By: Tina Singleton, Posted: Jun 9 09

Regions: United States

Issues: Other

Tags: art, education, seeding, technology, training, video, video advocacy

From May 29 - June 7, I attended the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC), Producers Institute for New Media Technologies in San Francisco, California. BAVC is a nonprofit media arts center founded in 1976 by a coalition of media makers and activists who wanted to find alternative, civic-minded applications for a new technology - PortaPak video. BAVC's continuing mission is to inspire social change by enabling the sharing of diverse stories through art, education and technology.

As Video Advocacy Training Coordinator at WITNESS, I was attending the Institute as an observer/participant to see how BAVC conducts this particular training program and to figure out ways WITNESS and BAVC can collaborate on the Institute in 2010.

The Producers Institute is a ten-day residency for eight creative teams (independent producers or public broadcasters) with a shared goal of developing and prototyping a multi-platform project inspired by, or based on a significant documentary project. The intention of the Institute is to develop socially relevant media projects for emerging digital platforms. Producers participated in high-level industry roundtables, intense one-on-one project development with technical mentors, new media storytelling workshops, and hands-on prototyping of their ideas. The participants created prototypes for exciting multiplatform projects adapted and developed film, video, and audio content for delivery using a range of interactive formats, including but not limited to video game applications, interactive, web-based experiences, mobile streaming, multi-user communities, and new educational software. Subjects included strip mining in Appalachia, sexual slavery, public health in Oakland California, the meat industry in the US, the human rights campaign to end apartheid in South Africa, Jamaican elders in the UK, creating an online global LGBT community, and troop support of soliders from Afghanistan and Iraq in Bangor, Maine.

The Institute provided creative mentors, technology consultants and advisors based on the needs of participants' projects. At the end of the residency, all participants pitched to a panel of venture capital funders, industry leaders, and foundations. As ongoing support after the Institute, BAVC hosts a web-based resource center for the continued sharing of new ideas, strategies, project development, and distribution opportunities. Here's an interview conducted in the 3D virtual world of Second Life by one of the Institute's mentors - Bernhard Drax (aka Draxtor Despres) - with Wendy Levy, BAVC's Director of Creative Programming:

I participated in the Public Program Plenary Panel discussion on The Future of Visual Storytelling: Content-Driven Technologies and the New Documentary Movement and provided some input on participant projects around advocacy and storytelling. In 2010, WITNESS will be collaborate with BAVC on the Producer's Institute to integrate NGOs and human rights advocacy into the Producer's Institute mix of technologists and documentary producers, and to help identify and pair social issue documentary producers and the cross-platform projects they develop at the Institute with nonprofit organizations working in the same issue area. We are excited to be collaborating with this dynamic organization and look forward to a long and productive partnership.

Visit bavc.org for more information and to view clips from Producers Institute 2009 projects.