By Jessica Kantor

Getting settled at South By Southwest, after the hoopla of checking in and having a few hours before the kick off screening, I stopped by the Tweet House and caught the panel entitled “Mining the Buzz.” The major question is whether box office success can be predicted by measuring the buzz on Twitter (and also other relevant social media sites, obviously, but this panel was focused on Twitter).

We watched the Independent Spirit awards the other night and were not exactly blown away by them, not just because of how predictable they were (come on, it’s not like we were expecting a whole lot of shocks at the Oscars last night, either), but also because, well, it didn’t seem very independent.

Well, it’s here, the column to which you’ve all been anxiously looking forward, yes, it’s our big, nay huge, Oscar preview edition here at FNB, the one in which we somewhat confidently predict who will win at the Academy Award ceremony six days hence. In last year’s edition, we nailed all eight of our prognostications, but to be fair, we think that had as much to do with the predictability of the event than our own genius. Still, it’s a heady bar we’ve set for ourselves, and thus, with a little trepidation but without further ado, we’re going to get to it.

This week FilmNewsBriefs interviews Jason Spingarn-Koff the director of Life 2.0 which recently had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. We discuss creating the film using machinima, filming in a virtual worlds and the future of the internet.

A month ago, give or take, we made our early predictions about what would be the 10 nominees for best picture next month. Well, now that we’ve seen almost every film that has an even remote chance to make that list (we’re still short a couple but, rest assured, our diligence is fierce), we’ve decided to slightly modify said predictions and, at the same time, come clean about something of which we’re not terribly proud.

To start 2010, FilmNewsBriefs spoke with David and Ian Purchase. We discussed working with VFX, the inspiration from the video game Half-Life to make their hugely successful short film, “Escape from City 17,” and how they got the video game publisher Valve to approve and endorse their adaptation.

FilmNewsBriefs: When did you first start directing?
Ian Purchase: We have been picking up the camera and doing little things since we were eight years old. About age 14 we began to tell stories. After that we challenged ourselves more and more, integrating visual fx and trying to achieve a grander, more expensive look in our films without any money.

We are of the opinion that this whole, “ten films get nominated for Best Picture this year because we really want to open the field to more movies and not because we’re pandering to the lowest common denominator and want to increase ratings on the Academy Awards broadcast” thing is full of shenanigans, but since that’s the way it is, and this is our last editorial of 2009, we’ll play along and make some predictions.

This week FilmNewsBriefs had the pleasure of speaking with Parisian filmmaker Laurent Touil Tartour. We discussed his series, “Urban Wolf,” and creating content with new technologies for new mediums using inspiration from the past’s greatest filmmakers.

We ran a few stories last week about the 3D Summit in Los Angeles, but they were mostly regarding various discussions about technological breakthroughs like the 3D televisions that are rumored to be coming to the market soon and the way James Cameron shot his much anticipated “Avatar” and how exhibitors understand that the uncomfortable and style-lacking glasses people have to wear are part of the issue some folks have with the form. But we thought that what Jeffrey Katzenberg said in his keynote address was especially interesting.