too). The brainchild of master technowizards James George and Jonathan Minard, this immersive, experimental new mode of storytelling that we're itching to witness IRL.

Remember that super-hack in The Dark Knight: Returns that turned all of Gotham City into one giant surveillance beacon? Imagine that, but playable (and a lot less unsettling) with On A Human Scale. This audiovisual experience, created by the spectacularly-named Matthew Matthew, allows you to "play" a symphony of videos of New Yorkers, all on an adorable toy keyboard.

The Games For Change Festival focuses on the impact of gaming on positive, community-based social interaction. From April 22-26 at the NYU Skirball center, gaming takes center stage, featuring a showcase of some of the best and brightest minds in modern gaming, an awards show, and a free street fair, in the form of an arcade. Our carpal tunnel's already aching with anticipation.

Finally, this widely-anticipated series of panel discussions "will offer engaging, cross-disciplinary conversations about exciting opportunities for storytelling in our emerging cyber-culture."

While the centers of attention are, of course, the three powerhouses present in the image above, as well as a panel with Vice co-founder Shane Smith, our attention is focused on two panels in particular.

Technologies of Immersion on April 22 is a conversation on "how and why our brains are hardwired for cinema and storytelling" with up-and-coming filmmaker and "performing philosopher," Jason Silva. And secondly, Stories by Numbers on April 24, wherein "True believers and tech skeptics" including House of Cards writer Beau Willimon, will argue about the merits and faults of creating, acquiring, and producing content based on data and the "wisdom of crowds."

As a special bonus, The Creators Project is offering 20% discount on tickets by using promo code CREATORSPROJECT14. See you at the show!