Category Archives: New Online

Mapping Our Memories: Tributopia Launches Memorial Day

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Tributopia, the project inspired by the ITVS-funded documentary The Grove, is a free iPhone app for creating virtual memorials and remembering lost loved ones by posting tributes on an interactive map. Tributopia invites engagement by connecting memories to a specific place. With the augmented reality feature, users looks through the viewfinder and can find virtual tributes overlaying the real world around them. Tributopia launches in conjunction with Memorial Day, just before Gay Pride Month.

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Filmmaker Andy Abrahams Wilson gives us this inside look at the inspiration behind the app and his take on the changing interactive media landscape:

How did making The Grove inspire your idea for Tributopia?

The AIDS Memorial Grove founders envisioned a nature-based memorial in which individuals could till their grief and find comfort in seeing their own human experience reflected in nature. While the stigma of AIDS created invisible victims and survivors often excluded from traditional rituals of burial and remembrance, having a special place to remember and share was especially important.

While I was in the midst of production on The Grove, I vacationed in Mexico and witnessed scores of roadside memorials adorned with flowers, pictures, and photos. I was mesmerized and wanted to know what happened and whom it happened to. It was as if those shrines wanted to speak to me, to tell me their story. I began to realize how vital the connection was between memory and place, and between community and communication.  Hence, the idea for Tributopia was born: a way to use new media to tell stories of loss – to connect memories to place and join in a community of remembrance.

What was the experience like, going from being a “traditional” documentary filmmaker to working in the interactive media space? Was there a large learning curve?

There was an enormous learning curve. We tend to take for granted our mastery over our own craft. Suddenly I found myself facing a technology, terminology and business model that were alien to me. While we cling to the idea of “storytelling” as a unifying theme and comforting commonality, I really did feel like I was entering a brave new world! Continue reading →

Wonder Women! Inspires WONDER CITY Game

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By Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Kelcey Edwards
Filmmakers, Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines

WONDER CITY has been developed as companion game to the PBS documentary feature, Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines (tonight at 10 PM on Independent Lens). While the film encourages young audiences to explore pop cultural history as a means of thinking critically, the WONDER CITY game aims to change how we visualize power and gender.

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We were first encouraged to create a game at the BAVC Producers’ New Media Institute. Our research found that half of girls ages 8 to 12 play games online. The most popular “girl games” center on themes like cooking, shopping, makeup, and dating, and the default protagonist of most other games is a white male. This lack of representation discourages girls and women from participating in the gaming community – as either consumers or creators.

While making the film, we became aware of how few women occupy leadership positions – fewer than 15 percent! – in politics, business, government and the media. Despite the gains of the women’s movement, we still live in a world where girls are rarely protagonists, let alone shown as strong, smart, or bold. Girls are constantly bombarded by messages and media representations that put them into narrow, stereotyped boxes and limit their choices. Too few girls have risen to be leaders in business, politics, government, or media.

Our hope is that WONDER CITY will undermine these problematic stereotypes and gender limitations by immersing players in a world that represents a more realistic diversity in race, gender, and body image. By empowering tweens to adopt their own superhero identity, they become agents of their own values. Continue reading →

The Power of Words: “Story of an Egg” Now Streaming in PBS Online Film Festival

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ITVS is thrilled that Douglas Gayeton’s “Story of an Egg” has been selected as part of the PBS Online Film Festival. The video is one of three short films produced for the Lexicon of Sustainability, a multiplatform project that uses photo collage, animation, and hand-written typography to explore terms and ideas behind sustainable agriculture. 

Watch 2013 Festival | Story of an Egg on PBS. See more from PBS Online Film Festival.

The Lexicon of Sustainability is based on a simple premise: people can’t be expected to live more sustainable lives if they don’t even know the most basic terms and principles that define sustainability.

For three years Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton crisscrossed the USA to learn this new language of sustainability from its foremost practitioners in food and farming. In all, nearly two hundred leaders in food and farming from across the country have contributed their valued experiences to this rapidly growing Lexicon.

