LOCATION:  The Nightingale, 1084 North Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL 60642

DATE:  Wednesday, May 18th

TIME:  7PM

PRICE:  $10 non-members, $5 members

The IFP is pleased to launch a new salon/discussion series for media makers in the Chicagoland and Midwestern region: MEET YOUR DIGITAL PARTNERS.  The goal is to bring together people from a broad array of fields related to media making, to exchange ideas and talk about developing visual and aural stories in a variety of cross-platform arenas.

 With the convergence of technology, there is a lot of talk of making work that can be relevant across a multitude of platforms.  Yet media makers may not know where to meet potential collaborators outside their usual circle.  Stay relevant and make new connections by attending this open forum, whether you’re a game developer, filmmaker, social media producer, advertiser, audio artist, or cross-platform media maker. 

Round #1 of this experiment features the following media artists:

Ian Pottmeyer graduated college prepared to be an opera singer. From there he became a composer, then a composer of video game soundtracks.  Now he creates the games themselves at Studio Cypher, a game design studio based in Bloomington, Indiana.  As part of the three-man team, he takes on numerous design roles, from game to graphic to web to audio.  Ian’s games are often marked by his desire to help players be as personally creative as possible. On May 18th, he’ll be giving a crash course in game design to help ensure that everyone who comes across your experience feels like they can participate and have fun.

Ben Groenevelt makes fast, robust websites for non-profits, artists, musicians as well as small businesses and larger corporations.  His tool of choice is Drupal, an open-source content management systems (CMS) used to build sites like the whitehouse.gov and grammy.com.  He also, along with other open source devotees, spends his time giving back to Drupal’s open source community.  He will be presenting, “What is this Drupal Thing?” giving a brief overview of what Drupal is and some of the powerful tools it provides to build dynamic, content rich web sites.

Cole Pierce is a Chicago based artist who makes paintings, video installations and audio multiples.  He earned his MFA in Art Theory & Practice from Northwestern in 2007 and has exhibited work at Antenna Gallery, Old Gold, Vega Estates, and is curating a group show at the Milwaukee Avenue Art Festival for the third consecutive year.  He co-authors Field Mic, a sound art and music blog, and contributes music mixes to Headphone Commute’s podcast series. He is currently a videographer and educator at the Chicago Teachers’ Center of NEIU.

Jon Satrom is a new-media artist, educator, designer, and organizer.  He performs realtime audio and video, celebrates obsolescence, and cultivates glitches.  Satrom operates a production company called studiothread http://studiothread.com and teaches in the Department of Film Video New Media Animation at the School of the Art Institute. He will discuss “Strategies for Shattering Through Glowing Rectangles.”  Riffing on Gene Youngblood’s Expanded Cinema (1970), Satrom will discuss new-media art’s potential to sculpt stories, transcend technologies, and remix our relationship(s) with cinema. 

Able Parris is a designer, art director, and illustrator. He learned graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design before opening his own niche design studio in Providence, RI.  His collage art has shown nationally, and has been published internationally.  He co-authors Field Mic, a sound art and music blog, and contributes to We Love Typography, the beloved typography site that’s like an FFFFound for type-related content.  Currently, he spends his days at McKinney in Durham, NC practicing design and art direction in the context of advertising.

IFP PRODUCERS SERIES: SHOOT YOUR MOVIE, ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE 

Saturday, March 19th

$25 members/$30 non-members for the full day of events. 

Pre-registration is required. 

To register email Christy @ chicago@ifp.org.  

Deadline to register is Friday, March 18th at Noon. 

Schedule:

10AM – 1PM 5D/7D Camera Workshop

LOCATION: ProGear Rental (1740 W. Carroll Ave, just south of Grand and west of Ashland. Plenty of free parking.) 

Join us for a Canon 5D, 7D and D60 Workshop including an overview with Canon’s Ed Meyers, a hands-on demo and discussions about data management, rigging, lighting, lenses, audio and renting a full production package. This workshop will tell you everything you need to know to shoot your movie or just become bettter informed about these cameras and gear. Also, please bring a CompactFlash card so you have an opportunity to test the cameras out and review your results at home. Lunch will be provided. 

Sponsored by Canon, Fletcher Chicago, ProGear Rental, Barbizon Lighting and IFP Chicago. 

2PM – 4:30PM PUSHING THE ELEPHANT Screening

LOCATION: Chicago Cultural Center (78 E Washington St., at Washington & Michigan Ave.)

