online video
And the FUTURESTATES Audience Award Goes to…..
In May, ITVS launched the first ever FUTURESTATES Audience Award. Voting has now closed. Thousands of you watched; hundreds of you voted. And now we have a winner.
But first: we’re very happy to announce that ITVS has partnered with Telegraph 21 and The Big Screen Project to provide a very special Grand Prize to the winner.
In August, the winning film will be shown on the big screen, in the bustling heart of the Big Apple. Located four blocks from the Empire State Building, on the Chelsea/Midtown border, The Big Screen Project at the Eventi Hotel has become a magnet for New Yorkers seeking fine cuisine and food for thought. Learn more about the project here.
And so without further ado, we are pleased to announce the winner. Drum roll, please…
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Lessons from the Lab: Driving The Parking Lot Movie
IndiesLab Director Davin Hutchins runs through the digital successes achieved by the Independent Lens film, The Parking Lot Movie.
For those of you who aren’t aware of the mission of IndiesLab, it is a joint initiative of ITVS and PBS and our goal is to test and devise strategies for filmmaker success on emerging online distribution platforms. Our distribution partners include iTunes, Amazon Video-On-Demand, Hulu, YouTube, SnagFilms, PBS Video, and several other video-on-demand services on cable.
Lessons From The Lab: Art & Copy in Review
As more and more Independent Lens films become available on iTunes we wanted to share with viewers how those projects are performing online. Indies Lab Director Davin Hutchins, pulls back the curtain on the successes behind the documentary Art & Copy.
One of the more notable documentaries in our stable of IndiesLab films is Art & Copy, which recently aired on Independent Lens on October 26. In case you haven’t seen it, the film pays homage to the groundbreaking advertising campaigns of the 60’s and 70’s in an aesthetically-pleasing walk down memory lane — in this case, Madison Avenue.
Art & Copy emerged on the scene in January 2009 at the Sundance Film Festival to generally positive reviews from critics and strong word-of-mouth buzz. The film made its way online onto iTunes in May 2010. Since its launch, we’ve spotted a couple of interesting patterns in this film’s career on iTunes that you might want to consider when plotting out your online digital distribution strategy.
In an interview with IndiesLab and Beyond the Box, director Doug Pray said that he had no idea about the online possibilities for his film. “My attitude [toward digital distribution] was much more conservative and wary. One year ago, I would have been cautious and said, ‘Oh know we’re going to cannibalize this other thing over here.’ Now, I’m just sitting back and going ‘wow.’ …The old school rules aren’t flying so much.”
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FUTURESTATES Shines at Bioneers Conference
The Bioneers Conference — held this month in San Rafael, CA — is a leading-edge forum that presents breakthrough solutions for people and planet. This year, ITVS’s FUTURESTATES series screened at the event as part of their Moving Image Festival. Media Project Manager Aaron Leventman headed up those efforts and filed this report for BTB.
On October 9 at the Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library, the entire 11 short films of the FUTURESTATES series was screened in its entirety as part of the Bioneers Film Festival. At this year’s conference, social and scientific innovators focused on solutions inspired by nature and human ingenuity. Experts including Jane Goodall and James Hansen spoke about the most important issues facing our planet today. › Continue reading
ITVS Greenlights Second Season of FUTURESTATES!
This spring, ITVS launched the first season of its innovative new web series of futuristic shorts, FUTURESTATES. And as the first season continues to screen online at futurestates.tv, pbs.org, as well as at film festivals around the world, ITVS is proud to announce that we just greenlit a second season of FUTURESTATES shorts written and directed by another batch of talented emerging and veteran filmmakers.
The second season is entering production this summer, and is planned to launch online this spring. Stay tuned to futurestates.tv for updates on the run-up to the second season, but in the meantime, we’re excited to announce the greenlit filmmakers and their projects!
Q&A with ITVS Programming Manager Karim Ahmad About FUTURESTATES
FUTURESTATES – ITVS’s new online fictional series — recently launched and had its theatrical premiere at South by Southwest (SXSW). The San Francisco Film Society interviewed ITVS Programming Manager Karim Ahmad about the series, which it described as a “forward thinking initiative.” Check out the Q&A below from their blog SF360.org.
Greg Pak's Mister Green, created for ITVS's FUTURESTATES, is a parable about change.
When you think of public television in the United States, science fiction, or any type of fiction, may not spring to mind.
Independent Television Services (ITVS) is trying to change that perception by creating a series of 11 fictional mini-features on American society in the not-too-distant future. Launched March 8 as an immersive destination website to be available for free via streaming video with subsequent distribution on pbs.org, FUTURESTATES feautres directors such as Greg Pak (Robot Stories) and Ramin Bahrani (Goodbye Solo) thinking into the future while staying tethered to current events. The series dropped down on the South by Southwest and San Francisco International Asian American film festival this past month, and after viewing two of the mini-features at an event held at the Jellyfish Gallery in SOMA sponsored by Next American City magazine and ITVS, I sat down with FUTURESTATES programming manager Karim Ahmad to talk about the forward-thinking initiative.
