UPCOMING EVENTS
Making Your Media Matter Rescheduled
Making Your Media Matter
May 12th, 2010
American University
Real Stories, Real Impact
Due to the blizzard that hit D.C. in February, we have rescheduled Making Your Media Matter for May 12, 2010. For those of you who weren't able to join us for the previous date but would still like to register, you can do so here.
Don't miss the chance to be a part of this annual opportunity for filmmakers, nonprofit communications leaders, teachers and students to network and share success stories and lessons learned.
This year's conference will feature a keynote from Pamela Yates and Paco de Onis, makers of The Reckoning, on strategic partnerships and design for your project. It will also feature panels on developing synergies in your subject field, an ethics workshop, and fiction films for change.
MYMM is presented in partnership with the Media That Matters Festival, which is a project of Arts Engine, Inc.
Fighter Screening with Panel
cosponsored by the American University Library
April 7th - 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. Wechsler Theater, American University Join us on April 7th for a viewing of Fighter and a panel to follow with guests Josef Lustig, Jana Svehlova and Nina Shapiro-Perl
Fighter follows two Holocaust survivors back to the sites of their suffering; it showcases two starkly contrasting responses to the same set of circumstances.
Best of Input 2010
 What does public television look like in Russia, in Brazil, in Germany? Check out the line up for the 2010 Best of Input screenings, held in Washington, D.C. from April 5 to April 11, 2010.
INPUT, the International Public Television Screening Conference, annually brings together international programmers and independent television producers for public television since 1978. The Center for Social Media and allies, led by the Goethe Institute, select some of the most interesting programs from the conference. View the complete schedule here>>>
|
|
New Muslim Cool Field Report
 We are pleased to release the final report in our field report series, New Muslim Cool: Engaging Stakeholders throughout the Filmmaking Process. Published as part of the Future of Public Media project, these field reports explore how publics form around participatory and multiplatform media projects. New Muslim Cool is the last field report in a series of six conducted between 2007 and 2009. In it, CSM Research Fellow Nina Keim analyzes how the feature-length documentary film New Muslim Cool engaged stakeholders in the filmmaking process, resulting in a film that inspires young American Muslims, promotes an interfaith dialogue and helps users overcome prejudices about the Muslim youth community in the United States. Here is an overview of the complete series>>>
Public Media 2.0 Showcase
Ellen Goodman's FCC Report
We're proud to bring you the first report from Center for Social Media Fellow Ellen Goodman, who is a Professor at the Rutgers School of Law and Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the FCC working part time on the FCC's Future of Media Project. In the report Ellen discusses the National Broadband Plan and what that means for the future of public media. Read the report here>>>
Working Together to Define Why Our Media Matters
 On March 18, The National Alliance for Media Art and Culture hosted a lively "Media Impact Summit" that drew together leading public and independent media makers, funders and researchers to share and hone assessment strategies. The goal of these structured discussions was to gather relevant approaches to evaluating public interest media in order to share information and build tools with stakeholders in the field. Read on>>>
Better Coordination Needed to Map Local Media Ecologies
(Co-published on PBS' MediaShift Blog)
 This month Jessica Clark looks at the use of maps to engage local publics. Since 2008 when she began mapping analysis, she noticed maps underscored the siloed nature of news production. There were maps of public TV stations, community media projects, and citizen bloggers, all maintained separately by different entities and aimed at very different users. Such isolation makes it difficult to trace the relationships between these different kinds of outlets in any one place. Read on>>>
Public Media 2.0 Local Journalism Style
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which manages the federal money (about 15%) in public broadcasting, has diligently been trying to drag public broadcasters into the 21st century for a while. Inside that building, they know that the most important thing pubcasters can do now is to leave their buildings, and build community relationships for a stronger public culture. The latest CPB initiative, Local Journalism Centers (or LJCs, like pubcasters need any more acronyms), was showcased in March at the Newseum. Read more here>>>
A Look at Corey Booker, the Social Media Mayor How are politicians using social media platforms to not only glean votes and support, but to communicate with voters about what it takes to govern? Earlier this month, Newark, New Jersey's Mayor Cory Booker's twitter blog took home the "Shorty Award" in the government category. Booker is no stranger to media attention. Originally elected to Newark City Council in 1998 at age 29, Booker made his presence felt both in Newark and the media immediately. Read more>>>
|
Fair Use and Copyright
Clipping Our Own Wings: Scholars, Copyright and Fair Use
Fair Use at SXSW
UCLA Does the Right thing by Fair Use
 UCLA, which in January yanked down videos being streamed for classroom use as a result of bullying by a trade association has rediscovered that educators have fair use rights. Now, UCLA professors can post videos again within their passworded class sites online. In a UCLA press release, Christine Borgman, chair of the Information Technology Planning Board and UCLA Presidential Professor of Information Studies, said, "The UCLA faculty and administration quickly reached consensus on both the need to restore these essential instructional services and to assert our rights to use intellectual property within the bounds of existing copyright laws." While UCLA pointed to special educational exemptions, it rested its argument on fair use. Read more here>>>
Critical Commons: Deleuze and Culture
 This month's creative example of using fair use for cultural studies, from Critical Commons: French philosopher Gilles Deleuze has been a favorite of film scholars and cultural theorist for decades, but now you can explore many of the film clips that Deleuze analyzes in his classic texts Cinema 1: The Movement Image and Cinema 2: The Time Image. Kara Keeling, of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, used Critical Commons to post movie clips and commentaries as part of her Deleuze and Culture class last fall and has now opened the discussion up to Deleuzians and cinephiles worldwide. View the clips and read commentaries here.