ITVS Community Cinema and IFP Chicago are proud to present Arts Engine’s internationally acclaimed documentary, PUSHING THE ELEPHANT, about Rose Mapendo, a Congolese woman who lost her family to violence and became an international advocate of forgiveness and reconciliation. We are also delighted to host Arts Engine’s Director of Production and Director of PUSHING THE ELEPHANT, Beth Davenport, who will participate in a discussion after the screening. Arts Engine is a New York based social-issue documentary production company, an online community of filmmakers and activists through Mediarights.org, and creators of the film festival Media That Matters. If you want to know how to engage your audience from the day you begin shooting, Arts Engine is an organization that can help guide your way. 

5PM – 7PM Post-Screening Meet and Greet

LOCATION: Elephant & Castle (185 N. Wabash)

Join us for a post-screening meet up at Elephant & Castle, where you will have an opportunity to talk to people from Arts Engine, ITVS Community Cinema, IFP Chicago and filmmakers from PUSHING THE ELEPHANT as well as other participants from the day.

Sponsored by ITVS, Arts Engine and IFP/Chicago.

Save the date for more IFP Producers Series Events!

APRIL 20th and MAY 18th: Meet Your Digital Partners

Panelists explore future production models
Producers Series urged exploration of new ideas

Media makers, who are pushing the boundaries of commercial, narrative, and documentary production, encouraged a recent IFP 2010 Producers Series audience to explore opportunities for innovation in a changing marketplace.

Brian Newman, former Tribeca Film Institute CEO, urged producers to “think of films not just as films but as projects: what other components are crucial to accomplishing what you want to accomplish?”

Particularly for documentaries, he said, “A feature film may not be the best way to engage your audience.”

He also exhorted producers to harness evolving channels of financing, production, marketing and distribution — and the conflicting impulse of media companies to push the market toward a closed system, as in the Apple-controlled platforms on the iTunes store and the iPad.

Lance Weiler of Philadelphia-based Seize the Media, showcased his own ongoing experimentation with transmedia production. “Because of dwindling acquisition prices, there’s not much of a path to sustainability” in conventional distribution, he said.

Instead, Seize the Media “focuses on building direct connections to the audience” through interactive storytelling and online community building.

“We create a story world that’s a gateway for people to meet others,” Weiler said. “The audience is more savvy than before. They’re looking for real connections with storytellers or between other people sharing their stories. We’ve had people meet and get married through our experiences.”

Weiler’s apocalyptic thriller “HIM,” about a mysterious pandemic that leads to the disappearance of everyone over age 21, was the first transmedia project at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab in January.

Among an elaborate series of multi-platform initiatives, Seize the Media is also building a cell phone application that allows users to create virtual survivalist cells within the world of the “HIM” story, employing geotagging to root the game experience in real-world environments.

Moxie Pictures’ CEO, New York-based Robert Fernandez, talked with IFP Chicago board president Claire Connelly and Milwaukee-based series producer Lisa Gildehaus about the work they all did on the advertiser-sponsored documentary series. “Y’all vs. Us.”

Last fall, Young & Rubicam enlisted Moxie to produce the Cellular South-sponsored 10-part series “Y’all vs. Us,” about the rivalry between two top high school football teams in rural Mississippi.

The series was part of a saturated regional campaign that included extensive production at games, live TV, and web video.

The producers said they took pains to approach the series as documentary rather than reality TV — looking for genuine drama rather than manufacturing it and remaining sensitive to the values of the local community.

Cellular South only financed coverage of the regular season, so Moxie self-financed two more episodes to cover their teams’ state championship runs. Fox Sports broadcast the series nationally in April.

“It’s becoming less and less about traditional TV,” Fernandez said. “Cellular South didn’t want traditional TV commercials.”

Despite a budget that he characterized as a third of what he needed for the undertaking, “In the changing landscape of marketing we felt it was an invaluable opportunity to produce this kind of program and show it can work…The hard part is to get marketers to think differently than product placement.”

—Ed M. Koziarski

Ed M. Koziarski is co-director of the feature film “The First Breath of Tengan Rei”.
www.reelchicago.com

They Shoot Old Models, Don’t They? – The Changing Face of Media.

This year’s IFP Chicago’s Producers Series focuses on new media, social media, transmedia and the evolution that surrounds all aspects of filmmaking. This weekend long series will involve documentary and narrative filmmakers, advertising agencies and commercial production companies, non-profit foundation and community organizers, branded content and transmedia producers, all with one goal: Building and reaching communities and consumers who find relevance in our stories.

The series is presented in 2 parts to help us better capture the changing face of content production, media distribution and viewer/participant engagement. Part I of the series will be held Saturday and Sunday, May 1 & 2, at Columbia College with Part II following in late 2010. The full series will be announced in early April but get your tickets now because space is limited. Special discounts are listed below for Students and members of Women in Film Chicago & The Midwest Independent Film Festival. Check out our website or follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates. We also want to hear your thoughts for programming topics and areas of discussion. Please let us know what we’re missing.