“The Story of an Egg” follows poultry farmers David Evans and Alexis Koefoed as they explain the real meaning behind such terms as “cage free,” “free range,” and “pasture raised” so that consumers can make informed decisions when they go to their local supermarket.
Continue reading →

Up Next From the Half the Sky Movement

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On March 4th, the Half the Sky Movement releases a wide-reaching Facebook game designed to inspire many.

The Half the Sky Movement is cutting across platforms to ignite the change needed to put an end to the oppression of women and girls worldwide, the defining issue of our time. Inspired by journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book of the same name, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide brings together video, websites, games, blogs and other educational tools to not only raise awareness of women’s issues, but to also provide concrete steps to fight these problems and empower women. Change is possible, and you can be part of the solution.

Last year, the movement released the documentary series as a special presentation of Independent Lens on PBS, making decisions along the way that would help the series reach a wider audience and bring awareness to the work of the nonprofits on the ground in 10 countries. This proved successful when the October broadcast garnered one billion mentions on social media – a true feat for a 4-hour long documentary on these sensitive issues. Continue reading →

Introducing BizVizz: A Corporate Responsibility App Inspired by ‘As Goes Janesville’

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By Brad Lichtenstein
Director, As Goes Janesville

Inspired by the Independent Lens film As Goes Janesville, the BizVizz app serves as the transmedia component of the documentary, enlightening users how specific companies behave when it comes to corporate and social responsibility.

There’s a scene in As Goes Janesville (airing tonight on Independent Lens), towards the end, where the city council votes to approve a $9 million incentive package for Shine Medical Technologies. Shine is a startup looking for a town in which to set up their medical isotope operation and, like many companies, it is compelling cities to compete with offers. Though Janesville is desperate for jobs after losing their GM plant, $9 million is 20% of their budget. This is the scene that inspired BizVizz, our corporate accountability app.

I was aghast when filming this scene. There was no public hearing prior to the vote. There was no public disclosure of a third party audit of Shine Medical. While the City Manager of Janesville expressed some reservations to me on camera, there was barely an opportunity, through the media or otherwise, for those reservations to be discussed by the taxpayers who were footing the bill. What galled me was not so much the gamble with public money, but how the democratic process was subverted. A selected handful of business leaders working behind closed doors with the city council were deciding what to do with the public’s money.

One brave guy stood up just before the city council vote and said “ I feel like a pair of brown shoes in a room full of tuxedos….nine million dollars…maybe 125 jobs…no guarantees.” That’s what I felt like with my camera, observing this unfold: a pair of brown shoes in a room full of tuxedos. I badgered my subjects with questions about why this deal was never put before the public but none of them felt that democracy required the public to know or engage more, beyond the role city council played.

What happened in Janesville happens everyday in America.

BizVizz is an attempt to give the public more access to corporate behavior. Corporations spend millions on their image and message so that we don’t question what they do. We figured people might like to know how much a company pays in taxes, if they receive government subsidies, and who they support with campaign contributions. All the information found on BizVizz is shareable on Facebook and Twitter, helping to put a little power back into the hands of ordinary people. Continue reading →

Social TV Makes Big Progress in 2013

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By Kelsey Savage, PBS Interactive 
Originally published on the PBS Station Products & Innovation Blog

Lounging around on your couch, clicker and blanket in tow, might not seem like the most overtly social activity. Yet, these days, even when we’re spending the evening parked in front of the television, we’re able to connect with our friends immediately about a show’s plot progression. In particular, Twitter has been leading the way for developing a strong social TV landscape.

In Nielsen’s annual “Station of The Media: The Social Media Report”, social TV demonstrated a growing user base. By June of 2012, over a third of Twitter users tweeted about a program on television, with the age 35-44 demographic being the most likely to comment on a TV show. In order to measure the power of social television, Nielsen will be working with Twitter to establish “a syndicate-standard metric around the reach of the TV conservation” by fall 2013. For the first time, broadcasters will be able to get an estimate of the number of people that participated or were exposed to an online conversation about their programming.

