A one-day summit for mediamakers, technologists, scholars, curators, and funders
March 20, 2012 @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Media Lab Complex, 6th floor
(corner of Amherst Street and Ames Street)
9:00 Registration/Breakfast
9:30 Welcome
9:35 Documentary’s Legacy of Innovation
William Uricchio, Director, MIT Comparative Media Studies
9:55 Collaborative Activity
10:30 The Landscape of Innovation
New documentary forms draw on decades of innovation in filmmaking, interactive media, collaborative authorship, data visualization and technology. They blur the boundaries between producers and users; empower once marginal communities; and open new possibilities for storytelling. How might we map this new landscape? How can we create a common language among people with different expertise—storytellers and technologists, community activists and content experts? How do makers, scholars, critics, and funders develop a framework for evaluation, reach, and impact?
Conversation starters:
Facilitator: William Uricchio, MIT Comparative Media Studies
11:30 Coffee
11:50 A Fabric of Implication
Today’s documentary makers face a landscape characterized by near-ubiquitous connectivity, user-generated content, and fast-changing platforms. As the relationships among maker, subject and audience continue to change, when do projects succeed, and when do they fail? What can we learn from the collaborative efforts of the past and how might we enhance the interactions between media makers and their community partners? What are the benefits—and trade-offs—of collaborative authorship? What practical and ethical issues are bound up in these kind of collaborative projects? What can we learn from such developments as the open source movement, transmedia strategies, and social activism, and what are their implications for the future of documentary?
Conversation starters:
Facilitator: Chris Walley, MIT Anthropology
1:05 Lunch
2:00 The Pathways of Ideation (Break-out session)
As documentaries move across screens and off them, from single author to many, and from one-hour duration to minutes, days and years, how can we find suitable business models, distribution channels and exhibition venues? How can projects distributed online or embedded on location build an audience? When projects straddle the boundary between “film” and “new media,” where can their creators go for funding? Do new forms of production and engagement bring with them new possibilities for sponsorship, whether institutional, corporate or crowd-sourced? How can we re-imagine the interaction of new media forms in traditional media venues?
Conversation starters:
3:00 Wrap up
3:30-4:00 Demos, with coffee and refreshments
Note: People will be pulled out for short interviews in our story booth. People may also use the story booth themselves.