Category: Issues and Actions

The creation and distribution of content must have equal access for all.

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Issues and Actions

Talk Back To “The Take-Back”

Although there is certainly a lot of “truth in the jest”, HammerToNail’s Tully’s plea to end all the blah-blah-blah of film panels on how-to-social-media-ize-your-film-to-glory and Stop-the-sky-from-falling-by-old-white-guys (I am on one this week!) is still written as humor: no one really needs another manifesto (and I live to write a manifesto each week). Yet…

The Take-Back has gotten a good deal of Talk Back. I think many of us fall on both side of the fence: tired of the same old, same old, and desiring to figure out some way to get the conversation started. Let’s face it: we need to figure out how to get people to talk about culture in a more meaningful way. Still though, Tully’s started a lot of good dialogue on film panels and their relevance. Now Brian Geldin of The Film Panel Notetaker has chimed in. Check out his post and lend your voice to the discussion.

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Issues and Actions

PGA Approves Transmedia Producer Credit

This is PGA’s wording for providing the credit:

A transmedia narrative project or franchise must consist of three (or more) narrative storylines existing within the same fictional universe on any of the following platforms: film, television, short film, broadband, publishing, comics, animation, mobile, special venues, dvd/blu-ray/cd-rom, narrative commercial and marketing rollouts, and other technologies that may or may not currently exist. These narrative extensions are not the same as repurposing material from one platform to be cut or repurposed to different platforms.

Continue reading “PGA Approves Transmedia Producer Credit”
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Issues and Actions

U.S. Court Curbs F.C.C. Authority on Web Traffic

Yesterday’s Federal Court decision is a serious setback for net neutrality and the efforts to maintain equal access to content on the internet. It is a setback for both consumers and creators, and a threat to innovation in general. It also underscores the importance of court appointments. In short, it seriously curbs the FCC’s power and its ability to set the agenda for an open and free internet and the hope of media democracy.

The NY Times reports:

A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that regulators had limited power over Web traffic under current law. The decision will allow Internet service companies to block or slow specific sites and charge video sites to deliver their content faster to users.

Wondering what you can do?
FreePress notes:
The FCC needs to “reclassify” broadband under the Communications Act. In 2002, the FCC decided to place broadband providers outside the legal framework that traditionally applied to companies that offer two-way communications services, like phone companies.

That decision is what first put Net Neutrality in jeopardy, setting in motion the legal wrangling that now endangers the FCC’s ability to protect our Internet rights.

But the good news is that the FCC still has the power to set things right, and to make sure the free and open Internet stays that way. And once we’ve done that, the FCC can ensure that Comcast can’t interfere with our communications, no matter the platform.

SaveTheInternet has a good overview here that links to a letter you can send to the FCC.

After that, if you haven’t already,  please join and follow Public Knowledge, Free Press, Electronic Freedom Foundation, and Save The Internet.

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Issues and Actions

Fed 181 Extended For One Year, almost…

Entertainment Partners sent out a post that our Senate approved legislation that would retroactively extend for one year the special expensing rules for certain film and television productions under section 181. The bill now must be reconciled with House-passed legislation before a final bill can be sent to the White House. The House legislation also includes a one-year extension of this provision.

Good news.  Anything that can be done to help investors in independent film should be encouraged.  They create jobs in a time we really need them.

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Issues and Actions Truly Free Film

The New Skills Needed For Participatory Culture

Okay this is old news, but it is still DAMN F’N relevant!

In 2005, via the MacArthur Foundation, Henry Jenkins released this white paper, pointing out that:

Schools as institutions have been slow to react to the emergence of this new participatory culture; the greatest opporitunity for change is currently found in afterschool programs and informal learning communities. Schools and afterschool programs must devote more attention to fostering what we call the new media literacies: a set of cultural competencies and social skills that young people need in the new media landscape. Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement.The new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking.These skills build on the foundation of tradi- tional literacy, research skills, technical skills, and critical analysis skills taught in the classroom.

What Jenkins goes on to point out is needed among students, is also very much needed by anyone working in the film business, or desiring a full appreciation  of today’s film culture.

The new skills include:

Play — the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery

Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes

Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content

Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.

Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities

Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal

Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources

Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities

Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information

Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.

I want to make sure my son has all these skills in his arsenal as he starts middle school.  That said, if I ran an undergrad film school, this training would be part of the core curriculum.  At the grad level, it would be an entry requirement.

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Issues and Actions Truly Free Film

Battelle On iPad as Metaphor For All That’s Wrong With Media Distribution

I got hipped to this by MovieCityNews.  I had not read John Battelle before, but in his broadside he sums up what he doesn’t like about the iPad and he sums up our current situation pretty damn well:

Media traditionally has gained its profits by owning distribution. Cable carriage, network airwaves, newsstand distribution and printing presses: all very expensive, so once you employ enough capital to gain them, it’s damn hard to get knocked out.

The web changed all that and promised that economics in the media business would be driven by content and intent: the best content will win, driven by the declared intent of consumers who find it and share it. Search+Social was the biggest wave to hit media since the printing press. And the open technology to make better and better experiences has been on a ten year tear: blogging software, Flash, Ajax, HTML 5, Android, and more and more coming.

Read the rest of the article here.  I look forward to reading more of him in the days ahead.

We are in a battle where the hope and promise offered by a free and open internet is challenged by the traditional drive for total control by excessive capital.

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Issues and Actions

Could We Have A FREE Wireless Internet?

The FCC Chair, , is suggesting that we may have an opportunity to have a free wireless internet. It would be wonderful if the government could do something that benefits citizens and not the corporations for a change — although FREE internet access could certainly drive e-commerce for everyone too.

The WSJ Blog ran this story the other day and reported that the:

FCC chairman suggested that the agency consider setting aside “spectrum for a free or very low cost wireless broadband service.”