SATURDAY, MAY 1 – 10AM – 9PM (check-in begins at 9:30am)

• SESSION #1: 10am – 11:15 am:
• Participants: Brian Newman
• Panel Description: Inventing the future of film

The future of media, including film, is being invented today, but this future is increasingly being defined by the terms of the old models for media production and consumption. This is for the worse, because instead of a new era of innovation we are in danger of a future of sameness. Creatives must harness new technology so that they shape the future of our field, before they lose the chance. How can filmmakers utilize these tools earlier to shape their stories, enhance their creative practice, build their audience and have greater impact and a longer life for their films? In an era where content is ubiquitous, how does one stand out from the crowd and be discovered? Brian Newman will discuss strategies for innovative storytelling, fundraising, audience engagement and discovery as well as offer thoughts on the possible future of the field.

• SESSION #2: 11: 30 – 12:30pm –
• Participants: Claire Connelly, moderator, Speakers: Lisa Gildehaus & Robert Fernandez
• Panel Description: Y’all Versus Us – A New Model of Community Engagement:

So much of the content we create relies on finding an audience and building a community. But there’s also built in communities rife with stories to be tapped. In the autumn of 2009, Moxie Pictures co-produced a 10 episode documentary series in conjunction with the advertising agency, Young & Rubicam. A branded entertainment series for their client, Cellular South, the resulting program, HEAD TO HEAD, about the rivalry between the Wayne County War Eagles and the West Jones Mustangs, was filmed over the course of a Mississippi football season. Every episode aired almost immediately after each weekly football game on Cellular South’s website. The series also begins airing on FoxSports beginning in April. Moderated by HEAD TO HEAD’S Field Producer & Production Manager, Claire Connelly, CEO & Partner of Moxie Pictures, Robert Fernandez, and Series Producer, Lisa Gildehaus, discuss compelling characters, community engagement, and your return on a branded entertainment investment.

• 12:30pm – 1:15pm: LUNCH

• SESSION #3: 1:30pm – 2:45pm:
• Participants: Lance Weiler
• Panel Description: Telling Stories Beyond a Single Screen

This is an amazing time to be a storyteller. The democratization of the tools to create combined with rapid changes in media consumption mean that there are more ways to tell stories than ever before. The creative possibilities are endless – but where do you start? How do you extend the stories you want to tell beyond a single screen? Lance Weiler, one of the leading experts on transmedia, will share how he designs and deploys engaging transmedia projects while at the same time building audiences and tapping new forms of funding and revenue streams in ways that engage audiences.

• SESSION #4: 3pm – 4:30pm
• Breakout Sessions

All attendees will break into small groups and rotate through discussions with our day’s panelists over the next 90 minutes. Please come prepared with questions and thoughts about your own projects and get a chance to speak with our panelists!

• SESSION #5: 4:45pm – 6pm
• Participants: Gordon Quinn, Patricia Aufderheide – speakers, John Bracken – moderator
• Panel Description: New Frontiers of Fair Use

US Copyright Law allows us to use limited amounts of copyrighted material to make a point, a criticism or a commentary. Within traditional media, small portions of famous images and scenes can be recycled and repurposed daily. But the avenues of new media have now opened up these images to being repurposed by the minute or second. Whether it’s a movie scene with Hitler redubbed to varying comedic effect or a version of STAR WARS re-shot as a crowd-sourced film, the concept of Fair Use is being radically redefined. Please join us for a conversation about Fair Use in these new territories as we talk with Gordon Quinn of Kartemquin Films, Patricia Aufderheide from the Center for Social Media, and moderated by John Bracken of The MacArthur Foundation.

• SESSION #6: 6:30pm – 8:30pm
• The Tangible: Todd Denis and Lance Weiler will present a brief overview of Todd’s Toronto-based company, Swarm Entertainment, with brief look at projects like Jawbone.tv, nawlz.com, rekill.com, and MICroscope Lab. The two will then showcase some of the most innovative story-centric projects of the last year, focusing on the blurred lines between film and other story mediums. Engaging audience interaction between project screenings, they will dissect the narratives beyond the wow, looking at things like viral effects, influencer networks, creating project funnels, working with interactive teams, partnerships, financial constraints … with lots of questions from the crowd, and perhaps even brainstorming around specific transmedia/interactive problems in the audience.