SF360: You mentioned something at the event launching the series about only having the filmmakers project a little bit into the future, not going 100 years from now but more so 10, 15 into the future.
Karim Ahmad: Well, there’s definitely some variance from film to film. One film Plastic Bag which was directed by Ramin Bahrani . . . you follow a plastic bag as it goes home with its ‘maker,’ the woman who takes it home from the store. It lives with this woman for a period of months until it gets thrown away eventually. And then it goes to a landfill where it’s buried for years and years, an unforeseeable amount of time. And then when it finally becomes free . . . .
FUTURESTATES’s Predict-o-Meter: You’re the Oracle
We’re really excited about FUTURESTATES –– ITVS’s brand new online fictional series. The website (http://www.futurestates.tv) includes 11 fictional mini-features –– available to watch for free –– that explore possible future scenarios through the lens of today’s global realities.
But did you have a chance to check out the “Predict-o-Meter” yet? After watching a few episodes, forecast future events and explore the predictions left by others on the immersive timeline.
When will the ice caps melt? Will our first female president be elected? Will the rainforest rebound, or disappear? Will California sink into the Pacific?
Submit your own prediction and see others about what lies ahead >>
ITVS’s FUTURESTATES Profiled in The New York Times
FUTURESTATES has arrived!
The new online fictional series from ITVS represents a huge innovation for public media. Check out the New York Times story below to learn more about the creative concept behind the series and what makes it so unique.
Also, be sure to watch FUTURESTATES today by visiting http://www.futurestates.tv and tell us what you think!
For Web and Public TV, Brief Films That Dramatize Issues
By Elizabeth Jensen
March 7, 2010
ITVS is best known for its financing of documentaries, many of which appear on PBS’s Independent Lens series. But beginning on Monday, the organization will present a series of brief, fictional films that cast social issues into the future, in the hopes of drawing a younger audience not necessarily interested in public television.
The new films, 11 in all, will appear first on the Web, and later move to broadcast. Their subjects will be familiar to those who watch ITVS-financed documentaries: climate change, immigration and exploitation of the poor, among other social issues. Under the series title FUTURESTATES, the films will give fictional treatments to the same kinds of subjects, some with a science-fiction twist, exploring how those issues can play out in the future.
The films, which run about 15 minutes each, are meant to attract a diverse audience of so-called millennials, young adults in their 20s and 30s, as well as filmmakers in that demographic group, said Sally Jo Fifer, the president and chief executive of ITVS. Fiction is “what they’re working in,” said Ms. Fifer, and online is where to reach them, ITVS executives said. “We wanted to get that demographic in the public media family,” Ms. Fifer added.
FUTURESTATES: A New Online Fictional Series From ITVS
X (Anthony Giangrande) is created as a robot in the story-within-a-story in Tent City by Aldo Velasco.
The wait is finally over!
Today, ITVS launched FUTURESTATES –– a brand new online fictional series that explores many of today’s complex social issues by imagining how they play out in the world of tomorrow.
Each of the 11 episodes are available for free on the series website www.futurestates.tv and will be available on pbs.org in April. FUTURESTATES will also have its theatrical premiere at South by Southwest on Sunday, March 14.
ITVS worked with some of today’s best and emerging indie filmmakers to complete the 11 films for the series. Contributors include acclaimed American director Ramin Bahrani, whose mini-feature entitled Plastic Bag is narrated by the legendary Werner Herzog, Greg Pak’s Mister Green and Tze Chun’s Silver Sling.
What life might look like in America in the decades and centuries to come?
ITVS Launches New Online Fictional Series on Monday
A surrogate (Diana Masi) looks at her new scar in Tze Chun's Silver Sling.
What will life look like in America in the decades and centuries to come?
On Monday, March 8, ITVS will launch FUTURESTATES –– a new online fictional series that represents a huge innovation for public media.
Each of the 11 episodes will be available for free beginning March 8 on the series website www.futurestates.tv with subsequent distribution on pbs.org. FUTURESTATES will also have its theatrical premiere at South by Southwest on Sunday, March 14.
Have your own predictions for the future? Be sure to tell us on the “Predict-o-Meter,” a unique feature on the FUTURESTATES website where you can submit your own predictions about life in the future, and comment on the predictions of others. Think you know when the ice caps will melt? Know when we’ll elect our first female president? Will the rainforest rebound or disappear? Share your predictions with us on Monday.
Are you as excited as we are? Then you won’t want to miss the extended series trailer below!
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