Words You Can Use: The BAVC BLOG

by Wendy Levy, Director of Creative Programming at BAVC

I admit it. I read all technology news through a distinctly independent lens. The new gadgets and functionalities and trends interest me mostly in how they can, or will, impact documentary and creative storytelling, advocacy, communities without access, and people in need. At BAVC, we regularly invite tech geeks, filmmakers and activists to sit at the same tables in the same rooms to share vocabularies and concepts in nascent stages. It’s like herding really smart, creative and sometimes resistant sheep. Things have been changing - new platforms are now more deeply connected to content and audience than ever before.

That’s a good thing.

Looking ahead to 2008, to where media technology is going, and what independent producers are thinking about and creating, I just wanted to put a flashing yellow post-it on a couple of areas that need some attention from those of us devoted to world-changing independent media.

Online Advertising
At a BAVC Innovation Salon last year, I remember talking to a sales exec from Video Egg who basically told me that online advertising was the new black and that indie producers needed to get with it or get lost. VideoEgg, according to their website, is the “pioneering video ad network for online communities. We connect brands to consumers with video and rich media across a network of more than 200 leading video and gaming sites, social networks and applications. We are helping redefine the world of online advertising.” So as their Eggnetwork is redefining the world of online advertising for the likes of ABC, SPRINT, NOKIA, and BURGER KING, and FACEBOOK, who represents the independent producer?

FROM BEET.TV
Dynamic Downloadable Advertising is Going to Be Big in 2008
“Although the consumption of streaming Flash video will continue to dominate the bulk of online video viewing, the growth of downloadable media to a desktop application is going to quickly accelerate. For many innovative online video publishers, distribution of online video via download exceeds streaming. This is the case at The Washington Post, according to Tom Kennedy, managing editor for multimedia — and at Rocketboom, according to show creator Andrew Baron. Whether via P2P, iTunes, or the upcoming Adobe Media Player, more consumers will download and save videos. Bandwidth, coupled with inexpensive storage, is making this possible. So, what about advertising? How are ads inserted into downloaded media and how can these ads stay fresh? Meaning, if an ad for a new product is inserted, will it get “stale” when the clip is viewed six months later? These are important issues and as far as I can see, the issue of effective advertising into downloadable media is far from being sorted out.”

TO-DO: Indies should be checking out companies like San Francisco-based Podaddies.com and others who are working in this space, to understand fully how they can maximize the value and reach of their media. Using new Adobe tools, independents can learn how to insert ads into downloadable Flash videos in just a few days in a BAVC Web Video class, and monetizing your media online can be revealed in its most current iteration.

I know this stuff can leave you feeling like you need a shower, but there are green companies, companies committed to social change, truly innovative companies, who can provide dynamic partnerships to help develop both audiences and revenue for noncommercial and out-of-the-box independent mediamakers.

Digital Preservation
FROM the NYTIMES . . . The Afterlife is Expensive For Digital Movies
In his article The Afterlife is Expensive For Digital Movies, Michael Cieply recently unpacked some ideas around video and media data preservation of the future, and the significant cost of preserving and migrating works of art that are born digital, vs. those that originate on film: “To store a digital master record of a movie costs about $12,514 a year, versus the $1,059 it costs to keep a conventional film master. . . Much worse, to keep the enormous swarm of data produced when a picture is ‘born digital’ — that is, produced using all-electronic processes, rather than relying wholly or partially on film — pushes the cost of preservation to $208,569 a year, vastly higher than the $486 it costs to toss the equivalent camera negatives, audio recordings, on-set photographs and annotated scripts of an all-film production into the cold-storage vault. All of this may seem counterintuitive. After all, digital magic is supposed to make information of all kinds more available, not less. But ubiquity, it turns out, is not the same as permanence.”

Who is going to subsidize or cover these costs for independently-produced films and videos? Who will ensure the cultural and creative legacy these works of art inspire? APTS (Association of Public Television Stations), CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) and PBS are developing the American Archive to preserve, digitize, catalogue, clear rights, and provide access to for past, present and future PBS content. This is a huge and much-needed national initiative that involves federal budget appropriations, and a web of complex partnerships. But what if your film is not a Library of Congress title, and has not been broadcast on PBS?

TO-DO: Independent producers should be thinking and talking about the future of their work before the first grant proposal is written. As we start to take responsibility for holistic and sustainable production models, budget templates should be amended to include line items for platform-independent production and distribution, tagging, storage, preservation, and access. Funders will need to understand these new line items, and insist that projects in their portfolio have a preservation plan.

BAVC runs a Video and Audio Preservation Center for the nonprofit community that can provide independents, organizations, and institutions with subsidized rates for preservation, digitization, and storage, along with guidance on technical resources, grant consultation, and budget development. Wherever you go to investigate models and methods for preserving your media, go soon. Media is at-risk right now. DVDs are not a viable, longterm preservation solution. Your digital assets are part of the cultural and creative legacy of the next generation, or destined for the 8-track box at the garage sale, a disk no one can recognize, a file no one can open.

Next Week: Smart Phone Technology for Independents