AtomFilms, Be Here and Intel Empower Filmmakers with the Technology to Surround You with Entertainment from Every Angle

World's First 360° Immersive Internet Movie to Debut at AtomFilms.com and during the Cannes Film Festival

CANNES - May 9, 2000 - AtomFilms, Be Here and Intel Corporation today announced they are teaming up to deliver a new dimension of creative story telling technology, allowing filmmakers to create "immersive" movies for the Web. The first of these films, "The New Arrival," written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Amy Talkington, will debut at the Cannes Film Festival on May 10th.

Immersive entertainment is a new online experience in which viewers can navigate through a scene as an interactive participant. These movies are created using Be Here's iVideo technology, a new 360-degree Internet video technology, which provides a 360-degree view of each scene in a film. When watching the movie on the Internet, Be Here provides a whole new interactive and personalized experience by allowing viewers to control their own viewpoint, choosing where in the scene they want to look at next.

In conjunction with announcing the debut of "The New Arrival," AtomFilms, Intel and Be Here are hosting 360° Forward, an online campaign giving filmmakers an opportunity to engage in this new art form to create the next immersive Internet short film. Details about 360° Forward will be featured on the AtomFilms Web site at 360 Degree Forward, where users and filmmakers will be able to submit a two-page treatment using the concept of Be Here's iVideo.

Experimental filmmakers must submit treatments to AtomFilms by June 16th to be eligible for consideration. Three finalists will be selected by a panel of judges and based on feedback from the AtomFilms online community by June 26th. The winning entrant will be announced July 10th with his/her immersive short to debut on the AtomFilms Web site late this summer.

AtomFilms, the pioneer and recognized leader in next-generation entertainment, set the stage for community-powered entertainment last month at Internet World. 360° Forward is another example of empowering the community by giving them an opportunity to participate in the selection of the next Immersive online movie. "Immersive narrative film is an absorbing experience for the filmmaker and audience," said Matt Hulett, chief marketing and online officer of AtomFilms. "Atom's work with Be Here and Intel in introducing this next generation entertainment movement demonstrates the importance of looking for new ways to entertain and redefine the entertainment experience, both for filmmakers and consumers."

Intel is continuing to develop technologies that enhance the playback of rich media on the web, including Intel® Streaming Web Video software, which is integrated in RealNetworks' RealSystem G2, and significantly enhances video quality. The film "The New Arrival" will be first immersive movie delivered to the public using Intel's streaming video technology.

"Intel has been focusing on bringing higher quality entertainment to the Internet by developing technologies like video streaming," said David Ryan, director of technology marketing at the Intel Architecture Labs. "We are excited to be working with AtomFilms and Be Here to deliver a new type of viewing experience to users as well as to provide new tools to help filmmakers express their creativity."

"We are excited to work with AtomFilms and Intel to provide the movie industry with the first look at a breakthrough form of interactive entertainment," said Dr. Ted Driscoll, president and founder of Be Here. "The inauguration of the first 360-degree immersive movie promises to be a significant step forward in the movie industry and affords tremendous value to both moviemakers and fans alike."

Selected by AtomFilms, Intel and Be Here, award-winning filmmaker, Amy Talkington, who is best known for her Sundance short Second Skin, is debuting the first immersive film, "The New Arrival," at Cannes. Talkington embraced the new 360-degree technology to create the short film; a surreal tale in which a TV set is placed in a rest home. The twist ending will lure viewers to watch the short again and again to experience the movie from every angle.

"Creating the first immersive narrative film was a fascinating challenge. The 360-degree concept explodes everything you've ever learned about filmmaking and calls for new rules, new grammar and, most excitingly, a new kind of storytelling, " said Amy Talkington. "For those of us who are the first to play with this technology - we will be defining those rules and discovering new boundaries."

Sony Digital Imaging will be the presenting sponsor of 360 Forward section on AtomFilms.com. Sony's streaming 15-second ad spots will run prior to the "New Arrival" as well as other popular films on AtomFilms.com this summer.

About AtomFilms
AtomFilms is a leading next-generation entertainment company focused on creating a mass market for short films, animations and digital media. A loyal supporter of independent filmmakers and animators, AtomFilms has built a platform for artists looking for worldwide distribution. AtomFilms markets and distributes high-quality short form entertainment to audience's worldwide, with significant presence on major Internet sites, broadband services, television, airlines and home entertainment companies. AtomFilms.com is one of the top twenty entertainment sites, according to Media Metrix, and listed as one of the top ten best movie-related sites by Entertainment Weekly. AtomFilms was also rated "best of the Web" for online entertainment by U.S. News & World Report. PC Magazine recognized AtomFilms as one of the top five entertainment Web sites in 1999. An independent company founded in 1998, AtomFilms has offices in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York and London. More information about AtomFilms can be found on the Internet at http://www.atomfilms.com.

About Be Here
Be Here Corporation is the leading provider of Internet 360° video technology used worldwide by entertainment, news and sports Webcasters. Be Here delivers live and on demand streaming 360° Internet video with levels of personalization, context and involvement that other mediums or technologies simply cannot achieve. Be Here-powered Internet programming makes good on the promise of interactive viewing by enabling viewers to "look around" at an event at will - just as if they were at the event itself. Viewers control personalized 360° camera angles independent of other viewers to gain an impactful, "be here" experience. Be Here's easy-to-use, open platform solutions have been employed by the National Football League to webcast the Superbowl XXXIV, ESPN for the Summer and Winter X Games and by BMG for the Sundance Film Festival Music Studio. The company is headquartered in Cupertino, Calif. For more information, log onto http://www.behere.com.

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.