Remix videos, mashups, memorials, fan videos and other works that build in copyrighted material sometimes get taken down from YouTube and other video sites, because automatic bot programs identify copyrighted material. And then stupidity ensues. All the audio in Larry Lessig's February speech to the Open Video Alliance was recently taken down because Warner Music Group identified some copyrighted material in clips of remixes that he used to demonstrate the vitality of emergent participatory culture. (You can still watch it on Blip TV, though.) Journalists and the Electronic Frontier Foundation cried foul, and Lessig will contest it. And it will go back up. But YouTube needs to build into its service the human touch-an actual person needs to make a fair use judgment before YouTube plays censor on behalf of the likes of WMG. Read more here>>>
Fair Use Question of the Month: Using Copyrighted Material to Illustrate Historical Moments
 Every month the Center for Social Media answers a new question concerning fair use. This month's question deals with using copyrighted material to illustrate historical moments. Raising standards and keeping alive the arts are important aspects of fair use and particularly noteworthy when using copyrighted material in historic illustrations. Read more here>>>
|
Evolving Documentary
Film Distribution Insight at SXSW
 Public media mavens closely watch general business trends, if they want to seize opportunities. So at SXSW, the Center's Director Pat Aufderheide was scouting for shifts in distribution. How does the Internet change film distribution? Not all that much, yet, although it can really change marketing. This was the upshot of what seemed like every other panel at SXSW-both on the film and interactive sides. Consensus was that old-fashioned mass media is still what pays the bills; in that environment, the big news is how much people will pay for Video on Demand (movie-ticket prices). Read on>>>
Documentaries at SXSW
South by Southwest Film Festival, in Austin, TX, has become a rich environment for documentaries, under the aegis of Janet Pierson (and if you don't know this extraordinary champion of indie film, check out her interview on the POV blog). Read on here for Center Director Pat Aufderheide's review of the films she saw at the festival.
Havana Miami: Video Diaries Across Borders and Platforms In 1997 Center's Research Fellow Barbara Abrash interviewed documentary filmmaker Ilan Ziv - a pioneer in video storytelling in projects like On the Edge of Peace (1995), an Israeli-Palestinian coproduction in which three Palestinians and three Israelis were given cameras to record their experiences during a hopeful period of peace negotiations. Ziv was a powerful advocate for small-format reports on "ordinary lives shaped by political circumstances," producing video diaries in many parts of the world. Fast forward to 2010 and Havana-Miami: Times are changing, an interactive online documentary launched in February 2010. Havana-Miami is a cross-platform transnational production beyond Ziv's wildest dreams. Read on>>>
Judith Helfand at SOC
Filmmaker Judith Helfand was in DC last week to screen her film Cooked with the Environmental Film Festival. While she was in town she joined us at the CSM for the day to lead a master class. The class focused on the distinction between outreach and engagement. She also led an evening session detailing the submission process for Chicken and Egg Pictures, and encouraged all novice documentary filmmakers to make their personal connection to their story very clear in their proposals. R ead a transcript of her 2003 presentation at CSM here. Also keep an eye out for a video from the master class which will be made available on our website soon.
|
Miro 3.0 Released!
It's great to have an open source video player, but really great to have such an elegant one. Announcing Miro's new 3.0 version. It has new features, starts up much faster, downloads faster, and supports subtitles. Download it here.
Public Radio Remakes Itself by Entering into IPhone Age
 Check out Ars Technica's recent article which details Public Radio Exchanges's new iPhone app for public radio, Public Radio Player. PRX hoped for 500,000 downloads. It now has 2.5 million. "I'm very happy with that number," says PRX Executive Director Jake Shapiro. The PRX development team has already cranked out two great iPhone apps, one for public radio in general and one for the popular show This American Life in particular. Read the entire article here>>>
Sundance Documentary Film Good Pitch
 The Good Pitch is a project of The Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation in partnership with the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program. This live event brings together specially selected foundations, NGOs, social entrepreneurs, broadcasters and other media people to expand the resources aimed at maximizing the impact of social-issue documentary. The Good Pitch will take place on April 27, 2010 in NYC hosted by Tribeca Film Festival. The Good Pitch comes soon to the Silverdocs Film Festival near Washington D.C. Deadline for submissions is April 6, 2010 at www.britdoc.org/goodpitch.
Gleitsman Social Change Film Forum
April 16 & 17
Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership presents a film forum that explores the question: can film change the world? This event will honor exceptional documentary films from this year's Sundance Film Festival - and experience film's power to arouse emotions, change minds, and improve the world . More information here>>>
Docs In Progress Documentary Filmmaking from A to Z Wednesday April 7th --May 5th
7-9pm
 How can you identify and tell your documentary story effectively while maintaining focus throughout the filmmaking process? Why do you need to think early on about structure, character development, and who the audience for your film will be? Participants will develop a proposal and budget and learn strategies for planning production, editing, and distribution for their projects. to new and experienced filmmakers. Register here>>>
|
|
