Tag Archives: digital media

Five Insights on Hacking Films from the Software Developers Who’ve Done It

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by Adnaan Wasey
Originally published on the POV Blog

Somewhat fresh off their own Hackathon, POV’s Adnaan Wasey offers filmmakers, developers, and designers some of the advice POV was given for reinventing the documentary for web.

Before the POV Hackathon got underway, mentors and veteran engineers shared with the teams some advice born of experience. Here’s what they were told…

Understand why there are barriers to communication between filmmakers and developers. Each group’s ambitions inherently put them at odds. While filmmakers and creators are thinking about how they can bring novelty and uniqueness to their content, developers are thinking about rule sets and doing all they can to limit exceptions. Each group must understand that these contrasting philosophies could be at the root of a conflict.

Aim for a “minimum viable product.”Teams should set goals around the absolute minimum set of features that serves to show off their intents. The goals must be achievable in a short time frame because without a working prototype it will be difficult to learn how the product will actually be used.

Never forget your audience. How will users discover the product you are making? As one mentor noted, “Serendipity is not a use case,” meaning users need to be able to intuit how to interact with the product (once they’ve found it). Continue reading →

POV Hackathon Call for Participants is Now Open!

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POV has announced its first “Hackathon,” an opportunity for filmmakers and web developers to come together and re-invent documentary for the web.

POV (Point of View), the award-winning independent documentary series celebrating its 25th anniversary on PBS this year, is reaching out to documentary filmmakers who have projects at any stage of production for the first POV Hackathon, taking place Saturday-Sunday, August 11-12, 2012, in New York City.

Inspired by the “hack days” of the open-source development community and companies like Facebook (guess where that “Like” button came from!), POV is providing an opportunity for filmmakers and web developers to come together to re-invent documentary for the web.

The weekend is an opportunity for filmmakers with a digital vision to work with developers and designers to create a finished prototype — be it a mobile site, web app, widget, game, or something we’ve never seen before — for the web. The deadline to enter is June 29, 2012.

To apply or find out more, visit pbs.org/pov/hackathon.

The Moment for Independent Media: Bridging Cultural Understanding, Providing Fresh Perspectives

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By Caty Borum Chattoo, producer and communication strategist for Link TV, assistant professor in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C., and media fellow with the AU Center for Social Media. 

Back in September of last year – around the 18th, to be exact – a student in a media class I teach blogged about something she was picking up on Twitter and in the blogosphere.  But although she was pretty sure that “something” was happening, she wondered why she wasn’t reading or hearing more about it in media coverage. I recall tweeting back to her, “you can find stories on indie and public media, like Link TV, Democracy Now!, NPR…”

Continue reading →