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Clive Owen

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IT DESIGNERS hi-res!

AGES Florian Schmitt, 29; Alexandra Jugovic, 30 WHY THEM? With intricately imagined promotional sites for such experimental fare as Requiem for a Dream and The Center of the World garnering almost as much attention as the films themselves, the German natives have established their London-based firm hi-res! as the outside-the-box site-smith. SOUND HE MOST LIKES TO HEAR ''Someone in the office saying, 'Everybody, come have a look at this!' and showing us something new they've done,'' says Schmitt, who speaks for both here. DREAM COLLABORATORS ''I would love to do something for Depeche Mode. Anything, even be a roadie.'' CAREER HE'D MOST LIKE TO HAVE ''Mostly my own--though sometimes, after an 18-hour day, that of my supermarket cashier.'' HOW THEY SURVIVED THE DOTCOM FALLOUT ''By always trying to find our own niche [i.e., film promotion] and never relying on dotcom clients.'' NEXT A site for the upcoming film Jump Tomorrow, a Sundance contender due for limited release in July.

IT DIRT DISHER Kevin Smith

AGE 30 WHY HIM? Clerks and Dogma director Smith was among the first filmmakers to embrace the Internet, launching viewaskew.com in 1997 to cultivate his fan base. Recently, he's become an acid-tongued Army Archerd for freaks and geeks, regularly slamming such Hollywood sacred cows as Disney, Miramax, and director Paul Thomas Anderson (his anti-Magnolia rant is legendary). ''I think people appreciate getting a peek behind the curtain,'' says Smith, who takes plenty of shots at himself. ''I figured they'd enjoy it even more if I pulled the entire curtain down, shredded it, and burned the remnants.'' REQUIRED WEB READING The message boards at aint-it- cool-news.com. ''It reminds me that not everyone is going to like what I do.'' CAREER HE'D MOST LIKE TO HAVE ''God's.'' CLOSEST BRUSH WITH CAREER IMMOLATION ''Do the death threats we received for Dogma count?'' NEXT Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (August). ''The flick's largely a satire on how ridiculous Internet culture can be.''

IT GAMER Neil Young

AGE 31 WHY HIM? The most anticipated videogame of the year isn't on Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's Xbox, or Nintendo's GameCube. It's Majestic, the creation of lifelong game developer Young, which leads players through an eerily realistic maze of websites, faxes, e-mails, instant messages, and phone calls to uncover a government conspiracy. To support Majestic's first webisode in early July, more than 30 dummy corporations and a hundred bogus phone numbers were created. WHAT MULDER AND SCULLY HAVE TO DO WITH IT The X-Files and the 1997 Michael Douglas thriller The Game were Young's biggest influences. DREAM COLLABORATOR ''Orson Welles, in his War of the Worlds prime.'' CAREER HE'D MOST LIKE TO HAVE ''What Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and Brian De Palma did for film in the '70s, we want to do for interactive entertainment.'' WHY YOU MAY BE GETTING A CALL Young, who never went to college, envisions a Majestic TV series in which the hero could phone viewers with tips on the next move. next The William Morris Agency is repping the project, so expect to see top-notch actors join the cast.