Filmfest Hamburg: Throughout the past months you have been working intensely on the new website for Filmfest Hamburg. In your opinion, what is characteristic of a film festival website?

Dirk Platzek: What I concentrated most on was the programme calendar, because during my research on film festivals it always proved to be the central element. My presumption was that visitors especially need the calendar throughout the film festival because they want to know what films they can see when on a particular day. So I felt strongly about placing the calendar function centrally on the website in a way that a broad range of users would easily understand and be able to make use of. Simultaneously I wanted a more modern website. People who like to have everything digitalized and loaded onto their mobile devices can put together a personal selection of films and download it in iCal format (editor: a data format that can be read by modern calendar programmes) and can thus integrate it into their calendars.

Filmfest Hamburg: What else did you feel strongly about?

Dirk Platzek: In contrast to the former Filmfest website I wanted to increase the visualization of the topics “Filmfest” and “Film”. For instance, you can now watch the trailer on the homepage. And I wanted to emphasize the film festival’s vitality: on the homepage you can now see pictures that were taken the day before. And I asked myself “How do you present these pictures?”. So I built a simple Flash slideshow. The cross-fade is reminiscent of cinematic fades. When I use Flash as a design element I feel strongly about how something is animated and that it makes sense in context.

Filmfest Hamburg: So here Flash is not an end in itself, but you use it in allusion to film?

Dirk Platzek: An animation leads the eye, has rhythm and should take on a function. I spend a lot of time working on how something appears. Transitions should serve to help understand information. And I let animations help - it has nothing to do with decorations. My aim is always to make it as comfortable and understandable as possible for the user.

This was an HTML page, which was interesting for me, because I hadn’t been working with those for a while. In contrast to a Flash page, you are dealing with things page reloads, creating breaks in the flow of information intake.

Filmfest Hamburg: What do you mean?

Dirk Platzek: In Flash I have to content with a fixed size display area, but I can move seamlessly from one state to the next. With regular HTML pages there’s always the link which makes me jump somewhere else. There’s a white flash and the page reloads. Most users are used to it, but there’s something to be said for staying “in the picture” with Flash. Having said that, HTML offers you the “endless page” and it’s great to have all that space.

Filmfest Hamburg: A pure Flash page limits your space. What effects does that have on design procedures?

Dirk Platzek: It’s a different way of thinking: you work with levels, layering them or cross-fading them. The experience is less linear. The browsers forward-backward buttons don‘t work with Flash and at times it is probably more difficult to comprehend.

Filmfest Hamburg: You don’t call yourself “Web Designer”, but “Interaction Designer”. What does that mean?

Dirk Platzek: My work is not limited to the Web. I also design software and applications that do not run on the web, but at fairs, for instance. It is about design, but not just visual design - it is more about functionality and the “user experience”. For me this means that people can enter a website that they have never seen before and grasp at a glance how to use the page. It should be constructed in a way that appears familiar without being boring - a mixture of the familiar and the creative new.

There are thousands of possibilities of depicting a calendar and I have very consciously chosen a simple form. First and foremost I think about structure and the behaviour of interactive products, and then how visual design can support the results. And behind all that stands: how does the user get from A to B? How does he reach his goal without too many hurdles? It is a constant dialogue between man and machine…

Filmfest Hamburg: You have a different focus?

Dirk Platzek: My focus lies with the users. They need to be able to manage. Otherwise I have missed my goal.

Filmfest Hamburg: You normally work alone. Was that the case here?

Dirk Platzek: You already had someone that you were working with: Andrea Dittler of webspezi.com. She had complete knowledge of the Filmfest infrastructure, your databases and systems. I was very happy to get to know Andrea. We harmonized very well and we will extend our cooperation in the future. I was able to concentrate wholly on how the website functions and to think about what it looks like and whether it will be understood. Andrea could then concentrate on how to underlay it with a system that the Filmfest team could easily administer. Of course, the page is also constructed so as to function without problems on all browsers and systems.

Filmfest Hamburg: I have one last, slightly more personal question. You have occupied yourself with the website and the films and have empathized with the users. What films are you personally most interested in?

Dirk Platzek: I love losing myself in the plot of a film. I need to be moved, need to feel the characters. My boyfriend is an actor, so I have a heightened interest in acting and good actors. Right now I have this thing for Danish films. I particularly like the mixture of humour, earnestness and acting qualities. I am fascinated by the simple means employed by Susanne Bier.

Filmfest Hamburg: And is there a particular film you are eager to see?

Dirk Platzek: I must confess that so far I have only skimmed through the programme. But some films I have already marked in my mind are “Adoration”, “4 Nights with Anna” and “Three Monkeys”. And there are also a number of interesting TV films, such as the new “Hamburg Tatort”. I’m glad it’s starting soon!

The interview was held by Kati Baumgarten, press and communications Filmfest Hamburg

Dirk Platzek is owner of the company Wunschfeld (www.wunschfeld.net, [email protected]).