SUNDAY, MAY 2 – 11AM – 7PM (Check-in begins at 10:30AM)

• SESSION #7: 11am – 12:15pm
• Participants: Alicia Sams – Moderator, Speakers: Sheila Leddy, Kristi Jacobson
• Panel Description: AFTERLIFE: Beyond and Beside Broadcast
We all make films to be seen, and, as independent filmmakers, we are usually possessed by a personal drive to tell these stories.   But creating a good film is not enough. What is your new media plan?  How can you leverage your film and the issues that are important to you to reach a wider audience?  What organizations and funds are out there to help you with outreach and impact?  If you’re not thinking about outreach until your film is finished, it’s too late.   Join Kristi Jacobson, director of the upcoming film HUNGRY IN AMERICA, which has received funding from Chicken and Egg, the Fledgling Fund and Impact Partners, and Sheila Leddy, of The Fledgling Fund, for a discussion on both finding funding for film outreach and the uses of new media and grassroots organizing to expand the distribution and impact of documentaries.

• 12:30pm – 1:30pm – LUNCH

• SESSION #8: 1:45pm – 2:45pm
• Panelists: Joe Winston, Laura Cohen – speakers, Jacinta Banks – moderator
• What’s the Matter With Kansas?
Documentary filmmaker Joe Winston says his film WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS “was saved from total extinction by new media.” Through a DIY campaign, Director Winston and Producer Laura Cohen generated traction for KANSAS through social media outlets, leveraging that into screenings to gain a toehold to get the film in front of viewers. It worked. After a relentless campaign, Roger Ebert named WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? as one of his Top Ten Documentaries of 2009. Join us for a discussion about this amazing documentary, moderated by Jacinta Banks, Distribution Manager for Kartemquin Films.

• SESSION #9: 3pm – 4pm:
• PANEL DESCRIPTION: IF A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS, WHAT’S 144 CHARACTERS WORTH?
• Michael Graf – moderator; speakers: Julio Desir, Sally Siegel, John Besmer, Bill O’Neil
If the medium is the message, what’s new media got to say? You’ve seen the headlines: More advertising dollars are spent on Google than with the broadcast networks. Facebook reaches more people than all four networks combined. Americans now spend more time online than in front of their televisions. All the rules of Advertising have been thrown out – or have they? From branded entertainment to guerilla documentaries, find out how new media is changing how advertisers reach out to consumers and what that means to commercial storytellers and filmmakers. Join John Besmer, Creative Director and Partner at Planet Propaganda, Julio Desir, Jr. SVP & Creative Director at DraftFCB/Chicago, Bill O’Neil, Creative Director at Layer One Media and Sally Siegel, Account Supervisor at Hanson Dodge Creative for a discussion about the challenges and opportunities the new world order of advertising has in store for filmmakers and the moving image.

• SESSION #10: 4:15pm – 5:15pm:
• Panel Description: THE PHANTOM REVIEWER
• Participants: Mike Stoklasa, Lisa Gildehaus – moderator
Mike Stoklasa of RedLetter Media gained notoriety for creating an alter-ego reviewer who proceeds to deliver an eviscerating 70-minute review of THE PHANTOM MENACE. His following 90-minute review of ATTACK OF THE CLONES caused an online maelstrom when it was yanked from YouTube. Join us for a discussion with Mike about creating a review as long as a movie and (not) provoking George Lucas all in one fell swoop.

• SESSION #11: 5:30pm – 6:30pm: Weekend Wrap Up
Still have questions for our panelists or want a private word with one of Chicago’s other amazing media makers and content creators sitting in front of you? We will take this final hour to talk in small groups with the day’s panelists and other attendees. Ask questions about your own projects or gain a little further insight into what some of these innovators see around the next curve in the new media bend.

Participant Bios

SESSION #1: Brian Newman is the founder of sub-genre consulting, helping filmmakers and organizations to distribute content and connect with audiences through innovative uses of new technology. Brian was most recently CEO of the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI), and has been the executive director of Renew Media and IMAGE Film & Video Center. He speaks regularly on new media, audience development and the future of the industry, and contributes to a blog on these subjects at Springboardmedia.

SESSION #2: Robert Fernandez is CEO/partner of Moxie Pictures, a production company with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Bangkok and London.

Robert has spent the last 20 years in the commercial film industry.  He was the Executive Vice President of @radical.media before leaving in May 2003 to become CEO/partner of Moxie Pictures.  Robert had overseen production of commercials and programming for most of the major brands and agencies in advertising.  He was involved in producing award winning work for clients such as Nike, Apple, IBM, American Express and ESPN. In 2005 and 2006, Moxie Pictures was ranked in the Top Ten of Global Production Companies at the Cannes Film Festival.  He is a 2 time recipient of the Palm D’Or (Cannes Film Festival) for Top Global Production Company (1998 & 2001) as well as 5 Emmys, including the 2001 Primetime Emmy for Best Commercial (PBS).

Continued…