Public Media has also been capitalizing on the growth of social TV. Most notably, tech-savy, Downton Abbey lovers can check their Twitter feeds for instant feedback about the Dowager Countess’ latest sassy remark through the #DowntonPBS hashtag. PBS has also facilitated celebrity moderators, like Austenprose (@austenprose), The Daily Beast (@televisionary), Tom and Lorenzo (@tomandlorenzo) and Vulture (@vulture), to join the conversation. Their second-screen remarks add another dimension to the viewing experience. They make Downton feel like more than just TV show and more like a community. Continue reading →

One Wish One Hundred Years

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By Lance Weiler
Creator, Wish for the Future

Wish For The Future is a creative platform to empower everyone to shape the world around them and create a better future now. Creator Lance Weiler shares his plans for the new transmedia project and some of the wishes for 2013. 

As another year passes, many are thinking ahead to the next 12 months and what 2013 will bring. But what about a future beyond 2013? What would your “one wish” be for a 100 years from now?

A few weeks ago, we officially kicked off an ambitious project with a 100-year timeline called Wish for the Future. To date, we’ve received over 4,000 wishes from around the world. You can see them here (and even make your own here). Continue reading →

Feelin’ Lucky? Enter the #SoulFoodJunkies Pin It to Win It Contest

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Score an Independent Lens gift basket, including a collection of Independent Lens and Soul Food Junkies inspired cookbooks, by entering our #SoulFoodJunkies contest on Pinterest.

How do we celebrate both the the premiere of Soul Food Junkies on January 14th and the launch of our Independent Lens Pinterest page? Well, with our very own #SoulFoodJunkies Pin It to Win It campaign of course!

Starting on Tuesday, January 8, pin any one of our seven healthy soul-food-inspired recipes with the hashtag #SoulFoodJunkies and be entered to win a collection of Independent Lens/soul-food-inspired cookbooks, including host Stanley’s The Tucci Cookbook and Soul Food Junkies own Bryant Terry’s Inspired Vegan and Vegan Soul Kitchen. We may even include a little Independent Lens swag for your trouble — think rockin’ T-shirts and water bottles dedicated to your favorite independent documentary show!

So check out our recipes (maybe even submit your own!), tune in to Soul Food Junkies Monday on PBS (check local listings), and get pinning! The contest officially closes Thursday, January 17th at 5pm PST.

Online Symposium Examines and Asks: Why Poverty?

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Women play a vital role in the economic prosperity of their families, communities, and countries. Yet in every part of the world, women work longer hours than men, are consistently paid less for their work, are at a higher risk of unemployment, and are far more likely to live in poverty. This central theme is the topic of a global online film symposium Wednesday, December 12 at 2pm ET / 19:00 UTC. To participate, visit bit.ly/PovertyChat.

The online symposium will feature clips from Welcome to the World, Solar Mamas, and other films from Why Poverty?, a global media event created to encourage people to talk about poverty around the world. Continue reading →

THE SIFR: A Global Jam Session

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The creators of 30 Mosques have been at it again. This year, along with the gorgeous 30 Days of Ramadan site, which showcased user content from around the world, the team have been releasing a series of short films on various facets of Muslim life. Their latest, released today, is a collaborative original music video, featuring Muslim performers and artists from around the world. Creator Aman Ali gives us the scoop below.

As a standup comic, I’m lucky to travel the globe to do shows and get inspiration from fellow artists who are doing things light years ahead of me in terms of creativity. And when I think about all these friends, I kept saying to myself “Wouldn’t it be crazy if we did something together?”

So that’s what I set out to do. I contacted tons of my music friends around the world, pitching them on the idea of putting together a collaborative music video. I couldn’t find many good examples of one to show them, so I had to rely on my slap-happy enthusiasm in order to convince them to take the time out of their busy recording/touring schedules to contribute to a project I had little-to-no street cred to put together.

Luckily, I have lots of friends who do, including my pal Asad Jafri, a DJ and the former Arts and Culture director for the Inner City Muslim Action Network in Chicago. In early August, we put together a list of 20-30 musicians, MCs, poets, and visual artists that we both knew that would be awesome to collaborate with.  We’re all Muslim but we wanted to make a song that was spiritual, but not necessarily overtly Islamic, preachy, or dogmatic. So we decided to center the song around the theme of “blessings.”  We told each artist to create something centered around that theme and encouraged them to take that phrase anywhere that they’d like to creatively. Continue reading →