Filmmaker Summit

The Workbook Project, Slamdance, and Open Video Alliance have put together a great group of speakers as part of the  Filmmaker Summit this Saturday, January 23, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm (US Mountain Time).   The Summit brings together innovators and organizers from the Indie and DIY world to discuss the challenges and opportunities of the current media landscape.  The impressive line up includes: Peter Baxter, Steven Soderbergh, Khavn De La Cruz, Brian Newman, Christy Dena, Jamie King, Jon Reiss, Lance Weiler, and Timo Vuorensola.  Perhaps as important as the gathering of the delegates and the accompanying dialogue is the larger approach and conversation the summit is trying to foster, that is, they are inviting a global audience into the streaming session as well as asking for your participation through a discussion forum about what you feel are the key issues facing contemporary media makers.  The commitment to open access and democratic process is central to the summit as you can see from the Producer’s Statement below.   As we all know, we are in a time of rapid and global transformation of information and expression brought on by digital technology, but it remains to be seen what the actual shape of that change will be.   It’s crucial we take every opportunity to connect in, network across, and participate in events that bring together folks helping to move this change into more democratic and inclusive directions.

The Institute for Multimedia Literacy at USC along with Columbia University will be participating in the summit from the online world with input on the forum as well as backchannel questions and twitter commentary.   I will be facilitating the event at the IML.  For those who want to follow the Filmmaker Summit on twitter, the hashtag is: #FS10

For  the streaming link, complete schedule, and detailed bios on the speakers, please click here.

STATEMENT FROM THE PRODUCERS

The mission of the Slamdance, WorkBook Project and Open Video Alliance Filmmaker Summit is to jointly craft a new charter for filmmaking, storytelling and content distribution, with and by the global filmmaking community.Our collaboration is born out of reaction to an independent film industry currently in a state of change and how, as a global filmmaking community, we can better understand and find greater success afforded by new technology and the democratization of new tools and processes.

We believe sustainable independent filmmaking is no longer about the production itself. Instead, it’s about how filmmakers must now expand their role and take charge of reaching and engaging worldwide audiences across all viewing platforms. In this direct approach, the viewer is now collaborative, less passive and more connected then every before. New business models will emerge as a direct result of experimentation and transparency around process, the Filmmaker Summit is an attempt to chart a course towards sustainability one that is by filmmakers for filmmakers while at the same time being inclusive of the audiences that support them.

Transmedia Activism Idea Exchange

One of our aims for this framework is to lead the creation of a community of practice that moves the creation and distribution of media, art and cultural assets from awareness to action.  So we have created a space for you to discuss ideas and best practices related to transmedia and social change.  Please visit the Idea Exchange link on this page to explore each other’s projects, content and social change solutions.

2009 NAMAC Conference

Lina Srivastava will be speaking on a panel entitled “The People Formerly Known as the Audience,” at NAMAC’s 2009 Conference, “Commonwealth,” on August 27, 2009.

The panel explores: Social media and other democratic technologies have shifted our thinking about the relationships between producers, consumers, and distributors of media and art. Join us for some leading-edge thinking and examples of participatory projects — and discuss what the future of art and media looks like when it’s built in collaboration with the public.

The other panel speakers are:  Thomas Allen Harris, filmmaker; Brian Reich, little m media; and Adrienne Russell, Denver Open Media.  Moderated by: Jessica Clark, Center for Social Media

DIY Days, August 1, 2009, Philadelphia

We will be at DIY DAYS in Philadelphia this week, Saturday, August 1, to run the transmedia activism workshop.
DIY DAYS – fund :: create :: distribute :: sustain
How do we sustain ourselves as storytellers in this day of shifting distribution systems? How do we monetize our work and get the word? Presented by the WorkBook Project – DIY DAYS aims to answer these questions with a day of panels, roundtable discussions and workshops: A look at how to fund, create, and distribute and sustain.

For more info: http://diydays.com/

Open Video Conference June 19 & 20, NYC

Here’s the presentation from our workshop at the Open Video Conference on Transmedia Activism: Creating a cross-media platform for social issue campaigns. Our workshop examined opportunities to create social change using online tools and cross-media strategies by presenting the basic structure of a transmedia activism campaign and an illustrative case study, Boomtown Babylon, a 30-minute interactive multi-authored web documentary that encompasses a wide range of places, people, and stories to present a participatory journey through the most acute extremes of the global urbanization phenomenon. In addition to mapping out the framework for a campaign, we also featured a “hands on” segment whereby all workshop participants starting to build a transmedia platform campaign with a focus on: issue and goal identification, story universe construction and content distribution.

OVC Workshop facilitators: Lina Srivastava, Lina Srivastava Consulting, LLC; Lotje Sodderland, director, Boomtown Babylon; Vicki Callahan, Associate Professor, UW-Milwaukee

Boomtown Babylon

Sleepers of Sao Paulo. The homeless © Carlos Cazalis http://www.cazalis.org

BOOMTOWN BABYLON

As the global urban population expands at a rate of 3 million people per week, the gulf between the haves and have-nots is ever widening in cities around the world. While the wealthy retreat to safe, gated communities, the poor are forced into marginal slums, where the destruction of social capital through poverty, civil strife and displacement, cast a grim future.

Boomtown Babylon is a 30-minute interactive web documentary that offers a participatory journey through the most acute extremes of the global urbanization phenomenon, inviting the viewer to embark on a compelling ride from the slums and pavements of the poorest neighbourhoods, to the private mansions of the very wealthy, in six of the world’s most divided cities, meeting local characters as they navigate through each location.

A non-linear format will lead the user from the documentary’s opening sequence to its conclusion, via a series of multiple, inter-changeable paths and optional, additional interactive features.

The Boomtown Babylon film-making process is based on a pioneering online platform which allows local film-makers living in such cities as Lagos, Paris, and Phnom Penh to collaborate remotely on the project.

Produced by Honkytonk Films (Paris), Boomtown Babylon will offer a seminal, globally-accessible public platform to address the big issues facing city-dwellers around the world, using innovative online technologies and high calibre filmmaking to draw a broad spectrum of viewers.

For more information download the documentary proposal (Pdf) or visit http://www.minilot.tv

Shanghai China © Greg Girard http://www.greggirard.com